The Michael Knowles Show


Ep. 111 - NRA: America’s #1 Civil Rights Defenders


Summary

In the wake of the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, Democrats are quick to point the finger at the National Rifle Association. Michael Knowles, on the other hand, is quick to defend the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms.


Transcript

00:00:00.320 Cynical Democrat politicians who failed at every level to prevent the high school shooting
00:00:04.740 in Parkland, Florida, are now excusing everybody who had anything to do with preventing the
00:00:10.520 shooting and placing all of the blame on the NRA, which is a civil rights organization
00:00:15.660 that had absolutely nothing to do with the shooting.
00:00:18.220 This is par for the course for Democrats who have long pushed gun control to oppress black
00:00:22.840 people and other minorities and really just all the rest of us.
00:00:26.040 We will analyze the racist history of gun control and the real purpose of the Second Amendment.
00:00:30.640 I'm Michael Knowles and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
00:00:40.140 This show might as well just be retitled The NRA is Great and a Wonderful, Beautiful Thing,
00:00:45.160 a 40-minute defense of the NRA.
00:00:48.400 But before we get to that, before we get to that, this is one of my favorite topics.
00:00:51.520 I have been glued to Twitter all weekend because I've just been defending the NRA and the right
00:00:55.760 to keep and bear arms because, as Ronald Reagan pointed out, it's not that our liberal friends
00:00:59.700 are ignorant.
00:01:00.220 It's just they know so many things that aren't.
00:01:01.940 So they have this issue completely backwards, exactly upside down, as they frequently do.
00:01:07.900 Before we get to that, let me talk about another wonderful thing, which would be Upside.com.
00:01:14.120 So I travel a fair bit.
00:01:16.360 I'm going to New York to give at least one speech in the near future, more information on
00:01:21.440 that later.
00:01:22.620 But look, when you travel for business, business travel can be very, very frustrating.
00:01:27.460 So how great would it be to have the kind of support that astronauts get when they take
00:01:31.880 a business trip?
00:01:32.980 That would be very good.
00:01:36.120 For me, when I travel, even when I travel for business, my mission control in the past
00:01:40.460 had always been calling up sweet little Lisa and saying, sweet little Lisa, I can't make
00:01:44.100 this flight or this is later.
00:01:45.160 This is not just Mike.
00:01:46.160 I don't know what to do.
00:01:47.160 I can't talk to them.
00:01:48.160 And then they got to call to maybe get another hotel room and then this and that and this
00:01:50.960 and that have a mission control.
00:01:53.580 This is 2018.
00:01:54.660 Treat yourself.
00:01:55.380 This is a wonderful opportunity.
00:01:57.720 Upside.com has a whole team of people, a mission control to make sure your business
00:02:01.560 trip goes smoothly.
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00:02:11.440 There's a team of specialists working 24 seven to make sure your flight, your hotel, your car
00:02:16.480 rental, all go off without a hitch.
00:02:19.120 I don't know.
00:02:19.980 Previously, you know, when I would travel, I think not a single part of that would go
00:02:23.880 the right way.
00:02:24.880 One time I was caught in the UK.
00:02:26.680 I was visiting the UK.
00:02:27.980 I had to fly back to Los Angeles direct flight to come to the show.
00:02:31.440 And 15 hours before my flight, I found out my ticket wasn't valid for some ridiculous
00:02:35.760 reason.
00:02:36.460 And I really wish I had a mission control at that time to deal with that because I was
00:02:40.640 on the phone screaming at them for much of that afternoon.
00:02:43.780 It's very frustrating and very expensive.
00:02:45.800 Don't let it happen to you.
00:02:47.900 Upside.com monitors your trip around the clock.
00:02:50.240 They proactively keep you posted on everything from is it going to rain?
00:02:54.180 Are there alternative return flights home in case you want to squeeze in one more meeting
00:02:58.080 before you leave town?
00:02:59.100 Or in my case, one more slate of drinks at the bar, you know, one more flight of whiskeys
00:03:03.640 or something.
00:03:04.460 Have you ever experienced that level of service on a business trip?
00:03:07.440 No way.
00:03:08.320 Not until you've used Upside.
00:03:09.780 It's really good.
00:03:10.740 Once you've experienced a committed team looking after every detail of your trip, you can never
00:03:15.560 go back.
00:03:16.500 It is 2018.
00:03:18.000 Let the technology work for you.
00:03:20.020 Let this new economy work for you.
00:03:22.680 There's no reason to spend more money and waste more of your time when there's a team
00:03:27.140 that will take care of it for you.
00:03:28.420 For easy booking, competitive prices, and a team that always has your back, go to
00:03:31.860 upside.com slash covfefe, C-O-V-F-E-F-E.
00:03:35.680 You need a little covfefe in your business trip.
00:03:38.060 Upside.com slash covfefe, C-O-V-F-E-F-E, to book your next business trip.
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00:03:44.980 Sign up today for your free account and get a free pair of Bose headphones on your first
00:03:49.280 business trip.
00:03:50.140 That's pretty.
00:03:50.440 Those things are very nice.
00:03:51.760 I use like cardboard headphones.
00:03:54.100 I use whatever the freebies are that they give you in like extra coach, in like sub coach
00:03:58.940 class on the airplanes, they'll get the Bose headphones.
00:04:01.180 They're very nice.
00:04:02.000 Upside.com slash covfefe, C-O-V-F-E-F-E, $600 minimum purchase required within 90 days.
00:04:07.420 See site for complete details.
00:04:08.540 The lawyers make you say that thing at the end.
00:04:10.140 It's a really, really good deal.
00:04:11.260 Do it.
00:04:11.820 Okay.
00:04:12.820 The NRA is under fire.
00:04:14.820 And these kids, you know the kids from Florida who are being prostituted by CNN?
00:04:19.760 They are pushing this very, very hard.
00:04:22.420 And it isn't working, by the way.
00:04:24.540 But it's working for somebody.
00:04:25.540 It's working for the NRA.
00:04:26.320 My entire Twitter feed for the past several days has been people posting pictures that
00:04:31.320 they're signing up for the NRA.
00:04:32.740 I'm already a life member of the NRA.
00:04:34.720 If I were, I'd be, I could be a double life member.
00:04:36.740 If I were a cat, I'd get eight more life memberships.
00:04:39.120 I hope the NRA is giving CNN a cut here because they're clearly cleaning up and the CNN keeps
00:04:45.420 pushing these kids.
00:04:46.460 They keep prostituting these kids.
00:04:47.980 I think their 15 minutes is running out.
00:04:50.360 I kind of feel bad for them when I, they're 17 years old.
00:04:53.560 When I was 17, like David Hogg, I thought and said a lot of very stupid things.
00:04:59.820 Unlike David Hogg, the adults in my life didn't prostitute me on CNN and really probably screw
00:05:06.120 up my professional future.
00:05:08.060 And some of my personal life, they're, but for the grace of God, go I.
00:05:11.180 I really do kind of feel for these kids, even though they're very annoying and they
00:05:14.280 don't know anything and they keep calling people murderers and they're really saying
00:05:18.000 terrible things on television.
00:05:19.140 I do feel for them, they're idiot kids.
00:05:21.920 They know they're teenagers.
00:05:22.920 Teenagers say stupid things all the time.
00:05:25.100 That's the definition of a teenager.
00:05:26.880 Now that the main kid that you see, the telegenic one, David Hogg, he's, he's now moving on to
00:05:31.980 push education or something.
00:05:33.360 I think because he knows his 15 minutes are up.
00:05:35.420 He just sent out a tweet.
00:05:36.360 He said, here's a radical idea.
00:05:38.220 How about we don't spend money on arming teachers?
00:05:40.480 We spend it instead educating students in STEM so people can do more cool stuff and we'll be
00:05:47.460 able to create jobs and renewable, clean and independent American energy like wind and solar.
00:05:52.380 I don't know how, I don't know what he's going to throw in next.
00:05:54.400 Maybe he'll start talking about abortion or something.
00:05:56.160 Yesterday, his mission was to make schools safe.
00:05:58.540 Now it's to increase science funding, which by the way, isn't an either or.
00:06:02.580 He can, you know, he's just moving on.
00:06:04.520 It's the slate of Democrat talking points because he wants to squeeze out another minute on
00:06:08.280 television.
00:06:09.200 He clearly likes the camera.
00:06:10.300 He wants to be on camera.
00:06:11.240 Who can blame him?
00:06:11.980 You know, he's like, he wants to be on camera.
00:06:13.540 That's true for a lot of people, but this is really backfiring.
00:06:17.460 He's now blaming the NRA.
00:06:19.200 A lot of these other kids are blaming the NRA, Republican politicians who defend civil
00:06:23.460 liberties through the shooting.
00:06:25.020 They're implying that they're murderers.
00:06:26.440 This is overreaching and it's really wearing thin.
00:06:29.060 I don't want to criticize these teenagers.
00:06:31.180 They're just idiot teenagers.
00:06:32.700 That's fine.
00:06:33.000 I don't care.
00:06:34.140 I do criticize CNN for prostituting them and the adults in their lives for prostituting
00:06:38.340 them.
00:06:38.680 It's really wearing thin guys.
00:06:40.720 So I don't know.
00:06:41.380 I guess keep it up.
00:06:42.140 I guess keep it up.
00:06:42.740 It'll only help conservatives.
00:06:44.460 We were told now by these kids and by CNN and by everyone else that we don't need guns
00:06:50.140 ourselves because law enforcement will protect us.
00:06:53.000 But of course, in this case, law enforcement failed at every level here.
00:06:55.960 It failed all the way as high as the FBI, which received tips, didn't follow up.
00:06:59.160 And it certainly failed at the sheriff's level where deputies waited while this crazy
00:07:03.760 shooter was blowing people to bits and he was waiting outside with a gun because he was
00:07:08.220 too cowardly to go in.
00:07:09.300 Here is the sheriff, Sheriff Scott Israel, avoiding all blame whatsoever.
00:07:12.820 Jake, I could only take responsibility for what I knew about.
00:07:18.220 I exercise as my due diligence.
00:07:20.760 I've given amazing leadership to this agency.
00:07:23.960 Amazing leadership.
00:07:24.460 I've worked.
00:07:26.060 Amazing leadership.
00:07:27.360 I also love he says, I can only take responsibility for what I knew about.
00:07:31.660 You should have known about more.
00:07:33.620 There were how many complaints, how many dozens of complaints about these kids?
00:07:36.660 He said, well, I didn't know.
00:07:37.660 Right.
00:07:37.900 You didn't know because you're a terrible sheriff.
00:07:39.480 You didn't know because you're awful at running your sheriff's office.
00:07:42.320 That's the pro that's all I can.
00:07:43.680 If I didn't know, I can't take responsibility.
00:07:45.580 You can take responsibility for negligence, at least negligence, maybe more.
00:07:49.480 And I got to tell you, if you haven't seen that whole Jake Tapper interview, it's worth
00:07:52.220 watching.
00:07:52.580 I'm very mean to Jake Tapper because Jake Tapper has become a mean girl who carries water for
00:07:57.080 Democrats.
00:07:57.960 He did that awful town hall the other night and he allowed those teenagers to call Marco Rubio
00:08:02.900 a mass murderer.
00:08:04.220 That was really awful.
00:08:05.060 But this Tapper was great.
00:08:06.160 This was the good old Tapper.
00:08:07.360 I don't know where that guy's been, but when Jake Tapper wants to be, he can be a journalist
00:08:11.460 and I wish he would do this more often.
00:08:13.840 The interview was very good.
00:08:15.380 This brings us to the really bizarre point.
00:08:17.200 Lefties are comparing gun control, gun control to the civil rights movement.
00:08:21.280 They are opposing the NRA, an organization whose sole purpose is to defend civil rights.
00:08:27.180 They're calling that the civil rights movement.
00:08:29.180 Here's Oprah.
00:08:30.480 It's a proud moment.
00:08:32.220 It's an evolving moment for our country.
00:08:34.340 The same thing happened, as you know, back in the 50s and 60s for the civil rights movement.
00:08:40.160 Young people said, we will not tolerate what our ancestors have tolerated.
00:08:47.100 We have had enough and we're willing to fight for it and willing to do march in the streets
00:08:52.600 for it and if necessary, die for it.
00:08:55.000 The activist Ruby Hall agrees.
00:08:57.120 Ruby Hall said, when I think about our babies today and them not being safe in school,
00:09:01.180 I think that should be the next civil rights movement, you know, is to ban the assault weapons
00:09:05.720 so that our babies can be safe.
00:09:07.660 Inigo Montoya, your reaction?
00:09:09.260 You keep using that word.
00:09:11.020 I don't think it means what you think it means.
00:09:12.840 That's a great point, Inigo.
00:09:15.900 That is a great point.
00:09:17.100 They keep using the phrase civil rights, but what they really mean is they want to deprive
00:09:21.660 us of our civil rights.
00:09:22.840 They're saying, we support civil rights and we support civil rights so much that we're
00:09:26.540 going to take away one of your most basic civil rights.
00:09:29.640 We should clear this up.
00:09:30.820 This is a civil rights issue, but Oprah is on the wrong side of the civil rights issue.
00:09:36.040 If this were the 1960s, she would be on the side of George Wallace.
00:09:38.600 She would be on the side, if this were the 1860s, she'd be on the side of the Democrats
00:09:43.100 then too, the ones wearing the hoods.
00:09:45.420 This is a civil rights issue.
00:09:47.360 The right to keep and bear arms is a civil right.
00:09:49.920 It is a constitutionally protected civil right and it's a civil right that throughout history
00:09:56.740 has been denied black people so that whites could oppress them.
00:10:01.480 This has happened for centuries.
00:10:03.240 The NRA exists to protect that civil right against all sorts of tyranny and especially
00:10:08.540 to protect minorities who for centuries have regularly seen their civil rights trampled
00:10:12.880 on.
00:10:13.360 The NRA, here's just a brief history of the NRA, a brief history of the racist gun control
00:10:18.000 laws in this country and why anybody who's concerned with civil rights, anybody who's
00:10:21.940 concerned with racial equality should vehemently oppose gun control.
00:10:26.720 The NRA was founded in 1871.
00:10:28.400 It is the oldest continuously operating civil rights organization and the largest and best
00:10:33.940 funded lobbying organization in the United States.
00:10:36.760 Now, it's well-funded.
00:10:38.780 Why is it well-funded?
00:10:39.800 Because people like our civil rights.
00:10:41.560 We like our civil rights.
00:10:43.020 There's this insane suggestion now on the left because they realize Americans like our
00:10:47.680 guns and we like our freedom.
00:10:48.940 So they say, well, the NRA, they don't really represent gun owners.
00:10:52.280 They don't really represent civil rights advocates.
00:10:54.200 They just represent the gun makers as though there's a difference.
00:10:59.280 I have news for you.
00:11:00.820 The gun makers and the gun owners have a few things in common.
00:11:04.120 We like guns, we like freedom, and we don't like gun control.
00:11:08.180 We're on the same side of this thing.
00:11:09.900 It isn't those darn gun makers.
00:11:13.160 They keep making guns that I like and buy.
00:11:15.900 Those monsters, I hate their lobby.
00:11:18.320 We're on the same side.
00:11:19.080 It's the same lobby.
00:11:19.980 We have the same agenda here, which is to protect civil rights.
00:11:23.460 By the way, even if we're talking about the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s,
00:11:27.260 gun control has been the single most important tool of white supremacists for centuries.
00:11:32.380 The first gun control law in American history was passed not in the 20th century, not in
00:11:37.420 the 19th century, but in the 17th century, in Virginia, in 1640.
00:11:41.920 That gun control law specifically prohibited blacks from owning guns.
00:11:46.360 That was it.
00:11:47.540 And not just slaves.
00:11:48.660 You might say, well, slaves couldn't own guns because they didn't have a lot of other
00:11:51.380 rights.
00:11:51.800 It also prevented freed men, men who were not slaves, from owning guns as well because the
00:11:57.460 whites in Virginia in 1640 did not want to tolerate blacks having guns.
00:12:01.220 What would happen if they had guns?
00:12:02.600 Who knows?
00:12:03.460 After Nat Turner's slave rebellion in Virginia in 1931, that state prohibited even free blacks
00:12:09.840 to keep or carry any fire lock of any kind, any military weapon, or any powder or lead.
00:12:16.100 Now, even before that was passed into law, before the Nat Turner rebellion in 1831, even
00:12:22.900 before that, a free black family was found possessing a lead shot, which it was using as scale weights.
00:12:29.300 This family didn't have any gunpowder.
00:12:31.460 It didn't have any weapons whatsoever.
00:12:33.480 Nevertheless, Virginian mobs descended on this family and they debated executing the owner
00:12:38.600 of just the lead, just being used for scale weights.
00:12:42.640 In 1834, the Tennessee legislature amended its state constitution.
00:12:47.500 The state constitution previously had said the free men of this state have a right to keep
00:12:52.100 and to bear arms for their common defense.
00:12:54.060 They then changed that provision of the state constitution to say the free white men of this
00:13:00.140 state have a right to keep and bear arms for their common defense.
00:13:03.400 Just a subtle linguistic shift, but it deprived a huge percentage of the population from keeping
00:13:10.600 arms.
00:13:11.340 Now we get to the Dred Scott decision.
00:13:13.400 The Dred Scott decision occurred in 1857.
00:13:16.620 Dred Scott determined that any black person whose ancestors were slaves could not be an American
00:13:22.500 citizen.
00:13:22.900 This was one of the regularly cited as the worst, and certainly one of the worst decisions in
00:13:29.280 American history.
00:13:30.780 That decision hinged on the question of gun ownership.
00:13:34.220 So it obviously predated the civil war only by three years, but the chief justice in the Dred Scott
00:13:39.660 decision wrote, it would give them the full liberty to keep and carry arms wherever they went.
00:13:45.480 This was a major aspect of Dred Scott.
00:13:47.500 If they were just promising citizenship rights to black Americans without that provision to
00:13:56.460 actually protect them, maybe the Dred Scott decision would have gone a different way.
00:14:00.140 But it isn't just words, words, words, which can be trampled over by a powerful and armed
00:14:06.220 government.
00:14:07.780 That citizenship in the United States also gives you the right to protect yourself.
00:14:11.260 In many, in many cases, uniquely or in a uniquely American way, after the Confederate surrender
00:14:16.900 in 1865, after the Civil War was over, defeated Southerners very quickly rounded up all the
00:14:22.680 guns from freed blacks.
00:14:24.920 Frederick Douglass, a good Republican, implored the federal government to stop the state and
00:14:29.980 local governments from infringing on the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
00:14:34.480 State and local governments would just round all of these up.
00:14:37.100 And this is an important distinction, which we're going to talk about tomorrow when we
00:14:40.500 analyze the Second Amendment.
00:14:41.940 Who has the right to keep and bear arms?
00:14:43.660 Is it the state?
00:14:44.380 Is it the federal government?
00:14:45.260 Is it the people?
00:14:46.480 The amendment is clear and that distinction really matters.
00:14:49.400 Frederick Douglass actually insisted, though, that until blacks were able to keep guns,
00:14:54.540 the work of the abolitionists was not finished.
00:14:57.460 Consider that.
00:14:58.320 Now we're being told by lightly educated people and people with a nefarious political agenda,
00:15:05.240 an anti-civil rights political agenda on television, that it's a racial equality issue to take
00:15:11.560 away all of their guns.
00:15:12.720 Frederick Douglass, who was not lightly educated, Frederick Douglass, who was a genius, knew much
00:15:17.380 better.
00:15:17.700 He knew it was exactly the opposite.
00:15:19.540 In the Texas Supreme Court case, Cockrum v. State, 1959, the court recognized the right
00:15:25.260 to carry defensive arms, both in the Second Amendment and in the Texas Bill of Rights, an individual
00:15:30.480 right to keep your guns.
00:15:31.860 They recognized this in, I'm sorry, 1859.
00:15:35.060 Yet, just a handful of years later, in 1872, the Texas Supreme Court denied that there was
00:15:40.840 any right to carry any weapon for self-defense in either constitution, in either the federal
00:15:45.720 constitution or in the state constitution.
00:15:48.080 And do you know how they defended that decision?
00:15:49.860 They didn't.
00:15:50.500 They offered absolutely no explanation whatsoever.
00:15:53.060 I wonder what changed between 1859 and 1872.
00:15:56.400 1859, one year before the Civil War and 1872, seven years after the Civil War.
00:16:02.780 What changed about the ability to keep and bear arms?
00:16:06.500 So, the NRA, how was it founded?
00:16:08.100 It was founded in 1871 by Union soldiers, not by those nefarious racists, by the people
00:16:13.960 who fought a bloody, bloody war to free the slaves.
00:16:16.440 I was first charged in New York in 1871.
00:16:18.800 The first president of the NRA was the Union General, Ambrose Burnside, fresh off of freeing
00:16:24.840 all the slaves and reuniting the Union.
00:16:27.580 The NRA's eighth president was U.S. Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, president of both the United
00:16:32.500 States and the NRA, and a great defender of civil rights and defeater of Southern secessionist
00:16:37.420 slavers.
00:16:37.940 The NRA was founded, actually, not initially just to lobby Congress or lobby for good gun
00:16:44.380 laws, because gun control was a regional issue that clearly at this time was used mostly
00:16:48.940 to oppress blacks.
00:16:50.040 It was actually founded because the Union troops were terrible shots.
00:16:53.020 So, the Union troops were firing something like a thousand rifle rounds for each Confederate
00:16:57.260 they hit.
00:16:57.780 They weren't very good at shooting.
00:16:59.580 So, it was founded to give people like the Union troops who defended ordered liberty and
00:17:04.240 defended human dignity better training.
00:17:06.580 Now, there is this crazy aspect since the shooting in Florida.
00:17:11.500 People are saying what we need to do is have mandatory training.
00:17:15.420 So, they want all these things.
00:17:16.420 They want to ban certain guns.
00:17:17.760 They want to raise the age.
00:17:19.500 They basically just want fewer people to have guns.
00:17:21.320 Then they say we need mandatory gun training.
00:17:23.180 This doesn't make any sense at all.
00:17:25.200 What you're saying is that the way to prevent a mass shooting like we saw in Florida is to
00:17:29.260 train the people to be better shots.
00:17:31.360 They want to train mass shooters to be better at shooting guns.
00:17:33.740 It doesn't make any sense.
00:17:34.640 First of all, the NRA already offers training and it has for 150 years.
00:17:39.020 How would mandatory training be the solution to mass shooters?
00:17:42.600 Mandatory training for a lot of other people, giving guns to more people, allowing guns to
00:17:46.900 be easier to be had, and having the good guys train to use guns.
00:17:49.860 That would be good.
00:17:50.520 But really, we should bar all the bad guys from training in general.
00:17:54.260 It's a total deflection though.
00:17:55.520 It's just one of these empty points.
00:17:57.280 It's they throw spaghetti at the wall because they don't like guns.
00:18:00.200 They don't want you to have guns and they're going to use any argument, no matter how tenuous
00:18:04.800 it is, to try to take guns away from you.
00:18:07.680 Do you remember Democrats who rode around in white sheets lynching the blacks?
00:18:11.860 They were only able to do that because white Democrats had already taken the guns away from
00:18:17.160 blacks.
00:18:17.520 The special report of the Paris Anti-Slavery Conference of 1867 found as much.
00:18:23.640 They concluded that freedmen in the South, quote, were forbidden to own or bear firearms
00:18:28.540 and thus were rendered defenseless against assault.
00:18:32.180 Speaking of very important Supreme Court decisions, Albion Tourgier, the civil rights attorney who
00:18:37.780 represented Plessy in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896.
00:18:41.720 Plessy v. Ferguson, you'll remember, upheld segregation as separate but equal.
00:18:45.840 That attorney, Tourgier, pointed out that where the KKK took control, quote, almost universally,
00:18:51.940 the first thing done was to disarm the Negroes and leave them defenseless.
00:18:55.760 We see this, by the way, in totalitarian regimes around the world.
00:18:59.140 It's almost cliche to refer to Hitler in this regard, but it's true of totalitarian regimes
00:19:03.880 everywhere.
00:19:04.740 They take away the guns.
00:19:05.660 That's the first thing they do because the Second Amendment exists to protect the First
00:19:08.840 Amendment.
00:19:09.100 The Second Amendment exists to protect all of the other rights because ultimately, if people
00:19:14.120 are going to trample on your rights, you've got to defend them and you've got to defend
00:19:17.480 yourself.
00:19:19.080 Fortunately, despite the Democrats and the KKK running roughshod over the civil rights, particularly
00:19:25.200 black people, Republicans came to the defense of civil rights.
00:19:28.340 They passed the Freedmen's Bureau Bill of 1865 to protect the rights of freed blacks.
00:19:33.500 They passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Civil Rights Act of 1870, which guaranteed
00:19:39.940 everybody the right of self-defense.
00:19:42.440 Then that brings us to the Anti-Klan Act of 1871.
00:19:45.700 But you're telling me I've got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube?
00:19:48.480 Is that what I have to?
00:19:49.020 That's awful.
00:19:50.180 I already said goodbye to YouTube.
00:19:51.420 I've already said my goodbyes to YouTube a long time ago, but we have to say goodbye
00:19:54.400 to Facebook.
00:19:56.600 And if somehow you made it and are seeing us on YouTube, please stick around.
00:20:00.980 Please try to figure out a way to let everybody else in and shut down the censors at YouTube
00:20:05.800 who are not allowing anybody to watch this show, this awful show, this bigoted show that
00:20:10.520 talks about civil rights and the history of legislation in the United States.
00:20:14.100 How awful.
00:20:14.880 Of course, they have to censor it.
00:20:16.060 If you're on Facebook, you've got to go to dailywire.com right now.
00:20:19.280 We have so much more to talk about, the Klan and more Democrat atrocities that have happened
00:20:24.880 in history.
00:20:25.740 But if you want to do that, you've got to go to dailywire.com.
00:20:28.240 It's $10 a month or $100 for an annual membership.
00:20:31.100 You get me.
00:20:31.640 You get the Andrew Klavan show.
00:20:32.580 You get the Ben Shapiro show.
00:20:33.720 You get the conversation.
00:20:34.720 Next time, we're going to have the big boss, Ben Shapiro.
00:20:37.440 You're going to ask him whatever questions you want.
00:20:39.400 If you're a member, everybody can watch.
00:20:41.320 Few can ask questions.
00:20:42.520 Many are called.
00:20:43.440 Few are chosen.
00:20:44.700 You get to ask all of us questions in the mailbag.
00:20:47.020 And we're going to be doing that on Thursday.
00:20:48.340 So get your questions in.
00:20:49.440 But again, none of that matters.
00:20:51.300 Nobody's here for that.
00:20:52.360 What you're all here for is this.
00:20:54.360 Because every time Democrats prostitute some child on television, and every time they recite
00:21:01.360 the same tired, incoherent, anti-American, anti-constitutional lines to take away our
00:21:07.240 guns, another person joins the NRA.
00:21:10.360 Another person joins the NRA, and I get another delicious eight ounces of salty leftist tears.
00:21:15.400 And they are so good.
00:21:16.340 I was gorging myself this weekend.
00:21:18.540 I was truly a glutton.
00:21:19.580 I probably should go to confession for it.
00:21:21.300 Thankfully, I have a lot of these leftist tears tumblers, the only FDA-approved vessel to
00:21:25.540 store salty and delicious leftist tears.
00:21:27.500 Go to dailywire.com to get it.
00:21:28.980 We'll be right back.
00:21:41.320 Where were we?
00:21:42.080 We were on the Anti-Klan Act.
00:21:43.740 It's a good place to come in.
00:21:45.260 Thank you again, Republicans.
00:21:46.200 The original draft of the Anti-Klan Act of 1871, which Republican President and NRA President
00:21:52.660 U.S. Grant shepherded through Congress, made it a federal felony to deprive any citizen
00:21:57.800 of the United States of any arms he possessed for the defense of his person, his family,
00:22:02.540 or his property.
00:22:03.580 Not any white person like the Democrats wanted.
00:22:06.320 Any person that was shepherded by NRA President Ulysses S. Grant and Republican President.
00:22:13.320 Kansas Senator Samuel Pomeroy described three indispensable, quote, safeguards of liberty under
00:22:18.060 our form of government.
00:22:19.320 That's the sanctity of the home, the right to vote, and the right to bear arms.
00:22:23.660 There was this guy on Twitter, Stephen Metz, who referred to me and all of my fellow defenders
00:22:28.280 of the Second Amendment as gun fetishists.
00:22:31.200 Do we also have vote fetishists?
00:22:33.720 Those people who think we should keep the right to vote.
00:22:35.920 Are those vote fetishists?
00:22:37.300 Are there free speech fetishists also?
00:22:39.700 What he really means is civil rights advocates, but he's trying to turn it and make it seem
00:22:44.940 like all we want to do is, we just like the technical aspects of guns.
00:22:49.340 Technical aspects of guns are great.
00:22:50.620 Freedom is better, and they are there to protect our freedom.
00:22:54.100 Racist Democrats now kept getting around gun control laws, which technically had to be
00:22:58.280 race neutral.
00:22:59.400 After the Civil War, after the 14th Amendment, these gun laws had to be race neutral.
00:23:03.240 So those Democrats got craftier.
00:23:05.240 They would frequently ban inexpensive guns while allowing guns that whites already owned.
00:23:10.560 So these poor blacks who had recently been freed just couldn't afford the guns.
00:23:15.400 Then it was practically impossible for them.
00:23:17.000 And Ohio Supreme Court justice acknowledged that these laws were intended to, quote, entirely
00:23:22.620 disarm the Negro.
00:23:23.880 And it wasn't just blacks who were targets and victims of Democrats' gun control policies,
00:23:27.820 and it didn't just happen in the South.
00:23:29.920 In 1920, the Ohio Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a Mexican man for concealed carry
00:23:36.980 of a handgun.
00:23:38.040 Now, that's fine, I suppose, if you want to convict him for that.
00:23:40.760 The trouble was that the Mexican man was asleep in his bed during the time of the alleged infraction.
00:23:45.780 So he just wanted to arrest this guy for having a gun.
00:23:48.520 Basically, anybody in Ohio could have been arrested for this because, I guess, he was
00:23:53.080 concealed carrying it in his dreams or something.
00:23:55.340 Jim Crow laws became the foundation of modern gun control in America.
00:23:59.320 We now think there are books that the left and right, so the new Jim Crow, and they decry
00:24:04.620 all of these good things for freedom.
00:24:07.020 And they don't talk about how Jim Crow is the foundation of gun control.
00:24:10.740 It started in the South, but it spread north in the early 20th century.
00:24:13.820 In New York, it was aimed at Italians and Jews.
00:24:17.100 And I will say, as someone of Italian heritage in America, fair enough.
00:24:21.140 That's fair.
00:24:21.920 The Italians, they did use guns a little loose in New York.
00:24:25.220 So, okay, fair enough.
00:24:26.580 They also aimed these laws at labor agitators in California and at blacks who defended themselves
00:24:31.540 in race riots in Missouri and Michigan.
00:24:34.340 As Ann Coulter described it in 2012, the NRA was the sole organization to come to the defense
00:24:40.200 of Roger F. Williams.
00:24:42.260 Roger F. Williams was a World War II Marine veteran who returned to his hometown of Monroe,
00:24:47.980 North Carolina to find the Ku Klux Klan riding high.
00:24:52.500 So, the NRA granted him a charter to start a chapter.
00:24:56.040 When he got back there, the Klan was truly terrorizing blacks in Monroe.
00:25:00.300 He asks the NRA to start a chapter.
00:25:02.700 The NRA grants it.
00:25:03.760 He founded the Black Armed Guard.
00:25:05.220 And guess what happened?
00:25:06.360 The Klan cut it out.
00:25:08.080 The Klan lost its stranglehold on the town.
00:25:10.360 So weird.
00:25:10.900 When you give victims guns, all of a sudden the victimizers get a little bit more careful
00:25:15.100 before they start running, you know, in their stupid capes and sheets.
00:25:20.680 John Salter, a professor and the chief organizer of the NAACP's Jackson Movement during the early
00:25:26.240 1960s, wrote, quote,
00:25:27.760 No one knows what kind of massive racist retaliation would have been directed against grassroots black
00:25:33.580 people had the black community not had a healthy measure of firearms within it.
00:25:38.180 No one knows.
00:25:39.160 That's not some wicked white conservative man in 2018.
00:25:43.360 That's a major civil rights leader.
00:25:45.080 On the eve of the NAACP's 1959 National Convention, the group resolved, quote,
00:25:50.220 We do not deny but reaffirm the right of individual and collective self-defense against unlawful
00:25:57.180 assaults.
00:25:58.840 No less a peace activist than Martin Luther King Jr. agreed to that.
00:26:03.560 He actually went so far as to support violence exercised in self-defense, which he called moral
00:26:08.840 and legal in all societies.
00:26:11.100 And he pointed out that it was not even opposed by Gandhi.
00:26:14.240 So this is an example of the left perverting history and values beyond recognition.
00:26:18.700 They always said, but Martin Luther King couldn't possibly have advocated self-defense.
00:26:23.460 He'd like just like peace, right?
00:26:25.220 They forget that he clearly did in 1959.
00:26:28.480 They point out that Jesus said, turn the other cheek.
00:26:30.700 They seem to forget all of the other aspects of scripture where our Lord told his apostles
00:26:35.360 to sell their cloaks and buy swords.
00:26:37.940 They forget that he whipped money changers in the temple.
00:26:40.760 That wasn't just metaphorical.
00:26:42.080 He took out whips.
00:26:43.180 The logos made flesh.
00:26:44.820 He whipped them in the temple.
00:26:46.340 They forget these defenses of self-defense.
00:26:51.980 Now, for centuries, for centuries, Democrats have run roughshod over civil liberties and
00:26:59.040 particularly over the civil right to gun ownership without giving any reasons why.
00:27:04.480 It always comes down to emotional pleas with them.
00:27:07.220 That's what it's always about emotion.
00:27:09.880 Think of what the blacks would do if they had guns.
00:27:12.560 Say, well, but the Constitution says they have to have guns.
00:27:14.580 No, but think of what they would do.
00:27:16.160 Think of the white women.
00:27:17.420 Think of the children.
00:27:18.340 It's all the same fact-free demagoguery.
00:27:20.800 They don't actually point to the realities of gun ownership.
00:27:24.380 They don't point to the legalities of gun ownership.
00:27:26.720 They say, oh, but think of this.
00:27:28.040 What are you, a monster?
00:27:29.260 What, you don't like white women?
00:27:30.400 What, you don't like the little children that we're pimping out on CNN?
00:27:33.640 We're going to cover tomorrow the nuts and bolts of the Second Amendment itself.
00:27:37.360 We have an excellent guest on to discuss it.
00:27:39.360 Should I, no, I won't spoil the surprise, but a really nationwide leader to discuss this.
00:27:45.800 We will explain the history of the amendment.
00:27:47.460 We will explain the history of the right that it protects to keep and bear arms.
00:27:51.860 Why the Second Amendment is not about shooting deer with AR-15s.
00:27:55.740 Actually, you shouldn't shoot deer with AR-15s anyway.
00:27:58.080 It's not very humane.
00:27:59.760 It's not powerful enough to hunt deer.
00:28:01.760 And we'll explain why it's an individual right.
00:28:04.660 I want to leave you with this.
00:28:05.660 The left has no argument here.
00:28:07.720 There is no argument.
00:28:08.660 The Democrats have no argument.
00:28:10.940 It is the same fact-free emotional plea and demagoguery that they have been using for centuries.
00:28:16.820 They vilified blacks for exercising their rights.
00:28:18.980 They vilified Italians and Jews for doing it.
00:28:21.260 They vilified Mexicans for doing it.
00:28:23.000 All the while, they were defended.
00:28:24.860 Those people were defended.
00:28:26.600 The victims were defended by civil rights supporters like members of the NRA.
00:28:31.200 Now the much maligned NRA, again, by Democrats.
00:28:33.580 Now they're vilifying civil rights defenders themselves.
00:28:36.860 Imagine what they could do if these Democrats did succeed at disarming you.
00:28:41.800 We actually know what they could do because they did it to all of those groups that I just mentioned for centuries.
00:28:46.700 And it wasn't pretty.
00:28:48.180 To use a further historical example, a further back historical example,
00:28:52.100 the Persian king Xerxes demanded that the Spartans surrender their weapons.
00:28:56.440 And King Leonidas responded,
00:28:57.780 Come and take them.
00:29:01.060 The violent, bloody history of gun control should teach us to defend our constitutionally protected civil right
00:29:06.400 to self-defense with precisely the same seriousness and urgency.
00:29:11.380 Come and take them.
00:29:12.340 Come and take them.
00:29:13.000 I'm going to come and take those delicious leftist tears and put them in my Tumblr
00:29:15.420 because the news cycles have just gotten more and more outrageous.
00:29:19.600 And they are not going to get it.
00:29:20.900 They are not going to get it on this.
00:29:22.720 It's such a childish discussion.
00:29:23.980 That's why they use children to do it.
00:29:25.500 Okay, we will analyze the Second Amendment itself tomorrow.
00:29:28.820 In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles.
00:29:31.040 This is The Michael Knowles Show.
00:29:32.220 Come back tomorrow.
00:29:33.060 We'll do it all again.
00:29:53.980 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.
00:29:56.840 Copyright Forward Publishing 2018.