On Saturday, I talked a bit about an Oregon lawmaker who isn’t thrilled with the direction of his state. He knows how little gun control does because he helped stop a terrorist attack on a train in Europe back in 2015. The terrorist had an AK-style rifle despite all the gun control laws throughout the continent. Now he sees his state trying to do the same thing.
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But there are more ways to criticize some of the stupidity at work in Oregon than just via that.
I came across an op-ed that pulls no punches and should wake some people up in the state. It should. I’m not saying it will, but it should.
Why? Because it points out the roots of so much anti-gun activity.
Gun control in the United States has never truly been about public safety—it has been about control. Throughout history, firearm restrictions have been disproportionately used to disarm Black Americans, marginalized communities, and anyone deemed a “threat” to the government’s power.
One of the most glaring examples of this was the disarming of the Black Panther Party in 1967 through the Mulford Act, signed into law by then-California Governor Ronald Reagan. This law was not about stopping crime—it was a direct response to Black Americans exercising their legal right to bear arms in self-defense against state violence.
Fast forward to today, and Oregon’s Measure 114 is following the same dangerous pattern. Though marketed as a gun control measure to curb violence, it empowers the state to decide who can and cannot own a firearm, creating barriers that will disproportionately harm marginalized communities. To understand why Measure 114 is so dangerous, we must examine the historical roots of gun control in America and its direct ties to racial oppression—including Oregon’s own history of disenfranchising Black communities through restrictive laws.
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The result was the Mulford Act of 1967, which banned open carry of loaded firearms in public places. The bill was explicitly written to target the Black Panthers, and it passed with bipartisan support. Reagan signed it into law, stating:
“There’s no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.”
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No, Reagan did a lot of great stuff as president, but his moves on guns, both as governor of California and as president, weren’t a highpoint of his political career. The Mulford Act was just a prime example.
And yes, it was sparked by the presence of the Black Panther Party on the streets with guns.
They didn’t threaten anyone. If they had, existing laws would have covered arresting them and there would be no need for gun laws. The fact that the Mulford Act was passed is pretty much proof that they didn’t.
Now, I’m not a fan of the Black Panthers, except those in the pages of Marvel Comics, but they had a right to do what they did, and what happened was a reaction to the fact they did something lawful, but did it while being black.
Reagan was wrong, though. There are plenty of reasons why a citizen on the street of today or that day should carry loaded weapons.
Throughout the history of gun control, the roots are undeniable. It was to disarm minority groups that were on the outs with the majority, thus making it impossible for them to fight back.
I’m a son of the South. Our legacy is not exactly one of tolerance and inclusion. We had tons of gun control laws, many on the books up until relatively recent times, that were a legacy of the Jim Crow era.
But while statues were torn down and buildings renamed in response to a racist legacy, the gun control laws created as part of that same legacy remain. Many are still on the books in many places. In many others, they were removed, but anti-gun lawmakers–many of whom are black–demand their return, seemingly oblivious to the legacy that gave birth to that regulation in the first place.
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The truth is that when you disarm a minority population, you make it easier to control them. That’s why every totalitarian regime in history has embraced gun control to a significant degree. The Uyghurs in China, for example, might not be in camps if they could fight back against the communist Chinese government trying to exterminate them.
Our own history has plenty of examples as well.
I’m not saying Oregon intends genocide or anything of the sort. I’ll just point out that with the laws currently on the books, especially if they were to become nationwide, it would be mighty attractive to an evil madman knowing how difficult it is for the law-abiding to get a gun in the first place.
