NPR President and VP "Resign" After VP Calls Gun Owners "Seriously Racist"

Copyright 2011, National Rifle Association of America, Institute for Legislative Action.

Speaking of people who believe they are smarter than the masses, Fox News reports that National Public Radio president Vivian Schiller, already in trouble for other matters relating to political bias within the media organization, was forced to resign [last] week. Her resignation came after NPR Senior Vice-President Ron Schiller (no relation) was caught on videotape telling people posing as prospective NPR donors that the Tea Party movement is made up of "weird, evangelical . . . . white, middle-America, gun toting" people who are "seriously racist." Ron Schiller added that the thing that he is "most disturbed and disappointed by in this country" is that "the educated, so-called elite in this country is too small a percentage of the population."

NPR issued a statement saying that it was "appalled" at Ron Schiller's comments. So are we. We're appalled that the "educated" Mr. Schiller apparently doesn't know that two of the most important Supreme Court decisions recognizing the fundamental, individual nature of the right to keep and bear arms — U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876) and McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010)— originated with the disarmament of black Americans.

In Cruikshank, the federal government sought to prosecute genuine racists — members of the Ku Klux Klan — for disarming and murdering black citizens in post-Civil War Louisiana. The Court didn't interpret the Second Amendment to prohibit individuals, such as the Klansmen, from depriving the victims of their right to arms, but it made the all-important declaration that the right to arms existed before the Constitution was written, a de facto declaration that the Second Amendment protects a fundamental, individual right. The Cruikshank Court said the right to arms "is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence." (Emphasis added.)

One hundred thirty-two years later, in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Court recalled its all-important declaration in Cruikshank before striking down Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban, partially on the basis of the fact that the American people, rather than the government, have decided that handguns are the type of firearm best suited for self-defense. "It is enough to note, as we have observed, that the American people have considered the handgun to be the quintessential self-defense weapon," the Heller Court said. "Whatever the reason, handguns are the most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self-defense in the home, and a complete prohibition of their use is invalid."

Finally, McDonald is named for Mr. Otis McDonald, a black resident of the South Side of Chicago, where criminals run roughshod over peaceable people. In the finest tradition of an American, Mr. McDonald had the moral courage to stand up for himself, for his neighbors and for his fellow countrymen, regardless of their ancestry, to vindicate a fundamental right that should never have been denied in Chicago or anywhere else in America—the right to have handguns for protection. As a result, the Court has declared the Second Amendment to protect the right to arms against infringement by state and local governments, as well as by the federal government.

There was not a black American among those who adopted the Second Amendment in Congress or among those who ratified it in the states. But many black Americans have played an indispensable role in advancing the cause of freedom from the Second Amendment perspective, a contribution for which "white, middle-America gun toting" people are eternally grateful. "Educated elites," please take note.

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