The Racist Origins of U.S. Gun Control

This report outlines the history of laws designed to keep guns out of the hands of Black Americans, beginning with "Slave Codes" which prohibited slaves from owning guns, followed by laws renamed "Black Codes." These laws were formed on the basis that blacks were not citizens, and thus did not have the same rights, including the right to keep and bear arms protected in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as whites.