Let us recall the words of abolitionist Lloyd Garrison in this process of truth telling: “ I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice.”
I just learned that the NRA’s current stance on gun reform is political far beyond the degree of merely upholding the Constitutional rights of Americans. In a landmark decision, led and advocated for by Ronald Regan, Don Mulford and the NRA, California changed the open carry gun law that had been in place under the Mulford Act in 1967. They did this only after the Black Panther Party started carrying guns in self-defense. By changing the law, the NRA worked strategically with state officials to limit the group’s ability to defend themselves. The Mulford Act changed the laws in order to directly disenfranchise Black American Activists, who were being lynched with impunity in the United States. In many ways, the Black Lives Matter Movement is a continuation of the work they started. (No guns, however.)
Read the history that the NRA has obfuscated from the public for the past five decades in The Atlantic’s “The Secret History of Guns.”
Plus, here’s a photo of the only confiscated gun returned to the Black Panther Party by the Oakland Police. From the current OMCA Exhibit All the Power to the People: Black Panthers at 50
Well, why not regulate and uphold gun laws in this country so that we are all safer?
