Civil Rights = Second Amendment Rights

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, David Kopel has the story of armed defense of the civil rights movement.  He relates the story of John Salter and his many examples of how armed minorities...and the widespread knowledge that they were prepared to defend themselves....actually saved lives during the Civil Rights movement.  Given that local law enforcement was not only unwilling to defend minorites from the Klan, local law enforcement was a part of the Klan in some parts of the South.

Having received many death threats, Salter carried a Smith & Wesson .38 special in his attaché case. One night, on a long stretch of isolated country road, a Klan vehicle tried to force Salter’s car into a high-speed chase, by tailing him nearly bumper-to-bumper. "But I continued to drive sedately, mile after mile with my revolver in my hand." Salter and the other community organizers had put out word on the grapevine that they were all armed, and he surmises that this was the reason that the Klansmen did not try to shoot him that night.

Soon after, "a local civil rights stalwart, Mrs. Alice Evans, of Enfield, opened fire with her double-barreled 12 gauge, sprinkling several KKKers with birdshot as they endeavored to burn a cross in her driveway one night and, simultaneously, approaching her home with buckets of gasoline." The Klansmen fled and went to the hospital. Mrs. Evans donated the cross to the Smithsonian Museum.

Modern gun proponents point out that most of our anti-gun laws were born during the Civil Rights era as an attempt to disarm minorities while leaving everyone else with their guns.

To advocate for Civil Rights is to advocate for our Second Amendment rights.  One doesn't exist without the other.