cobb_charles_e_jr

“One of the important lessons I learned as a participant in the southern freedom movement of the 1960s shocks many of my liberal friends: Guns don’t kill people; people kill people. I am neither a member nor supporter of the NRA, but both sides in today’s convoluted arguments about gun control and the second amendment need to pay attention to this lesson.” – Charles E. Cobb, Jr. in ‘This nonviolent stuff’ll get you killed’ [at washingtonpost.com]

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

78 COMMENTS

  1. My copy of Cobb’s book is arriving today. I’m greatly looking forward to reading it and then passing it around.

  2. This is a good trend while this guy may not be a dedicated gun rights supporter he certainly does not support gun control the tide is shifting in our favor

  3. What I have seen of leftists they really don’t care where the tide is going. But it is good to see one of them acknowledging that pacifism on a large scale does not work. Could be why so many of them are violent.

    Still, it good a liberal voice is telling the truth.

    • I’m a democrat and I’ve never killed anyone but I have had all the training, tools, and practice to be able to do so proficiently. You making a statement like that is just as stupid as the left saying all gun people are nutty gun toting killers. Food for thought

      • It’s really not.

        Fact of the matter is the majority of recent mass murderers in this country had ties to the Democratic party in one way or another.

        99% of Democrats may not be murderers, but 99% of murderers may very well be Democrats (I’m assuming that all the gang-bangers in Chicago and the like aren’t avid TEA Party supporters).

        On an unrelated point, as a presumably pro-gun Democrat, you’re working against yourself. Shooting yourself in the foot, if you will.

        • I COULD ALSO SAY THAT 99.9% OF MURDERERS BELIEVE IN A DIETY! PEOPLE ARE INDIVIDUALS PERIOD AND MAKE SHITTY DECISIONS.

        • it still AMAZES me that even after their party openly states they want to damn near remove guns from America and that gun control is listed in the party platform, some gun owners still want to be
          USEFUL IDIOTS and vote for those who would strip their firearms from them INSTANTLY if these people had their way and were un opposed.

          Then again, I guess you dont really care much about your freedom/firearms if you keep voting dem..

          The 2 party system working as intended, creating a massive divide.

        • @Taylor TX, if it was a one-issue race with gun rights only on the table, being a Democrat would not be a good decision. However, that’s not how politics work, as there are a plethora of issues covering each election. While some ideas on both sides of the aisle are not smart, it’s a matter of weighing the smarter ideas and figuring out which is more important. Not to say gun rights aren’t an important issue, but it may not be as pressing an issue to some (especially those that live in red states, with little worry of gun control).

          However, I agree with your point about the bi-party system just causing division as opposed to cooperation. The sadder part is that people tend to identify way too much with being ‘R’ or ‘D’, which blinds them to the actual issues at hand. There’s no agreement across the aisle, it’s just standing the party lines for the most part.

        • That’s nonsense. It’s like that meme of MLK, Jr. being a Republican. Every member of his family says he was not except for a distance niece that is conservative so, of course, regressives latch onto her misinformation like it was the gospel.

          Likewise within hours of the most recent shootings there are always calls on white power and gun lover message boards to distance themselves from the crazies and to spread disinformation that the shooter was somehow actually a gun loving liberal.

          Get real. In most cases no one knows the political leanings of a shooter, particularly a young one, but if they have been to the Bundy Ranch it’s highly unlikely they voted for President Obama.

      • Voting the way you do, piping up on here telling the rest of us it isn’t a party issue, is just a phenomenal waste of time. Yours and ours.

        So please jeremy, go shoot yourself in the foot. At least that way you could serve some use as another example of a democrat who shouldn’t have been armed.

      • I’m a liberal but I wouldn’t be caught dead voting for a Democrat. They’re plutocratic fascists just like the Republicans. All these people here calling you out on voting for anti-gun politicians kind of have a point.

        • “I’m a liberal but I wouldn’t be caught dead voting for a Democrat.”

          Thank you! A political party (especially in a two party system) often has little to do with a person’s overall philosophy. I find myself in a situation similar to yours, Brad. I’m done with the arbitrary Red v. Blue fight. A thorough examination of issues/policies, rather than blind commitment to ideology (and especially parties), is the way to go.

        • I’m a liberal and I wouldn’t be caught dead making a decision who to vote for based solely on gun rights. Our political system is broken. I have no dogmatic loyalty to the Democratic Party. Life is far more nuanced than “who would let me have the most variety of guns.” If I were legitimately worried about retaining the legal right to defend myself then that would heavily influence my vote but none of the candidates I’ve supported have ever proposed that. That includes Obama. I’m disappointed in him for many other reasons, but a shameless, ignorant gun grabber he is not.

      • I agree completely. But don’t let the folks on here find out you base your vote on larger issues than gun rights…

        • A-men to that. One issue voters, especially those that hang their manhood on being ammosexuals, really need to get a freaking life.

          Now, as far as ignorant regressives/Republicans trying to destroy the nation with Trickle Down economics, that’s another story.

    • and while we’re at it, keep in mind- 100% of people who eat french fries WILL DIE.

  5. If you want to make a champagne liberal grimace, bring this up. Then, when they bring up MLK, mention MLK’s gun collection and his vain attempts at getting a carry permit. More sour faces than buttermilk.

    • MLK or Malcolm X, take your pick. Black Panthers in the 60s also if Im not mistaken are who initially caused the knee jerk ban on Open Carry in California.

      I remind myself daily about the “content of a man’s character” and not to be a judgemental dick, one of my all time favorite quotes from an American.

        • 1 second after the picture was taken, everybody in the room was deaf, and there was a hole in the ceiling about 1/3 of an inch wide. Somebody needs to take an NRA safety course.

      • Mr. Shabazz is not exactly popular with the Subaru set. He was far too independent and assertive for a mushy, patronizing progressive to stomach.

        Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the Deacons of Defense, They were essentially the bodyguards of the civil-rights movement.

      • yup and that is also how the first ideas against “assault weapons” were formed; by racists rather uneasy about the black panthers storming city halls with m1 carbines and such in hand.

        Because god forbid you end institutional racism.

        Wait it gets worse.

        Anybody ever hear of REX84? the proposed exercise for the military to round up blacks in the event of a “hypothetical black militant uprising” and put them in camps, japanese-american style?

        Yup. Sometimes i wonder if the FEMA camp chicken littles’ claims aren’t well founded on a basis of reality afterall…

        • Speaking of institutionalized racism, the War on (some) Drugs has been overtly racist ever since the Reefer Madness. Ending that insanity would cause violence to plummet – Portugal legalized all drugs in 2001 and it’s been a resounding success – or course, the PTB have too much of an investment to even let that little inconvenient fact come to light.

          For those of you who still have the Reefer Madness, please tell me what good can be served by criminalizing young people who have done no harm?

    • Most, if not all, were men. All were individuals with posession of a gun.

      These types of generalizations may make you feel better but you’re only really only working to uphold the type of logic that’s being used by all the gun grabbers.

      And there are plenty of grabbers outside of the liberal camp.

      • In short, don’t confuse correlation with causation. If you want to talk about causation, you should start with mental health, not political affiliation.

    • If you’re gonna use an old term for black folk, please, spell it correctly. It’s Negroes, with a second ‘e’.

      As for Progressives being afraid of my people with guns, I’ll say a lot of white people are afraid of my people with guns – Progressives and otherwise.

      I have a joke, based on my experiences living in Jackson, WY.

      How do I know who are the tourists in Jackson? When I walk by white women, they clutch their purses tighter. Every. Time.

      • Spelling point taken apprarently Mr. Gates doesn’t think this archaic term is spelled wrong but you obviously didn’t get the sarcasm about the history of Progressivism and racism.

        • Oh, I got it. I just expanded on it. Hence, my joke based on personal experience.

          Of course, a sarcasm emoticon from both of us may be prudent for the future…as son as I remember what it is. Age, and all like that.

      • Negro means black in spanish, so technically it is not spelled with an E. That is english grammar, not spanish.

    • And have been since before the Civil War. eg, Virginia prohibited blacks from carrying firearms (which they called “firelocks” back in the old legislation), military weapons (eg, swords), ball, shot or powder in 1831.

      Clayton Cramer, Dave Kopel and others have written articles and books on this subject since Clayton first started exposing the impetus of the initial gun control in the early 90’s. Gun control laws, most all gun control laws in the US, stem from the “good government nannies” developing a galloping case of the fantods when they see a black man carrying a gun – any gun.

      • “Gun control laws, most all gun control laws in the US, stem from the “good government nannies” developing a galloping case of the fantods when they see a black man carrying a gun – any gun.”

        That sound about right. Worse yet the grabbers are on both sides of the fence, like Neel Kashkari guy in California that makes Brown look like an NRA lifer. I bet Kashkari craps his sheets at the very thought of a brown person with a CCW.

      • I was once in a play in which I disarmed some boys who were fighting (I also choreographed the fights). At the end of the scene, I walked out into the lobby with both hands full of stage guns and then backstage.

        One night I stormed into the lobby with these stage guns and there was a middle-aged white woman there waiting to get in. You should have seen how much her eyes bugged out when she saw this black man with all those stage guns. Priceless.

        BTW, it happened in DC.

  10. “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people!”

    It is amazing that this decades old statement of COMMON SENSE is still too much for them to handle. Their immediate and classic response is “but they make it easier for people to kill people!” Because if it were that easy, why everybody would be dead in a week. There is no room in their head for a world where people can be trusted with freedom.

    • Expanding on this, the real answer to “GDKPPKP” is “EXACTLY, we don’t trust PEOPLE….” Basically looking every voter in the face and telling them “You are just a hunk of steel away from being a murderer… vote for us!”

  11. Did anyone here actually read the article or are you all just going straight to the Two Minutes Hate?

    • This book has been floating around for awhile, so I for one skipped to the comments.

    • I read the article before reading comments and came away with the impression Mr. Cobb’s statement quoted was neither pro or anti gun, but a discussion of why African Americans adopted “passive resistance” over violent resistance because they found the former to be more effective in advancing their agenda. I recall seeing the TV News films of protests in the South where water cannons, tear gas, Police Dogs and some human violence by White Police and White People were used against Black Civil Rights Marchers. These images made a deep impression on me and, I think, many other White People across the Nation. It was an effective tactic and it ultimately worked. I take Mr. Cobb’s remarks to neither support nor decry guns, but as a comment about his learning about the nature of people. His focus is on human violence, and the involvement of guns is merely incidental. I think he selected the phrase more as a guaranteed attention getting device than anything else.

  12. Yep I read the article. Pretty good for a so-called liberal. He STILL doesn’t get his fellow Dumbocrats may be the greatest obstacle to black folks. From an old white guy married to a beautiful black woman.

      • Why not? Heck, I suspect he’s proud of her. 🙂 I’m a Scotswoman who married a Texas Cherokee/Irishman more than 30 years ago. He was the best man who ever lived, just didn’t live long enough.

        Long ago, that would have been as horrifying to “good people” as marrying a black. Isn’t it interesting that carrying a gun in the 50s was only seen as horrible if the carrier was a black – or an “indian.”

        Times change, but people don’t seem to. Most fear what they do not understand. The worst of those react with hate and violence.

      • Yeah, why would anyone care? It’s like someone noting that they’re a gun owner who drives a Tesla or owns a dairy or can carry a tune. Who cares?

        • Agreed, for what little it’s worth. I, for one, don’t care. I’m too old for this crap.

  14. Wow, I think this is a pretty huge dose of reality for the Libs, coming from someone who was there.
    I’ve always said it’s the deterrent factor of American’s ability to fight tyranny (2A) that prevents tyranny, not necessarily the action of fighting it itself.

  15. The value of guns is certainly not lost on a lot of us Black Americans. I was raised with an understanding of how important a role guns played not only on the national stage but in my family history as well.

    Frankly I find it disgusting whenever I see a Black person adamantly advocating against guns. this is a quote straight from Frederick Douglass a former slave:

    “No man can be truly free whose liberty is dependent upon the thought, feeling and action of others and who has himself no means in his own hand for guarding, protecting, defending and maintaining that liberty”

    Firearms are essential to our way of life and I’ll see to it that they stay in our lives in no diminished capacity.

    • Great quote, gonna have to write that one down on my quotes notepad.

      “Without weapons, all you can do is hope that armed men will be fair and honest. Well guess fucking what, hope is not a plan, and when people use it as one, they tend to end up taking it up their fourth point of contact.”

      The quote is from the video below done by RangerUp.com, Hilarious episode about gun control.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjAl_kbAxmc

      • Nice! It even incorporated the sheep, wolves and sheepdogs concept that I’m familiar with from Dave Grossman’s work. It can be problematic to put people into arbitrary categories, but I don’t think he’s far off when it comes to people and their approach to the use of force.Thanks Taylor, I’m going to have to check out Rangerup.com.

  16. Sorry YOU don’t like me cameron. Tough s##t. My sons are also considered black. I don’t claim to have all the answers either. And thanks Mama Liberty…I pulled your link from yesterday’s diatribe from cowgirl. It was a GREAT post-worthy of wide exposure. And cam-learn how to spell “article”.

    • You keep doing what you do sir! I’m a Black man proudly married to a Thai woman and sure enough there were Black people who had a problem with this. They got over it. Nothing wrong with being proud of your marriage.

  17. With the exception of a few like MamaLiberty I think I have just read some of the ” convoluted arguments about gun control and the second amendment” Mr. Cobb referenced. Other than his reference to participating in the Southern Freedom Movement 50 years ago no mention of race was in his comments so why is race brought in as an issue? Mr. Cobb references “both sides… of the argument” then he throws it out and lets you geniuses decide what both sides are.

    So far we have defined both sides as Black/White, Left/Right, Republican/Democrat, Pro/Anti NRA, Pro/Anti Gun, Liberal/Conservative and Pro/Anti Deity. I’m sure the list will grow.

    All this and Mr. Cook makes no point. Guns are inanimate. Any idiot knows that. The real point is that there are anti’s and there are grabber’s. Anti’s would like all guns outlawed as in Japan. Grabbers want your guns and my guns outlawed but they want to keep their guns. There will always be more than two sides to the issue.

    To maintain our rights we must stand together and not be divided.

  18. Cobb’s narrative is sometimes hard to follow, but one of the points he is trying to make is that nonviolence is not the same as pacifism. There is nothing contradictory about promoting nonviolence while protecting yourself with the means to use deadly force. I cite Luke 22:36 where Jesus, who spent his life preaching peace, advised his disciples to arm themselves with swords.

    It follows that self-defense is not the same as vigilantism. Stopping a violent attack is not the same as hunting down criminals and shooting them. And if there are any fence-sitters in the gun rights debate whose hearts and minds can be won, these differences must be carefully explained as part of the conversation.

    • “There is nothing contradictory about promoting nonviolence while protecting yourself with the means to use deadly force.”

      Spot on! A nuanced view of life leads one to this conclusion. In my opinion, there are very few real pacifists. If you are a true pacifist, then you are willing to allow yourself (or the ones you love) to be killed in the name of “non-violence.” I would refer to this as violence-enabling behavior, but each to their own.

      Most people that assert pacifism are, to be blunt, liars. In the heat of the moment, they will act to defend themselves. It’s perfectly natural. Other “pacifists” only urge certain people or countries to act peacefully, while they say little about the violence of their favored group.

      Most often, people who brow beat others about being “non-violent” are simply looking for a way to feel superior (like our anti-gun friends).They especially look down on folks–like me–who sometimes have to use force on the job to neutralize threats. Its all about them, not some commitment to “world peace.”

    • Exactly. There is a very important distinction between the two positions.

      When someone says they’re going to be nonviolent, I implicitly assume that, if pushed far enough, they will reserve the right to drop their nonviolence position and respond with force as needed.

      When someone says “I’m a pacifist,” all I see are people who wish to engage in preening, unctuous moral sermonizing while they rely on the exertions and sacrifices of others to maintain their safety.

      • The decision to choose a peaceful and a cooperative means of resolution carries the most weight when you have the means to resolve any disagreement with force in your favor. if i compromise with you when i do not have to, then consider yourself receiving an extra fair deal.

  19. I’m extremely proud of my wife. When I was a kid ( I’m over 60 ) my mother told me to never bring home a negro or a Catholic. I did both( but different woman). I didn’t set out to end up with a black woman. Honestly the spiritual part is way more important than man-made race. Something you stormfront a##holes don’t get.

    • But you seem to think that race is still an issue when it’s something we’re trying to get beyond. Wouldn’t you be proud of your wife if she were white? Why does the race of anyone’s spouse matter?

      • Why does it matter to you? If you don’t like to read about it, why don’t you just skip his posts, or any others you don’t like? Why do you think you need to dicate to others what matters to them? You can’t speak for anyone but yourself.

        • Because I appreciate his point of view and agree with much of what he has to say. I just don’t get you people that are hung up on race.

      • Where do get the notion we’ve moved beyond race?. From the almost daily reports out of Chicago, the non white people flooding our borders to the guy in the white house-raised by white and Indonesian and had to move to Chicago to “learn” to be black. Yeah things are way better for me and my wife but tell that to my very large caramel colored son who can’t seem to get ANY job despite having honors in high school and glowing recommendations from many people. He can be quite intimidating without trying. Because he LOOKS BLACK. I did have a white wife I was NOT proud of. My chocolate bunny is one in a billion. Even after 27 years. And the only reason I have ever mentioned her is I-an old fat white guy-might have an expansive point of view unavailable to the average white boy. Oh and thanks MamaLiberty.

        • Good on ya dude for spreading the love. There’s more than enough fear and hate to go around. It’s long past time to spread some more love around, you know?

  20. I lived through the days of the Civil Rights Movement and participated in it. Black people were far from passive and did not employ “passive resistance.” On the contrary, while black protesters were certainly non-violent, they were very aggressive and used force to advance their cause. They employed a tactic of massive resistance, and it worked.

    As the Civil Rights Movement proved, aggressive tactics can be non-violent tactics, and vice versa. But self defense allows, and sometimes demands, the use of violence when it’s justified.

  22. Don Kates:

    “As a civil rights worker in the South, I carried various guns—as did many other whites in the movement—for protection. And Southern black civil rights activists were almost all armed, since they were largely rural Southerners. I recall one night when I sat watch outside the home of a black teacher who had been threatened along with five or six blacks. I was underarmed since what I had was the ineffectual M1 carbine. I didn’t know any better. The blacks with whom I was sitting watch all had shotguns or battle rifles.”

    http://www.vice.com/read/the-former-civil-rights-activist-who-created-the-right-to-bear-arms?utm_source=vicetumblrus

  23. “This nonviolent stuff’ll get you killed’ ”

    That and gun control has the most vile and disgustingly racist history behind it. its not even amusing or funny, but critically important for the pro-gun side to understand that gun control has a irrefutable racist history behind it.

    Afterall, disarmed slaves and blacks served a “purpose” in the pre and post -civil war south: being easy pickings for lynchings and institutional discrimination/racism. furthermore, the sad irony is that assault weapons bans and gun control laws were conceived following the black panthers storming city halls with guns. By none other than pro-gun control (and racist) republicans like st ronnie reagan. The so-called “progressives” just thought it was a good idea and picked it up.

    And then anti-gunners try and twist it around to try and revise history that the 2nd amendment was created to “suppress slave revolts”. the audacity of those idiots. May the melanoma grow happily on their fat bodies.

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