Cottrol is hardly alone in making that point. In a 1995 article for the Kansas Journal of Law and Public Policy, Clayton E. Cramer found that:

The historical record provides compelling evidence that racism underlies gun control laws -- and not in any subtle way. Throughout much of American history, governments openly stated that gun control laws were useful for keeping blacks and Hispanics "in their place" and for quieting the racial fears of whites.

Such restrictions left minorities at the mercy of persecution both official and freelance. Neither nightriders nor abusive policemen had much to fear from people who had been stripped as effectively as possible of the ability to defend their homes and families.

Of course, that's the nasty and long-gone past. Maybe 19th-century politicos wanted to prevent freedmen from shooting back at the Klan, but modern gun laws are written in neutral language. They apply to everybody, without discrimination.

Except ...

Even in an age of declining crime rates, the victims of violent predators remain overwhelmingly urban and black. Cities tend to have tighter restrictions on the right to bear arms than suburban and rural areas, so the people most likely to suffer at the hands of criminals are the ones with the greatest difficulty getting hold of legal weapons. Criminals, of course, have access to illegal markets for weapons as they do for everything else that is prohibited, and so have little trouble victimizing disarmed prey.

That disproportionate effect on minorities isn't mere speculation. In his much-discussed study, "Crime, deterrence and the right to carry concealed handguns," Prof. John Lott, then of the University of Chicago and now of Yale, found that loosening restrictions on carrying concealed handguns offered the greatest reduction in criminal victimization to women, minorities and the urban poor. Just as restricting access to personal firearms harms these groups the most, so increasing their access to the means of self-defense offers the greatest benefits.

And as far as "non-discriminatory" restrictions on firearms, well, some of them stretch neutral language into strange and interesting shapes. Writing for the Journal of Law and Criminology in 1995, T. Markus Funk examined "melting point" laws that ban pistols that aren't made from expensive materials -- so-called "Saturday Night Specials" -- with the purported intention of disarming criminals.

Funk said:

Melting-point laws take less expensive guns off the market, and while there is no shortage of expensive guns, poorer citizens may not be able to afford them and must make due with what they can afford. A closer look at the historical relationship between gun control and the poor in America reveals that a charge of discrimination on the part of the legislators who enacted the melting-point laws might not be too far-fetched.

Some legislative controls are rather less subtle. Massachusetts, where Pink Pistols was founded, has what's called "discretionary licensing." That means that local police can allow or disallow gun ownership as they please. According to a prepared statement from Pink Pistols organizer David Rostcheck, "[a] police chief can deny a license to a legally qualified person based on their gender, their housing, their sexual orientation, absolutely anything they want."

Any individual or group can land on the receiving end of a disgruntled police officer's prejudices, but groups with a history of ill-treatment at the hands of authorities have more reason than most to be concerned. Allowing the authorities a veto over the means of self-defense is a special nightmare for people who fear the police themselves.

In an age when gays are still bashed, when racial profiling by police is a hot topic in the news, and in which minorities remain overwhelmingly the victims of crime, can anybody blame members of disfavored groups for insisting on the ability to defend themselves?