Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Meet Colion Noir


 Colion Noir is one of the gun video commentators that I enjoy. I'd seen a few of his videos before he became involved with the NRA. He thinks my gun is ugly, but there you go! (I knew this would be a good interview because Glen Beck seems to see his job as facilitating communication with the interviewee instead of some dressed up version of combat that he's got to win.)

The LA Times had an article about Noir today that was pretty good. It talks a bit about the accusations that he's a token or "Uncle Tom" and that blacks were pro-gun control. This portion of the LA Times article stuck out at me:
The NRA does not release membership demographics, but according to a Pew Research Center survey, many gun owners in America are white — 31% of whites polled this year said they owned guns, compared with 15% of blacks and 11% of Latinos.
Polls being polls I wondered how much non-reporting happened. I also wondered if those percentages were of all blacks and all Latinos or if the poll had corrected for percentages of those blacks and Latinos living in cities with strict gun control. Now, to me of course, I look at gun ownership in the black community as a civil rights issue and suspect that much of the urban gun bans are actually about disarming blacks. Noir says the same:
"The same government who at one point hosed us down with water, attacked us with dogs and wouldn't allow us to eat at their restaurants told us we couldn't own guns when bumbling fools with sheets on their heads were riding around burning crosses on our lawns and murdering us," Noir says in the video as "Washington elitism" flashes across the screen. It was not a misreading of history, according to UCLA law professor Adam Winkler, author of "Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America."
But Noir also says in the interview with Glen Beck and also the LA Times article mentions that blacks are likely to be pro-gun control because they associate weapons with the thug culture. If so, I don't care if Colion Noir is a "token" or anything else. He's giving voice to an alternative view of young black men with guns and that's a good thing. The NRA also has a new spokesperson who's a pretty young blond lady. I don't care if she's a token either. The point is that guns aren't about being an old white guy and that the 2nd Amendment is not an old white guy amendment and the Constitution itself is not an old white guy document. 

Also, grats to Colion Noir... he just passed the bar so... law blogging!

31 comments:

The Crack Emcee said...

I don't know any blacks against guns, except the elders concerned about what they read in the news. And experience, first hand, outside their windows.

No, I think Ice Cube said it best, detailing the average urban dwellers point of view, when they're living with the depravation and desperation in Chris Rock's famous "Blacks" routine.

This is kind of a good step for the NRA, but I don't know if Noir is the guy.

He's a start,...

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The point is that guns aren't about being an old white guy and that the 2nd Amendment is not an old white guy amendment and the Constitution itself is not an old white guy document.

Well put Synova.

bagoh20 said...

I bet Synova is actually an old white guy, and we know Crack, the 102 lb. Japanese tupperware party national champion is fooling no one with that disguise.

Ice T also made it pretty clear he wasn't giving up his right to defend himself and his own againsts assholes with or without official authority. The truth is it's pretty risky as G. Zimmerman found out, no matter how justified.

Methadras said...

Considering the ever increasing presence of militarized police that have little to no regard for your rights much less viewing you as a citizen, you would be stupid to not be legally arming yourself. The thin veil and veneer of society is already being peeled back and it ain't pretty.

Methadras said...

And George Zimmerman lived up to the adage of being tried by 12 (or in this case 6) then being carried by 6.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

In my mind, the 4th amendment "The right of the people to be secure in their persons" reinforces the 2nd "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed".

Lem the artificially intelligent said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Revenant said...

Noir seems like an interesting guy.

bagoh20 said...

Where I live in Los Angeles, with a private high school behind my house and a public high school across the street, if I have to introduce my 45 to any intruders, I'm better off burying them in the back yard than calling the cops afterward. I probably use the baseball bat to be safe. A gun is dangerous on both ends now days.

Methadras said...

Lem said...

In my mind, the 4th amendment "The right of the people to be secure in their persons" reinforces the 2nd "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed".


The 4th Amendment is effectively dead in the face of what I described with militarized PD's. The 2nd amendment during the original continental congress was actually being argued to become the 1st Amendment because the argument was that that the right to bear arms reinforces the rest of the rights and an armed populace is more motivated to make sure their government stays away from them. But the 1st amendment as we know it now became that way because if men can't speak freely, then the bearing of arms bolsters their ability to do so. If the 1st goes down, then the 2nd will surely take over. If they take away the 2nd, then all the others will fall. Government is whittling away at all the rest.

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

We have to fight for our rights...

How I managed to find that clip of Lillyhammer Season II is beyond me.

Synova said...

Heh... the Ice Cube song had right at the end some "radio voice" guy saying that the typical gun owner was a white male over the age of 30. (I wrote Ice Tea... halfway was tempted to leave it.)

My feeling is that a whole lot of gun owners would lie if asked if they had a gun, particularly if they lived in a place where it was illegal for them to have one.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I have a question. It doesn't need to be answered.

My question is doesn't the value of waiting for the right spokesmen/women diminish the value of the right itself?

Obviously, it does to me, otherwise I wouldn't have asked.

thanks.

Synova said...

"I bet Synova is actually an old white guy,.."

I am! I look just like that hairy "fail" guy with the gun magazines and black socks, except that he's probably shorter since I'm 6'4" and twice as hairy except blond on my thinning head with red whiskers and back hair.

Synova said...

Maybe the trick is to get a number of different spokespersons... a preponderance... cover all the bases.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Is a bit like constitutional rapture.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The monarchy was the right spokespeople.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

We will always go back to that in the end I believe.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

We only substitute one monarchy for another.

The Crack Emcee said...

Synova,

(I wrote Ice Tea... halfway was tempted to leave it.)

LOL. Check out how Cube followed that track, showing the downside of the very gun ownership he'd advocated (He'd already delivered two scathing and insightful numbers justifying drug sales). It's deep. When this album came out - 1991 - his storytelling ability, and attention to detail, were breathtaking. Check out the lyrics below the video.

Synova said...

I could follow the lyrics pretty well I thought. I don't ever listen to "that kind of music" but I could easily see why he got as popular as he did. I'm not a musician but I could tell that clearly he is.

Chip Ahoy said...

That was short.

My favorite part was where the guy goes, "I can't speak for everyone."

And whathisface goes, "Really? Because I was kind a-hoping you would. That's why I asked you."

The Crack Emcee said...

Synova,

I could follow the lyrics pretty well I thought. I don't ever listen to "that kind of music" but I could easily see why he got as popular as he did. I'm not a musician but I could tell that clearly he is.

Catching on to the various meters and cadences is a LOT easier when the lyrics are provided. There's real artistry there. Prepare to read a bit faster now, and still miss a lot of references, but still get the song.

Right now I'm hot on Kendrick Lamar's Good Kid M.A.A.D. City, a masterpiece of an album by a Christian kid, older than his years, with an immense talent. His album opens with one of two authentic, documentary-style recordings of he and his friends praying for their souls. As he lets you experience his life, you see why.

He explains his background of drugs and crime with frighteningly confessional tales of his growing up in what he sees as a country so overwhelming in temptations, the dips into sinning were inevitable. By the end of it, you really care about him, and his funny dysfunctional family. He's out of it all now and making the best of it. Really, a star.

Here's the centerpiece of his album, the bleak and mystical Money Trees. In it, he describes the result of his brutal crimes, capitalism, as the "shade" in a world of darkness, one can only find if they're willing to take it. The question for today's self-disciplined 16 year old Compton resident with a gun and a conscious?

"Is it Hale Berry or Hallelujah?"

BTW - "bitch" is in the non-gender usage, as George Carlin said about "Fag", indicating not sexism but a disdain for cowardice. You're someone who must be home before the street lights are on,...

The Crack Emcee said...

I should've said he's committed ruthless, not brutal, crimes.

edutcher said...

When I worked for the IRS, most of the black people who worked there went armed because they had to travel through rough neighborhoods on public transportation to get to work.

I'll bet many of them are the 2nd Amendment's best friends.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I can't allow myself access to firearms because I'd only end up shooting myself in the head.

AllenS said...

Interesting...

many gun owners in America are white — 31% of whites polled this year said they owned guns, compared with 15% of blacks and 11% of Latinos.

How many of those white gun owners have a gun to hunt with? I've never seen black people go hunting, so therefore, I think that all blacks who own a gun, have one for defensive purposes only.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Glen Beck gives the irrelevant blogger and Jon Stewart the vapors. Quick - get the smelling salts.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

When I worked for the IRS, most of the black people who worked there went armed because they had to travel through rough neighborhoods on public transportation to get to work.

I'll bet many of them are the 2nd Amendment's best friends.


This illustrates something I worry about in regards to the future of the second amendment. I can think of three immediate reasons to have and use a working gun: self-defense; hunting; and as insurance against a government that would otherwise become abusive and oppressive. Too much emphasis on the first two makes it easy for the statists to "eliminate" the need for gun rights by "solving" those problems. People are dumb and they are easily convinced that they don't need guns for self defense because hey, lookit this totally awesome new approach to crime that is totally going to keep you totally safe, and hey we're going to let you keep one registered antique long gun for hunting (see: Europe) so don't whine about not being able to hunt, so what was your objection again?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

irrelevant blogger is not TOP.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I look at my right to own a gun as an obligation.