NPR produced a somewhat pro gun story. I have been railed on Dailykos for suggesting that law abiding inner city residents should take their own protection into their own hands. I have also said that additional fees around guns make it harder for the poorest people to exercise their consitutional right to bear arms, just like a poll tax.
www.npr.org/...
Black people are disproportionately victimized by gun violence, and prominent African-American leaders are among those calling for tighter gun control. Yet as Karen Grigsby Bates of NPR's Code Switch team found out, many other African-Americans believe that owning guns is crucial to protecting themselves and their rights.
I regularly read on Dailykos that all you would need to do is arm black people and walk them through a white Texas neighborhood to get white people to call for a gun ban. This simply isn’t true anymore (unlike what happened in the 60’s and was the driver behind the gun control act).
BATES: In California, the Black Panther Party carried loaded rifles to the State Capitol in Sacramento to remind residents in black neighborhoods like Oakland they could.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Singing) The revolution has come, time to pick up the gun.
BATES: After that, the state's shocked lawmakers made carrying loaded firearms illegal. And in 1968, after several urban riots, the Federal Gun Control Act was passed, which attempted to ban the sale of cheap handguns. What that did, said Robert Cottrell, a law professor at George Washington University, is to leave black residents in high-crime areas vulnerable.
On gun forums everywhere, even the most strident conservatives recognize that law abiding inner city blacks should own guns to protect themselves because of the high crime rates in impoverished areas.
Law abiding inner city African Americans should own guns. Many are realizing they can’t depend on the government to protect them and need to take their protection into their own hands.