If you believe everything that Michael Moore says in Bowling for
Columbine and his books, then you would think that "pro-gun"
people are white racists, and that "gun control" would be a
wonderful way to help minorities. But a look at America's past
reveals what historian Clayton Cramer has accurately called "The
Racist Roots of Gun Control." After the Civil War, the defeated
Southern states aimed to preserve slavery in fact if not in law.
The states enacted Black Codes which barred the black freedmen
from exercising basic civil rights, including the right to bear
arms. Mississippi's provision was typical: No freedman "shall
keep or carry fire-arms of any kind, or any ammunition." Under
the Mississippi law, a person informing the government about
illegal arms possession by a freedman was entitled to receive
the forfeited firearm. Whites were forbidden to give or lend
freedman firearms or knives. The Special Report of the Anti-
Slavery Conference of 1867 complained that freedmen were
"forbidden to own or bear fi