Fox Sports columnist Jason Whitlock, the same writer Bob Costas based his ridiculous anti-gun halftime report on over the weekend, told CNN's Roland Martin yesterday that the NRA is the new KKK.
Sports gets so much attention, and people tune out the real world, that I try to take advantage of the opportunity to talk about the real world when sports lends itself to that and try to open people’s eyes. You know, I did not go as far as I’d like to go because my thoughts on the NRA and America’s gun culture – I believe the NRA is the new KKK. And that the arming of so many black youths, uh, and loading up our community with drugs, and then just having an open shooting gallery, is the work of people who obviously don’t have our best interests [at heart].
I think it’s obvious if you’ve traveled abroad, and traveled to countries where they have legitimate gun laws, that we don’t have to have what we have in America, where people somehow think a gun enhances their liberty, and that people somehow think a gun makes them safer. It just doesn’t. A gun turns some kids listening to music into a murder scene. And uh, you know, if you don’t have a gun, you drive home. You know, kids listening to some loud music, you don’t like it, you go home and complain to your wife. But when you have a gun, you open fire, potentially, and take the life of a child.
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A few thoughts here. First, I would be happy to debate Whitlock about "America's gun culture" any day, in fact, read my column on the issue today. Second, "the arming of so many black youths?" Is Whitlock really so ignorant to think the National Rifle Association arms anyone? People arm themselves because they have a constitutional right to do so. Do they have a constitutional right to shoot the mother of their children nine times for staying out at a concert too late as NFL player Jovan Belcher did over the weekend? No.
Throughout this entire Belcher case, people like Whitlock have tried to shift as much attention away from the actual incident and the man who committed the atrocity in the first place. Belcher was an NFL player who had a history of domestic violence, he killed the mother of his child in cold blood over the weekend and yet, Whitlock refuses to hold him responsible for his actions and would rather blame the NRA and America's gun culture.
Third, "guns" don't turn kids listening to music into killers and men irritated with loud music don't just head home with their gun to shoot their wives. The kids Whitlock refers to above make their own decisions and if those decisions include using guns improperly, only they are responsible for their actions.
Fourth, Whitlock says we should go to other countries to understand gun laws. No need to go to another country, I would invite him to head straight to Chicago, Washington D.C. and New York City and see how the strictest gun laws in the country are working out. Hint: not so well. This year alone we've seen more than 440 murders in Chicago. On the flip side, the cities and states with the least intrusive gun laws have seen gun crime steadily decrease in the past ten years.
Fifth, it is absolutely asinine Whitlock would compare the NRA to the KKK at all. Reality check: the NRA actually help protect black people from the KKK and can be credited as being the country's first Civil Rights organization. Ann Coulter explained this back in April.
Gun control laws were originally promulgated by Democrats to keep guns out of the hands of blacks. This allowed the Democratic policy of slavery to proceed with fewer bumps and, after the Civil War, allowed the Democratic Ku Klux Klan to menace and murder black Americans with little resistance.
(Contrary to what illiterates believe, the KKK was an outgrowth of the Democratic Party, with overlapping membership rolls. The Klan was to the Democrats what the American Civil Liberties Union is today: Not every Democrat is an ACLU'er, but every ACLU'er is a Democrat. Same with the Klan.)
In 1640, the very first gun control law ever enacted on these shores was passed in Virginia. It provided that blacks -- even freemen -- could not own guns.
For more than a hundred years, Republicans have aggressively supported arming blacks, so they could defend themselves against Democrats.
The original draft of the Anti-Klan Act of 1871 -- passed at the urging of Republican president Ulysses S. Grant -- made it a federal felony to "deprive any citizen of the United States of any arms or weapons he may have in his house or possession for the defense of his person, family, or property." This section was deleted from the final bill only because it was deemed both beyond Congress' authority and superfluous, inasmuch as the rights of citizenship included the right to bear arms.
Under authority of the Anti-Klan Act, President Grant deployed the U.S. military to destroy the Klan, and pretty nearly completed the job.
But the Klan had a few resurgences in the early and mid-20th century. Curiously, wherever the Klan became a political force, gun control laws would suddenly appear on the books.
This will give you an idea of how gun control laws worked. Following the firebombing of his house in 1956, Dr. Martin Luther King, who was, among other things, a Christian minister, applied for a gun permit, but the Alabama authorities found him unsuitable. A decade later, he won a Nobel Peace Prize.
How's that "may issue" gun permit policy working for you?
The NRA opposed these discretionary gun permit laws and proceeded to grant NRA charters to blacks who sought to defend themselves from Klan violence -- including the great civil rights hero Robert F. Williams.
So there you have it. Whitlock, like so many liberals who opine on the NRA, is ignorant about the NRA's history and the important role it has played throughout history to protect black people. Second Amendment rights are essential to a free and tyranny free society, something Whitlock doesn't understand.
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