Martin Luther King and the Right to Bear Arms
[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]
Okay, did I slip into some kind of alternate universe, or did a Huffington Post columnist write something discussing the right to bear arms that wasn’t clearly pro or con and was actually kind of interesting? Adam Winkler takes on the issue of Dr. King and the right to bear arms, and there is a lot to love on both the anti- and pro- side of things. For instance on the pro- side of it:
Most people think King would be the last person to own a gun. Yet in the mid-1950s, as the civil rights movement heated up, King kept firearms for self-protection. In fact, he even applied for a permit to carry a concealed weapon.
A recipient of constant death threats, King had armed supporters take turns guarding his home and family. He had good reason to fear that the Klan in Alabama was targeting him for assassination.
William Worthy, a journalist who covered the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, reported that once, during a visit to King’s parsonage, he went to sit down on an armchair in the living room and, to his surprise, almost sat on a loaded gun. Glenn Smiley, an adviser to King, described King’s home as “an arsenal.”
As I found researching my new book, Gunfight, in 1956, after King’s house was bombed, King applied for a concealed carry permit in Alabama. The local police had discretion to determine who was a suitable person to carry firearms. King, a clergyman whose life was threatened daily, surely met the requirements of the law, but he was rejected nevertheless. At the time, the police used any wiggle room in the law to discriminate against African Americans.
This does line up with my long feeling that Dr. King was a bit of a hypocrite when it came to violence. The man did in fact use violence, but without seeming violent and especially without visibly getting his hands dirty. For instance, he often (correctly) asked the police to protect his protesters—but how could the police do that without being willing to engage in at least enough violence to restrain? And his speeches would toy with violence, saying he was angry that he has to keep back the desire get violent, with the implicit message being “we can either do this change peacefully, or we can have this:”
Mind you, I consider that forgivable hypocrisy. But it’s there. Indeed, seeking to have a concealed weapon was part of it. He wanted to be armed, without anyone knowing he was armed. Surely that wasn’t for deterrent reasons. A gun on the hip would have deterred people.* Hiding the weapon and talking about non-violence would have made the Klan think he was unarmed—it surely made them more likely to try to kill him. In other words, he wanted that gun so he could shoot back and as a result, violence would have been more likely, not less, if he was granted the concealed carry permit.
And the fact that police discretion was abused to disarm this man who had every justification to carry a gun also plays into Second Amendment arguments.
But like I said, some of this post supports pro-gun-control ideas, too, namely in the fact that as time went on Dr. King stopped having armed guards. Although you wonder how much of that was to avoid precisely the claims of hypocrisy I am employing now. Still, both sides get something, and I do heartily recommend that you read the whole thing.
But about that issue of alternate universes, let me see here. Let me look up this guy’s picture…
Oh… my… God…
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* I want to note that the deterrence value of a concealed weapon is very different in a case like Dr. King’s. A concealed weapon doesn’t lead one to think that this individual is definitely armed, obviously, but if a society has a reputation for concealed ownership, then it makes it impossible for a would-be criminal to know whether his or her potential victim is armed. Thus concealed carry creates a society-wide deterrence, rather than deterrence specific to a potential target. But Dr. King acted in a fashion that affirmatively made one believe he was unarmed, negating even that society-wide deterrence.
[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]
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See, I don’t consider it hypocrisy. Even Gandhi believed that a man should use violence if his family was being attacked, so for Dr King to have weapons on had makes perfect sense.
He was, after all, dealing with people who were willing to firebomb his house.
And owning guns does not violate a stance of “non-violence”. I have a friend who would very likely be tossed during a draft because of a long-held belief against the use of violence, but he owns several guns. He enjoys target shooting, and I know that he’d only use them against another person if his wife or kids were threatened.
As I said, that hardly is hypocritical in my book.
Scott Jacobs (d027b8) — 1/19/2011 @ 2:45 pmMartin Luther King was a patriot, in my book, not only because he was so aware that he was sacrificing his life for his great cause, but also because he had great faith in this country. You can see that faith primarily in his non-violent protest ideal. It’s meant to stir the soul, and change hearts.
King wasn’t cursed with perfection (who is?), and it’s not like his non-violence was absolutist or irrational. He was often protect by men with guns, and I have no doubt he would take up arms, if he felt that he had no better options. But what makes King great is that he saw that there was a better option, and sacrificed himself for that option.
Listening to his last speeches, it’s clear he knew the price, and paid it. He’s as heroic as a US Soldier showing tremendous valor. I sorely wish he was remembered much more clearly. Sure, some of his personal flaws aren’t much discussed, but I’m glad. We need heroes.
Content of character, over mere, artificial, stupid, race.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/19/2011 @ 2:55 pmPretty sure the violence he was speaking out against was the mob-sort, not the self-defense sort, given the time and all.
The risk of riots– or the accusation of inciting riots– are a really good reason to beat the “non-violent” drum to death. Having a visible weapon would have made him safer, yes, but it would have said the wrong thing to the hot-heads in his audience.
Not hypocritical, just different situations– pretty sure he didn’t tell people to let themselves be killed rather than defending themselves, even though he urged not to do violence to counter the wrongs they were facing.
Foxfier (24dddb) — 1/19/2011 @ 4:20 pmThis is Gandhi’s non-violence, which is not the none violence of the coward.
from http://www.mkgandhi.org/nonviolence/g_views.htm ,
…
All have to destroy some life,
for sustaining their own bodies,
for protecting those under their care, or
Something for the sake of those whose life is taken.
(a) and (b) in ‘2’ mean himsa to a greater or less extent. (c) means no himsa and is therefore ahimsa. Himsa in (a) and (b) is unavoidable.
A progressive ahimsa-ist will, therefore, commit the himsa contained in (a) and (b) as little as possible, only when it is unavoidable, and after full and mature deliberation and having exhausted all remedies to avoid it.
Taking life may be a duty. We do destroy as much life as we think necessary for sustaining our body. Thus for food we take life, vegetable and other, and for health we destroy mosquitoes and the like by the use of disinfectants etc. and we do not think that we are guilty of irreligion in doing so…for the benefit of the species, we kill carnivorous beasts…Even man-slaughter may be necessary in certain cases. Suppose a man runs amuck and goes furiously about sword in hand, and killing anyone that comes in his way, and no one dares to capture him alive. Any one who despatches this lunatic, will earn the gratitude of the community and be regarded as a benevolent man. –YI, 4—II-26, 385.
I see that there is an instinctive horror of killing living beings under any circumstances whatever. For instance, an alternative has been suggested in the shape of confining even rabid dogs in a certain place and allowing them to die a slow death. Now my idea of compassion makes this thing impossible for me. I cannot for a moment bear to see a dog, or for that matter any other living being, helplessly suffering the torture of a slow death. I do not kill a human being thus circumstanced because I have more hopeful remedies. I should kill a dog similarly situated, because in its case I am without a remedy. Should my child be attacked with rabies and there was no helpful remedy to relieve his agony, I should consider it my duty to take his life. Fatalism has its limits. We leave things to Fate after exhausting all the remedies. One of the remedies and the final one to relieve the agony of a tortured child is to take his life.
… and …
My creed of nonviolence is an extremely active force. It has no room for cowardice or even weakness. There is hope for a violent man to be some day non-violent, but there is none for a coward. I have, therefore, said more than once….that, if we do not know how to defend ourselves, our women and our places of worship by the force of suffering, i.e., nonviolence, we must, if we are men, be at least able to defend all these by fighting.
No matter how weak a person is in body, if it is a shame to flee, he will stand his ground and die at his post. This would be nonviolence and bravery. No matter how weak he is, he will use what strength he has in inflicting injury on his opponent, and die in the attempt. This is bravery, but not nonviolence. If, when his duty is to face danger, he flees, it is cowardice. In the first case, the man will have love or charity in him. In the second and third cases, there would be a dislike or distrust and fear.
My nonviolence does admit of people, who cannot or will not be nonviolent, holding and making effective use of arms. Let me repeat for the thousandth time that nonviolence is of the strongest, not of the weak.
To run away from danger, instead of facing it, is to deny one’s faith in man and God, even one’s own self. It were better for one to drown oneself than live to declare such bankruptcy of faith.
Self-defence by Violence
I have been repeating over and over again that he who cannot protect himself or his nearest and dearest or their honour by non-violently facing death may and ought to do so by violently dealing with the oppressor. He who can do neither of the two is a burden. He has no business to be the head of a family. He must either hide himself, or must rest content to live for ever in helplessness and be prepared to crawl like a worm at the bidding of a bully.
The strength to kill is not essential for self-defence; one ought to have the strength to die. When a man is fully ready to die, he will not even desire to offer violence. Indeed, I may put it down as a self-evident proposition that the desire to kill is in inverse proportion to the desire to die. And history is replete with instances of men who, by dying with courage and compassion on their lips, converted the hearts of their violent opponents.
Nonviolence cannot be taught to a person who fears to die and has no power of resistance. A helpless mouse is not nonviolent because he is always eaten by pussy. He would gladly eat the murderess if he could, but he ever tries to flee from her. We do not call him a coward, because he is made by nature to behave no better than he does.
But a man who, when faced by danger, behaves like a mouse, is rightly called a coward. He harbors violence and hatred in his heart and would kill his enemy if he could without hurting himself. He is a stranger to nonviolence. All sermonizing on it will be lost on him. Bravery is foreign to his nature. Before he can understand nonviolence, he has to be taught to stand his ground and even suffer death, in the attempt to defend himself against the aggressor who bids fair to overwhelm him. To do otherwise would be to confirm his cowardice and take him further away from nonviolence.
…
htom (412a17) — 1/19/2011 @ 5:17 pmIt was only recently that I read about the civil rights movement’s reliance on our 2d amendment rights to stand up to the dark forces that sought to keep the unjust status quo. The following historical review noted that gun control has always in reality been majority control of minorities.
It is one more source of inspiration to me that our forefathers knew that the abstract ‘right to defend one’s life and liberty’ via bearing arms would ultimately be the nitty gritty, dark reality of enabling common, oppressed men to stand up to groups like the clan. I find I am proud of the unknown black men, probably veterans who made that statement and carried those weapons.
While King renounced bearing arms, those around him continued to try to protect him via arms. I think those early days when he carried a gun provided a foundation of confidence that enabled him to climb the mountain. Freedom is complex isn’t it?
red (7b5f67) — 1/19/2011 @ 8:33 pmThe history of state gun control laws begins with disarming blacks after Reconstruction failed. See Cruikshank and such, racist SC decisions that are still being cited by gun controllers who appear not to have read them.
Kevin M (298030) — 1/20/2011 @ 8:18 am