Guns: Disarm the Negroes. - The Racist Roots of Georgia's Gun Laws

I have to admit, if there's one thing law school can provide to prospective lawyers, it's perspective. In the course of doing legal research, you realize that cases from literally 200 years ago are neatly catalogued and easily found. This means you can easily see where trends in the law began, though sometimes, these origins are ugly indeed.

GeorgiaCarry.org has put up a great article highlighting the origins of gun control in Georgia. Like most states in the South, these laws were designed to disarm freedmen or to keep the slave population in check. Following Reconstruction, even supposedly "race-neutral" gun control laws were routinely enforced only against black people. It's a sad irony that the gun control supported today by Al Sharpton and others is a direct descendant of laws intended to keep black people defenseless.

Now, the article is a bit rough. The citation is definitely not up to par for a law review (never cite Wikipedia, for example), but the veracity of the arguments and quotes is undeniable. Well worth a look.