OG “gangsta” rapper and famous actor of indeterminate ethnic origin (I think he’s part lion) Ice-T recently “dropped” some salty ‘n’ spicy “street knowledge” when asked about the Aurora Batman Midnight Massacre, or whatever it’s currently being called.
Flashback: About a month before big-beaked space alien Michael Dukakis lost the presidential election to the elder Bush, I interviewed Ice-T at his small Hollywood apartment which was only about three blocks from my small Hollywood apartment. This was shortly after he had released his album Power, whose front and back covers revealed him to be an enthusiastic supporter of the constitutional right to scare the living shit out of people with firearms:
Nice ass, Iceman! I was such a slobbering devotee of the late-80s hip-hop scene that I knew Ice-T owned a female pit bull named Felony, so I brought along some dog treats for the interview, which Ice dutifully fed to Felony throughout the Q&A.
Anyhizzles, he recently caused a kerfuffle in England when asked by some dude who goes by the ridiculous name of “Krishnan Guru-Murthy” (yeah, right) about American gun rights in the wake of the Colorado Dark Knight Rises Mass Murder:
Highlights from the exchange:
Ice-T: Well, I’ll give up my gun when everyone else does. Doesn’t that make sense? I mean, if there were guns here would you want to be the only person without one?
Krishnan Guru-Murthy: So, do you carry guns routinely?
Ice-T: Yeah, it’s legal in the United States. It’s part of our Constitution. You know, the right to bear arms is because that’s the last form of defense against tyranny. Not to hunt. It’s to protect yourself from the police.
Guru-Murthy: And do you see any link between that and this sort of instance?
Ice-T: No. Nah, not really. You know what I’m saying, if somebody wants to kill people well you know they don’t need a gun to do it.
Guru-Murthy: Makes it easier though, doesn’t it?
Ice-T: Not really. You can use, ah, you can strap explosives on your body. They do that all the time.
Guru-Murthy: So when there’s the inevitable backlash of the anti-gun lobby as a result of this incident as there always is…
Ice-T: Well, that’s not going to change anything in the United States, no. United States is based on guns. Like KRS says, you’ll never have justice on stolen land.
Out of all the rappers I ever interviewed, KRS-One definitely seemed the most intelligent, but I’d like him to clarify this idea of “stolen land,” since it seems to imply anyone, including the allegedly peaceful Injuns or even the shrieking Bantu tribes of sub-Saharan Africa, has ever staked a claim to land without the use of force.
But Ice-T brings up a point that often gets lost in the gun-rights debate. Here’s what Thomas Jefferson allegedly (the quote’s authenticity is disputed) said about what he intended the “right to bear arms” to mean:
The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
So it’s not for duck-hunting or strictly to form a “well-regulated militia”—it’s for citizens to keep government in check. (Oh, but Jefferson raped his slave girls or something, so nothing he said counts. Even though the slave-raping might be a myth. But still, he owned slaves, so even if he was alive today and told you it was 90 degrees outside and it was actually 90 degrees outside, he’d be lying.)
Taking into account the fact that Jefferson may or may not have ever uttered or wrote that sentence, plus the fact that he may or may not have raped slave girls, does the quote make sense anyway?
I was actually against firearms ownership until the late 80s when I was visiting a female writer friend in the San Fernando Valley who, despite being a PC peacenik in all other conceivable senses, caused the scales to fall from my eyes when she expressed pretty much the same sentiment—if we don’t have guns, then the government can step on our throats as they point guns to our heads.
Made sense to me. If you don’t trust human nature, you don’t trust giving unlimited power to humans, so it’d be foolish to allow the megalomaniacal humans who seek careers in government the exclusive right to blow people’s heads off.
Discuss.
Prohibition doesn’t work and stricter gun control would chiefly affect the law abiding citizens. Criminals by definition do not bound themselves by the law; tightening the law would be ineffective. The backlash from the gun control lobby after this event was inevitable, but that doesn’t mean that we should give a shit. There’s plenty of other ways for loner PhD neuroscience students to massacre the regular kids. http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3q72wb/
it seems to me that at this point in history, american citizens are more heavily armed than ever and also have less freedom than they did in the past. it doesn’t appear that the government is too worried about the well armed populace when it comes to givin’ y’all the shaft in every which way. also, if there was some redneck uprising does anyone have any doubt it would be immediately and easily crushed by the military? if your government wanted to put you all on trains and ship you off to work camps, they would, with very little resistance. i doubt very much that your 2nd amendment and your guns would mean a thing. some form of gun control would only make the u.s. safer, but it’ll never happen.
The government has way more power than just being armed, they make the decisions regarding prosecuting any citizen they deem to be in the wrong. If you feel the need to shoot at a cop any equality that exists in that moment when you both have guns disappears when you inevitably enter the judicial system controlled by the government. If you have a problem with the government I think the least useful thing you could do is initiate violence with guns.
“…you’ll never have justice on stolen land.” One could respond to this vomit from this vomit inducing thug but one would wear out the F, U, C, K, Y and O keys.
North Korea has the strictest gun control laws on the planet. Case closed.
I also don’t understand Americans obsession with the constitution. A species success is based on it’s ability to adapt which is hindered by absolute adherence to 200 year old rules. It is like people who take the bible literally, move on.
KRS-One is nowhere near as smart as Ice-T, at least, that’s the opinion I have from seeing interviews with both of them.
Yeah, well, you didn’t interview either one of them, so pipe down. I’d bet even Ice-T would say KRS is smarter than he is.
“Cop Killer” sounds like Dead Kennedys with better vocals.
Krs One is an utter wacko who was pro-911 because “no black people worked in the towers”. Ice-T is definitely more intelligent than him.
^^^ Source of your quote?
Both of you are only saying this because Ice-T has quite a bit of cream in his coffee, you fucking RACISTS.
Besides, your IP is from the UK, and no one cares what British people think. And again, you didn’t interview them, either. Go get your teeth fixed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCtD3OJ-_Es
^ Kooky!
One word response: Switzerland.
Elaboration: Switzerland has one of the highest gun-ownership rates in the world and one of the lowest homicide rates.
I love the fact that the arguments in the comments sections are over the degrees of intelligence between Ice-T and KRS-One, rather than gun control. Brings me hope.
I agree with “beef” on this, but again, I wasn’t the one who brought it up (or kept bringing it up). Seemed like a very minor and petty point. When I said “Discuss,” it seemed obvious I meant the Second Amendment.
It’s just refreshing to see an argument over such a petty thing. I’m a bit burnt out on the gun control arguments for the past week. I have my guns, I plan on buying more (Assault Rifles, too) and I agree with you and Ice-T.
Very sad to hear you attack the British, Goad; surely you crackers are descended from us more than any other ethnic/national group (and secretly proud of it as well).
The final stage of communism is anarchy.
Hey kuntz. The last “redneck uprising” that I know about was in Athens Tn in 1946.
Local WW2 vets did not take kindly to the sheriff stealing the ballot boxes, with his armed deputies or shooting a “nigger”.
http://constitution.org/mil/tn/batathen.htm
Bottom line, they took their town back from a petty tyrant, when the Feds DID NOTHING FOR YEARS.
Lord knows where you are from but I doubt you or your friends would even be able to attempt an armed rebellion. My generation would have enough trouble and we have a lot of guns.
and here is the cutest little movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9tUQxsrQGw
Ice T is indeed a smart man. He also knows that the first forms of gun control in this country was to keep slaves and blacks disarmed.
Why in the world would a Gov want to keep it’s slaves disarmed?
I saw KRS ONE speak when I was in college and was very impressed. he talked for like 3 hours and they actually had totell him to stop because the thing had to end.
I don’t have shit to say about the gun control debate but this video is awesome
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=epZod2qyyN4
I think that KRS-One lyric was actually in reference to a proposed MLB trade in ’92 that would have sent David Justice to play in Chavez Ravine. KRS-One knew the Dodgers didn’t have enough pieces to entice the Braves, though.
As for the guns, I would have to agree with Jim, his Valley-dwelling peacenik female writer friend and Ice-T. I don’t trust human nature, ’nuff said.
^^ I’m with Beef and Jim. Nail on head.
@ Percito
I never met either grandfather, and my parents didn’t tell me much about my ancestry, so I’m finally going to get a DNA test to see if I’m Anglo-Saxon or Celtic. If it’s the latter, you and I have a problem. I know I’m part French, but I don’t like to talk about that.
Either way, “Goad” is a British surname which in America tends to be concentrated in the South. Sorry about us crackers blowing the first big hole through your empire. OK, I’m not sorry at all.
LAX GUN LAWS KILL PEOPLE . TOUGH GUN LAWS PREVENT CRIME. Yeah, and that’s why Vermont and Alaska are the murders states and Chicago and DC are virtually crime-free.
Great book called Pacifism as Pathology. Lays out this whole disease of dogmatic pacifism that ensures no movement ever gets anywhere.
[...] article was originally published at Street Carnage. Author’s thoughts on guns and the Aurora Massacre are [...]
Speaking as someone who grew up with guns, living in a country where handguns are illegal, here’s my perspective, right or wrong:
Too many Americans have a fucked-up siege mentality.
You’re all fucking terrified of each other, so you argue to have guns out the arse.
Stop living in fear.
A friend of mine had a gun pulled on him in Boston outside a bar. Back in his apartment, his two room mates both got guns from their rooms and wanted to “go and get that fucker”. His response was “What the fuck is wrong with you”.
What the fuck is wrong with you? Why are you so willing to obliterate each other?
As for, “You’ll never have justice on stolen land”, file that one under “thought-terminating cliches”, or even simply, “bullshit”. Id on’t have to justify my opinion, because I can trot out some rap lyrics. Drop dead, your music is shit. You make fucking Metallica look intelligent.