The Black Panthers were a radical group who were active in the 1960's. Their reaction to the condition of Blacks in America was to turn to Thomas Jefferson's words in the Declaration of Independence (which they explicitly took to be their founding document): People have inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and "if any government is destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it."
They called for taking up arms and starting a Black Revolution. They called for establishing a separate Black State. "Black Power!" "Death to Whitey!"
In response to this, guess who lobbied for STRICTER gun control laws (such as California's Mulford Act of 1967 and the Federal Gun Control Act of 1968), in order to protect decent law-abiding citizens from anti-government groups? The National Rifle Association. And in the case of the California bill, Governor Ronald Reagan pushed for its passage.
This is the same argument used nowadays, but from the right: if government suppresses the rights of the first amendment, the second amendment guarantees that we can protect ourselves from the government.
Back then, the Black Panthers responded by showing up, armed, at rallies demanding the right to bear arms.
Then:
Now:
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The original Black Panthers were very much about empowerment in the black community. When they began taking up arms in self defense, whites wanted to take away their 2nd Amendment rights.
