“Try this,” [Rush] Limbaugh said. “If a lot of African-Americans back in the ’60s had guns and the legal right to use them
for self-defense, you think they would have needed Selma? I don’t
know. I’m just asking. If [Georgia Democrat] John Lewis - who says he was beat
upside the head - if John Lewis had had a gun, would he have been beat
upside the head on the bridge?”
- Rush on his radio talk show, Friday, 1.18.2013
Well, OK. Rush is giving us a thought experiment, clearly ignorant of the fact that any act of thinking would by its very nature be, among his audience, experimental. It doesn't take any experimental thinking to know what Rush would have been saying if, in fact, African-Americans back in the ’60s had actually used guns, even for self-defense.
In fact, Rush is correct in remembering that gunplay in the civil rights era was largely the province of white folk. And if all the black people had actually unlimbered all the "Saturday night specials" they were supposedly so ready to use on one another, civil rights would just be another distant dream, something we'd like to try someday were it not that those black folk had proven so trigger happy back then. But in fact, Selma looked like this on the day to which Rush refers:
If John Lewis had used a gun that day, he would never have been "beat upside the head" - he'd be dead. Nevertheless, in the experimental spirit which Rush has invoked, try this:
- Rush on his radio talk show, Friday, 1.18.2013
Well, OK. Rush is giving us a thought experiment, clearly ignorant of the fact that any act of thinking would by its very nature be, among his audience, experimental. It doesn't take any experimental thinking to know what Rush would have been saying if, in fact, African-Americans back in the ’60s had actually used guns, even for self-defense.
In fact, Rush is correct in remembering that gunplay in the civil rights era was largely the province of white folk. And if all the black people had actually unlimbered all the "Saturday night specials" they were supposedly so ready to use on one another, civil rights would just be another distant dream, something we'd like to try someday were it not that those black folk had proven so trigger happy back then. But in fact, Selma looked like this on the day to which Rush refers:
(Not the 'Crimson Tide's' backfield)
If John Lewis had used a gun that day, he would never have been "beat upside the head" - he'd be dead. Nevertheless, in the experimental spirit which Rush has invoked, try this:
- If a lot of Abyssinians back in the ’30s had guns and the legal right to use them for self-defense, you think they would have needed to worry about Mussolini's air force? I don’t know. I’m just asking.
- If a lot of Ghandi's Indian followers back in the ’20s had guns and the legal right to use them for self-defense, you think they would have needed to worry about the British army? I don’t know. I’m just asking.
- If a lot of Gauls and Visigoths and Huns back in A.D. 250 had guns and the legal right to use them for self-defense, you think they would have needed to worry about the Roman Army?
- If a lot of Afghani warlords back in 2003 had guns and the legal right to use them for self-defense, you think they would have needed to worry about the U.S. Army?
"Holy shit, where'd they get that?"
- If a lot of Pakistani tribal villagers back in 2010 had guns and the legal right to use them for self-defense, you think they would have needed to worry about the U.S. Air Force?
"OK, I think we've got the equation tighter."
There's a peculiar illogic to all of this that allows us to go pretty much anywhere we want. But who'd really want to end up there?
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