The second major law passed by Congress, therefore, was all about getting guns and control into white men’s hands. Prior to 1790, numerous states, especially in the North, allowed free Blacks to be members of their militias.40 The Uniform Militia Act of 1792 sought to change that. This federal law required every white, able-bodied male between eighteen and forty-five to join his state’s militia. “More significantly, it required them all to buy a gun.”41 This was an act of citizenship and an act of self-defense. Whites believed that they “lived in an enemy camp.”42 The threat was always there.
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