David Bottomley's Blog

The first gun control law in what would later become the United States was passed in the Virginia territory in 1640 that explicitly banned blacks from owning firearms, even if they weren't slaves.  In 1751 the French Black Code in Louisiana required any colonists to beat, and kill if necessary, "any black carrying any potential weapon, such as a cane."  Tennessee made it clear that blacks were not to be included under their Constitutional rights: "That the free  white  men of this State have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defence."   New Spain in the sixteenth century prohibited all blacks, free or slave, from carrying arms, as well.  Gun control in America was clearly born of overtly racist origins. After the Civil War, the south had to make adjustments to their laws to appear to be race-neutral, but still effective in preventing blacks from owning firearms.  The former states of the Confederacy, that had previously recog...

Sadly, most Americans today are ignorant of the Constitution.  Most have never even read the four-page document.  This is not necessarily their fault, since the Constitution has not been taught in public schools for a very long time.  There are summaries and interpretations presented briefly to students, but that has little if anything to do with the Constitution.  Neither do law schools across this country teach the Constitution.  They teach Constitutional Law instead, which according to Professor Lino Graglia of the University of Texas School of Law "has virtually nothing to do with the Constitution."  Constitutional law is focused on case law, or individual court cases that were decided in individual situations.  None of those court cases, even cases at the US Supreme Court, affect or alter the Constitution in any way.  The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and means what it says.  No court decision, no legislative bill, an...