3. Strain, Christopher Barry. “Civil Rights and ... - Freedom Archives

Southern laws, customs, and mores insured neither police protection nor assurance of
pardon for blacks faced with the dilemma of defending themselves against violent attack.
Then as now, using a weapon could bring as much harm to the defender as to the aggressor.
For a black person, it could bring down the white power structure including the full weight of
the judicial and legal systems, upon his or her head, as well as set into motion the extralegal
mechanisms of repression such as mob vigilantism and lynching . It meant possible
retribution not only to the person using the weapon but also to that person's household and
community . But for many, the honor and self-esteem gained in self-defense counterbalanced
these risks .
As a fundamental right protected by the Second, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth
Amendments, self-defense assumed a constitutional role seminal to the struggle for black
equality . When self-defense entered congressional debates over these latter amendments and,
in effect, became a privilege of whiteness during the latter half of the nineteenth century, it
became a matter of principle concern for black Americans seeking the recognition of tirst-
class citizenship . . °2 Many black leaders advocated self-defense during this golden age of rope
'ZSee Robert J. Control, Gun Control and the Constitution : The Courts . Con¢ress . and the
Second Amendment (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc ., 1993) ; Stephen J . Halbrook,~
Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Riaht (Albuquerque : University of
New Mexico Press, 1984) ; and Clayton E . Cramer, For the Defense of Themselves and the
State: The Orininal Intent and Jodcial Internretation of t_he Right t,~IC^ and Hear Arms
(Westport, Connecticut : Praeger Publishers, 1994); see also Robert J . Control and Raymond
T . Diamond, "`Never Intended to be Applied to the White Population' : Firearms Regulation
and Racial Disparity-The Redeemed South's i.egacy to a National Jurisprudence?"
Chicano-Kent Law Review 70 (1995): 1307-L33S, and Clayton E. Cramer, "The Racist Roots
ofGun Control," Kansas Journal ofLaw and Public Policy 4 (1995): 17-25 .
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