Conservative commentator and Director of Urban Engagement for Turning Point USA, Candace Owens, urged the black community to protect the National Rifle Association (NRA), reminding them that the pro-Second Amendment group started out as a means to protect against the KKK.
Owens appeared on Fox & Friends this past Sunday and proudly announced, “I just joined the NRA.”
She then set about providing viewers with a brief history lesson on why the organization is such a vital piece of history for African-Americans.
“I’m a black American,” Owens explained, “and I know that the NRA was started as a civil rights organization training black Americans to arm themselves and to defend themselves against the KKK.”
“The Democrats have been good at wiping away history and re-writing it” –@RealCandaceO talks about joining NRA which she says started as a civil rights organization pic.twitter.com/gqSMUKKdoU
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) March 4, 2018
Owens is correct and clearly knows her history, a topic some students from Parkland, Florida, have failed to grasp in their push to abolish the NRA.
She added that “Democrats have been good at wiping away history and re-writing it” when it comes to the Second Amendment-supporting group.
The @NRA is the oldest civil rights organization in the country. In the 1960’s they helped to train black Americans to use guns to defend themselves against the Ku Klux Klan, a Democrat terrorist group. https://t.co/Z3wQ2MUzD0
— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) March 4, 2018
Historians agree.
In his book ‘Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America,’ UCLA law professor Adam Winkler writes, “Few people realize it, but the Ku Klux Klan began as a gun control organization.”
“After the Civil War, the Klan and other violent racist groups sought to reaffirm white supremacy, which required confiscating the guns blacks had obtained for the first time during the conflict,” he wrote.
Author Ann Coulter also shared knowledge of the NRA as a counter to the KKK.
“Gun control laws were originally promulgated by Democrats to keep guns out of the hands of blacks.” – https://t.co/eWqLuUUhml
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) February 24, 2018
“Following the firebombing of his house in 1956, Dr. Martin Luther King, who was, among other things, a Christian minister, applied for a gun permit, but the Alabama authorities found him unsuitable.” https://t.co/eWqLuUUhml
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) February 24, 2018
“The NRA opposed these discretionary gun permit laws & proceeded to grant NRA charters to blacks who sought to defend themselves from Klan violence — including the great civil rights hero Robert F. Williams.” https://t.co/eWqLuUUhml
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) February 24, 2018
Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice recently shared a story in which her father and their neighbors used guns as a means to protect their community from Klan racists.
“Let me tell you why I’m a defender of the Second Amendment,” Rice began. “I was a little girl growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, in the late fifties, early sixties. There was no way that Bull Connor and the Birmingham Police were going to protect you.”
“And so when White Knight Riders would come through our neighborhood,” she continued, “my father and his friends would take their guns and they’d go to the head of the neighborhood, it’s a little cul-de-sac and they would fire in the air, if anybody came through.”
Not sure if you’ve seen this clip but this is EXACTLY why we NEED a right to bear arms: government tyranny and others that aim to kill you! https://t.co/UGqEymYnb6 #FromMyColdDeadHands
— 🇺🇸CA 🇻🇮Patriot🇺🇸 (@Libertarian181) March 4, 2018
“I don’t think they actually ever hit anybody. But they protected the neighborhood,” Rice concluded.
As for Owens, she wants to see black Americans rise up and defend the NRA.
“It’s very important that black Americans take a stand and protect the NRA in the same way that they defended us,” she said.
Will you stand up and defend the NRA in trying times? Share your thoughts below!
