An overlooked piece of Martin Luther King Jr’s legacy and impact on America centers around the right to self-defense and the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to keep and bear arms. Unstated in the Amendment is for self-defense. The Founders thought this was obvious and not necessary, although they talked about self-defense of person and community significantly during the period.
The Reality: The Constitution protects your right to keep and bear arms
We discussed this reality that the Founders, and their heirs and successors in the 19th century, believed that the right to keep and bear arms was in order to defend life and property. Just as importantly, it entailed the owning and using “weapons of war”. Throughout American history, political elites, governments, racists, and bigots have understood the importance of this as well. And worked to ensure that the minorities that they feared, distrusted, and hated were unable to exercise this right to protect themselves and their communities with firearms.
Why would they do this? For the obvious reason that firearms make you equal and able to fight back against your oppressors. For deeper research and explanation of this topic as it relates to the black community, I highly recommend Nicholas Johnson’s “Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms”. But the short story is that the black community in America has long embraced firearms as a means of protecting themselves and creating equality to the people that would oppress them.
An overlooked piece of this is Martin Luther King Jr’s need for self-defense
MLK in Washington, DC giving “I Have A Dream” speech
At 9:15 PM on January 30, 1956, while the Reverend Doctor was speaking at the First Baptist Church, his home in Montgomery, Alabama was bombed by what is believed to be a white supremacist terrorist. The man pulled up in a car, got out, threw a bomb on the front porch of the home and then left. This house was damaged, but King’s wife and seven month old daughter were not injured.
King’s house in Montgomery, AL after it was bombed by a white supremacist terrorist. Fortunately, no one was injured or killed.
King decided that he needed to protect himself and his family. He decided to arm himself to do so. And the Second Amendment, coupled with the Fourteenth Amendment, say that every American’s right to armed self-defense is protected by the Constitution and not subject to Congress, State Legislatures, etc.
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The Evil Response of the Government
At that time, Alabama had an unconstitutional law in place (as did much of the country, actually) that said that a citizen required a permit to carry a gun on their person or in their car. From Reason’s very good article on the episode:
The law said a probate judge, police chief, or sheriff “may” issue a license “if it appears that the applicant has good reason to fear injury to his person or property, or has any other proper reason for carrying a pistol.”
Furthermore, the reason for this was:
Southern states historically used that sort of discretionary carry permit law to disarm black people, leaving them at the mercy of white supremacist violence. African Americans who defied the law risked arrest for exercising their Second Amendment rights.
In other words, these laws requiring permits (and other firearms issues) to be approved by government officials were put in place to oppress those that the government didn’t like. The National African American Gun Association does a great job of discussing this and why it such an issue in the brief to the Supreme Court during the NYSRP v. Bruen case.
Can anyone guess what happened when King applied for a permit, both for himself and for people would guard him and his family? The Sheriff denied the permit, of course. And when the Sheriff was interviewed about it by a newspaper, he bragged about it. This is how it works. If you are part of the group that is out of favor with the government, laws like this are used against you.
The Lesson and Legacy
This is why the Constitution takes these decisions out of the hands of the politicians. That is exactly what the 2nd Amendment and 14th Amendment are for. To leave decisions about self-defense and firearms in the hands of the citizens and not the hands of an oppressive elite.
Today, unlike in the 1950’s, the vast majority of the states in the US have either shall issue permits (meaning the government officials must issue the permit to keep and bear arms to you upon your request) or constitutional carry (meaning that no permit is required for you to keep and bear arms).
Much of this change was driven by the experience King, his family, and his associates.
Which is why, to celebrate the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. I wrote this post, I arm myself regularly, I went to the range on his holiday, and I stand up for our right to keep and bear arms every single day. An overlooked piece of Martin Luther King Jr’s legacy: the need and the right to armed self-defense.
