This is why the battle over “gun rights” is so important; just a few short months ago a major gun advocate claimed “if African Americans had been given the right to bear arms, slavery might not have been a chapter in our history.”

One more “educated” gun enthusiast

Larry Ward, then the chairman of the strange “Gun Appreciation Day”, had appeared on CNN trying to defend his nationwide gun rally.

Ward insisted “Gun Appreciation Day”, which called on gun activists across the nation to rally in support of the “right to bear arms” and against President Barack Obama’s “post-Sandy Hook assault on gun rights,” was held on 19 Jan 13, because it actually was honoring “the legacy of Dr. King.”

Was he seriously saying the famed civil rights leader, who was gunned down on a hotel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee would be “honored” to have gun nuts holding a rally on his birthday, just over a month after 20 first graders were massacred in their class room with an assault rifle? That’s like saying today’s state’s rights advocates actually “honor the legacy of the Abraham Lincoln”.

“We are looking for a peaceful protest,” Ward said.

Yeah a peaceful protest full of people packing all kinds of firearms – including assault rifles – and carrying signs with misspelled slogans. A peaceful protest with weapons, that’s as much an oxymoronic statement as having an intelligent, level-headed discussion with far-right gun advocates.

Ward continued, “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.”

That’s probably the single most ignorant statement anyone on the right has made regarding the right to bear arms, bar absolutely none, and the amazing thing with these lunatics is their complete lack of historical understanding and factual knowledge. Ward’s an idiot plain and simple.

Slavery began in this nation long before the constitutional guarantee of the Second Amendment was argued in Philadelphia when the first slaves arrived in Jamestown, brought by Dutch traders, not long after that first English colony was established.

If Ward were to read some other part of the Constitution besides the Second Amendment he might understand not only were slaves not citizens, and thus weren’t protected by the “right to bear arms”, they were only counted as 3/5 of a person for purposes of the national census; but of course Ward doesn’t know this, because he’s a moron.

So, Mr. Ward, clearly you’re an idiot. You don’t understand the Second Amendment and you clearly don’t understand your history. You’re an ignoramus, which makes you and others like you dangerous. If the uber-right’s really concerned about its right to bear arms you’re not the sort of person who should be the face of the argument.

It’s worth noting that five people were shot attending “gun appreciation day” events.