DR MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

Memorial to Dr King in Washington, D.C.

He preached non Violence

by Victor M Adamus

The anniversary of the death of a great man who spoke out against violence in his lifetime, was overshadowed this week by violence, the killing of a young black boy in Central Florida.  Those who did take time out to remember Martin Luther King, Jr. were church groups and some civic groups but the fanfare and media coverage was focused on getting the shooter arrested for Trayvon Martin.

It’s been 44 years since Dr King was assassinated and it makes a person wonder how far we’ve come or not at all with 21 states allowing by law, vigilantes having the right to gun down people at will as long as they say they’ve been threatened.  The result is the same though.  Death.  Someone always gets killed and like 44 years ago, the shooters went unpunished then and today they go unpunished too.  So it’s not a good time to remember someone who stood out for non-violence when the lessons he taught have all but been ignored.

Two of Kings children did launch an effort in his memory to prevent youth violence.  King was shot at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, TN on April 4^th, 1968.  Among the people with him at the time, Jesse Jackson spoke to the hope that bloodshed in this America would cease.

“Stop neighborhood killing,” he said. “Stop the violence. Stop suspending our children from schools. Stop the violence. Love each other. Stop banks from foreclosing our houses. Stop the Violence. Keep hope alive.”

Keeping hope alive isn’t going to work in a mostly white, ignorant group, of gun happy racists.  The laws lobbied by the NRA are on the books and over the past seven years here in Florida, shootings have gone up, prosecutions for murder, under the Stand Your Ground Law, has gone down.  The only difference today is the shooters don’t have to dress up in white cloth and white hoods. 

If we really want a non-violent society, get gun control laws on the books that take away hand guns from the public that has no training in the use of firearms.  The mentally affected like the shooting of Congresswoman Gabby in Arizona, the former Marine in White Plains, New York shot by racists cops, and the young high school boy Trayvon Martin who was coming home holding a bag of Skittle candy and an ice tea. 

Those are only three examples of the hundreds out there.  But something has to be done to curb this violence, not enhance it, so the mentally unbalanced, the racists, the young, anyone looking for a live target can pick up a weapon and hit the streets.  We need gun control now more than ever.

New gun control laws would be a good way to memorialize a man who spoke against violence.