Danny Glover shows astonishing ignorance of actual history in claim that Second Amendment was to 'protect slavery'

Wednesday, January 23, 2013 by: J. D. Heyes
Tags: Danny Glover, gun control, ignorance

(NaturalNews) To hear Hollywood star Danny Glover tell it, the writing and adoption of the Second Amendment was motivated by and predicated solely on racism, not as a means of national defense or as a bulwark against a potentially intrusive central government.

As most of today's entertainment and political elite continue to mouth off about how certain types of guns must be limited or banned because they have little to do with hunting (their definition of the Second Amendment's primary purpose), Glover has taken a different tact: He says the amendment was adopted to suppress African slaves and steal land and possessions from Native American Indians.

In a speech before a crowd of Texas A&M students recently, Glover - perhaps motivated by recent news regarding gun control or influence by director Quentin Tarantino's fictional "Django Unchained," in which a slave played by Jamie Foxx goes on a killing rampage and guns down whites - claimed that the origins of the Second Amendment were sinister.

"I don't know if you know the genesis of the right to bear arms. The Second Amendment comes from the right to protect themselves from slave revolts, and from uprisings by Native Americans," said Glover, who apparently cited little-or-no historical evidence to back up his outrageous statement.

"A revolt from people who were stolen from their land or revolt from people whose land was stolen from, that's what the genesis of the second amendment is," said Glover, who had been invited (and paid) to speak in commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a man who dedicated his entire life to unifying, not dividing, the country's ethnic groups.

Well, so much for reality

Needless to say, there were a number of students and some campus groups who were not very pleased with Glover's revisionist history.

Now "should be a time for real reflection and respect," Eric Schroeder, chairman of Texas Aggie Conservatives, said, adding that he thought Glover's comments were "outrageous."

"Instead, the university pushes a political agenda," said Schroeder, who went onto call on university officials to invite a conservative speaker of equal star power to speak on campus.

"We expect President Loftin to stand by his commitment to diversity and fully support our efforts to bring in a conservative speaker to provide an alternative to Mr. Glover's far left message," he said.

That would be fine if all that matters was an attempt to provide equal time to political opposites. But what is really needed is an effort to set the record straight, which is what Natural News always seeks to do.

First, Glover's claims regarding the "genesis" of the Second Amendment are patently - and demonstrably - false. The statements of our founding fathers make clear that the amendment was written and adopted to protect the citizens of a nation that had just won its independence from a tyrannical British ruler from falling prey to a tyrannical American ruler:

To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them. - Richard Henry Lee, Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress, initiator of the Declaration of Independence, and member of the first Senate, which passed the Bill of Rights

The great object is that every man be armed... Everyone who is able may have a gun. - Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution

The advantage of being armed... the Americans possess over the people of all other nations... Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several Kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. - James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, in his Federalist Paper No. 26

Danny, don't let the truth get in the way

Madison's original language for the Second Amendment, according to congressional record, read: "That right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person."

Nothing about protecting against slaves. Nothing about stealing land from Native Americans.

One final thought about African slaves being "stolen" from their land: In principle, that may be somewhat true, but the founding fathers, some of whom were slave owners, were not the ones who "stole" them. Most were bought from black African slave traders who initially tricked or kidnapped their prey and who then sold them into bondage. Also, according to one eyewitness account, http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com; 40 percent were sent to the Caribbean, 38 percent ended up in Brazil, and 17 percent were sent to Spanish America.

Not that any of this matters to Glover and those like him, whose political agenda trumps what is true and honest.

Sources:

http://www.campusreform.org/blog/?ID=4582

http://www.constitution.org/mil/rkba1982.htm

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/slavetrade.htm