I must admit that I was not particularly thrilled to hear that Condi Rice is going to be nominated as the Sec'y of State. However, it appears that she is a strong Second Amendment supporter. (Link via Volokh). Interestingly, Condi says that part of the reason she supports the Second Amendment is that her father and other members of the African-American community in Birmingham needed firearms to protect themselves from white government officials (Imagine that!) She said that if the guns were registered, those government officials would have been able to confiscate those firearms, leaving them defenseless. This, in my opinion, strongly supports the argument by the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (a group that kicks the NRA's ass when it comes to standing up for gun rights - they are working to make December 15 a national holiday to celebrate Bill of Rights Day) that gun control is racist.
For example, many of the laws prohibiting concealed carry were designed to prevent Southern blacks from being able to carry weapons. In their book, Richard Stevens and Aaron Zelman show how white Southerners were quite able to get a permit to carry concealed, but those permits were routinely denied to African Americans. Keeping African Americans defenseless allowed cops and the KKK to terrorize them for a long time.
I hope her views will stifle any possibility the US would sign the UN conventions on small arms traffic. I might have to reconsider my views of Dr. Rice. Anybody who is a second amendment absolutist (or a first amendment absolutist, for that matter) can't be all bad.
Comments