I don’t know how many times I’ve seen it said, but many on the anti-gun side of the debate believe that if a bunch of black people, especially anything that could be called a militia, walked through a town armed, all the white people would suddenly support gun control. This is rooted in the belief that opposition to gun control is rooted in racism.

Which is hilarious because it doesn’t take much looking at the history of gun control to see that what they’re really doing is deflecting.

Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen a lot of black groups termed militias walking around armed, and there’s been little support for gun control.

Yet that appears likely to be tested once again in Georgia.

Heavily armed black militia groups are expected to return to the Ahmaud Arbery murder trial in Georgia Tuesday — despite their presence sparking last-minute calls for a mistrial just before the case goes to the jury.

Black Lives Matter 757 called for protesters to return on Tuesday to the Glynn County Courthouse, where prosecutors started addressing the court for the last time before jurors start their deliberations on the three white men charged with Arbery’s murder.

The BLM group had been central to protests Monday that saw dozens of people — many fully masked and carrying assault rifles — rallying under the banners of other groups including the New Black Panther Party and the New Black Liberation Militia.

“Revolution has come — time to pick up the gun,” the group chanted, according to videos by Scootercaster, with many in the group giving fist salutes as they also chanted, “Black power will keep us safe.”

Now, am I fine with talking about “revolution” and “black power” and all that? Well, they’ve got a right to do it, even if I think they don’t really want what they seem to believe they want.

But just because I disagree with the message, it doesn’t mean it negates their Second Amendment rights, nor their First. If they’re going to show up outside the Arbery trial, well, so be it. I’m not going to lose a moment’s sleep over it.

I will say the same thing I say when groups from the right show up to protest something armed that has nothing to do with the Second Amendment, though, and that’s how the presence of firearms will distract people away from your message. Instead of it being about justice for Ahmaud or racism or anything else, the focus is going to be on the guns.

No, it shouldn’t be, but it is. In a perfect world, the presence of firearms would be irrelevant, but we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in this one.

Of course, the New Black Panther Party doesn’t actually care what I think. Even the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies them as racist and anti-Semitic, which is saying something.

That doesn’t negate their right to keep and bear arms, though.

Some think this will make every pro-gun person in the country flip their opinions and suddenly support gun control. I hate to break it to them, it doesn’t.