Gun Control is Not Racist, Sexist, or Ableist

This month New Zealand experienced a horrible white supremacy terror attack that killed 50 people. In the wake of that tragedy their government is skipping the “thoughts and prayers” portion of the Stages of Mass Shooting and going straight into banning “military-style semiautomatic weapons.” Their neighbor, Australia, passed similar measures after the Port Arthur Massacre In 1996, and the country has not had a mass shooting since. As this story and its effects reach America I see a lot of angry commenters who are incensed that they can’t buy a weapon in a country they will likely never visit. At least one person I saw asked how this can happen with the Second Amendment, apparently unaware that the rest of the world gets along just fine without one. The most remarkable new talking point I’ve noticed in multiple places is that gun control is a function of privilege. I’ve seen it called white supremacist, sexist, and ableist, which is once again proof the right will co-opt the language of the left for its purposes without having the first clue what words actually mean.Let’s take these one at a time. The idea that gun control is a tool of control by whites against non-whites does have some basis in fact. The role of guns in white colonization is historically overstated[1], but American gun control has been used to keep minorities disarmed. Virginia prohibited slaves from owning guns in the 17th century, numerous laws were passed after the Civil War to keep freed blacks from arming themselves, and Governor Ronald Reagan outlawed open carry in California specifically to combat the pro-gun Black Panthers. However, as Saul Cornell, a professor at Fordham University and researcher who focuses on the history of gun control told Al Jazeera[2] , "Saying gun laws are always racist

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