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Regardless of how the Second Amendment is interpreted, our society’s fixation on it is a relatively new phenomenon.
“Prior generations of Americans thought about the Second Amendment in the way people today think about the Third Amendment. And by that, I mean they just didn’t think about it,” says Timothy Welbeck, assistant professor of Africology and African American studies and director of Temple University’s Center for Anti-Racism.
The birth of our current interpretation of the Second Amendment started in the 1960s from the Black Panther Party for Self-defense. At the time, Huey Newton was a law student looking for a solution to what he considered to be state-sanctioned violence against the Black community. He found his solution within the ambiguity of the Second Amendment.
Eventually, this language was included in the Black Panther Ten-point Program: “The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States gives a right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all Black people should arm themselves for self-defense.” In this moment, our country’s relationship to guns began to change.
Welbeck points out that our country’s long relationship to guns is paradoxical. Owning guns first became common practice for American slave owners as a brutally efficient way to control their enslaved populations.
Fast-forward to the 1960s when the Black Panthers reinterpreted the Second Amendment as a way to protect themselves against police brutality. When news started to spread that members of Black Panthers were roaming the streets of California with firearms, California quickly passed legislation to restrict gun ownership in the state via the Mulford Act.
Armed with the Black Panthers’ new interpretation of the Second Amendment, Welbeck explains that “the NRA then began to adopt a more aggressive approach, eroding restrictions on guns while also reshaping the public discourse around what the Second Amendment says about gun ownership.” The conversation quickly reoriented itself back to one about white people needing guns in order to control the Black community or fight a tyrannical government.
“That fear became baked into the propaganda for gun ownership that we still hear in a coded way today: ‘You need a gun because what happens if a scary Black person comes at you and you can’t defend yourself?’” says Welbeck. What’s notable about this shift is that, before the 1960s, the National Rifle Association was largely devoted to promoting gun safety, and was seen as an outdoor recreation-focused organization that celebrated marksmanship.
From: Temple University
by: Ashleigh DeLuca and Jonny Hart