By Dr. Harold A. Black
blackh@knoxfocus.com
haroldblackphd.com
Somebody named Joy Behar on something called “The View” made the following incredibly dumb statement: “Once Black people get guns in this country, the gun laws will change. Trust me.” She apparently must think that reports of all of the shootings in our cities are fake news and that blacks are mostly using switchblades. In fact, over a quarter of gun owners in the country are black. Behar and her fellow progressives should salute black gun ownership as an example of diversity since only 13% of the population is black. Behar is also supposed to have said that “Republicans will finally ban guns when black people finally get some”. Again, a very dumb statement. She must have been thinking about Democrats, not Republicans. The gun control laws in the south were enacted in order to keep blacks from being able to protect themselves against the racial tyranny emanating from white Democrats. Martin Luther King, Jr was denied a gun permit. So was my father. But he kept a handgun in the house and carried one with him when we traveled. Dad always wore a coat and tie saying that white people treated him better if he was “dressed up”. He also knew that he would be arrested for protecting his family with a gun, but he was willing to take that chance. Luckily, he never had to.
From 1900 through the Civil Rights Era there were 675 lynchings in Georgia. This is the period that I call “The Reign of Terror.” It was when a white could murder a black and likely not spend a day behind bars. On the rare occasion of an arrest, all the judges were white as were all the jurors. Acquittal was guaranteed. In 1914, there was a lynching in my mother’s family in Jones County, GA. A white mob attacked a cousin and his son and killed them. My cousins were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The killers were well known in the community and were never prosecuted. In those days, white mobs would gather after a crime was committed and have a “picnic.” The term “picnic” in the Jim Crow era referred to lynch mobs picking a black person to hang or punish for some crime whether they committed it or not. It’s a wonder that the word “picnic” still survives in today’s cancel culture world.
The southern gun control laws applied only to handguns. My grandfather was a farmer. He and his neighbors had an arsenal of rifles and shotguns. He hunted at every opportunity and I have fond memories of tagging along plinking with a .22. My mother told the story that when he went to Detroit to join relatives and work in the automobile factories during World War II, he came back to Georgia because he couldn’t find any rabbits to hunt. Mother also told the story of a cousin seeking refuge at the farm after being threatened by whites who said he was looking askance at a white woman. My grandfather called his neighbors and a few relatives. They sat on the front porch armed to the teeth. Mom said that the lynch mob came near the farmhouse, saw the reception and then went away. The cousin moved to nearby Macon and didn’t come back to Jones County.
Statistics show that blacks are now buying guns at a faster clip than other groups. In large part the progressive’s “defund the police” movement is the reason. Urban blacks want more police rather than fewer. If the politicians, who have their own personal protection, are not willing to protect black neighborhoods, then the residents have to protect themselves. Yesterday’s blacks were prohibited from protecting themselves from the white Democrats who wrote the Jim Crow laws, used force to impose segregation and violence to keep blacks “in their place.” Like the southern Democrats of old, today’s progressives want to keep blacks in their place by restricting gun ownership. Not so for the Republicans. Contrary to what Joy Behar says, Republicans welcome black gun ownership in part because it is good to see that at least some Democrats embrace the Second Amendment.
