We remember a great man, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

A man who believed in peace and who never carried a gun?

The MAIN REASON that he didn't carry a gun was because THE APPLICATION HE FILED WAS DENIED in 1958 - black men, just like Catholics, freed slaves, union members and any other group that people WITH guns wanted to oppress at some point in history have been legally denied the right to their... own protection. Despite being denied his right to carry one, Martin Luther King Jr. DID OWN guns and kept his guns in his home. Rev. King was worried about state monopoly on force and was also worried that a criminal with a gun, who did not follow the laws, might try to kill him....

Were he alive today and applied for the SAME license he applied for he would AGAIN be denied in many states. In the eyes of the law, King, a man arrested and who served time 14 times, was, is and will always be a criminal and ineligible for a license to carry firearms. By today's laws, it is likely that King would be also be prosecuted for owning the guns he did own in his own home. The armed guards who joined him in Washington DC would have almost certainly been in danger of arrest given today's laws there.

Is this right? No. That's the point. Dr. King believed in reason and trying to change the focus of people. He preached that when we do violence to others we do violence to ourselves. But, as a victim of KKK attacks and threats, he also understood evil and that evil cannot be reasoned with or legislated away. For those times when faced with evil and for those times where we must guard against imbalance of the power of force, our founders and Dr. King saw the need for the Second Amendment. One can believe in peace as well as a human right to defense.

"As we have seen, the first public expression of disenchantment with nonviolence arose around the question of "self-defense." In a sense this is a false issue, for the right to defend one's home and one's person when attacked has been guaranteed through the ages by common law." - Martin Luther King Jr.