Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Unbearable Arms

“Loaded – A Disarming History of the Second Amendment,” by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, 2018

In this short history, Dunbar-Ortiz deals with the meaning of the term ‘militia’ in the well-known 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights.  That amendment reads:  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.”  Note the two qualifiers before the comma, which the NRA omits in their propaganda, leaving only the last phrase.  Not a lawyerly way to handle that quote, or even ‘true to the Founders,’ but then the NRA has become an alt-right organization.  Jefferson, in an early draft of the Virginia Constitution used clearer language:  “No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”  That phrase did NOT find its way into the Bill of Rights.  Of course, slaves could not own weapons.  They were not ‘People’ at the time.

Over-Loaded
Dunbar-Ortiz was at one time a left feminist activist in Louisiana in the 1970s.  After being threatened by right-wingers, her group collected and trained with various guns for 2 years to protect themselves. She was not a ‘I’m scared of guns’ feminist.  Her rural background had also familiarized her with weapons.  Now she has written an historical study of what the term ‘militia’ meant in the early U.S. and how that links to the present.  This gives us the real meaning of the 2nd Amendment – one not really discussed until now. 

In the process she does not analyze the meaning of the term ‘free State.’  It seems that term indicates that guns are to be used in DEFENSE of the state only, (State is capitalized) and not for revolutionary purposes.  There is no legal ‘right of revolution’ in the laws of the U.S., only in some non-legal texts that accompany the laws.  The right to bear arms is also mentioned in non-legal texts.  So as we shall see, the 2nd amendment is not as ‘progressive’ as it seems.  Some anti-gun liberals will wonder what ‘progressive’ means in this context, given their trust in the police, the FBI and the military.

According to Dunbar-Ortiz, militia does NOT mean the state-based National Guard, which was already authorized in other sections of the Constitution, to wit:  Article I, Section 8, Clause 12 and Article II, Section 2.  State national guards didn’t need to be authorized twice.  In other words, the second amendment does not refer to state national guards either.  What does it refer to?

According to Dunbar-Ortiz’ historical research, in every colony of the U.S. before and after the revolutionary war, it was mandated by local laws that men have guns in order to ‘defend’ and also attack indigenous native Americans.  This ultimately involved scalp hunting and ‘ranging’ in native lands for settlement.  This only tapered off when the U.S. military took over the job in the middle 1800s, but in the west it continued into the 1890s until most tribes were on reservations.  In the South, as slavery became more established and black slaves were swapped out for white ‘indentured servants,’ guns were needed in each white community for slave patrolling and control.  Prior to this, militias were also used against white debt or criminal ‘servants’ who were trying to escape, but the final thrust was against black slaves.  This requirement to bear arms in a slave patrol was also codified in colonial state laws.  The slave patrols were led by the prominent men of the community and slavers themselves, but all white men were required to participate. 

These two historical elements are the real meaning of the word ‘militia’ in the second amendment, which was ratified in 1791. Dunbar-Ortiz insists that this white colonialist meaning continues today into the 21st century. Dunbar-Ortiz adds that the formation of the U.S. military and its doctrine of intervention across the world developed in the wars against north American native peoples, fought from 1607 to the 1890s.  The ‘gun culture’ is really a war culture, and it does not stop at the U.S. border.  The U.S. seemingly has a 'manifest destiny' to rule the world, a position shared by Republicans and Democrats alike.

Andrew Jackson - Indian Fighter/Indian Removal Act
She indicates many ‘heroes’ of American history were part of land-grabbing and a colonial ‘destiny’ aimed at the original inhabitants of north America.  George Washington was a leader of the Virginia militia and led land-grabs into native Ohio, becoming a wealth land speculator.  Daniel Boone, Andrew Jackson, the Texas Rangers, Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Theodore Roosevelt – all played a role in these same practices.  The Klan, private rifle clubs and white citizen’s groups continued the practices of armed intimidation.  Now Alt-Right private white militias, patriot groups and ‘sovereign’ citizens have been added to this tradition of militias.  You might even consider today’s NRA an anti-black, anti-Latino, anti-socialist armed group at this point in history.    Dunbar-Ortiz notes that the NRA was hijacked from a gun education group into being a right-wing lobby for the gun industry and a weaponized 2nd Amendment in 1977.  She clearly shows the links between the largest weapons dealer in the world, the biggest incarceration state, the most violent police, the country with the most civilian violence, alt-right militias and U.S. imperial military policy.  It is all on a continuum.  But “peace” is preached by our masters of war.

Dunbar-Ortiz also addresses U.S. culture, which obviously glorifies violence and guns.  This is a weaker section, looking at several movies and songs that embrace Confederate or former Confederate’s, like Eastwood’s film “Josey Wales” or the film “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.”  Ford was actually hired by the governor of Missouri to shoot James, and so was actually no coward.  She attacks “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” in her broadside against sympathy for the South.

There are some problems in the book.  She takes on the ‘myth of the hunter,’ though she never mentions the dead animals produced by this practice, or its relation to animal cruelty or meat-eating or factory feedlots and cruelty to humans.  James Fennimore Cooper first romanticized the role of the white buckskin-clad hunter and woods walker, who knew native lore but was still white.  Essentially she sees ‘hunting’ as serving to continue the romance with firearms, but doesn’t go beyond that.  Her politics are not class politics but mostly identity politics, giving the impression that many white people are arming up to shoot immigrants or black people.  Nor does she deal in detail with the role of arms held by black people in defending against racist violence in a consistent way. Or the historical role of labor defense, lets say in the mountains of West Virginia versus violent Pinkertons or trade union defense guards in Minneapolis vis a vis anti-labor fascist militias like the Silver Shirts.  She skips over the issue of whether the misapplication of the ‘2nd amendment’ can be used against the right or our tender government.  She discusses mass shootings but not suicide, which is the number one health problem associated with guns.  The most danger for gun owners is to the owner himself, if he is depressed, a drinker or an angerholic.  The second danger is to his family.  And it is mostly men of course.   There is no discussion of whether a gun might be good to prevent a crime or provide some sense of security.  The racist hysteria of the NRA makes this topic fraught.

She debates in detail academics who see ‘guns’ as something not integral to U.S. history and practice, people like Pamela Haag, Michael Bellesiles and Jon Weiner.  These academics try to pretend that weapons were not integral to settler society, with Bellesiles using false or incomplete data to make this inaccurate point.   

Ultimately, Dunbar-Ortiz is undermining one of the sacred and archaic pillars of the U.S. legal system, based on a Constitution and Bill of Rights that are now so far out of date as to be a hindrance to further social progress.  The right pushes the idea that ‘guns’ are the real source of power, not concentrated economic control.  This leads vulnerable workers to misunderstand how a capitalist society really functions.  Capital is the ‘fountainhead’ of guns, not the other way around.  Those with the money buy those with the guns.  They call the ‘shots’ so to speak.  Dunbar-Ortiz work portends the replacement of these capitalist and colonialist Constitutional documents by a new revolutionary and socialist set of laws.

And I bought it at May Day Books!
Red Frog
June 13, 2018

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