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NRA Trots Out Colion Noir in New Ad Aimed at Black Community Saying Government Can’t Protect You

March 5, 2013 by 5 Comments
300px National Rifle Association.svg NRA Trots Out Colion Noir in New Ad Aimed at Black Community Saying Government Cant Protect You

NRA Trots Out Colion Noir in New Ad Aimed at Black Community Saying Government Can’t Protect You (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

COMMENTARY:  The National Rifle Association is trying its hardest to make gun rights the new civil rights issue. How else do you explain them trotting out black gun enthusiast Colion Noir, who has joined NRA News as a contributor, in their latest ad aimed squarely at the black community? Let me add that Colion Noir is a YouTube sensation with over 88,000 subscribers to his page.

Colion Noir, self-described as an “urban gun enthusiast” talked for just under 90 seconds, encouraging Americans to arm themselves for protection, saying, “The only person responsible for your safety is you. Cops can’t always be there. Obama definitely can’t be there.” Yeah, the NRA is missing too.

I respect Colion Noir for what he has done on social media and I have no issue with the NRA using a black person to push their position. Nothing wrong with that, but we all know the NRA has an ulterior motive for this. NRA supporter Ted Nugent compared gun owners to Rosa Parks; former NRA president Marion Hammer likened a proposal banning assault weapons to racial discrimination and now Colion Noir is interjecting civil rights into the mix, slamming the government that “hosed us down with water, attacked us with dogs.” I am pretty sure civil rights leaders like Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, as well as Rep. John Lewis and many others will find this racial undertone offensive.

Conservative ‘pundit’ Ann Coulter deserves a paragraph all to herself.  You see, she tried to paint a picture that the NRA fought the Ku Klux Klan, in a column entitled Negroes with Guns. Coulter stated the NRA has gone to bat for blacks since the end of the Civil War, even taking a stand when civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was denied a gun permit because of his race:

Gun control laws were originally promulgated by Democrats to keep guns out of the hands of blacks. This allowed the Democratic policy of slavery to proceed with fewer bumps and, after the Civil War, allowed the Democratic Ku Klux Klan to menace and murder black Americans with little resistance.

Following the firebombing of his house in 1956, Dr. Martin Luther King, who was, among other things, a Christian minister, applied for a gun permit, but the Alabama authorities found him unsuitable. A decade later, he won a Nobel Peace Prize.

So, Colion Noir fits in nicely with the right wing discourse on gun control. It is disingenuous, disgraceful at best, to watch Colion Noir champion the sale and distribution of guns, when Hadiya Pendleton was gunned down in a Chicago park while sheltering from the rain. Or the thousands of faceless victims of the gun violence epidemic that continues to rage across this country in cities such as Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, Los Angeles and so on. The mass shootings that have occurred — Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, Aurora movie theater, even an elected official, Gabby Giffords, getting shot in a supermarket parking lot, former LAPD officer Christopher Dorner’s shooting rampage in California, for example,  haven’t moved the NRA one iota to proposing common-sense solutions to stem the gun violence that has permeated our culture at an alarming rate.

Let’s also be mindful of the blatant hypocrisy of the NRA and its position on gun control. We can’t ignore the “Black Panther” element to this shameful push by the NRA. In May 1967, 20 Black Panther members decided to dramatize their opposition to a gun control proposal in California, by walking into the state capitol in Sacramento carrying rifles. Then-governor Ronald Reagan and the NRA objected vociferously, declaring, “There’s no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.” So, you see, the National Rifle Association is blatantly hypocritical and now they want to start a new love-affair of convenience with the black community. The same community that has been mired by inner city gun violence, using a “black poster child,” Colion Noir, to “hustle their wares.” Of course, this is how it seems through their eyes.

NRA Trots Out Colion Noir in New Ad Aimed at Black Community Saying Government Cant Protect You
04 NRA Trots Out Colion Noir in New Ad Aimed at Black Community Saying Government Cant Protect You
pixel NRA Trots Out Colion Noir in New Ad Aimed at Black Community Saying Government Cant Protect You
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About Janet Shan

Janet Shan is a freelance journalist, blogger and social media consultant. Janet specializes in political and social commentary, as well as business writing. She is the founder and managing editor of the Hinterland Gazette. She is putting the finishing touches on her new novel, a mystery based in the hills on Montego Bay, Jamaica.

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  • http://twitter.com/Pablo_1791 Pablo

    Gun rights are civil rights and how hucksters like Sharpton and Jackson feel about that fact is irrelevant. Civil rights aren’t “wares” to be “hustled” and Colion Noir is not a “poster child.” You, however, are an obvious hypocrite and your faux outrage is noted and dismissed.

  • http://profiles.google.com/sanddog Ms Anonymous

    “using a black poster child, Colion Noir, to hustle their wares.”

    Seriously? I’m pretty sure a lot of people will find your nasty little racial undertone offensive as well.

  • chuckdaly

    Being a black, urban, gun enthusiast myself, its hard not to notice the lack of folk of similar complexion at NRA events, gun shows, and gun ranges. I guarantee Colion Noir has a similar experience, and is therefore fully aware of any consequences of speaking on behalf of the NRA. If the NRA is willing to broadcast his videos, Colion’s own words, then why should he pass up on the opportunity?

    I find it funny that urban blacks , like myself, make jokes about how the police are never available or timely when crimes are being commited, yet the advocacy for self-protection is frowned upon by black leaders who primarily live in the burbs. Look, I have no problem calling the NRA to task for not addressing the gun violence in urban communities, never calling out shady gun dealers who allow strawman purchases, or even advocating for self protection to urban blacks, while doing so daily in rural and suburban communities. Yet, what are the proposals from politicians that will stop urban youth from being continually shot? Assault weapons bans didn’t curb urban or gang violence in the 90′s. How are universal background checks gonna stop a teen from taking his uncles pistol, or robbing a neighbor’s house, or buying from a drug dealer or shady gun dealer? High capacity magazines aren’t really needed for killing high numbers of people as we saw at Virginia Tech. Am I the only one who’s seen any of the magazine reloading videos on Youtube, where they have to slow down the video so you don’t miss how fast anyone can reload a pistol/shotgun/rifle?

    Colion Noir has a video titled, “How to Stop MASS SHOOTINGS!” and it offers the best solutions for stopping the killing of suburban white kids, since that is all the media and politicians seem to care about, based on their so-called solutions. So I don’t see the downside to his partnership with the NRA. Colion Noir’s intelligent and common sense approach to the gun debate is persuasive to whites as it is to blacks, especially based upon his current youtube and facebook followers.

  • Larry

    The NRA is giving him a broader voice because millions of their members have said to pay attention to Colion. Not because he is black, but because he is articulate, accurate, and knows his facts. Ok, he’s good looking too.

  • RexMex

    Constitutional rights ARE civil rights; I see nothing wrong with that with regard to framing our rights to self-defense. It’s much better than the illegal, traitorous methods the grabbers have been trying for years. How would you feel if the other side were openly assaulting your First, and Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights on claims that they empower anti-American sentiments, criminals and terrorists? That’s how we LAW-ABIDING gun-owning citizens feel right now.

    As a skinny 30-something white Hispanic, I thinks it’s neat the NRA are reaching out to broader demographics, but who cares, Noir knows his stuff and how to frame it.