Florida Dem Running For State Senate Backs Gun Rights

It’s very easy for us to look at gun rights and automatically assume all Republicans back gun rights and all Democrats oppose it. It’s easy because, by and large, that’s how it shakes out in the real world. The moment Democrats got control of Virginia, they immediately swooped in to overturn years of work by GOP legislators to restore gun rights, for example.

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And that story isn’t unique, really. What did Democrats do the moment they took the House? That’s right, they started pushing for gun control.

However, it’s important to remember that just like we can’t trust every Republican with our gun rights, there are some Democrats who believe in the Second Amendment. One is now running for the state senate in Florida.

Democratic Florida Senate candidate H. Alexander Duncan wants Democrats and particularly black men to demand Second Amendment rights to guns just as loudly as the mostly Republican, mostly white men seen at many protests around the country.

Duncan, running in a crowded Democratic primary in Senate District 9 to represent Seminole County and parts of Volusia County, posted several items on Facebook over the weekendespousing his firm commitment to Second Amendment rights, including a photograph of himself holding his AR-15 rifle, superimposed against the U.S. Constitution and a few rifle cartridges.

His posts also make references to and depict the armed black and Hispanic men who helped escort Michigan black lawmakers past a phalanx of mostly white, armed protesters last week, and to the Black Panthers of the late 1960s. Duncan also posted pictures of African American children in a gun store and holding up a “black power” fist, while he urged African American parents to take their children to the gun store, and to the gun range, and to “give your children a shooting chance.”

“The overt nature of what a lot of these mainly Caucasian groups have been doing with the public displays and their antics with the firearms, they’ve pushed it to the point where… a lot of African Americans are going to take another look …  and see that there is historical significance to African Americans being staunch supporters of the Second Amendment,” Duncan said in an interview Monday.

In his posts, he also makes references to recent acts of violence against black men.

“Just in case any Republicans felt like they had a monopoly on the Second Amendment, Stand Your Ground or “the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” — you’re wrong… the dying stops now,” Duncan wrote in a post with the picture.

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While I disagree with Duncan on the risk posed by supposedly racially-motivated murders of black men–after all, the vast majority of black men who are murdered die at the hands of other black men–I’m not going to say anything about it actually mattering that I disagree.

Look, if any group feels they may be oppressed by another group, my advice is to get armed. Like Duncan says, black men and women should be buying guns, especially if they’re concerned about racially-motivated violence. The same is true for Hispanics and Asians as well. If you fear being targeted, especially for as superficial a reason as your skin tone, then you owe it to yourself and your family to buy a gun.

Honestly, the vast majority of gun owners would agree with that sentiment as well, based on my interactions with numerous others. None of us care about your ethnicity. If you’re not a felon or insane, we fully agree that you should buy a gun. Hell, most of us will disagree with someone like Duncan on almost every matter of policy, but would still help them figure out the best gun for them if they needed the help (Duncan, apparently, doesn’t need it).

While most gun owners do tend to be white, that’s not by design. I don’t know a damn soul how looks around at the gun range and is talks about how great it is that there aren’t any minorities around. I’ve literally never heard anything remotely like that on any range. While I’m sure someone has, it’s not the prevailing opinion.

So yeah, every minority should be armed. African-Americans? Yep, arm them up. Asian-Americans? Absolutely. Hispanic-Americans? Hell yeah. Women? Oh, you better believe it. The LGBT community? Of course.

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Look, everyone should be armed if they wish to be. If you’re someone who feels like you might be targeted for a crime, arming yourself isn’t paranoia, it’s prudence. Get a gun, learn how to shoot it, learn how to fight with it (because there’s more to it than target practice), and keep your skills sharp. Then, if you need to, defend your life as fiercely as you can.

Self-defense is a human right. That means it applies to all of us.

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