Anyway, the NRA has hired this not-so-bright shill-for-hire. Ward immediately demonstrated his acumen for failure by arguing on a CNN newcast:
I think Martin Luther King, Jr. would agree with me if he were alive today that if African Americans had been given the right to keep and bear arms from day one of the country’s founding, perhaps slavery might not have been a chapter in our history.
Wow. This comment reaches Jonathan Clark Sullivan-levels of idiocy. Of course, Ward is just a tad tone deaf in that he doesn't seem to recall the circumstances of the tragedy that befell Martin Luther King, Jr. Nor does he seem to understand King's message was one of non-violence.
But Ward's misguided attempts to channel King aside, what of the guns and slavery issue? Well, this bit of 'logic' fails like most gunloon arguments as well. One could just as easily argue that without guns, there wouldn't have been slaveholders or slavetraders.
But as the link shows, there were armed slave revolts and they always failed. As history has demonstrated, time after time, tyranny, genocide, enslavement has nothing to do with gun ownership. It has everything to do with the access--or lack thereof--to public institutions and laws.
Once again, Goldilocks shows himself to be not all that bright by making sweeping statements without evidence or without careful analysis of the facts.
ReplyDeleteBut do tell us, Goldilocks, what keeps public institutions from turning corrupt and tyrannical?
Note Greggy changes the subject when confronted with yet another example of NRA gunloon stupidity.
ReplyDeleteBut let's entertain ourselves with Greggy a bit; let's address his deflection.
Public institutions don't turn corrupt. It's denial to those institutions that creates injustices and tyranny. For example, Jim Crow laws excluded blacks from access--or at least full access--to such institutions.
If we look at a country like Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, we see a society that was literally awash in guns; even military-grade weapons. Yet, most of the country lived under a brutal tyranny for nearly 4 decades. Why? Again, the answer is clear: a large segment of the country was denied full or partial access to public institutions.
What yokels like Greggy don't understand is that history isn't like 'Red Dawn' or a WWE wrestling match. Power--true power--isn't wielded by gun-toting fat white males. The levers of real power are manipulated by access to public institutions.
I didn't change the subject. If you've read Jared Diamond's book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, you'll have seen a discussion on why Africans were enslaved. Europeans had guns, while the Africans didn't. There were other factors involved, but certainly, when people are armed, they are better able to defend themselves from armed aggressors.
DeleteIn many cases, Africans who were sold into slavery were sold by the rulers of their homelands or by Arab traders who captured them. Again, had those Africans been armed, they could have resisted the slave ships that came to their coasts--ships with limited supplies that couldn't hang around fighting an armed populace.
Regarding our public institutions, perhaps you'll have noticed the clause in the First Amendment on that subject? One special characteristic of our nation is that under the law, we're all equal. There are no legal castes. We haven't been perfect in realizing that goal, but we've done a pretty good job. One part of that equality is the idea that we all have the same rights, including the right to be armed.
"Of course, Ward is just a tad tone deaf in that he doesn't seem to recall the circumstances of the tragedy that befell Martin Luther King, Jr. Nor does he seem to understand King's message was one of non-violence."
ReplyDeleteMost people think King would be the last person to own a gun. Yet in the mid-1950s, as the civil rights movement heated up, King kept firearms for self-protection. In fact, he even applied for a permit to carry a concealed weapon.
A recipient of constant death threats, King had armed supporters take turns guarding his home and family. He had good reason to fear that the Klan in Alabama was targeting him for assassination.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-winkler/mlk-and-his-guns_b_810132.html