“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.
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| 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.
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| 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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