“That Rifle Hanging on the Wall”
“That Rifle Hanging on the Wall”:
A Leftist Defense of the Right to Bear Arms
William R. Hancock
Brooks College House
F&M Junto Society
April 2, 2017
William Hancock is a magna cum laude English literature major from Sykesville, Maryland; he graduated with honors in the major. Along with membership in the Junto Society, he was a Writing Center tutor, Brooks House Scholar, member of Sigma Tau Delta (the English Honor Society), and a two-time preceptor for Connections I and II courses. He hopes to pursue an advanced degree in literary and cultural studies.
That Rifle Hanging on the Wall Tha
Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.
—Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, 1850
The arming of the people is becoming an immediate task of the revolutionary moment. Only an armed people can be the real bulwark of popular liberty.
—V. I. Lenin, 1905
On March 25, 2017, a “Make America Great Again (MAGA) March” was held in Phoenix, Arizona.[1]A paramilitary gang, AR-15s slung across their chests, made an appearance at the event. Armed with assault rifles and dressed in tactical gear, one would assume that these riflemen were Trump supporters, perhaps members of a right-wing Patriot militia like the Oath Keepers. In fact, the armed contingent were members of the John Brown Gun Club, a radical leftist organization that was there to protest the pro-Trump rally.[2] On their Facebook page, the Phoenix–based group describes themselves as a community outreach organization that is “[w]orking to stem the tide of reactionary recruitment within white working class communities, fight white supremacy, & build liberatory community defense.”[3]The John Brown Gun Club may seem like an anomaly, but reports that have emerged since the election of Donald Trump suggest otherwise. A mere seventeen days after the election, the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System “processed more background checks for gun transactions on Black Friday—185,713 in total—than on any single day since the system launched nearly two decades ago.”[4] The BBC, in a profile of the Liberal Gun Club and the Pink Pistols (an organization for LGBTQ gun owners), attributes this surge in gun sales to anxieties regarding the Trump administration’s authoritarian tendencies.[5]Meanwhile, NBC reports that gun store owners began seeing an uptick in minority customers and that African-American gun groups began to increase noticeably in size following the election. Interviewees cited concerns regarding the rise in hate crimes and the issue of police brutality as influencing their decision to purchase a gun or engage in weapons training.[6]
News stories like these subvert the dominant liberal narrative about guns and gun control. In the bourgeois liberal imagination, the gun owner—or “gun nut”—is invariably cast as a plebian reactionary, a racist troglodyte, or a knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing redneck. (One is reminded of an infamous gaffe that Barack Obama made on the 2008 campaign trail, referring to Rust Belt voters as “bitter” people “who cling to their guns or religion.”[7]) This paper will engage in a left critique of mainstream liberal gun control discourse, arguing that firearms restrictions have historically functioned as an apparatus of class domination and white supremacy. After examining the sordid history of gun control in the United States, I will then argue that an expansion of current gun control measures would function like the War on Drugs or the War on Terror: targeting marginalized people and strengthening the repressive arms of the state. As anarchist political theorist Kevin Carson contends, “Regardless of the ‘liberal’ or ‘progressive’ rhetoric used to defend gun control, you can safely bet it will come down harder on the cottagers than on the gentry, harder on the workers than on the Pinkertons, and harder on the Black Panthers than on murdering cops.”[8] Surveying the historical record of gun control and examining its modern implications, I have found that peeling back the progressive veneer of anti-gun discourse reveals the dark heart of right-wing authoritarianism.
Before I continue, a disclaimer is in order: I am not a policy wonk. The purpose of this paper is not to advocate specific policy positions on questions of gun crime or gun ownership. Instead, I simply seek to problematize the underlying assumptions of liberal gun control discourse, document the unintended consequences of pursuing a gun control policy, and show how gun control intersects with issues of race and class. Also, this paper does not advocate for the violent overthrow of the United States government. While I do not advocate for terrorism or armed insurrections—such as in the mold of a group like the “infantile ultra-leftists”[9] of the Weather Underground—I do believe in rights of people to defend themselves and their families and in the right of peoples to engage in armed resistance against repressive conditions.
In order to understand the modern implications of gun control measures, we must first examine the early history of firearms regulations.In Gunfight, a history of the gun control debate, constitutional scholar Adam Winkler contends, “Government efforts to enhance public safety by regulating guns are as old as guns themselves.”[10] The attempt to control arms and ammunition was invariably associated with trying to control the lower-orders, with Carson pointing out that “[f]rom its very beginning, gun control—the attempt to regulate the possession of means of self-defense by the ordinary populace—has been closely associated with class rule and the class state.”[11]The concept of gun control can be traced back to late-medieval and early-modern England. While Chinese explosive powder had been developed nearly a thousand years earlier, the first gun was allegedly invented by Berthold Schwarz, a Franciscan monk living in Germany in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. When primitive muskets and blunderbusses first began appearing in England in the early 1300s, the 1328 Statute of Northampton became the first piece of gun control legislation ever passed. These ordinances were an explicit attempt to stave off the threat of class war, as peasants found carrying swords, daggers, or firearms within close proximity of the king’s justices and ministers could be arrested and jailed.[12]Other gun control measures like hunting statutes also carried the mark of feudal class repression, as Carson explains,
In early modern England, regulation of firearm ownership was closely intertwined with the struggle by the landed classes and capitalist agriculture to restrict the laboring classes’ access to independent subsistence from the land. This included enclosure of common woodland, fen and waste—in which landless and land-poor peasants had previously hunted small game—for sheep pasturage or arable land. It also included the exclusion of the common people from forests via the Game Laws and restriction of hunting to the gentry.[13]
Thus, from their inception, restrictions on firearm ownership were inextricably intertwined with feudal—and, later, capitalist—class domination.
The case of feudal Europe is instructive for understanding the class dynamic inherent in firearms restrictions, as they prefigure statutes that would enforced in the Antebellum South. As with the European context, the earliest gun control laws passed on the American continent were far from egalitarian. Winkler discusses how the Founding Fathers “supported [the] forcible disarmament of slaves, free blacks, and people of mixed race out of fear that these groups would use guns to revolt against slave masters. Even if free blacks and people of mixed race were completely law-abiding, they were prohibited from owning or carrying guns.”[14]Just as gun control had been exercised in feudal Europe for the maintenance of serfdom, so too did the American slaveocracyuse gun control to cement its hold over enslaved blacks. Such restrictions on black gun ownership continued even after the Civil War and the abolition of chattel slavery. With the failure of Reconstruction, the Southern plantocracy reasserted its control through the so-called “Black Codes.” These racist laws restricted the rights of freedmen, including the right to keep and bear arms. The codes were often enforced extrajudicially by white vigilante gangs like the Ku Klux Klan, with Klansmen going door-to-door and forcibly disarming freedmen. In contravention to the Black Codes, many freedmen formed militias that engaged in skirmishes with white supremacist terrorists.[15]
This dynamic would continue during the Civil Rights struggle, with Southern blacks forming self-defense squads such as the Deacons for Defense and Justice.[16] According to historians like Lance Hill, Charles, E. Cobb Jr., and AkinyeleOmowaleUmoja, armed struggle played an integral part in ending the Jim Crow apartheid state. Civil rights activists from groups like the Congress for Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee were able to register black voters without fear of racist violence because of the protection they received from such armed militias. Historian Robin D.G. Kelley goes as far as to argue that “armed self-defense actually saved lives, reduced terrorist attacks on African-American communities, and laid the foundation for unparalleled community solidarity.”[17]Along with the Civil Right movement, guns also played a pivotal role in the labor movement, as trade unionists found themselves fighting a literal class war against police, National Guardsmen, and private goon squads.Carson describes how,
Irregular workers’ militias and armed defense formations played a significant role in labor history . . . During the Copper Wars at the turn of the 20thcentury, the governors of several Rocky Mountain states instituted martial law—including door-to-door confiscations of firearms from workers’ homes and striker encampments. In some cases, as with the West Virginia Coal Wars and the Homestead strike, workers fought pitched battles against Pinkertons, state militia and sheriffs’ deputies.[18]
Modern trade unionism and New Deal labor laws could not have been achieved without the use of such tactics.
The issue of state violence against working people and people of color continues to be an issue. Over the past several years, disturbing videos depicting police shootings of unarmed black men and women have placed the issue of police brutality back at the center of national debate. With regards to the issue of gun ownership, one case stands out: the murder of Philando Castile on July 6, 2016 in St. Anthony, Minnesota.When Officer JeronimoYanez pulled over Castile and his girlfriend, Castile informed Yanez that he had a license to carry and was in possession of a legal firearm. As Castile reached for his license and registration, Yanez fatally shot him seven times.[19]The mainstream political reaction to this tragedy is revealing, as both liberals and conservatives completely ignored the issue of the gun. Liberals—rightly—placed the killing within the broader context of racialized violence against African Americans, but avoided connecting it with this country’s history of denying blacks their Second Amendment rights. Conservatives, unsurprisingly, took a knee-jerk pro-cop position, with the National Rifle Association (NRA) issuing a milquetoast public statement on their Facebook page that read, “The reports from Minnesota are troubling and must be thoroughly investigated. In the meantime, it is important for the NRA not to comment while the investigation is ongoing.” The NRA even began to face criticism from its own members over this refusal to publicly comment on the issue.[20]
In relation to the repressive arms of the state, gun control advocates often argue that civilian firearm ownership is futile. The state is too powerful, the argument goes, so there is no point in arming the populace with weaponry that would be ineffectual against the federal behemoth. After all, you cannot shoot a Predator Drone down with a Bushmaster AR-15. I find this line of argument ridiculous; if anything, the fact that the state is armed to the hilt makes the need for civilian firearm ownership even greater. In the exposé, Rise of the Warrior Cop, investigative journalist RadleyBalko paints a dark picture of militarized American police forces:
Today in America SWAT teams violently smash into private homes more than one hundred times per day. The vast majority of these raids are to enforce laws against consensual crimes. In many cities, police departments have given up the traditional blue uniforms for ‘battle dress uniforms’ modelled after soldier attire. Police departments across the country now sport armored personnel carriers designed for use on a battlefield. Some have helicopters, tanks, and Humvees. The carry military-grade weapons. Many SWAT teams today are trained by current and former personnel from special forces units like the Navy Seals or Army Rangers. National Guard helicopters now routinely swoop through rural areas in search of pot plants and, when they find something, send gun-toting troops dressed for battle rappelling down to chop and confiscate the contraband.[21]
Balko goes on to trace the history of police militarization, documenting how the War on Drugs and War on Terror allow local police departments to acquire military-grade hardware from the Department of Homeland Security. While police repression has always existed in the United States—especially against working people and people of color—technological innovations and the military–industrial complex mean that domestic oppression can now rise tonew, violent levels.
The most recent conflagration in the gun control debate revolves around the idea of “no-fly, no-buy.” Following the horrific Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, Florida, House Democrats staged a sit-in on the House floor in an effort to force the Republicans hand on gun control legislation.[22] More specifically, the Democrats wanted to pass legislation preventing people whose names appear in the “Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment”—colloquially known as the “terrorist watchlist.” (It should be noted that the watchlist contains a whopping total of more than eight hundred thousand names.[23]) The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sent an open letter to the Senate in opposition to the bill, writing that “regulation of firearms and individual gun ownership or use must be consistent with civil liberties principles, such as due process, equal protection, freedom from unlawful searches, and privacy.” They argue thatthe use of an“error-prone and unfair watchlisting system” is not the best way to regulate guns.[24]The Democrats support for this legislation illustrates one of the recurring blind spots of liberal support for gun control. Bleeding-heart liberals may not realize this, but support for this legislation gives in to the cruel, twisted logic of the War on Terror security state. The individuals targeted by such a measure would be primarily Muslim or Middle Eastern, thus belying the Democrats supposed opposition to Islamophobia. As the Trump administration ramps up harassment and surveillance of the American Muslim community, one could imagine the current regime using “no-fly, no-buy” as a pretext for a renewed campaign of state repression against an already marginalized minority.
I began planning this paper well before the election of Donald Trump. Had Hillary Clinton won, my arguments would have more-or-less remained the same. But Trump’s victory adds special urgency and resonance to my argument. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) documented a wave of 1,094 alleged hate crimes in the month following the elections, with a spike occurring the Monday after the election.[25](For a sense of scale, the Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI] reported that 5,850 hate crime incidents were reported in 2015.[26])On the official side, we see that Trump’s xenophobic immigration policies have opened the floodgates for increased police state repression against Muslims and undocumented immigrants, as agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency have become empowered by Trump’s rhetoric, going rogue in their harassment and deportation of men, women, and children.[27]With far-right militants and the reactionary elements of the security state closing in on marginalized peoples, liberals and leftists must reconsider the issue of gun ownership. In closing, I will read the quote from which this paper gets its title. In the January 8, 1941 edition of the Evening Standard, George Orwell wrote, “The totalitarian states can do great things, but there is one thing they cannot do, they cannot give the factory worker a rifle and tell him to take it home and keep it in his bedroom. That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer’s cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see it stays there.”[28]