By Illinois Review
On Wednesday evening, the Illinois State Rifle Association launched an attack aimed directly at the state’s anti-gun advocates and legislators in a video that featured Tom McDonald – a Black American, ISRA board member and firearms instructor.
In the 6-minute video, McDonald provides a brief history lesson and links today’s anti-gun movement to the movement before and after the Civil War.
“The liberal, anti-gun control movement that we’re seeing here in Illinois and in states like California, New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey – is no different than the gun control movement after the Civil War that was meant to do one thing: keep guns out of the hands of freed slaves.”
McDonald highlights that the strict gun laws after the Civil War were not meant to take guns out of the hands of dangerous people – but rather, they were meant to keep guns out of the hands of Black Americans and minorities.
The first documented gun control law in North America was passed in Virginia in 1639, and the law – as McDonald explains, was meant to prevent “Black Americans from owning guns for fear of an ‘Armed Insurrection.’”
In 1857 during the Dred Scott decision, United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney – a Democrat, wrote, as McDonald pointed out, “that freed Black Americans were not citizens because if they were citizens, they would have the right to ‘keep and carry arms wherever they went.’”
Respected early 20th century journalist and civil rights advocate Ida B. Wells – who has a downtown Chicago street named after her – Ida B. Wells Drive – wrote in her book, Southern Horrors, as McDonald pointed out – “that it was the armed Black Americans that were the only ones to escape lynching’s because they were able to defend themselves with firearms.” And in 1892, Wells also wrote, “A Winchester Rifle should have a place of honor in every Black American home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give.”
During the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the south, a young Rosa Parks used to sit with her grandfather on the front porch with shotguns on their laps to keep Klan members from attacking their Alabama home.
McDonald then pivots and fast forwards to 2010.
“In 2010 right here in Chicago – a very special man Otis McDonald – and life member of the ISRA – with the help of the ISRA – filed a lawsuit against the city of Chicago’s unconstitutional gun ban.”
McDonald – who knew Otis personally and attended local meetings with him continued:
“If you remember- Otis’s neighborhood on the southwest side of Chicago, the Morgan Park area was getting dangerous – there were gangs and drug dealers everywhere. It wasn’t safe – and he was being threatened. His house had been broken into three times, and he wanted to purchase a handgun for protection, but he couldn’t because of Chicago’s handgun ban. So, he sued the City of Chicago – a case that went all the way to the United States Supreme Court – and the handgun ban was overturned because the ban was in violation of his 2nd amendment rights.”
The gun laws in Chicago prevented everyday citizens like Otis from protecting themselves. He was unarmed and the gang members and drug dealers knew it – but the man who served honorably in the military and protected the U.S. from danger – couldn’t even protect himself and his family in his own home because of laws put in place meant to keep him unarmed and vulnerable.
And thanks to the bravery of Otis McDonald and fellow plaintiffs “Adam Orlov, Colleen and David Lawson – law-abiding citizens of the City of Chicago are able to own handguns and exercise their Second Amendment rights.”
McDonald then concludes the video with a powerful message:
“Keeping people unarmed is not just another reminder of our country’s racist past – but it allows the bad people to continue terrorizing the good ones. And we can’t let that happen. We can’t let politicians in Chicago and Springfield bring us back to the 1800’s. Let’s keep Otis’ legacy alive – and never back down because our lives depend on it.”
On January 10, 2023, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker – a Democrat, signed legislation banning assault weapons making Illinois just the 9th state to enact one of the strongest weapons bans in the country. On January 18, 2023, the ISRA filed a federal lawsuit opposing Gov. Pritzker’s, arguing that the gun ban is unconstitutional.
Currently, the ISRA is preparing an appeal to the United States Supreme Court where they are asking the Supreme Court to declare the entire law unconstitutional. And as officials at the ISRA have shared publicly – they are confident that the court will rule in their favor based on 2nd Amendment rights.
