NRA Spokesman Uses MLK Day to Make the Case for More Guns

[onehandle]

The NRA tends to stay silent in the immediate aftermath of a high-profile shooting incident, but the organization evidently felt enough time had passed since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed in 1968 that they could put out the video below connecting the civil rights leader to the push for less restrictive gun laws. To mark today’s holiday, the NRA enlisted its hip, young, black “commentator” Colion Noir to deliver a video message about how much King loved guns.

Quickly, Noir shifts his message to gun control, pointing out the fact that he was granted a concealed handgun license, while historical record shows that King applied for one and was denied. “Let’s not forget, the first forms of gun control were created to keep people like me from having guns,” he says, invoking his shared race with King.

In his role as the most visible civil rights leader of his time, Dr. King knew that he was in danger and evidently took steps to try to protect himself. But even though he “surrounded himself with people with guns,” as Noir explains, it didn’t stop him from being gunned down by his assassin James Earl Ray from across the street while he was standing on the balcony of his hotel room. Noir does not address how a concealed weapons permit would have helped King in that particular situation.

But perhaps the most egregious part of Noir’s video comes when he links historically racist gun control laws to current-day gun control efforts like limiting magazine capacity and strengthening background checks. Proposals like those, which the NRA so vehemently opposes, are not designed to “keep people like me from having guns” as Noir suggests. They are meant to help prevent senseless shootings like the one that took Dr. King’s life far too soon.

For the NRA to co-opt this day of remembrance to promote their message that more guns make Americans safer is beyond tone-deaf — it’s irresponsible and wrong.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/nra-spokesman-uses-mlk-day-to-make-the-case-for-more-guns

Accurate photo composite of average NRA member:

[IMG][/IMG]

[gopiscrap]

1. The NRA is a terrorist organization

full of narrow minded, bigoted, paranoid, racist assholes. NRA means no reasoning allowed!

[Hoyt]

2. Looks like my ignorant, racist neighbor showing off his gunz.

I love it when gun fanciers try to use the fact that minorities were denied gun permits as a reason to let almost anyone buy or carry gunz. The way around that is to apply restrictions to everyone, even white wing gun nuts.

[Larsonb]

3. How would a law limiting capacity have prevented the assassination of Dr. King?

They are meant to help prevent senseless shootings like the one that took Dr. King’s life far too soon.

James Earl Ray killed Dr. King with a single shot fired from a Remington model 760 pump action rifle, which has a four shot magazine.