Southern California Law Review
66 (1993): 1365
Posted for Educational use only. The printed edition remains canonical. For citational use please visit the local law library or obtain a back issue.

RACE, RIOTS, AND GUNS
Carl T. Bogus *

Copyright © 1993 by Carl T. Bogus

I. INTRODUCTION

On May 14, 1992, the New York Times ran a disturbing lead article. "In the aftermath of the Los Angeles riots," it reported, "Californians are buying firearms at the highest rate since the state began keeping records 20 years ago, and other states are reporting similar surges in gun sales." [1] The article continued:

In large part, the rush to buy guns in California can be attributed to one of the more frightening messages to come out of the two days of arson, looting and violence in South-Central Los Angeles. That message, that fear, is that the police might not be able to defend people during an outbreak of civil unrest. [2]

The National Rifle Association (N.R.A.) wasted no time capitalizing on this sentiment. It ran national advertisements that painted a picture of law-abiding citizens, made vulnerable by gun control laws, cowering helplessly before armed mobs. [3] The mainstream media [Page 1366] condemned this appeal to fear, [4] but some believed that the Los Angeles riots did indeed demonstrate that people should arm themselves. The American Spectator, a high-brow conservative magazine, even ran an article recommending the type of gun its readers should select. [5]

The N.R.A. exploited racial fears. Its ads--which included color photographs of black rioters--were published in a select group of magazines that have particularly rural, white readerships such as Field & Stream, Progressive Farmer, and Western Outdoors. [6] But it was not hunters or farmers who were left unprotected by the police during the L.A. riots; it was the largely non-white residents of South Central Los Angeles. The riots do, therefore, raise a legitimate question about race and gun control: Does gun control impose a disproportionate burden on inner-city residents, particularly those in minority communities?

Even before the riot, some scholars suggested that gun control had racial implications. In December 1991 Professors Robert J. Cottrol and Raymond T. Diamond, of the Rutgers-Camden and Tulane law schools, respectively, presented what they called an Afro-American reconsideration of the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which contains the provision referring to the right to bear arms. [7] Cottrol and Diamond trace how guns were used by white colonialists to subjugate blacks and Indians in early America [8] and by Southern whites to enforce the Jim Crow system after the Civil War. [9] They explain that, at least in the South, gun control laws were originally designed to disarm blacks, [10] and suggest that these statutes helped the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) lynch thousands of African-Americans. [11] "[A] society with a dismal record of [Page 1367] protecting a people has a dubious claim on the right to disarm them," [12] Cottrol and Diamond write. They conclude that "it is unwise to place the means of protection totally in the hands of the state, and that self-defense is also a civil right" [13]--a judgment, some would argue, that has been corroborated by the L.A. riots.

This Article challenges that conclusion. It argues that an examination of the interrelationships among race, riots, and guns in America properly leads to the conclusion that African-Americans have been particularly victimized by guns and the so-called "right to bear arms." The lesson to be drawn from both history and contemporary experience is not that blacks should be armed, but that all citizens should be subject to stricter gun control regulations.

Part II of the Article explores the racial motivations behind the Second Amendment to the Constitution. There is, it turns out, a great deal to be learned from reconsidering the Second Amendment from this perspective--much of it surprising and unpleasant. An African-American reconsideration of the Second Amendment punctures a nearly sacred myth--that the framers wanted to guarantee a right to bear arms so that patriotic citizens, in the mold of the rugged individualists who defended freedom at Concord and Bunker Hill, would have the means to resist tyranny. The framers' motives may not have been so pure. There is strong evidence that the Second Amendment was intended, in large part at least, to serve as an instrument of slave control. [14] The armed militia were principally used to deter and suppress America's first race riots--slave insurrections. A view from this perspective militates in favor of treating the Second Amendment as an anachronism, in much the same manner that we treat the provision that counts a slave as three-fifths of a person for purposes of determining the number of congressional representatives for each state. [15]

Part III examines the complex interactions among guns, race, riots, and urban history. This Part follows two intertwined threads. One thread concerns the question of whether the state should have a monopoly on the use of organized force. When public authorities fail to adequately protect citizens, it is tempting to conclude that citizens should be prepared to protect themselves. But history teaches that the alternative to a state monopoly on organized force is vigilantism. The other thread [Page 1368] concerns the role of guns in the inner city. Here, both history and contemporary experience demonstrate that arming for self-defense is counterproductive. The Article argues that strict gun control is in everyone's interest, and especially in the interest of the African-American community. Indeed, the question must be asked: If white America suffered as much from guns as black America, would strict gun control be enacted immediately?

II. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

When Columbus disembarked on an island in the Bahamas in 1492, he was struck by the beauty and friendliness of the Indians who greeted him. [16] The natives "invite you to share anything that they possess, and show as much love as if their hearts went with it," wrote Columbus in his log. [17] "They would make fine servants," he continued. [18] "With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want." [19] If it were not for one fact, however, Columbus would not have leaped so quickly to the conclusion that these people were his to enslave. That fact, of course, was that while the Indians bore gifts, Columbus' crew bore arms. [20]

Three years later, when the 250,000 natives of Hispaniola decided to destroy Columbus' garrison, they were outmatched by two hundred Spanish soldiers armed with one hundred muskets. [21] As Samuel Eliot Morison describes it, within a year "a Spaniard could safely go wherever he pleased and help himself to the Indians' food, women, and gold," and within forty years fewer than five hundred natives remained alive on the island. [22] Meanwhile, the Portuguese were establishing forts along the African coasts, using guns to assert their will in the Indian Ocean and, in [Page 1369] 1517, announcing their arrival in Canton harbor with a cannon blast. [23] The non-white world literally found itself looking down the barrel of a gun.

In 1619, a Dutch ship landed in Jamestown, Virginia with twenty black slaves. [24] The colonists needed labor to grow food and tobacco but had discovered that, for two reasons, it was not practical to impress Indians into slavery: First, the Indians were in their homeland and could escape to freedom; and second, Indians would attack to free their brethren. While the colonists could massacre the Indians, it was not cost-efficient to enslave them. [25] Thus, they decided to import blacks from Africa.

A massive slave trade began. Blacks were captured under the gun in the African interior, chained around the neck, and marched to the coast, where they were sold and shipped to the New World. [26] By 1795, the English alone were devoting more than one hundred ships to the slave trade. [27] Eventually, between nine and fifteen million blacks were shipped to the American continents. [28]

Although blacks were more vulnerable in the New World than native Americans, and therefore easier to control, they did not accept slavery docilely. [29] The colonists were always concerned with maintaining control, and careful about firearms. In 1680, Virginia enacted a statute declaring that "meetings of considerable numbers of Negro slaves [Page 1370] under pretense of feasts and burials is judged of dangerous consequence" and prohibiting Negroes, slave or free, from carrying arms. [30] After a series of suspicious fires, Boston not only forbade Indians, blacks, and mulattoes to carry weapons, but also prohibited them from assembling in groups larger than two and from being on the streets from one hour after sundown until one hour before sunrise. [31]

These fears were not groundless; there were occasional slave revolts. In September 1739, for example, a group of about twenty black slaves broke into a store in Stono, South Carolina and stole guns and powder. [32] They decapitated the storekeepers and publicly displayed their heads, then moved south, killing whites and burning buildings. The group sang and beat drums to attract other slaves. The rebels numbered about one hundred by the end of the second day, when they were met in battle by white planters. About forty-four blacks and twenty-one whites died in the rebellion. The largest insurrection occurred near New Orleans in 1811 when perhaps five hundred slaves rebelled. [33] They were met by both regular army and militia forces. More than eighty blacks were either killed in the ensuing battle or shot later by firing squad. [34]

Guns were important to enforcing white control. The strategy was twofold: to keep guns out of the hands of blacks and Indians and to keep white men well-armed. It has been said that at the time of the Nat Turner revolt, "Virginia was an armed and garrisoned state." [35] More than 100,000 men were enrolled in the Virginia militia, a number that represented a considerable portion of the white adult male population of the state. [36] [Page 1371]

The militia were originally instituted to defend their respective communities against Indian attacks. [37] But as time progressed, the danger of Indian attacks diminished, at least in the East. Meanwhile, the number of slaves--and a fear of slave uprisings--grew in the South. [38] And thus, historian Daniel J. Boorstin writes, "the militia system was adapted to a slave-holding society." [39]

Indeed, this may have been the mission the militia served most effectively. [40] The state militia performed poorly in the Revolutionary War. America prevailed only after George Washington "had become completely disgusted" with the militia and built a regular army. [41] In the [Page 1372] South, the militia was often reserved for slave control--even at the expense of the war against the British. [42]

The character and purpose of the colonial militia are important because any constitutional right to bear arms is directly related to this institution. The Second Amendment reads in full: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." [43] The courts have consistently held that the Second Amendment grants only a collective right, that is, it gives states the right to have armed militias, not individuals the right to own weapons for their own purposes. [44]

Those who argue that there is a constitutionally guaranteed individual right to bear arms often mythologize the militia. [45] Their argument is built upon a vision of armed citizens, answerable to no one, awaiting Paul Revere's call. Because the Second Amendment cannot reasonably be read as giving a right to bear arms to people who are not part of the militia, they stress the universality of militia service (from which they reason that the right to bear arms was intended to belong to all citizens), and they rhapsodize about how the founders believed that an armed citizenry was the ultimate check on tyranny. This romanticized concept of [Page 1373] the militia, however, is largely myth. Militiamen were never autonomous; even in colonial America, the militia was an organized body subject to community control. [46] And the militia did not include everyone; women, non-whites, the disabled, and men older than customary military age were excluded. [47]

The historical record, [48] moreover, suggests that the Second Amendment may have been inspired as much by a desire to maintain a form of tyranny as to provide a means of resisting tyranny. George Mason of Virginia worried that Congress might render the state militias useless by "disarming them"--as he put it, Congress might "neglect to provide for arming and disciplining the militia." [49] Virginia proposed amending the new federal Constitution to provide "[t]hat each state respectively shall have the power to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining its own militia, whenever Congress shall omit or neglect to provide for the same." [50]

Why the fear about Congress disarming the militia? Congress could presumably be trusted to be diligent about national defense. But contrary to the desires of the anti-Federalists, Congress had been granted both the power to organize the militia and to maintain an army and [Page 1374] navy. [51] Congress might, therefore, rely on a federal standing army instead of the state militia. Northern states would control Congress, and the North was finding slavery increasingly obnoxious. [52] Intentionally or unintentionally, Congress might subvert the slave system by allowing the militia to decay.

History should not be read too simply. This Article does not argue for a revisionist view denying that the minutemen at Concord and Bunker Hill were patriots. Nor does it contend that slave control was the sole objective in the minds of all of the framers. Nevertheless, strong evidence suggests that the Southern states' concerns about maintaining the militia for slave control, and the Northern states' desires to relieve the Southern states' anxiety on the matter, were significant forces behind the Second Amendment. From this perspective, the Second Amendment appears to be a remnant from an era that ended in 1865 when the Thirteenth Amendment was enacted and slavery was abolished. [53]

III. CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES

On May 14, 1961, a mob of Klansmen ambushed Freedom Riders at the bus terminal in Birmingham, Alabama, brutally beating them with lead pipes. [54] By a previous agreement with the Klan, Police Commissioner T. Eugene "Bull" Connor sat idly in his office two blocks away, giving the Klan fifteen uninterrupted minutes before arriving at the scene. Meanwhile, sixty miles away on Highway 78, the Klan [Page 1375] firebombed a second bus carrying Freedom Riders and tried to barricade the Riders inside. The Riders managed to escape from the burning bus but were severely beaten with chains and clubs before state troopers arrived and took them to the hospital in Anniston, Alabama. The mob re-formed outside Anniston Hospital, and hospital officials turned the Riders away on grounds that their presence jeopardized other patients. Learning of this situation, Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth asked his parishioners in Birmingham to drive to Anniston to rescue the besieged group. Shuttlesworth decreed that no weapons--"not even a toothpick"--would be allowed on the trip. [55] As Taylor Branch describes it:

Soon there were eight drivers, all of whom made a fuss over Shuttlesworth, insisting they could not allow a recognizable leader like him to expose himself to the danger. Their concern was genuine, but some of it may have been born of the judgment that nonviolence was an unaffordable luxury in this emergency. Soon eight cars of Negro churchmen, brimming with shotguns and rifles, took off down Highway 78 to pick up the enervated but immensely grateful pacifists in Anniston. [56]

Do experiences such as these demonstrate that minorities should be armed? Do they, to quote Cottrol and Diamond again, teach that "it is unwise to place the means of protection totally in the hands of the state, and that self-defense is also a civil right"? [57] Gun control opponents argue that they do. [58] Their argument is neatly capsulized in the image of Bull Connor--a chief of police in cahoots with a rapacious mob. How can citizens be asked to rely exclusively on the state for self-protection when the state is Bull Connor?

Images can be powerful tools of persuasion, often too powerful. In the 1960s, civil rights workers risked their lives to dramatize a great cause. They deliberately selected Bull Connor as a target; because he was a perfect symbol of the brutality and vileness of Southern racism, they decided to ride into his jurisdiction, hoping of provoking him to violence. [59] It is a mistake to design public policy for heroes in extraordinary [Page 1376] circumstances; it must be designed with a view to ordinary people, the people the civil rights workers themselves sought to benefit.

The videotaped scenes of Los Angeles policemen beating Rodney King are a bitter reminder that there are still Bull Connors in uniform. The deliberate police abandonment of South Central Los Angeles during the early phases of the 1992 riot was even more disturbing. Did L.A. Chief of Police Daryl F. Gates, furious about charges that he tolerated racism and police brutality, deliberately sit out the developing stages of the riot in much the same way that Bull Connor sat out the attack on the Freedom Riders? There is reason to believe he did. In his autobiography, published shortly before the 1992 riot, Daryl F. Gates, an inspector in the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) in 1965 and chief during the 1992 riot, described some of his personal experiences and conclusions from the Watts riot as follows:

Undermanned and overwhelmed, we responded cautiously. Guns were not to be used unless an officer felt his life was threatened. Arrests were not encouraged. At three o'clock in the morning [the then-chief] ordered us to retreat. The rioting had lessened somewhat; because the police were thought to be the objects of the rioters' ire, the prevailing wisdom at the time was that if the police backed off, things would quiet down.

It turned out to be faulty wisdom, but, ordered to withdraw, we did. I felt pretty shitty about this, thinking it was an unwise decision....

By late afternoon, with fires raging and bullets flying, we finally convinced ourselves that if we didn't take stronger action, the riots could pose a serious threat to larger areas of the city. Belatedly, we understood the police would have to [be] deployed in force. [60]

It appears that, from personal experience, Gates believed that the best way to respond to a civil disturbance was to provide an immediate an overwhelming display of force. This appears also to have been the consensus among L.A. officials. In 1966, the LAPD used prompt force to successfully extinguish a riot in an early stage. [61] In 1969, the L.A. district attorney said, "[A]ll law enforcement in our community is in [Page 1377] general agreement that it was a mistake [during the Watts riot] not to apply massive but restrained force ... immediately." [62]

Many believe that the Detroit riot of 1967 resolved any remaining doubt about how to respond to a developing riot. In the early morning hours on a Sunday in July, a disturbance began after police raided an afterhours club. That riot began in what the mayor described as "a carnival spirit." [63] A mob of poor whites and blacks romped together through the streets; police initially reported they were dealing with just "a bunch of roving kids." [64] Not wanting to be provocative, authorities instructed the police not to shoot, a fact not lost on the rioters. "They won't shoot. The mayor said they aren't supposed to," an eleven-year-old reportedly shouted to fellow looters. [65] The mob grew more brazen and more violent. Police retreated; the mob swelled. Police then tried to intervene but were overwhelmed by tens of thousands of rioters. By the afternoon of the following day eleven square miles of the city were out of control. [66] Houses and shops along an entire mile of one street and three miles of another were burned to the ground. [67] Forty-one people died; more than 300 were injured; 5000 were left homeless; 7000 were arrested. [68] Professor James Q. Wilson concluded at the time, "There is no evidence that anything but an immediate and large show of force will stop a riot." [69]

Firm force may not always be a cure. After studying 24 riots, the Kerner Commission concluded that "[n]o single tactic appeared to be effective in containing or reducing violence in all situations." [70] But it appears to be the best approach.

The LAPD cannot persuasively argue that it was caught off guard. At 1:00 p.m. on April 29, 1992, the court notified the LAPD that the verdict in the Rodney King case would be announced in two hours. [71] Despite this warning the LAPD released hundreds of police officers when they ended a shift at 4:00 p.m. At 6:46 p.m. police officers in a nearby station house watched on television while a mob dragged Reginald [Page 1378] Denny from his truck and brutally beat him. Their commanders refused to let them go to assist Denny (who was rescued by four black residents of the area who left their homes to help after watching the same broadcast). [72] A full mobilization was not ordered until 7:30 p.m. when police headquarters were under siege. [73] Gates' officers did not know where he was until he returned to headquarters at 9:00 p.m. A police official said that when Gates left the officer asked Gates where he was going, but Gates did not tell him. [74]

There is therefore reason for serious concern about how the police handled the L.A. riot, and reason to suspect not just nonfeasance, but malfeasance. Gates, fortunately, is gone. He was replaced with the highly regarded former police chief of Philadelphia, Willie L. Williams, who is an African-American. [75] Nevertheless, it would be a grave mistake to conclude that "it is unwise to place the means of protection totally in the hands of the state." [76] It is important to remember how and why police forces developed in America in the first place.

In the eighteenth century, there were no police in America, and there was no need for them. [77] In Pennsylvania, for example, there was on the average only one murder every two to three years and less than one burglary per year. [78] By the early nineteenth century, however, roving gangs were beginning to terrorize. [79] In some instances these were bands of hoodlums, in others vigilante groups; it was, in fact, hard to tell them apart. [80] The streets of Boston, for example, were routinely used as battlegrounds between rival gangs of firemen who were at least as interested in looting as in putting out fires. [81] [Page 1379]

Cities were not just melting pots; they were pressure-cookers. During the period from 1830 to 1860, millions of Europeans--nearly half of them Irish--streamed into America. [82] Factory wages fell; religious and racial hatred erupted. [83] In Philadelphia, pitched battles broke out between native Protestants and Catholic immigrants. [84] Protestant mobs rampaged through a predominately Irish community, terrorizing priests and nuns and burning churches and homes. [85] In what historian David H. Bennett of Syracuse University observes is "a vision of a later riot practice," Protestants in the area posted signs that read "Native American" on their houses and shops. [86] Irish groups struck back, and for weeks mobs fought with guns, and even cannons, in the streets of Philadelphia. [87] Thirty people died; 150 were wounded; 200 were left homeless. [88]

During this era the persecuted Irish in turn "hunted the nigs." [89] Bands of white toughs routinely attacked blacks, including women and the elderly. [90] On other occasions there were full-scale race riots. When, in 1829, blacks in Cincinnati protested a law requiring them to post a $500 bond to guarantee that they were freemen, white mobs rioted with such vehemence that a thousand blacks immigrated to Canada. [91] Probably the worst race riots in American history occurred in 1863. Poor whites--enraged at being sent to war to free black slaves while the rich were able to buy their way out of service for $300--went on bloody rampages through black communities. [92] One white participant in a riot in Detroit was reported to have said: "If we are got to be killed up for Negroes then we will kill every one in this town." [93] One thousand people were killed in draft riots in New York City. Whites lynched blacks from lampposts and even attacked the Negro Orphan Asylum. [94] [Page 1380]

Urban riots were the principal catalyst percipitated the development of professional police forces. [95] There were at least thirty-five major riots in just four cities--Baltimore, Boston, New York and Philadelphia-- between 1830 and 1860. [96] In 1838, after experiencing three major riots in a span of just four years, Boston established a police force. [97] New York City and Philadelphia followed suit in 1845 and 1854, respectively. [98]

In these early days it was by no means clear whether the mobs or the police would control the streets. Police stations were specifically designed for "defensibility." [99] When these nascent police forces found themselves outnumbered by larger mobs, the police recruited help from civilians, and it was sometimes difficult to tell which mob represented official force. [100] "The line between riot and disorder on the one hand and law enforcement of the other was at one time far from distinct," writes Lawrence A. Friedman. [101] A strong thread of vigilantism continued, particularly in the South. [102] Gradually, however, the police forces were strengthened and victims of violence became accustomed to seeking help from the police rather than taking the law into their own hands. [103]

As Professor Friedman has observed, "[T]he building of the wall of separation between public and private force is one of the great master trends in criminal justice." [104] Weakening that wall invites chaos. Legitimization of the development of organized private force promotes vigilantism. There have always been and will always be groups--some that sincerely believe themselves to be defenders of the Republic, others that sincerely believe they are resisting tyranny--that will seize upon any right to arm and organize.

One of the most obvious and enduring examples of this phenomenon is the Ku Klux Klan. During Reconstruction, private vigilante groups [Page 1381] such as the KKK and the Knights of the White Camellia [105] effectively replaced the state militias, which the state governments had already abandoned. [106] These vigilante groups undoubtedly saw themselves as carrying on a militia tradition--citizen-soldiers defending their communities against tyranny, in this case "Northern oppression." [107] They were led by "the flower of Southern manhood," including former generals of the Confederate Army. [108] They tried desperately to preserve and defend the society they had known before the Civil War. In a sense, the Klan was a privatized and clandestine slave patrol. White supremacy could no longer be maintained by public authority, so it had to be maintained by organized private force. Their belief in their own patriotic mission led the Klan and other similar groups to lynch, burn, or otherwise kill approximately 6000 persons, two-thirds of them black. [109]

The Klan was disbanded in 1869, but flourished anew in 1915. [110] During the 1920s, the Klan was a nationwide organization with as many members in New Jersey as Alabama, as many in Ohio as Texas--and more than two million members across the country. [111] It considered itself a protector of both law and morality. It flogged (mostly white) adulterers, wife-beaters, men not supporting their families, gamblers, and petty thieves. [112] Much the society-at-large also looked upon the Klan as a protector of the community. Professor David H. Bennett writes that "some towns welcomed the Klan as the most effective law enforcement agency available." [113]

Today the Klan continues to expressly invoke the militia tradition. [114] Because it claimed that "the National Guard and military reserve [did not] have the skills to be effective in a civil disturbance," in [Page 1382] the late 1970s the Klan formed a private militia known as the Texas Emergency Reserve ("TER"). [115] The TER was organized into combat units and armed with modern military weapons. [116] Under the leadership of Vietnam veterans, it conducted military training exercises at private camps. [117] When Klan members allegedly believed themselves to be in danger, they called the TER rather than public law enforcement authorities, and TER troops--fully armed and clothed in camouflage uniforms--took up positions to defend Klan homes or camps. On more than one occasion, armed TER cadres assembled in downtown Pasadena to protect a Klan bookstore or a Klan convention from communist attack. [118] A federal court ultimately enjoined further military activity by the TER. [119] It held that the Second Amendment only applies to a militia "organized by the State" and "does not imply any general constitutional right for individuals to bear arms and form private armies." [120]

It is not difficult to imagine the TER (or its California counterpart) watching Reginald Denny pulled from his truck on television and taking it upon itself to rush in to quell the riot. The TER is, of course, merely one of any number of groups that would be willing to deputize themselves in such a crisis. [121] There are always those that believe a crisis is [Page 1383] upon us. The neo-Nazi group known as the "Order" refers to the United States government, which it believes foreign interests control, as the "Zionist Occupation Government". [122] To free America from this "tyranny," the Order developed a program to assassinate federal judges, FBI agents, and other officials, as well prominent blacks and Jews, and it murdered at least one person, Denver talk-show personality Alan Berg. [123] It not satisfactory to let groups like the Order, MOVE, the Christian-Patriots Defense League, the Jewish Defense League--the list is endless--build military-style arsenals on the theory that, although their right to bear arms is protected, authorities can stop them from committing acts of violence. Once such group are armed and organized, it may be too late for the police to prevent acts of violence.

Cottrol and Diamond suggest that a revitalized Second Amendment would protect groups like the Deacons for Defense and Justice, which was organized to protect blacks and civil rights workers in the South during the civil rights movement. [124] But there is no way to sanction protective activity by responsible groups and simultaneously restrict irresponsible ones. Moreover, Americans reject the idea that it is sometimes better for private parties to take the law into their own hands. [125]

The specter of vigilantism haunts us always, yet it is far from our most serious gun-related problem. The biggest problem is not a potential tragedy, it is actual tragedy. It is the stream of death and injury that flows continuously in our society, particularly within our inner cities. There are, in Los Angeles alone, about one thousand murders, two thousand rapes, 40,000 robberies and 47,000 aggravated assaults (many of which result in serious injury) per year. [126] A disproportionate amount of [Page 1384] violent crime occurs in the black community. [127] In just the neighborhood around Vermont and Vernon Avenues, where the riot in South-Central began, there are, during a typical week, between three and four murders, five rapes, and more than a dozen robberies. [128] For residents, this is tantamount to living in a war zone, but worse because there is no reprieve, no hope for an end to the war.

Guns fuel this violence. More than sixty-six percent of all murders are committed with firearms. [129] No other type of weapon is used nearly as often; knives, for example, are used only 15.8% of the time and blunt instruments only 5% of the time. [130] Research demonstrates that if a gun, particularly a handgun, is not readily available, people often will not use another weapon to commit the same crime, and data show that gun control laws that reduce the number of handguns in general circulation substantially reduce the number of murders, suicides, and aggravated assaults. [131]

Historian Roger Lane has described the interrelationship among guns, crime, and racism for urban blacks. [132] As Lane traces the history, during the late 1800s white gangs often attacked blacks, and blacks increasingly carried handguns for self-protection. [133] Guns, therefore, were increasingly on hand during moments of rage or recklessness, which made the black community even more dangerous and, in turn, intensified the cycle. [134] As Lane puts it, "the historically justified fear of white violence, and the tensions created by living, involuntarily, in districts full of wired-up strangers looking for action, encouraged the habit of carrying [Page 1385] weapons, which were then all too handy during routine arguments with family and acquaintances." [135] Meanwhile, the white urban population was being transformed by the industrial revolution. For whites there were jobs in the skilled trades, in offices, in factories. Life became regimented, a powerful work ethic developed, and it became increasingly important to keep one's nose clean. Lane writes: "These effects are shown in the relatively rapid decline in homicide rates among Irish and Italian immigrants, two other ethnic groups with high levels of preindustrial violence, as their integration into the industrial work force demanded levels of sober, disciplined, orderly behavior, which carried over into their private lives." [136]

Urban blacks did not share these opportunities. Blacks were excluded from blue-collar jobs, from clerical jobs, from civil service jobs, even from factory jobs. [137] These barriers were finally removed during World War II, but this change occurred too late to prevent the entrenchment of a terrible cycle. Today guns and drugs continue to plague the black community. In the United States today, murder by gunshot is the leading cause of death among black males between the ages of fifteen and nineteen. [138]

This history helps us to appreciate better the role that guns play in the life of the inner city. Poverty is commonly identified as a cause of urban riots, but we are less mindful about how constant violence contributes to pent- up frustration and rage--as well as a willingness to ventilate those feelings through violence, including rioting. Although perhaps unverifiable through empirical study, it is reasonable to assume that one of the long-term, underlying causes of the Los Angeles riot was the constant violence generated by guns.

Guns also played a role in triggering the riot. Many feel that the acquittal of the police officers who beat Rodney King was not the only cause of pre-riot rage. [139] The King verdict followed another case, involving a Korean shopkeeper, who shot and killed a fifteen-year-old black girl whom she accused of shoplifting, received a sentence of only probation. [140] Many felt that the combination of these two verdicts sparked the [Page 1386] riot. Rigorous gun control might have kept that gun out of the shopkeeper's hands.

It is likely, moreover, that effective gun control would have made the riot less severe. At least thirty-nine of the fifty-four people who died in the riot were shot to death. [141] Most were gunned down in the street for no reason, the victims of random shootings. [142] Race did not matter: The death toll included twenty-two blacks, eighteen Hispanics, eleven whites, two Asians, and one corpse so badly burned that the victim's race could not be determined. [143] Snipers were one of the worst problems, as in the riots of the 1960s. [144] Not only are snipers directly responsible for many of the deaths, but they hinder rescue efforts by firefighters and police. Moreover, innocent bystanders get killed in shootouts between police and snipers. [145]

One commentator wrote that "more deaths occurred in Los Angeles in 1992 than in Newark, Detroit, or Watts in the 60's, and the reason almost certainly was the large number of sophisticated weapons among the rioters." [146] He continued: "As one Los Angeles gang member told Ted Koppel of Nightline, the difference between Watts some 25 years ago and the most recent turbulence was the prevalence of Uzis and assault weapons among those participating in the two riots." [147]

Whether the elevated death toll was due to better guns or to more guns is difficult. [148] Each riot generates fear, which causes more people to get guns, which intensifies the cycle of gun violence. It was not only after the 1992 riot that the New York Times ran a front page story about a surge in gun sales; a similar story appeared at the end of the Watts riot in 1965. [149] The number of gun permits issued by the Detroit police more than tripled after the 1967 Detroit riot. [150] Four years later the Detroit General Hospital noticed an increased number of children with gunshot [Page 1387] wounds, and it conducted a study to determine whether there was a correlation. [151] The investigators determined that both gunshot wounds in children and accidental firearm fatalities had increased in parallel with the post-riot increase in gun permits. [152] The new surge in gun sales, therefore, is a bad omen for Los Angeles.

Members of minority communities understand their predicament. In significantly higher numbers than do whites, blacks and other non-whites believe that possession of handguns by civilians should be banned. [153] In the main, it is not African-Americans who support an individual right to bear arms; it is certain segments of white America, particularly in the South. [154] One researcher reports that gun ownership among whites correlates with racial prejudice and a desire to punish, rather than defend oneself from, criminals. [155] He explains his findings:

[G]un ownership, as a response to crime, is not born of fear but of anger and a desire for the means to retaliate. Those who fear criminals buy locks, burglar alarms and watch dogs. Those who loathe criminals buy guns. Those who hate blacks are likely to feel a deeper hatred for imagined criminals and are therefore more likely to own guns than those who do not. [156]

In some ways this theory brings us full circle, back to attitudes that must have prevailed within segments of the white population during the era of the slave patrols. [157] We have inherited a poisonous legacy.

IV. CONCLUSION

An African-American reconsideration of the Second Amendment casts the militia and the right to bear arms in a new light. It appears that the Second Amendment was, at least in part, adopted to assure the southern states that they could maintain armed militia to control their [Page 1388] slaves. To the extent that this is the case, the amendment became moot when slavery was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment.

It would be a mistake to interpret the Second Amendment as conferring rights on private individuals rather than on the states. This is not to deny that there will be times or circumstances when we mistrust public authorities. We live in an imperfect world--as cynics are fond of saying--and problems are inevitable. However, we will live in a far more imperfect world if private groups are armed and ready to defend "the security of a free state" as they themselves see fit.

Throughout our history, race, riots, and guns have been strangely enmeshed with one another. There is one lesson we should have learned by now: More guns will not improve matters. It is understandable that many urban blacks started carrying guns in the nineteenth century, but in the long run guns have not made the black community more secure. Guns will not make other communities safer either.

* Visiting Professor, Rutgers University School of Law (Camden). A.B.1970, J.D.1972, Syracuse University.

[1]. Timothy Egan, After the Riots: Los Angeles Riots Spurring Big Rise in Sales of Guns, N.Y. TIMES, May 14, 1992, at A1.

[2]. Id.

[3]. "As violent mobs advanced," read the copy of the ad, amidst photographs of fires, looting, a surging black crowd, and people lying on the street with their hands tied behind their backs:

police were ordered to retreat. Terrified and abandoned, L.A. citizens raced to gun stores to buy firearms to protect themselves. But their government had abandoned them years ago. Those who didn't own a firearm were denied by California's 15-day waiting period.

... The criminals were denied nothing, waited for nothing, filled out forms for nothing. They killed who they wanted, stole what they wanted, vandalized what wasn't stolen, and burned to the ground what was left.

... Must your flesh and blood be maimed? ... Must your once-proud nation surrender to more gun control experimentation while its citizens tremble behind deadbolts and barred windows?

AM. RIFLEMAN, Sept. 1992 (unpaginated insert); see also infra note 6.

In a similar vein was a column by the N.R.A.'s executive vice president who recounted his version of what he saw on television during the riots: "I saw men on rooftops with privately owned firearms, defending their homes and businesses and families. And I watched the mob pass them by in search of easier prey." Wayne LaPierre, Standing Guard, AM. RIFLEMAN, June 1992, at 7.

[4]. See, e.g., The Lunge for Guns in L.A., WASH. POST, May 8, 1992, at A22; Treat Guns Like Cars, N.Y. TIMES, May 16, 1992, at A22; Gordon Witkin, Taking Aim at the Wrong Target, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REP., June 1, 1992, at 8.

[5]. Brock Yates, Guns for the Home, AM. SPECTATOR, April 1992, at 53.

[6]. The ad also ran, inter alia, in American Legion, American Hunter, Police, and Handgunning. See Bob Sipchen, Targeting Fear; NRA Ad Uses L.A. Riots to Attack Gun Control and Attract New Members, L.A. TIMES, Sept. 4, 1992, at B1.

[7]. Robert J. Cottrol & Raymond T. Diamond, The Second Amendment: Towards an Afro-American Reconsideration, 80 GEO.L.J. 309 (1991).

[8]. Id. at 323-33.

[9]. Id. at 335-39, 342-49.

[10]. Id. at 354-55.

[11]. Professors Cottrol and Diamond cite STEPHEN J. WHITFIELD, A DEATH IN THE DELTA: THE STORY OF EMMETT TILL 5 (1988), which reported that 4743 Americans were lynched between 1882 and 1968, and that 3446 of them were black. Id. at 351-52. These numbers may be understated. Professor Richard Maxwell Brown of the College of William and Mary estimates that, from 1767 to 1951, vigilantes lynched or otherwise killed about 6000 persons. Richard Maxwell Brown, Legal and Behavioral Perspectives on American Vigilantism, 5 PERSP.AM.HIST. 95, 102 (1971).

[12]. Cottrol & Diamond, supra note 7, at 361.

[13]. Id.

[14]. See infra notes 44-56 and accompanying text.

[15]. U.S. Const. art. I, § 2.

[16]. See SAMUEL ELIOT MORISON, THE EUROPEAN DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 66-77 (1974); KIRKPATRICK SALE, THE CONQUEST OF PARADISE: CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS AND THE COLUMBIAN LEGACY 94-97 (1990); HOWARD ZINN, A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 1 (1980).

[17]. MORISON, supra note 16, at 66.

[18]. See ZINN, supra note 16, at 1. Also see SALE, supra note 16, at 96.

[19]. ZINN, supra note 16, at 1.

[20]. "They bear no arms, nor are they acquainted with them, ... for I showed them swords and they grasped them by the blade and cut themselves through ignorance," wrote Columbus. SALE, supra note 16, at 96. Columbus' weaponry included matchlock rifles and cannon, as well as swords and crossbows. ZINN, supra note 16, at 11-12.

[21]. MORISON, supra note 16, at 136.

[22]. Id. The importation of European diseases contributed to the destruction of the native population, but so did the deliberate brutality of the Spanish invaders. See, e.g., David E. Stannard, Genocide in the Americas, NATION, Oct. 19, 1992, at 430 (arguing that while "[e]pidemic disease undeniably contributed in large measure to the carnage," the "murderous intentions and actions" of the European explorers were also substantial contributors to the extermination of native populations).

[23]. See J.M. ROBERTS, THE PELICAN HISTORY OF THE WORLD 589-91 (rev. ed. 1980).

[24]. See ZINN, supra note 16, at 23.

[25]. See id. at 25. Massacre Indians they did--for land and sport. An early law of the Massachusetts Bay Colony made it a crime to "shoot off a gun on any unnecessary occasion, or at any game except an Indian or a wolf." Stannard, supra note 22, at 432. It is estimated that in 1492 there were somewhere between seven and eighteen million native people living in North America. After the Battle at Wounded Knee in 1890, between 97% and 99% of this population had been exterminated. Id. at 431.

[26]. ZINN, supra note 16, at 28.

[27]. Id. at 29.

[28]. Zinn estimates that ten to fifteen million blacks were transported to the Americas. Id. He notes that perhaps one-third died during capture or overland transportation in Africa and another third died during the sea voyage; thus, "[i]t is roughly estimated that Africa lost 50 million human beings to death and slavery." Id. Roberts estimates the number of Africans impressed into slavery in the Americas at between nine and ten million. ROBERTS, supra note 23, at 618.

[29]. See A. LEON HIGGINBOTHAM, JR., IN THE MATTER OF COLOR--RACE & THE AMERICAN LEGAL PROCESS: THE COLONIAL PERIOD 40 (1978); ZINN, supra note 16, at 32-35. But cf. SAMUEL ELIOT MORISON, THE OXFORD HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 504-10 (1965) (noting that slavery was common in Africa and that slaves were better off in America then in Africa. He writes that the black slave in America "accepted his slave status because he had to," "got as much fun out of life as he could," and "did not mope and die, like the Indians enslaved by the colonists." Id. at 505-06).

[30]. See HIGGINBOTHAM, supra note 29, at 39.

[31]. This act was passed in 1724. Id. at 76. In 1683, New York enacted an ordinance that prohibited Negro or Indian slaves from assembling in groups larger than four or being armed with guns or other weapons. Id. at 117. New York passed a more restrictive and inclusive statute in 1712. Id. at 131. In South Carolina, owners were required to search the homes of their slaves every fourteen days for weapons, although slaves were permitted to possess firearms with the written permission of their master or mistress and to hunt with firearms when accompanied by a white person. Id. at 184.

[32]. Id. at 192-93.

[33]. See ZINN, supra note 16, at 169.

[34]. Id.

[35]. See Id. at 170 (quoting HENRY I. TRAGLE, THE SOUTHAMPTON SLAVE REVOLT OF 1831 (1971)).

[36]. The total population of the state--including blacks (who comprised a majority of the population) and whites, men and women, adults and children-- totalled only 1,211,405. Id.

[37]. See DANIEL J. BOORSTIN, THE AMERICANS: THE COLONIAL EXPERIENCE 352- 57 (1958). In 1633, for example, every man in the Plymouth colony was required to own a musket, two pounds of powder, and ten pounds of bullets. Id. at 355.

[38]. As early as 1750, blacks outnumbered whites in the Carolinas (40,000 blacks to 25,000 whites). ZINN, supra note 16, at 54. In 1830, blacks outnumbered whites in Virginia east of the Blue Ridge Mountains by more than 80,000. DANIEL J. BOORSTIN, THE AMERICANS: THE NATIONAL EXPERIENCE 184 (1965).

[39]. BOORSTIN, supra note 38, at 355. An excellent description of how the militia was used for slave control may be found in historian John Hope Franklin's essay, Slavery and the Martial South. JOHN HOPE FRANKLIN, Slavery in the Martial South, in RACE AND HISTORY: SELECTED ESSAYS 1938-1988 at 97 (1989). Franklin writes, for example:

[T]he maintenance of a stable institution of slavery was so important that owners early sought the cooperation of the entire community. This cooperation took the form of the patrol, which became an established institution in most areas of the South at an early date. There were many variations in the size and organization of the patrol. Rather typical was the South Carolina patrol that was established in 1690. The law set up patrol detachments of ten men under the captain of a militia company. All white men were eligible for patrol service. In 1819 all white males over eighteen were made liable for patrol duty, the non-slaveholders being excused from duty upon reaching age forty-five.

Id. Franklin continues:

In most instances there was a substantial connection between the patrol and the militia, either through control of one by the other or through identity of personnel. In South Carolina, for example, the patrol system was early merged into the militia organization.... In Mississippi the structure of the patrol was but an 'adaption of the militia to the control of slaves.'

Id. at 98 (quoting CHARLES S. SYDNOR, SLAVERY IN MISSISSIPPI 78 (1933)).

[40]. At the time the Second Amendment was written, the militia was routinely patrolling the streets of Savannah after dark, providing whites with a sense of security and deterring thoughts of rebellion on the part of blacks. By the middle of the nineteenth century, a patrol marched each evening with fixed bayonets through the Negro quarters of Charleston. FRANKLIN, supra note 39, at 99. The militia was repeatedly called out to quell slave uprisings or to provide an overwhelming show of force when there were rumors of possible insurrection. Id. at 101.

[41]. CHRISTOPHER COLLIER & JAMES LINCOLN COLLIER, DECISION IN PHILADELPHIA 237 (1986). Washington said of the militia: "They come in you cannot tell how, go you cannot tell when, and act you cannot tell where, consume your provisions, exhaust your stores, and leave you at last in a critical moment." Id.

Thomas Jefferson also reportedly became disillusioned with the militia during the Revolutionary War. See FAWN M. BRODIE, THOMAS JEFFERSON 166-67 (Bantam ed. 1974). But see STEPHEN P. HALBROOK, THAT EVERY MAN BE ARMED 89 (1984) (setting forth post-Revolutionary War quotations that appear to reaffirm Jefferson's preference for a citizen militia over a standing army).

Samuel Eliot Morison writes that early in the war the "[m]ilitia turned out in great numbers whenever the British marched inland and if properly stiffened by regulars, gave a good account of themselves." MORISON, supra note 29, at 227 (emphasis added). Bunker Hill and Concord were militia victories. Id. But as the war progressed it became clear that the militia alone could not do the job. When the New England militia panicked during the Battle of Long Island in August 1776, the Revolutionary forces suffered a devastating defeat. Id. at 239-40. While Washington was retreating into New Jersey, he wrote that: "Instead of turning out to defend their country, and affording aid to our army, [the New Jersey militia] are making their submissions as fast as they can." Id. at 241. In January 1777, Congress granted Washington the authority to raise an army. Id. at 244.

[42]. Howard Zinn writes, for example, that "South Carolina, insecure since the slave uprising in Stono in 1739, could hardly fight against the British; her militia had to be used to keep slaves under control." ZINN, supra note 16, at 76.

[43]. U.S. Const. amend. II.

[44]. The most important Supreme Court case on the Second Amendment is United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939). A review of principal Second Amendment cases may be found in Keith A. Ehrman & Dennis A. Henigan, The Second Amendment in the Twentieth Century: Have You Seen Your Militia Lately?, 15 U.DAYTON L.REV. 5 (1989).

[45]. See, e.g., HALBROOK, supra note 38, at 58-65; Richard E. Gardiner, To Preserve Liberty--A Look at the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, 10 N.KY.L.REV. 63 (1982); Stephen P. Halbrook, The Right of the People or the Power of the State: Bearing Arms, Arming Militias, and the Second Amendment, 26 VAL.U.L.REV. 131 (1991); Don B. Kates, Handgun Prohibition and Original Meaning of the Second Amendment, 82 MICH.L.REV. 204 (1983); Robert E. Shalhope, The Armed Citizen in the Early Republic, 49 LAW & CONTEMP.PROBS. 125 (1986).

[46]. For an excellent discussion of what the militia meant to the states in early America and how they were subject to governmental control, see Ehrman & Henigan, supra note 44. See also Dennis A. Henigan, Arms, Anarchy and the Second Amendment, 26 VAL.U.L.REV. 107, 112-22 (1991).

It is interesting to note that Webster's original dictionary defined militia, in part, as follows: The militia of a country are the able bodied men organized into companies, regiments and brigades, with officers of all grades, and required by law to attend military exercises on certain days only, but at other times left to pursue their usual occupations.

NOAH WEBSTER, II, AN AMERICAN DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (at "militia") (1828).

[47]. One year after adopting the Bill of Rights, Congress passed the Uniform Militia Act, which provided that all able-bodied white male citizens between the ages of eighteen and forty-five were to be enrolled in the militia. 1 Stat. 271 (1792). These requirements are congruent with those of the South Carolina slave patrols. See FRANKLIN, supra note 39.

[48]. There was little congressional debate over the Second Amendment, and none relevant for our purposes. The only recorded debate involved deleting language that "no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person." Id. at 32. The fact that the amendment speaks of the security, rather than defense, of the state, and that the Senate rejected a proposal to add "for the common defense" after the phrase "right to bear arms," suggests that the framers were thinking more about internal disturbances than external threats. Id.

[49]. Id. at 28. Mason argued that since the Constitution gave Congress the power to arm the militia, it arguably gave Congress the exclusive power to do so. Id. at 28.

[50]. Id. at 30. At the same time, Virginia adopted a new Declaration of Rights, article XVII of which stated in part: "That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well regulated Militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms is the proper, natural and safe defense of a free State." Id.

[51]. U.S. Const. art I, § 8. For a description of the debates on this subject, see Collier & Collier, supra note 41, at 237-42.

[52]. Lawrence M. Friedman writes that in 1776, "[t]he air rang with hopeful speeches on the inherent rights of man--rights which seemed to apply to the black man as well as the white. There was wide agreement, too, that the slave trade was an abomination and had to be destroyed." LAWRENCE M. FRIEDMAN, A HISTORY OF AMERICAN LAW 218 (2d ed. 1985).

Vermont abolished slavery in 1777. INFORMATION PLEASE ALMANAC 770 (44th ed. 1991). In 1780, Pennsylvania passed a law that provided for the gradual abolition of slavery, and over the next several years prominent citizens in the North established societies promoting abolition. FRIEDMAN, supra note 52, at 218. In 1783, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that Massachusetts had abolished slavery two years earlier when it had adopted a constitution declaring "that all men are born free and equal." HIGGINBOTHAM, supra note 29, at 94. In 1785, New York enacted legislation providing for the gradual emancipation of slaves (although slavery was not fully eliminated in New York for many years). Id. at 139-50.

[53]. Obviously, other changes have also made the Second Amendment less applicable to modern times. One change, of course, is that Congress has not chosen to rely on fully autonomous state or community-based militia, but has organized the National Guard.

[54]. The description of the attacks on the Freedom Riders in Anniston and Birmingham is based on the accounts in TAYLOR BRANCH, PARTING THE WATERS 416- 24 (1988); WILLIAM MANCHESTER, THE GLORY AND THE DREAM 1148-55 (1973); and DAVID J. GARROW, BEARING THE CROSS 156 (1986).

[55]. BRANCH, supra note 54, at 423.

[56]. Id.

[57]. Cottrol & Diamond, supra note 7, at 361.

[58]. See, e.g., id. at 356-57 & n. 267 (setting forth a passage by Don B. Kates, Jr., a prominent opponent of effective gun control, who describes his own experiences as a civil rights worker in the early 1960s).

[59]. According to James Farmer: "We planned the Freedom Ride with the specific intention of creating a crisis. We were counting on the bigots in the South to do our work for us." GARROW, supra note 54, at 156. Shuttlesworth described Connor as "the symbol of brutality, police brutality in the South." Id. at 227. Speaking of subsequent confrontations when Bull Connor used high pressure hoses and police dogs on peaceful demonstrators, Wyatt Walker said, "We knew that when we came to Birmingham that if Bull Connor was still in control, he would do something to benefit our movement." Id. at 227-28; see also MANCHESTER, supra note 54, at 1195-97.

[60]. DARYL F. GATES, CHIEF 91, 100 (1992).

[61]. MANCHESTER, supra note 54, at 1305.

[62]. See Eugene H. Methvin, How to Hold a Riot, NAT'L REV., June 8, 1992, at 32, 33.

[63]. The Fire This Time, TIME, Aug. 4, 1967, at 13, 15.

[64]. See MANCHESTER, supra note 54, at 1323.

[65]. The Fire This Time, supra note 63, at 14.

[66]. Id. at 14-15.

[67]. See MANCHESTER, supra note 54, at 1324; The Fire This Time, supra note 63, at 15.

[68]. See MANCHESTER, supra note 54, at 1324; The Fire This Time, supra note 63, at 13.

[69]. See Riot Control, TIME, Aug. 4, 1967, at 16, 16.

[70]. NAT'L ADVISORY COMM. ON CIVIL DISORDERS, REPORT OF THE NATIONAL ADVISORY COMMISSION ON CIVIL DISORDERS 72 (1968).

[71]. Methvin, supra note 62, at 33.

[72]. Id.

[73]. See Robert Reinhold, Surprised, Police React Slowly as Violence Spreads, N.Y. TIMES, May 1, 1992, at A1, A22; see also As Los Angeles Storm Swirls, Chief of Police is Oddly Quiet, N.Y. TIMES, May 2, 1992, at A1.

[74]. The Siege of L.A., NEWSWEEK, May 11, 1992, at 30, 35; see also Seth Mydans, City Officials Blamed for Riot in Los Angeles: Ex-Chief Calls Authors of the Report "Liars", N.Y. TIMES, Oct. 22, 1992, at A8.

[75]. Aldore Collier, High Noon in L.A., EBONY, Dec. 1992, at 71, 72-74; Donna Foote, L.A. Law, After Daryl Gates, NEWSWEEK, Aug. 3, 1992, at 31, 31.

[76]. See Cottrol & Diamond, supra note 7, at 361.

[77]. ARTHUR M. SCHLESINGER, THE BIRTH OF THE NATION 103-04 (1969).

[78]. Id. at 104-05.

[79]. Id.; PAGE SMITH, THE NATION COMES OF AGE 748 (1981).

[80]. See generally Roger Lane, Urbanization and Criminal Violence in the Nineteenth Century, in AMERICAN URBAN HISTORY 199 (A.B. Callow, Jr. ed., 2d ed. 1973) [hereinafter Lane, Urbanization]. See also ROGER LANE, ROOTS OF VIOLENCE IN BLACK PHILADELPHIA, 1860-1900 at 10 (1986) [hereinafter Lane, ROOTS].

[81]. See Lane, Urbanization, supra note 80, at 194-95.

[82]. MORISON, supra note 29, at 479-80.

[83]. Id. at 481-82.

[84]. See DAVID H. BENNETT, THE PARTY OF FEAR 56-58 (1988); see also MORISON, supra note 29, at 482-83.

[85]. MORISON, supra note 29, at 482.

[86]. BENNETT, supra note 84, at 57.

[87]. Id. at 56.

[88]. MORISON, supra note 29, at 482.

[89]. LANE, ROOTS, supra note 80, at 9.

[90]. Id. at 9, 18.

[91]. FRIEDMAN, supra note 52, at 221.

[92]. See ZINN, supra note 16, at 187.

[93]. Id.

[94]. HARRY A. PLOSKI & ERNEST KAUSER, Slavery in the Western Hemisphere, in THE NEGRO ALMANAC 953 (2d ed. 1971).

[95]. See FRIEDMAN, supra note 52, at 287, 289; Lane, Urbanization, supra note 80, at 199.

[96]. FRIEDMAN, supra note 52, at 289.

[97]. See LANE, ROOTS, supra note 80, at 195; see also FRIEDMAN, supra note 52, at 287 (giving 1838 as the date when a police force was established in Boston).

[98]. See FRIEDMAN, supra note 52, at 287 (re: New York); LANE, ROOTS, supra note 80, at 9 (regarding Philadelphia).

[99]. Lane, Urbanization, supra note 80, at 195.

[100]. See FRIEDMAN, supra note 52, at 287.

[101]. Id. at 287.

[102]. See id. at 288; see also Brown, supra note 11.

[103]. Lane, Urbanization, supra note 80, at 196.

[104]. FRIEDMAN, supra note 52, at 287-88.

[105]. See, e.g., MORISON, supra note 29, at 722-23; Brown, supra note 11, at 101-02; JAMES COATES, ARMED AND DANGEROUS: THE RISE OF THE SURVIVALIST RIGHT 28-37 (1987).

[106]. See Henigan & Ehrman, supra note 44, at 36.

[107]. COATES, supra note 105, at 29.

[108]. MORISON, supra note 29, at 723.

[109]. This includes all vigilante executions from 1767 to 1951, the vast majority of which took place during the late nineteenth century. Brown, supra note 11, at 102.

[110]. BENNETT, supra note 84, at 208 (regarding Klan organization in 1915); MORISON, supra note 29, at 723 (regarding 1869).

[111]. Alabama and New Jersey each had 60,000 Klan members; Texas and Ohio each had 200,000 members. The estimates of nationwide membership ranged from 1.5 to 6 million, the most reliable estimates being more than two million. BENNETT, supra note 84, at 222-23 (nation), 224 (Alabama), 229 (New Jersey), 226 (Texas), 230 (Ohio).

[112]. Id. at 219, 225.

[113]. Id. at 225.

[114]. For a description of contemporary Klan organizations, see ANTI- DEFAMATION LEAGUE OF B'NAI B'RITH, EXTREMISM ON THE RIGHT 26-34 (1988).

[115]. See Vietnamese Fishermen's Assn. v. Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, 543 F.Supp. 198 (S.D.Tex.1982). A Klan official testified that the TER was established to protect the Klan families and homes against civil disturbance or economic collapse. Id. at 204. It appears, however, that its objectives went beyond self-defense. At a rally in 1977, a Klan official said:

We are getting ready to reclaim Texas for the white man. So get ready. Get ready for what we know is coming. Everyone talks of a race war. How many guns, bullets, food, training, preparations have you made? Our forefathers built this country with courage and blood. It will take fresh blood, but, by God, a lot of it will be the blood of our enemies.

COATES, supra note 105, at 39.

[116]. Vietnamese Fishermen's Ass'n v. Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, 543 F.Supp. at 203-04.

[117]. Id. at 204.

[118]. Id. at 205-06. TER units apparently also undertook border patrols near Laredo, Texas--presumably to protect the U.S. border with Mexico. The TER was about to organize armed "sea patrols" designed to intimidate Vietnamese fisherman who were competing with American fisherman when a federal court enjoined further military activity by the TER.

[119]. Id. at 219-20.

[120]. Id. at 210.

[121]. The TER was not the only modern Klan group to engage in militia- style training. In 1964, the Georgia Klan preached that the only way to stop racial integration was through "acts of violence," and they practiced making Molotov cocktails and dynamite bombs and trained to take over power plants and radio stations. When the police chief of Griffin, Georgia arrested Klansmen who burned a cross in front of a black-owned business, he charged them with disorderly conduct and pointing a gun at a person. But when he confiscated three automatic weapons, seven pistols, a German rifle, and several hundreds rounds of ammunition (along with walkie talkies and Klan robes) that he found in the Klansmen's cars, the Klansmen obtained a court order requiring that their weapons be returned. The police chief testified about the incident before a congressional committee. He said Georgia had no laws regulating the possession of weapons and he advocated federal registration of firearms, including those of police officers. John Herbers, Klan Aide Urged "Acts of Violence," N.Y. TIMES, Nov. 3, 1965, at 21. A newspaper story about the incident concluded with this observation: "In the rural South, it is customary for citizens, both white and colored, to go through the countryside carrying firearms, both on their person and in their vehicles." Id.

[122]. COATES, supra note 105, at 42 (regarding the Zionist Occupation Government) and at 41-76 (regarding the Order generally).

[123]. Id. at 3-8 (regarding Berg murder in 1984) and at 29 (regarding conspiracy to murder federal officials). Survivalists, identity Christians, and white supremacists continue to arm, organize and resist lawful authority. See, e.g., Timothy Egan, White Supremacist Surrenders After 11-Day Siege, N.Y. TIMES, Sept. 1, 1992, at B6.

[124]. Cottrol & Diamond, supra note 7, at 357-58.

[125]. A New York Times/CBS poll taken in the spring of 1992 showed that blacks and whites equally--about two-thirds of each group--reject the view that it is sometimes "better for people to take the law into their own hands." R.W. Apple, Jr., Riots in Los Angeles, N.Y. TIMES, May 5, 1992, at A9.

[126]. FBI, UNIFORM CRIME REPORTS FOR THE UNITED STATES 1991, at 93, Table 6 (1992) [hereinafter UNIFORM CRIME REPORTS].

[127]. For example, the homicide rate per 100,000 residents in the U.S. is 8.2 for white males and 61.1 for black males, 2.8 for white females and 12.9 for black females. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS, U.S. DEP'T OF COMMERCE, STATISTICAL ABSTRACT OF THE UNITED STATES, 1992, at 183 (112th ed. 1992) [hereinafter STATISTICAL ABSTRACT]. Blacks are also arrested at far greater rates. Blacks comprise about 12% of the U.S. population but 45% of all persons arrested for violent crimes. INFORMATION PLEASE ALMANAC 826 (45th ed. 1992).

[128]. See Joshua Hammer, Back on the Block, NEWSWEEK, May 18, 1992, at 40, 40-41.

[129]. UNIFORM CRIME REPORTS, supra note 126, at 126.

[130]. Id.

[131]. For a discussion of the available research, see Carl T. Bogus, The Strong Case for Gun Control, AM. PROSPECT, Summer 1992, at 19. Effective gun control laws reduce the number of handguns in circulation, generally by restricting handguns to persons who can demonstrate a special need for one. See id.; Daniel Webster et al., Reducing Firearm Injuries, ISSUES IN SCI. & TECH., Spring 1991, at 73; F.E. Zimring, Firearms, Violence and Public Policy, SCI. AM., Nov. 1991, at 48. For a cost-benefit analysis of the social utility of handguns, see Carl T. Bogus, Pistols, Politics and Products Liability, 59 U.CIN.L.REV. 1103, 1113-23 (1991).

[132]. LANE, ROOTS, supra note 80, at 134.

[133]. Id. at 136.

[134]. See id.; Roger Lane, Black Philadelphia, Then and Now, PUB. INTEREST, Summer 1992, at 35, 49.

[135]. Id. at 49.

[136]. Id.

[137]. Id. at 45.

[138]. Lois A. Fingerhut et al., Firearm Homicide Among Black Teenage Males in Metropolitan Counties, 267 J.A.M.A. 3054, 3054 (1992).

[139]. Joshua Hammer et al., Back on the Block, NEWSWEEK, May 18, 1992, at 40, 44.

[140]. Id.

[141]. See Counting Up the Human Cost, NEWSWEEK, May 18, 1992, at 47.

[142]. See id. (reporting that a 42-year-old black man was shot while on his way to buy some milk; a 15-year-old black youth was shot while standing in his front lawn).

[143]. Id.

[144]. See MANCHESTER, supra note 54, at 1303-04 (Watts), 1323 (Newark), 1324 (Detroit).

[145]. See, e.g., CHARLES R. MORRIS, A TIME OF PASSION 121 (1984).

[146]. Arch Puddington, Is White Racism the Problem?, COMMENTARY, July 1992, at 31, 35.

[147]. Id.

[148]. The death tolls of earlier riots were: Watts (1965), 34 killed; Newark (1967), 27 killed; Detroit (1967), 43 killed. MANCHESTER, supra note 54, at 1304, 1323, 1324.

[149]. Peter Bart, Los Angeles Whites Voice Racial Fears, N.Y. TIMES, Aug. 17, 1965, at 1.

[150]. Marilyn Heins et al., Gunshot Wounds in Children, 64 AM.J.PUB. HEALTH 326, 330 (1974).

[151]. Id. at 326.

[152]. Id. at 328.

[153]. Thirty-nine percent of whites favor a handgun ban compared to 45% of blacks and 58% of other respondents. How Safe Is Your Neighborhood?, GALLUP POLL MONTHLY, Sept. 1990, at 38.

[154]. Gun ownership is far greater in the South, where guns are present in 60% of all homes, than any other region. Gun Ownership, GALLUP POLL MONTHLY, March 1991, at 52.

[155]. See ROBERT LOUIS YOUNG, RACE, SEX, AND GUNS: A SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF FIREARMS OWNERSHIP (1982) (available from UMI Dissertation Information Service, Ann Arbor, Michigan).

[156]. Id. at 5. Young explains that other research has suggested that "in the minds of the majority of Americans ... the imagined criminal against whom they might one day be forced to defend themselves is a young black man." Id. at 4. The advertisements that the N.R.A. ran following the South-Central riot, see supra note 3 and accompanying text, appear to support Young's conclusions.

[157]. See supra notes 36-38 and accompanying text.