On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a time meant to honor a civil rights icon who faced down violence with unyielding moral courage, anti-gun activists seized the moment to twist his legacy into a pitch for stricter gun control. While MLK’s dream of equality resonates across America, groups like Everytown for Gun Safety flooded social media with cherry-picked quotes and imagery, conveniently ignoring the armed self-defense that underpinned the civil rights struggle. The irony burns bright: MLK himself applied for a gun permit in 1956 after his home was bombed, and his household was protected by armed guards during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Rosa Parks, no stranger to the era’s dangers, later recounted keeping a loaded pistol by her side. These weren’t anomalies; they were necessities in a hostile South where federal protection was a pipe dream.

This opportunistic hijacking isn’t just tone-deaf—it’s a calculated erasure of history that reveals the anti-gunners’ endgame. By draping gun control in MLK’s saintly halo, they aim to sanitize a narrative that contradicts their disarmament agenda. King’s own words in his 1967 book *Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?* praised the Negro’s right to self-defense, yet activists trot out decontextualized lines like his opposition to violence without mentioning the context of non-violent protest amid armed threats from the KKK and state troopers. Fast-forward to today, and the parallels are stark: urban communities plagued by crime waves echo the vulnerabilities of the Jim Crow era, where the right to bear arms was a bulwark against tyranny. The 2A community sees through this—polls from groups like the NRA show black gun ownership surging 58% since 2015, as law-abiding citizens reclaim self-reliance.

For Second Amendment advocates, MLK Day becomes a rallying cry to reclaim the full story. Pushing back means amplifying voices like Colion Noir and the Black Guns Matter movement, who highlight how gun rights empowered the marginalized then and now. The implications are profound: if anti-gunners succeed in co-opting civil rights icons, they normalize confiscation under the guise of justice, eroding protections for all. Instead, let’s celebrate MLK by defending the tools that made his survival—and ultimate victory—possible. The right to keep and bear arms isn’t just a privilege; it’s the equalizer that turns dreams into defended realities. Stay vigilant, 2A fam—this is our history too.