Elain Riot newspaper article (courtesy wikipedia.org)

The Gray Lady’s headline – Do Black People Have Equal Gun Rights? – is pure clickbait. National Review staff writer Charles C. W. Cooke’s editorial is as solid a pro-guns-for-everyone read as anything you’ll find on TTAG. After torturing his lead to reveal his skin color (white), Cooke embarks on a potted history of American gun control, revealed as an unconstitutional policy rooted in racism. The only real surprise: it’s in The New York Times! Which means, of course, there has to be some anti-gun rights element to the pro-gun screed. Which there is, in the form of a shot across the bow of the NRA . . .

It is one thing for the N.R.A. to celebrate black Second Amendment advocates such as its spokesman Colion Noir, and Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. of Milwaukee County, but it is quite another for Wayne LaPierre to inveigh against “home invaders, drug cartels, carjackers, knockout gamers, and rapers, and haters,” and for the camera to then pan around a sea of white faces clapping in unison.

I know: Clarke is talking about optics. It’s not enough to be inclusive. You have to look inclusive. But this paragraph suggests that Wayne’s motivating his base with baseless base appeals to NRA’s members’ [hidden] racism. And that’s plain old-fashioned wrong. He’s appealing to their desire to keep themselves and their families safe from bad guys. Period. In fact, assuming that the list of threats refers to blacks for the audience is, in itself, racist.

If supporters of the right to keep and bear arms want their pleas to be heard in their proper context, they might consider talking a little less about Valley Forge and a little more about Jim Crow — and attempting to fill their ranks with people who have known much more recently what tyranny really looks like.

I don’t think so. If OFWGs start talking about gun rights mainly in terms of the “black experience” the antis and their media lackeys will condemn them as condescending and exploitive. And rightly so.

All Americans – black, white, brown, whatever – have a common experience of government tyranny. The Nazis murdered my father’s family. Armenian-Americans also know of genocide. Mexican-Americans are well familiar with the corruption and abuse perpetuated by the Mexican police and military. Japanese-Americans have World War II internment by the feds in their collective past.

Even the whitest of the white – Americans who can trace their ancestry back to the Mayflower – have a common history of government abuse – at the hands of the British colonial government. [The sacrifices made by the first Americans at Valley Forge should not be downplayed.] Hence the creation of the United States of America. Which has, at its core, a document guaranteeing the individual right to keep and bear arms.

While we should never shy from reminding the antis’ of gun control’s shameful past – and thank you for that succinct recap Mr. Cooke – no one group of Americans has “ownership” of the suffering it caused. What hurts one of us – gun control – hurts us all. [h/t Pascal]

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

82 COMMENTS

  1. Gun owners are a cross section of America, an average bunch, although a disproportionate share of the loudest can be taken for racist. Some of that is rooted in the frustration with high minority crime rates rather than outright racism I believe. But even the worst of us insist that gun rights are for all Americans, and that has to be an important part of our message.

  2. One of the NYT themes is “Divide and Conquer.” That liberal rag has no place in my home.

    As a Navy Chief, I have had, blacks, women, Hispanics, whites, and both civilian and military work for me. They all did well or I fired them.

    I do not believe I have an actual prejudiced bone in my body. Unless it is against the voters who put these idiot politicians in office. For that is a traitorous act, in my opinion.

    So, no I do not feel that the blacks are stand alone in this fight between pro-control and pro-rights. The forgive and forget mentality that permeates the liberal ranks has no place in the conservative ranks.

  3. I think that the NRA needs to force black people to become members, even if it has to do so at the point of a gun. Because that’s the only way that the NRA is going to sign up a meaningful percentage of black people. Sad, isn’t it, that one of the most abused minorities in American history is also among the most subservient to the almighty state.

    • The dichotomy is seemingly lost upon too large a percentage of that minority group. On the one hand there is a distinct and healthy mistrust of government, on the other hand political allegiance to the party that thinks that government and more government intrusion is the answer to every problem.

      • The dichotomy has another interesting wrinkle to it. Minorities often accept the prevailing liberal view that it is the inanimate object, the firearm itself, that is the source of injury and misery. Wielders of firearms, culpable as they may be, are nevertheless more pawn than principal, conscripted into criminal activity by the wily gun.

        Yet, with government, their view alternates. They see government not as an inherently authoritarian institution, but rather as an inert vehicle whose outcomes depend on the aims of those in power and alignment with their interests.

        Guns are bad ipso facto. Government’s goodness depends upon who’s in charge.

    • Well, Ralph, they bought the ticket.

      Now they get to take the ride.

      That’s what happens to people who cease making politicians earn their vote by voting in such overwhelming lock-step. One party (the Democrats) will take them for granted and screw the black community whenever they want (because “where else will they go?”), the other party (the GOP) won’t give a damn – because the black community will never reward the GOP with enough votes to cause a Republican to bother chasing those votes.

      Blacks in American could get off this train to nowhere at any time, but they won’t. They’re going to keep pulling that “D” lever, especially if there’s a black face attached to the name. Call Morty and make book on it. If LBJ is to be believed (and LBJ has proven correct so far), we’re only 50 years into LBJ’s 100 year prediction of black fealty to the DNC.

      The history of blacks in the US should serve as a warning to our foreign policy: people cannot be given freedom and liberties on a platter. They won’t value their liberties. We have seen it in the black population of the US, and we see it now in the middle east.

      Worse yet is giving people their freedom and liberties on a platter, and then providing them with unearned material sustenance. That’s a formula for getting contempt, scorn and ingratitude in return.

      • Perhaps. Or the NRA can work on messaging and its history with helping freed slaves. that convinced me to become a life member. Wayne L is great, but time to move on. Need a better spokesperson for the group.

        • Wayne L is not great. He’s awful. I understand and agree with almost everything he says and he doesn’t even strike a chord with me. How can he connect or relate to even the most open-minded non gun owners?

          Antis are hopelessly lost but the NRA spokesman must present a perspective on the 2nd Amendment that anyone can relate to. Colion Noir does that and it’s not because he’s black; it’s because he provides new and varied perspectives to the listener / viewer. La Pierre repeats the same old tired rhetoric we’ve heard for decades and hasn’t worked. He doesn’t even appear comfortable on camera. He looks as though he’d rather be somewhere else. He’s just plain awful.

        • Maybe you’re right, Dirk. But I’m reminded of basic training when my TI (the Air Force had Technical Instructors, not Drill Instructors) held up an empty glass and told us “this is you.” He then filled the glass with water from a pitcher, showing how he would “fill us up with knowledge.” The he emptied the glass and put it on the table upside down. None of the liquid “knowledge” went into the glass, and the TI backhanded the empty glass, shattering it into hundreds of pieces. I haven’t forgotten that lesson in 47 years.

          I can’t help but be depressed that so many of my black brothers and sisters are like that upside-down glass. Not just when it comes to guns, but in every way. In this fear I am not alone.

          http://dailycaller.com/2014/10/25/charles-barkley-unintelligent-blacks-brainwashed-to-keep-successful-black-men-down-video/

        • It is propaganda 101. It does not matter who the NRA picks as a spokesperson for the NRA, the Progressives are going to demonize them, and they don’t care if anything they say is true. The Progressives are trying to appeal to the low information voter who gets their view of the world from the evening news. I cannot tell you how many conversations I have had where someone says something like “so and so is evil”, and when I ask why, they either cannot answer the question or they repeat some accusation that has long since been disproven.

      • @DG

        I wish you were wrong. At first blush those statements sound a little racist, until one realizes that black voters supported Obama for well over 90% in 2008 and 2012. That was a real head scratcher for me, since I was seriously underwhelmed by the first 4 years of “hope and change.”

        My recollection is that black voters hit the D lever about 90% overall. Sad.

    • “Sad, isn’t it, that one of the most abused minorities in American history is also among the most subservient to the almighty state.”

      +1.

      You would think that after years and years of voting D, and it not improving anything, that maybe, just maybe, they would change things up.

    • Do we know that black Americans are under represented all that badly? the NRA doesn’t keep track blacks make up about 14% of the population. A rather small number really. The NRA represents about 2.5% of the population. They would need about 630k black members to be equally representative of black Americans, but since the NRA dose not discriminate we may never know the numbers. My point being that a sea of faces that looks white dose not playing preclude a small but representative number of black faces.

  4. So being white is enough reason to discredit a person and ignore them? I’m so glad that we finally found the solution to racial politics, just be racist against white people! They’re all exactly the same and have no value to society anyway! The non-white communities will surely rise above their problems now that they don’t have to white people holding them back any more.

    /sarcasm

  5. Bashing blacks for their alledged overdependence on govt or the dems in general has nothing to do with the article. Believe it or not the typical gun owner is not a right winger and these rants aren’t helping our cause. Just thought you would like to know.

    • Interesting; I thought statistically, the group that is a solid majority pro-second amendment is conservative/republican.

      Where do you get the stat that most gun owners don’t identify as such?

      There is also the fact that blacks statistically vote 90% democrat. That is significant when it is mostly democrats that votes for gun control.

      • The majority of the gun owners I have known identify libertarian. A couple of them are libertarian in the Libertarian Party sense, but I would guess most of them vote Republican. They don’t consider themselves conservative or Republican, though.

        • IMO gun owners are slightly right but still in the fat part of the bell curve. A little conservative but not right wing. Pro 2A folks are a different matter with many being, well, you know. FWIW my motivation for commenting here is to interject some moderation into the conversation. I’m passionate about the 2A and I think that the extreme right wing angle will not get us the broad support we need. I guess it’s the paranoid edge to things that the far-right has that bothers me since it seems to hurt our cause. I mean really, a socialist takeover by the UN? OMG.

        • Myself as well, Hobbitmom, but how many people would identify as such? Libertarian candidates only get single digits of the voting population.

        • Here’s you go Mike from St. Louis. a quote I believe in:

          “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”

          It was not a bunch of “moderates” that took on the greatest military power of it’s time, and won.

          It’s not a bunch of “moderates” that has turned back a hundred years of gun control and has made the greatest reversal of onerous gun laws and returned more of our G-d given rights to us, the people.

          So moderate all you want; the rest of us will get on with the business of getting more of our freedom back.

        • I Agree Mike from St. Louis. Balance is important. But my place of balance is a baptized Christian. Non-denominational. Yet I am a libertarian in that I don’t feel the need enforce my beliefs over others.

          I have come to see that the laws of G-d as spoken of in the bible are the path to a strong and healthy culture and that to violate those laws will bring destruction upon the culture that violates those laws. But the requirement is that those people must come freely and without coercion to this truth.

          Sex out side of marriage, adultery, abortion, same sex relationships and divorce except under very narrow circumstances are all equally a sin in the eyes of G-d. How many people in todays world; even those called Christians, routinely violate many, if not all of these laws?

          The early Christians didn’t need to have their G-ds laws enforced by the Powers that Be to live by those laws. Yet they were persecuted by the people in the surrounding culture because of those same beliefs.

          How many people today; even those that are on the right, will feel free to persecute me because of my beliefs because it is politically correct to do so?

          So I’m a libertarian because only those that come freely to this revelation can be open to this truth. I’ll speak my truth as I see guided by G-d, I’ll live my truth as guided by G-d, and even if I’m denied the freedom of speech to speak or live my truth, I am still confident the truth will out.

          Because violating the laws of God is as certain as violating the laws of gravity. After all, they are both made by the creator. So a person that steps off a very high cliff might feel they are free to violate this particular law, for a while, until they come to a sudden stop at the bottom.

          In the same way, a people, a culture can violate the laws of G-d, for a while; but the certainty of the stop at the bottom is always there.

        • All third parties don’t get all the votes that they’re actually entitled to, because people who would want to vote for them vote for one of the two major parties to avoid “wasting a vote”. It will continue until either one party fscks things up so massively that it’ll lose support over a single electoral cycle (happened before, but is very rare), or electoral system is reformed to something like instant runoff or preferential voting, such that people can actually express their real political preference at the booth without the fear of “helping the wrong guy win”.

    • Everything in your mini tirade is misleading or totally false. You call blacks overdependence on government “alleged” when it is an empirically proven, statistically verifiable and unimpeachable fact. The numbers are there, in countless studies and governmental records for anyone who cares to verify this truth to see. You, sir, are one of the countless blind of the “liberal” community who refuse to open your eyes to the utter destruction being wrought by your ideology and your party, and yet here you are, the blind leading the blind, on a pro gun website, pretending to be “one of us” while defending the liberal agenda and the democratic party that is daily seeking to destroy every right and liberty we hold dear. No one can espouse a Marxist ideology or vote for a Democratic candidate and call themselves “pro gun.” The two are diametrically opposed, as surely as matter and anti-matter. There is no such thing as a “liberal” pro gun supporter. Those that claim to be so are only Marxists in conservative clothing. Manchin and Toomey are two rather glaring examples that immediately come to mind. In accord with this, your assertion that “the majority of gun owners are not right wing,” is just a bit disingenuous. There are, indeed, many “gun owners” out there that do not believe in the 2nd Amendment, and do not give of their time or their treasure to defend it. Hell, Diane Feinstein has a carry permit! Just because someone is a “gun owner” does not make them a gun rights patriot. That silly little woman who tramps around Kroger stores and hollers about how “mad” she is, claims to be a supporter of the 2nd Amendment. Do you really think she is? Or is she like you, a provocateur, a closet Marxist, who claims to be on the side of gun rights while actively working to destroy them?
      Give it up, “Mike from St. Louis,” we know what you are, and what you’re trying to do. Go peddle your fish somewhere else.

        • That doesn’t change the facts that our Founding Fathers were incredibly right wing by today’s standards.

        • Context is almost always the rub in 2A matters, hard to compare now with 200 yrs ago…many of the founders owned slaves. But that doesn’t diminish the central theme of the 2A in my view. Free people need a means to defend themselves from an out-of-control govt, whether or not a threat exists at the moment.

        • ThomasR- your desire to walk with God is beyond reproach but your apparant belief in your moral superiorty over those who would disagree with you is not. Re-read your Bible. TomJ- you seem to believe that there are only Marxists and gun-rights patriots. How convenient. Now, get to work! Too many gaps in your logic.

        • Balance, Mike? Please tell me how you balance tyranny with freedom? Do you degrade a little freedom and allow a little tyranny—just for appearances, perhaps, or maybe just to let both side get along? In order to attain said balance, do you seriously ascribe moral equivalency to tyranny and, if so, how much? The problem of trying to cut down the middle, is that you always carry around the offal and bilge from the other side. And that’s a messy business, isn’t it?

        • Garrison you seem to be trying to invent an issue with me. I don’t have a clue what you’re trying to say unless it is that I’m in favor of tyranny? Go to bed, you’ve stayed up too late.

      • Here are some more facts to chew on… There are more white Americans leaching off the government test that black Americans. And I mean ALL black Americans totaled. Marxist ideology is absolutely and irrefutably pro gun ownership. With a strong opposition to any government controls in that regard. Marxism in fact parallels Americas founding principals very closely with a few choice exceptions but fundamental to both is the belief that the people must have the power to overthrow their government.

        • What’s incredibly funny is how right wing those white welfare people tend to be! Cant make this stuff up…excuse me while I wash the beerout of my nose. Man that burns. Sad fact about welfare: kick people off en masse and you get a foster care nightmare, much more expensive than welfare. That’s why welfare drug tests go no where. If you’re looking for simple solutions you are SOL.

        • Well, Mike From St. Louis, my Moral Superiority? It’s called transference Mike, you place on me your own sense of moral superiority. Me, it’s more my willingness to accept that I don’t have all the answers.

          In my arrogance; at one time I believed that anyone that believed in a higher power was a fool, especially Christians; (I grew up in a very liberal/progressive environment, I was taught to believe everything wrong with this country was because of the Christians).

          But I was still an agnostic because maybe they were right. Then I had a direct experience with that higher power and I knew the great spiritual teachers were right. The Christ, The Buddha, others spiritual teachers were speaking of the experience that I had.

          But there was no face in the clouds, no burning bush, just a direct connection to the All, and in that timeless moment of the now, with no past or future in the total connection to everything, was an indescribable total and utter unconditional love

          But the coming to Christ was not immediate, it took time and a very powerful connection to the Great Spirit through American Indian teachings to finally bring me to the Christ and the I Am (I had been to well indoctrinated to hate everything Christian to come back to Christ in one bite).

          Now, for me, I just accept that the bible is a book that talks about the laws of G-d, like the laws of Gravity. Personally Mike, I would like it if a persons action, as long as it doesn’t directly interfere in my life, didn’t have an adverse effect. But what I have come to see is that is that actions have consequences. There are certain behaviors that build a culture, there are certain behaviors that destroy cultures.

          There are reasons societies collapse into chaos. I have come to accept that the Liberal/progressive agenda is the type of mind set that destroys cultures and causes dark ages.

    • Everyone tosses these terms around, nobody ever bothers to define them. How are you defining “right wing”? Plenty of Americans would define them as “gun nuts”, and yes, gun owners ARE overwhelmingly in that camp. Others think the right wing is very like muslims, in that they want to punish anyone who does not blindly follow the same religion they do.

      I think I am right wing, and have never heard anyone accuse me of being a liberal. I am in favor of increasing freedom, including when that increase comes at the expense of entitlements. Every law, and every benefit from state or federal governments should apply to all citizens equally, absolutely no means testing. We’re going to have food stamps? Every citizen should receive the same amount. All handouts would end instantly. And people who did not work would die. It is a given to me (for some reason) that in America no one should starve, so I would support the concept of soup kitchens subsidized by the government, where absolutely anyone can walk in and have a meal. Probably mostly in the south, because no assistance at all for housing, people would freeze. No job, no money? Head south before winter.

      The country needs (!) to eliminate dependence. Left wingers want to increase entitlements at the expense of freedom. Those are my definitions, and as such, I think most gun owners are right wing.

      • This pretty much sums up my view on right wing/left wing issues:

        The spectrum of the Spirit Polarity goes from Lucifer on the extreme left to Ahriman on the extreme right, with your spirit and my loving Light, of course, in the center. Lucifer is warm, earthy, sweet and sexual, and often mean, brutish and demanding. Ahriman is cool, mental, astringent and rational, and quite detached and judgmental.

        While Lucifer is sly, Ahriman is clever, and they both hate [Free Will], but for different reasons. In a face to face battle, Ahriman will always outwit Lucifer, and yet Lucifer will sometimes win with sheer force of ill intent and ‘dirty tricks’

        — http://godchannel.com/redemption.html

  6. Why does it have to be either Valley Forge or Jim Crow? Why not both. After all, the story goes that one of the reasons why the NRA was created was to help my ancestors (yes, I’m black) from tyranny, correct? This country was founded on the fight against tyranny, correct? Why must it always be either/or?

    • It should be both. If your comment is directed towards the author of the NYT article, you should send him an email and ask him. I believe you hang around this forum for some time, many agree with your comment. It should be both.

      The is issue is, “whom will the Black Community” listen to for the message?

      if the NRA gives a message, the DNC and the media lapdogs will quickly put down the NRA even if they give a historically correct message. Then the “community” leaders will come out to bash the NRA even more saying they are all wrong. If a white man gives the message, well, WTH does he know — he is just white. If a Black man tries to give the message (See Colion Noir, and Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. of Milwaukee County) they are both publically accused in the media by Blacks as “not being Black enough” (examples can be found by searching the TTAG archives). If a person of Latin decent tries to give a message, they are told they are not Latin enough. Whomever speaks to the Black community and has an opposing view that is not held by the DNC or community organizers is quickly shouted down. Does not matter if that is Bill Cosby, Charles Barkley, Larry Elder or Dr. Carson — they are shouted down and told to be “Black”. And this is not unique to the Black Community. The Jewish Community, the LGBT Community (from a post of the other day) or even Women Groups (See the past article about Gabby Gifford’s new tactics).

      All these groups in general refuse to believe that there is any other solution other than what has been put forth by the DNC.

      I agree with you, but how to do get the message out when you have very few willing to listen? In order for change, people have to be willing to change — right? Who is the voice of change? Does it matter, if nobody is listening?

      • If a Black man tries to give the message . . . they are both publically accused in the media by Blacks as “not being Black enough”

        Charles Barkley made this point yesterday (today?). He said: “One of the reasons we’re never going to be successful as a whole, because of other black people. And for some reason we are brainwashed to think, if you’re not a thug or an idiot, you’re not black enough. If you go to school, make good grades, speak intelligent, and don’t break the law, you’re not a good black person. And it’s a dirty, dark secret.”

        It’s the exact opposite of the Civil Rights Movement of the ’60s, when the black community powerfully supported intellectual and educational advancement. What the hell happened? I don’t know.

        • Yep. Being ambitious is acting white. Which I guess isn’t supposed to be good. While I’m generally in favor of many of the programs society has put in place to try to help I also believe that society is just about all-in. We need more people like Mr. Barkley, from here on in the push will have to come from within the black community.

        • The movement, or rather the leadership found the more radical approach offered by the dems who lead by Kennedy and friends decided to offer an apparent quick victory in return for votes by pushing through the civil rights laws of the 60s. This was a radical change for the dems that risked alienating its traditional white and racist base for a boost in the polls. Taken in by charm and the (imo sincere) concern of Kennedy many blacks abandoned the long fight of the pro civil rights conservatives for the immediate gratification of ink and paper promises (laws) and no small opportunity for advancement of black leaders with scruples. And so the fight for liberty ceased being one of social change, winning true acceptance through relentless demonstrations of humanity, and became one of crude inflexible and misguided bureaucracy. Whatever progress had been made by those deeply diverse strong spirited activists to unite this country was in done in the following years as the new laws inevitably divided us further.

          Just my opinion mind you.

    • @ M J J –

      Just curios, how do you breach the subject of the 2A with fellow Blacks? Do you tend to be cautious, concerned about being labeled ‘Uncle Tom’ or ‘Oreo’?

      Can you offer advice on how to breach the subject with the Blacks we interact with daily at work or just ‘Out and about’?

      And yeah, I am white…

      • I cringed reading every word of your post. Try talking to them like they are white. They may understand what you are saying. They are people after all.

        And no shit you’re white.

  7. Has everyone already forgotten annual FBI crime statistics? Blacks commit half of all crime, but only make up 13% of the population.

    http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-43

    This was nothing more than pandering by Cooke.

    Remember also one of the reasons whites have guns is the Witchita Massacre:

    http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/classics/carr_brothers/index.html

    And the Knoxville Horror:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders_of_Channon_Christian_and_Christopher_Newsom

    Remember, Cooke is praising a group of blacks who named themselves after a notorious black racist, rapist, drug dealer, and terrorist, Huey Newton.

    http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1524

  8. BS. Most LEGAL gun owners are right or center. I see NO solution. Want rights but vote & support the plantation master. Who supported the young black gun owner in New Jersey? Who wants black folks defenseless & dependent on the PO-leece? From an evil old white man married to a beautiful black woman.

  9. The short version on (the) Huey Newton (Gun Club):

    Founder of the Black Panther Party
    Drug dealer, rapist, and murderer
    Murdered an Oakland police officer in 1967
    Murdered a 17-year-old prostitute in 1974
    Was killed by a drug dealer whom he had failed to pay

    • Fed, you’re a one trick pony. An irrelevent one trick pony. Congrats, you’ve achieved your lifelong dream.

  10. Here’s another way to look at it: if all the NRA concentrates on is Valley Forge, they’ll never get enough black folk to join. Concentrating on how the NRA helped black folk get their 2A rights recognized, despite Jim Crow and all those other ugly laws will.

    How to convince black folk that the Al Sharptons of the world can’t make their nut unless they keep black folk under their thumbs is another thing altogether.

  11. If gun owners are considered racist then the FBI crime statistics should also be considered racist.
    I prefer ‘statistician’ to the term ‘racist.’

    • Stats are stats. Due to the nature of my community, the odds are dramatically against any black person doing me any harm whatsoever. So, I’m not tooled up because of stats or color. Whoever bursts down my door in the middle of the night or who tries to take me off on the street is getting shot, regardless of their color. I think that most of us feel the same way. Probably you do too.

      • Same here. Although living in a nice neighborhood or community doesn’t mean you’ll be robbed by nice neighbors. It means the bad guys have to drive further.

  12. Seems to me that the liberal approach would require that blacks get special treatment when it comes to firearms, because they’ve been effectively deprived of the right for so long. So they should get tax credits for buying firearms, and any other preferential treatment someone can think up.

    Why is it that people just don’t remember that the set of amendments to the Constitution passed after the Civil War, on which so many rely for so much, were prompted primarily by the fact that racists in the South had invented the notion that the Second Amendment was about a state’s right, so they could use the “militia” to take away not just guns but anything else they felt like from blacks?

    • Just remember that the Dred Scott case was that if blacks became citizens that they would qualify for individual 2A rights.

  13. It is one thing for the N.R.A. to celebrate black Second Amendment advocates such as its spokesman Colion Noir, and Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. of Milwaukee County, but it is quite another for Wayne LaPierre to inveigh against “home invaders, drug cartels, carjackers, knockout gamers, and rapers, and haters,” and for the camera to then pan around a sea of white faces clapping in unison.

    This sounds pretty goddamn racist to me. It’s like the author assumes that all criminals are black, and that everyone else shares his assumption.

    • Black history month is just around the corner! And I am tired of peanuts and reminders of how wrong things went at the end of the civil rights movement.

  15. Good post, RF, and while I see Mr Cooke is a fan of 2A rights, and a follower of TTAG (smart man!)

    http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/390739/american-police-buy-gun-and-give-your-privacy-rights-charles-c-w-cooke .

    I agree there’s a certain flavor of moral superiority in these lectures by white guys to other white guys about what to say to or about black people. I’m guessing that was the price of entry to the NYTs editorial page, but whatever.

    If I were black I’d guess its almost as annoying to hear white guys tell one another what to think about black folks, or go on and on about if Colion is the perfect guy to talk to all black folks about guns, etc.

    So I’m just gonna say, great job to the NRA for listening, after Mr LaPierre got a bit passionate, post Sandy Hook, and to the Board for listening to all your members, and often crtical places like TTAG, for finding many more voices to speak up, including women and blacks and gay defenders of of our gender and color blind 2A rights. More, faster, please.

    Its an ugly and Inconvenient Truth that the Democrats have done more damage to black family life, via their various progressive allies, like NOW founder Margaret Sangers eugenics beginings, and that old racist LBJ, who cynically thought to convert all blacks to Democrats, via welfare dependency, or the Progressive Gun Grabber In Chief, who comically thought it was he POTUS job to solve a dispute betwwen a cop and a radical professor over a beer.

    There are plenty of black leaders who have said same, from Bill Cosby, who was widely UncleTom’d for sayin so years ago, to Justice Thomas, to Tom Sowell, and more, including black journalists and everyday citizens, like the black guy who went on a rant, about black rioters behaviour that went viral. Seems like calling someone an Uncle Tom is not working so well, is what I am saying,

    and judging by the rantic panty twisting on the left, and the. Talking Points Memos abrupt return to the already worn out meme last election, for the War on Women…we dont ned to obsess about spin…

    It takes a long time for the tide to turn, but when it does, it has its own power, and I dont think it maaters at this point what color my skin is, or what I do in the bedroom, for what I say to make a difference, truth about guns or otherwise. Folks in Ferguson booed the Fake Reverends, Al and Jesse out of town, and I dont think the Activist AG, is having any more luck…based on skin color.

    Tl;dr. Lets just let the NYT go on giving the lectures on how to think based on skin color…
    Never interrupt your enemy while they are digging their own grave.

  16. At the last republican national convention some of the attendees threw peanuts at an African American camera woman and screamed “This is the way we feed the animals”. I understand that not all republicans think that way but more than an insignificant number do. So the solution for Black people is to start pulling the republican lever? Maybe there should be a coalition of black, brown red and yellow that put up candidates for national offices. Now that would make things real interesting.

    • On the first point; that’s news to me, though I’ll take your word for it. My initial thought is a ‘false flag’ incident (ie, planted democrat operatives). There’s no way that situation plays well.
      On the second point; I think pulling levers blue or red is a major problem. I’d say the Dems have done a great job of getting a lot of people to vote against their best interest, all in the name of equality and guilt. By the same token, the Repubs have scared so many voters away with morals this and that, plus caving to every real fight in the past 5 years. My solution? Anybody but the Dems; they make it clear where they stand and I’d rather have a flip-flop conservative over a hard left liberal. As for coalitions, I’d say forget race and vote what’s best for yourself and family in the long run. Obviously I’d go pure, true constitutional conservatism if I had my druthers.

    • I’m calling you a flat out LAIR! The only way that would of happened , would be a leftist liberal doing it to start some sh*t. Or you can prove me wrong with verifiable links. By the way your name fits.

      • It seems to have happened, though the culprits certainly didn’t have the support of the others there. If it was in fact a couple of registered reps who did this it certainly traces back to the ill fated decision to appeal to radical elements in the 70s as a means to rejuvenate republican power. These radicals were likely castoffs from the democrats own recruitment of black gay and other minority voters in the 60s to the horror of its deeply bigoted membership at that time.

  17. Comments are epic. In here and on the NYT.

    Telling your typical progressive what a racist sham gun control was, is and always will be is enough to send up a wail from both coasts loud enough to hear in Nebraska.

  18. I live in a semi rural county in Southeast Wisconin where the African America population is about 1%. Last month I took a course to obtain my conceal carry permit, and out of 60 people in the room approximately 10 were African American.

    All the people in the room looked looked like responsible, law abiding citizens who have a concern for the safety of themselves and their families. I assume that Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke probably had a lot to do with the large number of African Anericans who were in the class – he is the one of a very few law enforcement professionals who is not afraid to state the obvious – if a bad guy breaks into your house late a night, there is no way you can dial 911 and have the police majically appear to prevent a crime from happening.

    In a time when Republicans shoot themselves in the foot by supporting policies that make African Americans feel unwelcome (such as Voter ID laws that seek to disenfranchise African Americans and the poor), the NRA Is the one pro civil rights / pro family organization that recognizes that there is a growing number of African Americans that are tired of the status quo in America and want the safety and security that the second amendment offers.

    • I see similar proportions here, at gun stores the range and in meeting people in the real world. Whites are the majority but blacks seem at least equally represented adjusting for population. In your case they seem to be more than equally represented. people who expect a 50/50 split in ownership or membership when one party equals less than half the total numbers of the other don’t understand math or statistics. Assuming an equal representation in any cross section of population a minority will still be shown as a minority.

    • How is it that ‘black’ people can get a carry permit, but not a voter ID?

      It’s racist as hell to imply that they aren’t capable of obtaining a common ID.

  19. “The Comments Section Is Closed.”

    My shocked face is…. oh screw it, who am I kidding……

  21. OK!! I have hit my limit. Four separate autoplay videos with sound all playing over each other and grinding my browser to a halt! TTAG needs to hire somebody who knows how to tailor/limit the ads to a reasonable level and type – this has gotten ridiculous.

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