History of American Gun Control
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 recognized the right to o