Open Carry This!

Local Coverage

In an eerie echo of the actions that led Ronald Reagan to sign into California law what was then the most restrictive gun law in the United States, the the Huey Newton gun club is staging open carry demonstrations:

A Texas gun club named after one of the founders of the Black Panthers Party marched in Dallas on Wednesday to protest against police brutality, KTXA-TV reported.

Around two dozen members of the Huey P. Newton Gun Club carried rifles and red, black and green flags as they marched through the city’s south side, sometimes chanting in support of Michael Brown, the 18-year-old man killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, on Aug. 9.

“If they don’t get these killer cops and corrupt cops under control,” a member identifying himself as Commander Drew X was quoted as saying. “What happened in Ferguson is going to be nationwide.”

The club’s leader, Huey Freeman, said Wednesday’s march would be the first step in a campaign of “civilian patrols” through the area. The state’s open carry law allows “long gun” owners to display them unless it is meant “to cause alarm.”

“We believe we can police ourselves and bring security to our community, ridding our community of black-on-black crime, violence, police terror, etcetera, etcetera,” Freeman told KXAS-TV.

Needless to say, I do not approve of open carry protests, but I do find a bit of schadenfreude in the the undoubted freakout that is going on in Dallas about black men open carrying.