Minorities and the 2nd Amendment

One of the amazing things to me of the huge minority support for the Democrat Party is the huge hostility that party- on the national level and in many states- has for the right to arms: if I were latino or black or whatever and actually worried about some jerk attacking me or my family, I'd think the right to arms was a fairly important thing. And if you actually believed- as so many of the people in various groups claim- that the gummint is against you, why would you want to back measures that would prevent anyone BUT the gummint from having arms? Seems self-defeating.

Especially, as Kevin points out, in light of the Dred Scott decision. Everyone knows it was bad, but it seems very few pay attention to the last part of this:
"For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went."
It was considered so much a right of free citizens to 'keep and carry arms' that this was one of the reasons these people specifically did not want blacks to be considered citizens; because if they were, they had the right to arms the same as everyone else.

What brought this to mind today was this column at Town Hall: Second Amendment Freedoms Aided the Civil Rights Movement . It notes some of the specific instances where people with arms cause clowns like the KKK to, er, 'rethink the wisdom' of some of their actions. As is usually the case, they weren't looking for a fight, they were looking for a victim; and it's considerably harder to make someone a victim if they've got a shotgun in their hands.

Which brings up the question as to why so many people want to be victims, but that's a whole 'nother question.