this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2024
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A Boring Dystopia
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Are there states that actually code racism like that into law or does it just bear out with the statistics?
I only know my home state laws really, and its legal here to walk around with a rifle on your back. Although last time someone tried that in my town the police came and followed him for a few hours.
Ever since the civil rights movement and the overturn of the Jim Crow laws (and the establishment of the right to interracial marriage), laws to prevent gun ownership based on race (even by implication, such as based on neighborhood) have been successfully challenged, but that doesn't stop the police rushing to escalation once it's established a someone has a gun, and blacks are represented disproportionately in officer-involved homicide.
But I can't say I have the data specifically regarding armed black suspects verses armed white suspects. Still if you're black in Missouri or Mississippi (or Oakland, California -- the US teems with a lot of racial-tension hot zones) then yes, the police are more likely to escalate a situation or shoot at you than if you are white, but that's true regardless if you have a gun.
Also blacks are convicted of crimes, violent or otherwise, statistically more often than whites with less evidence, and are given harsher sentences than whites for the same crimes, and this includes possession of illegal firearms. I suspect it's harder for nonwhites to get concealed-carry permits in states they are needed.
(My impression is no-one really likes open-carry in urban or suburban regions. Even here in California, there are rural towns where one could carry a rifle on their back, at least during hunting season, especially since the local economies depend on hunting tourism. So you're not going to be bothered by the county sheriff along the California / Nevada border the way you would say, in the Bay Area.)
The killing of Philando Castile in 2016 serves as an example of what blacks fear. He was pulled over for a broken tail-light, announced he was armed to Officer Jeronimo Yanez of the St. Anthony PD. Yanez freaked out and shot Castile seven times, two of which penetrated his heart. (Of note is that in the last thirteen years, Castile had been pulled over 39 times in that area for broken tail-light type offenses.) Yanez was tried and acquitted. He was removed from that precinct but as far as we know Yanez is serving as law enforcement elsewhere.
I see what you mean thats very insightful.
I was mainly wondering if there were laws in some states that explicitly state some sort of racism in the letter of the law.
Thats not to say thats a requirement to believe the things you said, I just thought at the very least racist laws were more indirect in how they are racist.