Gun Violence & Gun Control

1. Gun Violence & Gun Control 2025 Network for Black Men & Boys Trupania Bonner Crescent City Media Group info@the-mediagroup.us 985.774.5321

2. Black Men & BoysGun Violence and Gun Reform Policy • Before we begin our discussion on Black Men & Boys, gun violence and gun reform policy, I’d like to share a short history about descendants of slaves and gun reform. • This portion of our webinar presents a paradox of action vs. in-action concerning gun violence and State, Federal gun control legislation.

3. Black Men & BoysGun Violence and Gun Reform Policy • The Civil Rights Act of 1866 gave Negros the right to bare arms, but local laws were written to prevent blacks from purchasing them. In 1893 those laws were called “Black Codes”. This would mark the first time post-slavery that the US would introduce “gun-control” legislation, limiting the right to bare arms for African Americans.

4. Gun Control (Action) • Pre US Constitution thru the Emancipation Proclamation Spain to France to USA (1600-1893) • Starting in 1751, the French Black Code required Louisiana colonists to stop any blacks, and if necessary, beat "any black carrying any potential weapon, such as a cane." If a black refused to stop on demand, and was on horseback, the colonist was authorized to "shoot to kill.” • Similarly, in the sixteenth century the colony of New Spain, terrified of black slave revolts, prohibited all blacks, free and slave, from carrying arms.

5. Gun Control (Action) • Civil unrest during Civil Rights Movement Gun Control Act of (1968) • “The Gun Control Act of 1968 was passed not to control guns but to control blacks, and inasmuch as a majority of Congress did not want to do the former but were ashamed to show that their goal was the latter, the result was they did neither. Indeed, this law, the first gun-control law passed by Congress in thirty years, since the onset of “Jim Crow”. • The original 1968 Act was passed to control handguns after the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., had been assassinated with a rifle. Then it was repealed and re-passed to include the control of rifles and shotguns after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy (with a handgun). The moralists of our federal legislature as well as sentimental editorial writers insist that the Act of 1968 was a kind of memorial to King and Robert Kennedy. If so, it was certainly a weird memorial, as can be seen not merely by the handgun/long-gun shell game, but from the inapplicability of the law to their deaths.” (The Saturday Night Special and Other Guns, Robert Sherrill, p. 280, 1972)

6. Gun Control (Action) • Presidential Assassination attempt (1981) • The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act was introduced nearly 12yrs later, and named after James Brady who was paralyzed by the shooter. The new law created a system of background checks for gun buyers. • After the Columbine School Shootings (1999) Zeros Tolerance Laws were produced en mass • Sometime these laws have an adverse affect on Black males in urban and rural areas across the US. A PBS series with Tavis Smiley posed a similar question, “Are These Post-Columbine Measures Putting Minority Students on the Fast Track to the Prison System?”

7. Gun Control (In-Action) • Jim Crow Era, Anti KKK Bill of 1871 (Never enforced) • Prohibition – Wars, of the 1920’s • Narco – Wars, since the onset of the “War on Drugs” • Ethnic Groups and People of Color were the victims and survivors of gun violence, but there was never a measure passed nor proposed to do anything but ramp up enforcement • The result, Municipalities infused with Federal Funds to combat, not prevent, crime…

8. Closing Statement • In concluding, gun control can never limit arms for one group while expanding control for others. Nor should gun violence in African American communities be tolerated. I believe this historical note is necessary, and I hope it serves as a reminder that independence and citizenship essentially go hand-in-hand. We must protect the right to bare arms, while advancing the right to improve and stabilize our communities in order for them to thrive. • I believe we answer the call daily to address the needs of Black youth and young adults in urban and rural communities across the nation, but to continue to leave political civic engagement out as a component to the overall answer, as well as developing innovative means of economic development, we will continue to not fully address the needs of all Black Men & boys in the US.

9. Gun Violence & Gun Control 2025 Network for Black Men & Boys Trupania Bonner Crescent City Media Group info@the-mediagroup.us 985.774.5321