The Racist Origins of US Gun Control

I have to admit this never occured to me. I knew of the racially motivated reasons behind the bannings of drugs and such but not of guns.

After the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1878, most States turned to "facially neutral" business or transaction taxes on handgun purchases. However, the intention of these laws was not neutral. An article in Virginia's official university law review called for a "prohibitive tax...on the privilege" of selling handguns as a way of disarming "the son of Ham," whose "cowardly practice of 'toting' guns has been one of the most fruitful sources of crime.... Let a negro board a railroad train with a quart of mean whiskey and a pistol in his grip and the chances are that there will be a murder, or at least a row, before he alights."

Article here.

Judging by the number of shootings in Pittsburgh lately and the racial make-up of the shooters, I'd have to say that it isn't working very well.