Gun Rights Are Civil Rights

NPR has an interesting interview up with Charles Cobb, the author of “This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed”. In the interview he talks about the role that guns played in the south during the Civil rights movement. The interview is just over 12 minutes in length, and offers several anecdotes about guns being used to protect people in the non-violent movement during the fight for civil rights.

I’m very much concerned with how the history of the southern freedom movement or civil rights movement is portrayed. And, I’m very conscious of the gaps in the history, and one important gap in the history, in the portrayal of the movement, is the role of guns in the movement. I worked in the South, I lived with families in the South. There was never a family I stayed with that didn’t have a gun. I know from personal experience and the experiences of others, that guns kept people alive, kept communities safe and all you have to do to understand this is simply think of black people as human beings and they’re gonna respond to terrorism the way anybody else would.

Even as a gunblogger, someone who writes and talks about guns and gun rights all the time, I have to remind myself that gun rights are civil rights from time to time. Anyways, I really enjoyed the interview, and I think it may have sold me on the book, I’ll be picking up a copy just as soon as I can find one.