“Conservatives who are scared of tyrants often ask, ‘Could it happen here?’ Well, it did. Jim Crow, the KKK, lynching, legal segregation — for a period, the South was everything a free man should fear. When Ida B. Wells noted that ‘a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give,’ she was confirming an age-old truth: The gun is a great equalizer, and the state a capricious beast.” – Charles C.W. Cooke in The right to bear arms isn’t up for debate [at washingtonpost.com]
The Post printed this? I think a shiver just went up my spine.
I hope this gives anti-gun people a headache.
Sounds like hate speech. Loaded with macro/micro/meta aggressions. I demand the offices of the Post be burned to the ground and the editors be catapulted into the Atlantic ocean in the name of tolerance.
Check out the comments section, some of things said are almost this insane. Appears there are a lot of liberal readers of that paper who now have hurt feelings.
Dammit, I know better than to read comments at the Post, but you talked me into it anyway. I need a drink….
No worries, it’s 5pm in some gun-free paradise somewhere… 😉
Interesting how even typically right-leaning authors will use the easy and tired crutch of Southern-blaming when casting about for a bogey to hold up. A far better choice would be the face in the preceding article: The Frankfurt School Marxists have done far more damage to this country and its liberty than any action taken by the South over the past 160 years.
I commend the owner and editor of this blog for their good work, and urge them to do all they can to rein in their fellow tribe members. There is more at stake here than just virtue signaling and snobbery.
I don’t believe he’s blaming the South for anything, I think he’s simply stating that liberty and equality for blacks (and poorer whites) didn’t exist after Reconstruction ended. Check out the old constitution of Alabama if you want, I believe the 1901 model.
In the north, gun control was enacted to prevent immigrants and inner city blacks from owning guns, like the Sullivan Law of NYC.
Everyone’s side has skeletons in the closet, so let’s open up the closets.
We’re still using the 1901 one…. we’re trying to get around to updating it……..not
How do you know if your breaking the law in Alabama? Over 300,000 words and almost 900 amendments, holy crap.
Word
He’s one of my current favorite writers.
If you liked that article, check out his others at the National Review:
http://www.nationalreview.com/author/charles-c-w-cooke
“It is from this understanding that all conversations must proceed. The Second Amendment is not “old”; it is timeless. It is not “unclear”; it is obvious. It is not “embarrassing”; it is fundamental.”
Hear, Hear!
F*ckin’-A, man.
Excellent use of that comma. Failure could have been disastrous.
I’m not much for looking over my comments for errors, before I click the “Post Comment” button (mainly because I just don’t care.) However, I made sure to read over that one once, or twice.
“Let’s eat, grandma!” is NOT the same as “Let’s eat grandma!”
The clarity and brevity of that statement should be carved into a worthy stone.
“Does everyone who uses a firearm to protect himself survive? Of course not. But as a free man, I do not consider my inalienable rights to be contingent upon my ability to exercise them successfully. I may debate freely, even if I am destined to lose the argument. I may enjoy a jury trial even if I am guilty. And I may defend my life and my liberty even if I eventually succumb.”
This is a terrific rebuttal to those who say it is better to lay down and take it as the common man just can’t possibly defeat an aggressor (eg: http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/12/robert-farago/quote-of-the-day-san-bernardino-survivor-and-former-air-force-medic-rejects-armed-self-defense/)
unless you do what +/- 93% of the public does and “take a deal” Plea……. read up on it.
Choice. Again.
Yeah, I like that line better than the one posted here at TTAG (though they’re both good).
This is going piss the average WaPo reader off something fierce…
I see what they doing now, print anti stuff to get the pro folks amped up, then print pro stuff to get the anti folks foaming at the mouth… Either way, they’re getting clicks.
Genius!
Beautifully written, rife with classical rhetoric. Progressivism may be more exciting, but conservatism (in its pure and best form) is more enduring.
We’re still using the 1901 one…. we’re trying to get around to updating it……..not
“Abe Lincoln may have freed all men, but Sam Colt made them equal” is thought to be the original slogan adopted by Colt Manufacturing way back around Reconstruction, usually seen as some variant of “God made Man, but Samuel Colt made them equal.”
Anyway, this came to mind as I read the quote from Charles C.W. Cooke and I think expresses the heart of what he’s saying albeit referencing Winchester’s Rifles in lieu of Colt’s Revolvers.
“Sure you can trust your government, just ask an Indian”
-galen
I almost missed this post now that the distendid penis ad is in the big middle of the front page. Don’t let the gun muggles see this nonsense before the article they will rage over.
Re: this article after all the anti-gun ones–
Well played, corporate media, well played.
Cooke is a valuable asset on our side. And, he’s not a squish, he believes in 2A.
His pieces can also be found on National Review, which fights the fight perhaps harder than it has done in the past.
Sounds right to me-especially if you’re black,brown,yellow,female,poor white,Catholic,Jewish or homosexual(sorry if I forgot a category southern folks…).