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In Clarence Thomas's gun rights opinion, race plays a major role
He hardly ever speaks during oral arguments, often appearing asleep on the bench. But in his written opinion Monday supporting the right to bear arms, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas roared to life.

Referring to the disarming of blacks during the post-Reconstruction era, Thomas wrote: "It was the 'duty' of white citizen 'patrols to search negro houses and other suspected places for firearms.' If they found any firearms, the patrols were to take the offending slave or free black 'to the nearest justice of the peace' whereupon he would be 'severely punished.' " Never again, Thomas says.

In a scorcher of an opinion that reads like a mix of black history lesson and Black Panther Party manifesto, he goes on to say, "Militias such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the White Camellia, the White Brotherhood, the Pale Faces and the '76 Association spread terror among blacks. . . . The use of firearms for self-defense was often the only way black citizens could protect themselves from mob violence."

This was no muttering from an Uncle Tom, as many black people have accused him of being. His advocacy for black self-defense is straight from the heart of Malcolm X. He even cites the slave revolts led by Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner -- implying that white America has long wanted to take guns away from black people out of fear that they would seek revenge for centuries of racial oppression. ...

...What Thomas has created, however, is a legal defense of the Second Amendment so thoroughly original and starkly race-based that none of the white justices would even acknowledge it, as if it were some blank sheet crafted by an invisible man.

That ought to be a clue enough for black people that this document is at least worth a look. You may not agree with his conclusion, but there'll be no mistake about where he's coming from.