"saturday night specials" & racism

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evans2002

Inactive
Former NJ Senator Bradley has repeatedly called for "Eliminating ... the junk handguns, so-called 'Saturday Night Specials' " .

Can anyone tell me about the origins of the term "Saturday Night Special?"

Writing in Reason Magazine 12/85 (Gun Control: White Man's Law) William R. Tonso says the term has racists origins.


Thank you
 
The term comes, IIRC, from a Depression-era song, "Niggertown Saturday Night."

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"The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it."
-- John Hay, 1872
 
True. Just another example of the racism in the gun control movement. Most liberals want African Americans to have all their rights, EXCEPT the right to bear arms, and they are willing to take that away from everyone in order to disarm blacks.

Bradley and Gore are just a couple of more closet racists.

Jim
 
I forget the exact words, but the term refers to small, cheap guns carried by "Darktown bucks" on their drunken saturday nights of gambling and carousing.
 
The term originally refered to the single bladed folding knife that later had a hook sharpener added to the side to make it a fishing knife. The cheap handguns at that time were called suicide specials.

All our guns laws have a history of racism.

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Ne Conjuge Nobiscum
"If there be treachery, let there be jehad!"
 
In San Antonio, a couple of years ago,
a minority restaurant owner was accosted
outside his house with his wife and kids.
Using a cheapy 25 ACP, he defended himself.

I am outraged. He should have been robbed or
murdered. Having a gun - goodness! And a cheap
one as well - shame!
 
Wrong forum for this. Moving to Legal/Political

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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" RKBA!
 
The term goes back farther in time than that. It is a contraction of "Niggertown Saturday Night" which racist whites used to say to villify black neighborhoods in the post civil war era, and "Suicide Special" a term for guns which might "blow up" or be used to committ suicide. Together they are "Niggertown Saturday Night Special" and was used to villify the cheap guns that ante-bellum freed blacks could afford to defend themselves from the roving bands of KKK circa 1870. Tennessee was the first state to pass a law banning the sale of cheap guns in an effort to disarm the blacks. The law allowed sale of only military quality guns such as the Army Navy pistol which many more whites already had, or could afford to buy. As a result the blacks were open season. A documented 3,500 blacks were lynched over the next 80 years. One could bet that many more lynchings, rapes, house burnings, and violent assualts went "undocumented."

To read more about this interesting subject, point your browser to Raymond Diamond and Robert Cottrol. These are two Black Legal Historians who have written on the subject.

Rick

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"Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American." Tench Coxe 2/20/1788
 
On a related note: has anyone seen movie "Rosewood"? The topic and previews looked good, but I am not sure about the actual film...
 
Read Clayton Cramer's significant work, "
The Racist Roots of Gun Control", at:
http://www.law.ukans.edu/jrnl/cramer.htm

Clayton Cramer's Home page is at:
http://www.ggnra.org/cramer/index.html

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Gun Control: The proposition that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her own panty hose, is more acceptable than allowing that same woman to defend herself with a firearm.


[This message has been edited by jimpeel (edited December 30, 1999).]
 
I did see Rosewood. The story was what a a righteous black WW1 veteran can do with two shoulder-holstered 1911s and the sheep around him.

Rick

PS, you want more about the racist routes of gun control? As always, go to www.jpfo.org.

As well, the antis have their own take on this. Carl T. Bogus and some other dude have been published in the UC Davis law review and some other, with the story about the southern states wanting the 2nd Amendment so that they could be assured they could control and recapture slaves. This of course is like saying that the First Amendment was required so that the slave owners could publish wanted posters for escaped slaves.

Bogus also writes that the RKBA could not possibly be a right since probate records "show" that guns were not often listed. They then estimate that the ownership rate for firearms was only, say, 10%. They make no effort to prove that this is a proper method for estimating gun ownership, as would be required in a true scholarly submission. Bogus says that firearms ownership became common only after that dastardly Samuel Colt began marketing his guns as "Peachmakers," and "Equalizers." And darn-it, after the Civil War, the government allowed all the ex soldiers to keep their guns, even the Confederates!!!

Well, let's assume the probate record method is a valid method to estimate gun ownership and that low ownership rates do actually mean that RKBA is not an individual right. One must then ask, "How common were printing presses, and if they were rare, does that mean we have no individual right to publish? Does that mean only newspapers way do this. Does that mean that word processors and fax machines are not protected?"

I just love using the First amendment as a test for the Second amendment, don't you?



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"Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American." Tench Coxe 2/20/1788
 
To the people who published this study on the estimation of firearms proliferation based on probate records:

Account for the millions of guns presently in circulation using current probate records.

How about it? Who here has all their guns listed in a will? I don't.

[This message has been edited by frye (edited December 30, 1999).]
 
My girls and I have shot together, decided among ourselves who gets what, and that's that! Their husbands (or fiancees) know "ownership" goes to the girls. Mutual property be damned. Don't need no stinking clarification in my will.

Konets igri! Schluss! Finito! Period!

[This message has been edited by Dennis (edited December 30, 1999).]
 
evans 2002 and others:

The history of gun control and gun control proposals is replete with two factors.

One is racism, which has been mentioned in several responding posts.

The other is elitism, and by the way, blacks, afro-americans, negroes or whatever the current term of art might be, are NOT the only group that would be disarmed by "junk gun" or "Saturdaynight Special" legislation.
Pople of limited means, whatever their color, race or religion, would suffer a loss of their rights.

Even more interesting is the following. These "junk gun" proposals, which describe the guns they would ban or restrict as inaccurate, unsafe and so forth, would ban their possession by Mr./Mrs./Ms. Everyman. They would allow their possession by "military" and or "law enforcement" personnel.

Now then, it strikes me that a gun is either unsafe, inaccurate and so forth, or it isn't. It's not a question of whose hand holds it. Junk is junk, in my hand, in the hand of John the Cop, Jim the Soldier, or anyhwere else.

The smell of not only racism, but elitism is noticeable at a distance of miles.
 
The irony of this yawp against cheap guns is that in the 1960s and 1970s the Congressional Black Caucus said the "war on cheap guns" was obviously racist.

Today's Black Caucus is supporting this "war on cheap guns". This says to me that aside from an ignorance of history, today's Black Caucus is more interested in far-left ideology than in the welfare of what they continually refer to as "their people".

FWIW, Art
 
Good point that Afro-Americans were not the exclusive victims of anti-gun laws. I think the Sullivan Laws of New York were targeted against the jews.

Interesting point raised by Art too. I remember as a child seeing pictures of armed Black Panthers at the steps of the Sacramento. Shortly after that, laws were enacted proscribing the open carrying of loaded firearms. Then and now, the idea of armed citizens scares the politicos.

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Vigilantibus et non dormientibus jura subveniunt
 
Sullivan Laws covered Jews, Mediterraneans (read Italians) and eastern Euros.

Then we jump to the West Coast...gun laws targeted Mexicans, Chinese and Japanese

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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" RKBA!
 
DC and 4v50 gary:

Gentlemen, re the Sullivan Law, state legislatioin, with "special" applications for NYC, wherte I grew up, as I recall from reading Gangs of New York, A Criminal History of New York, at the time, election violence, that is violence at the polls was not unknown in New york.

Tim Sullivan, for whom the legislation is names, was a Democrat, and the idea was that Democrat poll watchers would be issued permits, Republican poll watchers wouldn't. New York pollitics were always a bit on the "strange" side, likely they still are.

Another interesting point, if memory serves. The Sullivan Law was enacted in 1911. Some time later, when FDR was governor, it seemed that the legislature, passed a repeal measure. Roosevelt supposedly, in connection with his VETO of repeal, commented to the effect that, we aught to wait a while and see who the law turns out. I believe this would have been during the 1920's, and as above mentioned, the law was passed in 1911.

Lots of people did not agree that Roosevelt was the saint he was painted as being, for various reasons, possibly that was one of them.
 
Alan, thanks for your posting of 12/30 re: gun control and racism... enlightening... as far as your statement "...blacks, afro-americans, negroes or whatever the current term of art might be...." hmmm... interesting.

Well Alan what do you call people of African ancestry who were born in the U.S.? .... I call them Americans... but then that's what I call anyone (white, Asian, Native, black... despite what Jesse Jackson might preach.... most blacks have no problem being called black) born or naturalized in the U.S.

My original question was about a Constitutional right we (regardless of color, religion, gender, ethnic background) all share... the right to keep and bear arms, not about a "current term of art.."

I hope you agree with this statement: Supporters of Second Amendment Civil Rights (Yea, let's call ourselves a civil rights movement!) must reach out and educate ALL law abiding persons... repeat ALL law abiding persons... whites, women, blacks, Latinos/Hispanics, Jews, and (I may get slack for this) gays/lesbians about the threat posed by the gun grabbers. Can I get an 'Amen' Alan?
 
Alan, you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned elitism. The anointed (politicians, the media--people who are often educated beyond their intelligence) know what's best for everyone. You and I are too stupid to know how to take care of ourselves, and so the elite must do it. We are fit only to be mere revenue producers for the elite.

BTW, even if the term "Saturday Night Special" does have racist roots, will it ever be widely reported? If you're hoping that the (mainstream) media will shine some light on this subject, forget about it. Why would they want to make one of their boys look bad?
And since the vast majority of Americans get their information (indoctrination?) from the media, it looks like this will probably never be widely known. I hope I'm wrong, but if past history is any indication, I won't be.
DAL

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Reading "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal," by Ayn Rand, should be required of every politician and in every high school.
 
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