In 1956 Martin Luther King Jr. applied for a concealed carry permit in Alabama since he was getting so many death threats. As you can imagine, since gun controls roots were founded in racism and keeping blacks unarmed was the point of gun control, King was denied.
Now, some of you may think that MLK Jr wanting to carry a gun is incongruent with him being a non violent civil rights activist. It’s not and here’s why; just because you preach non violence does not mean you need to be a sacrificial lamb to anyone who is going to harm you or your family.
Dr. King believed that through non-violence interaction with the government his dream of equality could be realized. But he was not naive nor stupid and did not believe that non violence would protect him or his family from those with evil in their hearts.
So Martin Luther King Jr, a black Republican pastor who preached non violence and who had quantifiable reasons to be allowed to carry concealed (the multitude of death threats) was denied a permit.
If we allow gun control to force us to ask permission in order to exercise our rights, then we leave the door open for the government to say no. And if Dr. King wasn’t good enough to get a concealed carry permit, then what hope do the rest of us have.
Gun Owners of America 
Ethan the gun lover
January 21, 2013 at 11:47 am
I would’ve given him a permit. Everybody deserves self defense
Jason Gillman Jr.
January 21, 2013 at 12:00 pm
Ethan is right – everyone deserves the ability to defend themselves.
As such, there shouldn’t even be a requirement to be “licensed” to carry. Being alive is the only license you should need.
John F. Wozniak
January 21, 2013 at 1:43 pm
I still feel like I support the right for states to require some basic competency standards with handguns before issuing a CCW, because of the fact that, well, some of the incidents I’ve heard a gun could help (which I agree with) were in crowded places. (Plus don’t get me started on idiotic celebs like Plaxico Burress holding his unlicensed weapon in the WAISTBAND of his SWEATPANTS *sighs* almost wish he DID lose something important in that incident…)
For some reason I had to throw that qualifier in before saying that I totally agree with this article… one of the dark notes in the beginning of the NRA’s history (coincidentally the time the KKK was designated a terrorist group) was to push for laws denying blacks the right to own a gun, for one thing. That seems to be well in the past, though. (For most people. There’s a scary fringe out there, but I don’t judge the whole by the old guys in Bithlo — and East Meadow! — who seem to be preparing for the ‘uprising’.) And Dr. King really did deserve the right to defend himself against the threats he had against him, for sure.
Jason Gillman Jr.
January 22, 2013 at 5:05 am
John,
Define what “basic competency standards” would entail. Further, describe how they were objectively, rather than arbitrarily, derived. Essentially, how would these “basic competency standards” be derived so it’s guaranteed that someone involved in a high tension situation will, 100% of the time, hit only the target?
John F. Wozniak
January 22, 2013 at 11:47 am
See, this is something I haven’t thought about much before Sandy Hook; I just thought that I don’t trust someone so impulsive as myself with a gun, in general. (Plus I don’t drive, where would I keep it at work?) But you’re right, it’s difficult to come up with an objective standard for something so potentially deadly as a handgun. Then again, we all have to take a test to be able to drive a car. I know, I know, someone told me that owning a gun is a right and driving a car is a privilege; I also know there are more fatalities from cars, either inside or outside of the car, than from shootings. (And I actually flunked that test ages ago, come to think of it.)
But I just can’t get around the fact that … unlike a car, a gun has one purpose when it’s being used, to kill. It can’t be reliably used to wound, or to scare someone off. And I keep on hearing about ‘panic shooting will happen’ and I wonder if people understand, ‘panic shooting means YOU ARE NOT CONTROLLING WHERE SOMETHING THAT WILL KILL SOMEONE IF IT HITS THEM IS GOING’? (Sorry for shouting, but it’s the first time I’ve really been able to say this, and it’s been kind of building up.)
Now I feel like this blog is a place where people understand that fact, in general, and it seems to be peopled with people I actually trust to be carrying. Actually? I think this would be the best place TO come up with standards. At the very least what would need to go into a three hour course where everyone who has a CCW is made to understand things like ‘You point a gun, you’re taking responsibility for the consequences for shooting it’. I’ll admit that I don’t have statistics, and I’ll admit that I’m going on what comes across as a liberal buzzword these days, ‘common sense’… but I think it really IS common sense that we should educate people on the entirety of TvTropes’ ‘Artistic License – Gun Safety’ when they buy a gun. Just to reduce the Plaxico ‘Hold My Gun In My Sweatpants With The Safety Off’ Burress’s of the world. Or the Terry “It’s not even loaded, see?” Kath’s.
msalzbrenner
January 22, 2013 at 4:57 pm
John, the very fact that firearms are created solely for the intention to kill, and that cars are created solely for the purpose of transportation, simply proves the right to own guns MORE valid. Lets think about this. A car that was never INTENTIONALLY DESIGNED to kill people, an item that one must first pass an exhaustive test to operate, and is vastly more expensive, as well as more difficult to obtain, is STILL the cause of VASTLY MORE DEATHS than firearms that were INTENTIONALLY DESIGNED to kill people, and are far easier and less expensive to obtain. This very comparison proves how much safer a firearm is than a car. And yet STILL everyone wants to try and demonize these inanimate objects for the actions of the individuals utilizing them. Its actually pretty pathetic.
John F. Wozniak
January 22, 2013 at 6:08 pm
That’s a very valid point, actually. It’s kind of interesting because I’m actually, as you may be able to tell, still forming my opinion on this subject. But automobiles are by their definition designed to protect their occupants, yet they have double the fatalities… and when people go after bad driving it’s all on the drivers and (if applicable) the alcohol. As noted elsewhere, Adam Lanza was on some kind of Zoloft-related drug and that just is not getting the same attention as the Bushmaster in his hands.
I think the problem people have with firearms is just their sole purpose is to kill. (They _can_ cause a criminal to back down, but obviously, you have to be prepared that if a perpetrator calls your bluff, there’s really only one way to demonstrate you’re not bluffing.) It’s one thing to say you’re going to have a gun to protect your self or your family, but another to really accept what that means. Actually, I know a few people who _couldn’t_ kill someone trying to kill them, or at least they’ve expressed that thought to me. And I’ve actively wondered what it means about me that I’m damn sure that I could.
That’s such a deep thought (for me) that I can’t follow it up right now, so I’ll leave this at that.
msalzbrenner
January 22, 2013 at 8:29 pm
John, I understand your dilemma. It isn’t easy to recognize the part of yourself that is capable of inflicting pain or death on another. But let me assure you, the horrible trauma that you are overcome with after taking a life is NOTHING compared to the eternal shame, suffering, and unrecoverable torment that you must endure when you are NOT willing too. I would rather suffer the pain of taking an evil persons life than endure the extreme guilt of watching one of my family die at the hands of an evil criminal, and knowing I didn’t have the heart, the courage, or the ability, to save them. That is a pain I would NEVER wish on anyone. So when it comes down to them or me. I choose me. It was NOT me that decided to terrorize some ones solitude. It was NOT me who decided to violate some ones rights. And it was not me who decided to extinguish the light of another human being. They made that choice. And I have chosen to protect myself, my family, and others, from their choice to inflict their evil upon those that are helpless. I hope that you will also choose to not be helpless. I hope that you will also choose the life of your family, yourself, and the innocent, over the life of those whom have chosen to inflict evil on others. It is not you who choose to take their life. They chose their actions that forced you to do so. I have looked into the face of evil, and I have chosen to stand against it.
John F. Wozniak
January 23, 2013 at 10:11 am
I think that’s what needs to be said, but I think it explains a lot about the divide in this country. Numbers estimate that only one in three adults own a gun legitimately; is it because most adults can’t quite fathom taking that step to protect themselves or others? Does that make everyone who carries to protect themselves ‘one of those people’ who would take a life, no matter that they’re defending themselves? I guess that makes me an honorary ‘them’, though. My brother got mugged, and all I could think of was ‘if only I was there with a weapon out and a clear shot’… at least at first. Then I thought “robbing people in THIS neighborhood? That PROVES that gun was stolen, you’d have to hit twenty houses to make the cost back…” (It’s not a BAD neighborhood per se, but it’s definitely very blue-collar, and I mean the income bracket, not the type of work.)
That’s a bit of it too. I don’t know as many gun owners as I could, but I know someone who’s been the _victim_ of a gun-related crime. Which has to be the worst one because you could have a gun, you could have it on your person, and unless you’re Wild Bill Hicock it doesn’t matter, gun-in-hand beats gun-in-holster. (DEFINITELY beats gun in PANTS.) I’m sure I’m not saying anything anyone on here doesn’t know, though.
msalzbrenner
January 23, 2013 at 10:22 am
I guess a good question to ask the people of this country would be:
Are you more afraid of guns, or the evil men that use them?
The real dilemma here is why are people so quick to eliminate the availability of guns as a blind fix for eliminating the threat of the evil men that use them?
Evil men will still be evil men, even if they are unable to use any one specific tool to assist them in performing their evil. Evil will always find a way to perform its terror. And the only defense against evil men, are good men willing to confront them.
John F. Wozniak
January 23, 2013 at 12:18 pm
That’s probably where it comes down to, isn’t it? I’m probably strange to this blog that I don’t judge people for not being able to make the distinction, but to me, it’s not a so-called moral reason why I don’t have a gun, it’s not even exactly a fear reason — though I wonder what my landlord would say about my owning one, in truth she doesn’t get a say, IIRC. It’s a financial one (the options I’d go for are kind of out of my price range) and a respect one. Partly the respect toward my roommate (who has seen me panic at some very minor sounds!) and partly the respect toward the tool itself. I don’t know how to use it and don’t want to be spraying lead or shot around until I do.
That does seem to be the problem, though… SINCE most adults don’t own a gun, they’ve never HAD to make the distinction. So when this comes around, they see a gun as a tool bad people use and don’t see it as a tool for good, because they think of themselves as good people and _they_ don’t have a gun, do they? Thing is, in all walks of life this is a dangerous dichotomy, and it applies to both sides of the gun debate as well. Most people on the gun control side of the debate, to my eyes, just don’t have a good perspective on it, and we… am I part of the ‘we’ now? Almost, but in this statement I think I _am_ for sure … we need to figure out how to educate without alarming.
msalzbrenner
January 23, 2013 at 3:47 pm
“Partly the respect toward my roommate (who has seen me panic at some very minor sounds!) and partly the respect toward the tool itself. I don’t know how to use it and don’t want to be spraying lead or shot around until I do.”
The majority of current gun owners fall into this very same category of thinking. We DO respect the tool that we intend to utilize, and we DO respect others peoples “phobias’ in regards to that tool.
In order for me to even obtain a firearm, (As I, like most, did so through the “legal” means.), I was required to undergo a detailed background check, I had to complete and be certified in a firearms safety course, and once my application was submitted I waited for 27 days to receive my permit BEFORE I could even purchase a pistol. I am fully trained on the specific weapons I own, as well as a large number that I do NOT own. This is partially because of employment history in the field of “security”. I actively train with all of the weapons I currently own, which includes range training and field training no less than once a month ( I try to get there once a week but I have a job ), of which I pay for out of my own pocket.
Most firearms owners are VERY aware of the responsibility that comes along with owning and wielding such a potentially destructive tool. And the majority of us take that responsibility VERY seriously.
I commend you on your insight. Just as you have enough “respect” for this tool to admit that you do not yet feel you are ready to wield it, most other current gun owners felt the same as well, prior to obtaining the training and developing the confidence needed to overcome the hurdle of education, understanding, and familiarity.
If you did NOT have that hesitation and respect for the tool you intend to wield then I would agree that you should NOT do so. With great power, comes great responsibility.
However, once you have learned to understand the tool, and once you have learned to harness the potential security it can provide, you are rewarded with a comforting sense of independence and confidence. And you will be secure in the knowledge that if the time comes when you need to defend yourself or another innocent life that you have learned to harness the power of a tool that provides you an opportunity to do so.
Jeff Cooper wrote a book “The Art of the Rifle” that you may find of interest. In the book he discusses the phenomenon he names “Hoplophobia” or “Fear Of Firearms”. Makes for some good reading if you are open minded enough to accept that firearms themselves are NOT evil, it is men of evil that utilize them, that are the concern.
Paul E. Mason
January 21, 2013 at 1:45 pm
Well, are you up to fighting for that belief ? Yes ? Time is short for Freedom and Liberty, for it is under vicious attack.
Mark Wolf
January 23, 2013 at 1:26 pm
Read John Lott’s research or summary of his books in his many articles and after researching all the crime data, discovered that more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens = less crime and concealed carry reduces crime due to the deterrent effect that criminals don’t know who is packing.
armedamerica
September 14, 2016 at 11:51 am
While your argument is completely valid, if gun control was in place for everyone, would Martin Luther King Jr. need to carry around a gun to protect himself? A country without guns would be a seemingly safer place for everyone. Of course, there is always going to be danger in America, no matter what type of gun control we have, but by putting gun control in place, a lot of lives could be saved. MLK being allowed to carry a concealed weapon wouldn’t change the course of history. Maybe the argument would have a better foundation if him carrying a gun would have prevented him from being attacked, or even prevented his death, but the fact is that he wouldn’t have ever had to use the gun. If he had had the gun on him when he was killed, it would not have made a difference. There have been many studies done that show countries with gun control have lower crime rates and fewer mass shootings, which is a problem in America at the moment. While protected ourselves is a huge factor into gun control, shouldn’t we also think about how having guns readily available put our loved ones in harm’s way? Times have also changed a lot since MLK lived, meaning that the government is not as racially biased as they were when he requested a concealed carry. The government being the one to give out guns would arguably be a good thing, since they can look into people’s backgrounds and deny permission to people who they think could possibly be a threat to the public’s safety.