Gun Appreciation Day Leader: If Blacks Had Guns, They Would Not Have Been Slaves

[DonViejo]

Source: TPM



EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO 9:53 AM EST, FRIDAY JANUARY 11, 2013

Larry Ward, chairman of the national Gun Appreciation Day gun rights advocates have planned for the weekend of President Obama's second inauguration, told CNN Friday that there never would have been slaves in America if black people had guns.

"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," Ward said.

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Read more: http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/gun-appreciation-day-leader-if-blacks-had-guns

[NOLALady]

1. I wonder about

his views on Native Americans with guns.

[BVictor1]

2. OMFG...

As an African-American, I just face palmed at that comment.

Many of the slaves were entrusted with guns on the plantation.

And there were slave uprisings. I guess he's never heard of Nat Turner.

The stupidity and ignorance of these people is never ending.

[AlbertCat]

6. The stupidity and ignorance of these people is never ending.

Yeah... if the indentured servants the Dutch brought over in 1600-something had had assault rifles..... slavery never would have gotten off the ground!

The stupid.... it burns!


Do these people have no concept of history? Do they think it was just like today...only with wigs and hoop skirts?????

[yardwork]

12. That sums up my reaction to that comment, too.

There were already slaves in America hundreds of years before "the date of our founding," too.

I'm constantly amazed at how little history the right-wingers know. One would think that they would bother to learn something about the country they keep claiming to be the best one on earth.

[kimbutgar]

3. He obviously just saw Django at the movies

These people will start using what happened in a movie to call for more guns, wait and see.

[Boomerproud]

4. "I think Martin Luther King would agree with me..."

Martin Luther King was SHOT you numbskull.

[Major Nikon]

5. What do you expect from the same people who think...

the answer to intracity gun violence is to send more guns?

[earthside]

7. Desperation.

Frankly, I find this level of idiocy and ignorance a sign that the stooges of the gun manufacturers know that the tide is/has turned on the 'gun control' issue.

The crazier and nuttier they sound, the more they grasp at straws to justify their extreme position, the more you know that they are losing.

[onehandle]

8. Random Guy On Internet: If Republicans Had Brains, They Would Not Be Republicans. nt

[starroute]

9. The people of Haiti won their independent from France by force

And were hit with crippling, long-term economic retaliation that reduced what was once the jewel of the French empire to being the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.

Though fools may like to quote Chairman Mao, power doesn't really grow out of the barrel of a gun.

[TreasonousBastard]

10. There's a "gun appreciation day"? Is that like Valentine's Day...

where you bring it presents and make sweet love?

This asshole stammered through it, so he knew he was on real thin ice and I don't think he expected an erudite black woman on the other half of the screen adding to his embarrassment. BTW, she was much more civil in her answer to that idiocy than a lot of people would be.

There are times when I wonder just why it is that merely being born here gives you the right to vote and shoot off both your guns and your mouth. Maybe there should be a test...

[Spitfire of ATJ]

16. "Is that like Valentine's Day...where you bring it presents and make sweet love?"

Damn close....



BTW: They were Morans too.

[Smilo]

11. Wow, just shows how

ignorant and fanatical these gun nuts really are.

[Tempest]

13. Apparently this jerkwad had never heard of Nat Turner.

"Ward also neglects to mention that in fact there were many armed uprisings by slaves, as early as 1526. Armed revolts almost always failed, and often led to retribution by the slave owners, who had the justice system on their side. Most famously, Nat Turner led a rebellion that resulted in 60 white deaths and 100 black deaths. The state later executed 56 blacks accused of being involved in the insurrection, and white mobs beat and killed at least 200 others in revenge."

[jwirr]

14. Seems that many in former slave states must have believed in gun control then.

[Historic NY]

18. +1

[indypaul]

15. IF

If your aunt had balls she would be your uncle.

"Of all the words from lips or pen,

The saddest of those, are what might have been."

[kelliekat44]

17. Well, that ought to make a whole lot of white people want more guns on the street? nt

[zebrastripe]

19. NO, THEY WOULD NOT BE SLAVES

they would be dead, as are those in the Warsaw Uprising!

[DallasNE]

20. Only If They Would Have Had Those Guns Back In Africa

Then if not Africa, the slave traders would have gone to India, Indonesia, where ever people could be kidnapped from and brought to America so that dog won't hunt unless the entire world was equally armed and dangerous.

And how well did those 2nd Amendment rights work for slaves, or for that matter, native Americans? It seems like a well regulated militia kept those slaves and native Americans in there place in the true sense of the 2nd Amendment. This dude needs to be more careful in what he says because history will surely prove him wrong.

[GeorgeGist]

21. If indigenous people had guns ...

there would be no 2nd Amendment.

[alp227]

22. So will Gun Appreciation Day also feature an N.W.A. reunion?

That's the gangsta rap group known for the "Fuck Tha Police" song. Back then the right wing was howling outrage over gangsta rappers like N.W.A., Ice-T, etc. But now that Obama's in office the right wing is starting to go gun crazy even endorsing the idea of firing back against "tyrannical government"...which of course includes the cops. Apparently blacks with guns = only acceptable in a "Django Unchained" scene but not in modern setting.

[primavera]

23. Right, they'd be corpses

Plenty of African-Americans owned guns in the south during the 20th century. It didn't seem to be much of a deterrent against being lynched by Klansmen.

[struggle4progress]

24. Filed under: You're a day late and a dollar short

Slavery was ended 150 years ago after a great and bloody civil war started by gun-loving slaveholders