Gun Rights Activists March in Ferguson
A demonstration to defend black Second Amendment rights draws fewer marchers than the organizers hoped.
Back in August, a member of the Oath Keepers—a controversial group of current and former police and military personnel who have pledged not to obey unconstitutional orders—announced that they would organize a black open carry march in Ferguson, Missouri, to defend African Americans' Second Amendment rights. The activist who made that announcement, Sam Andrews, subsequently split with the Oath Keepers, but that didn't bring the plans to an end; Andrews and his former group each said they still intended to organize such a protest.
Andrews' demonstration just took place. Now promoted as an "integrated" march, it seems to have brought in more journalists than demonstrators. One reporter, Grant Bissell of KSDK-TV, estimated that there were "maybe a dozen or so" protesters. Most of them were white: David Carson of the St. Louis Dispatch says only two black people were open-carrying. This is bit smaller than the original hope of attracting, in the Red Dirt Report's words, "50 African-American men armed with assault rifles."
Why Ferguson? Back in August, Andrews was one of the armed Oath Keepers who showed up at the anti-police-brutality demonstrations to serve as bodyguards for a couple of Infowars reporters. And his "heart broke," he told the marchers today, "when I was on these streets, and young men came up to me and said, 'If I did what you did, I would be executed.' And I think [black marcher] Paul Berry said it best. He said, 'Why do your rights as a human being have to change when you're east of 270?'"
A number of Vines from the demo are here. For more background on the protest, go here.