As NewsBusters has documented over the years, frequent MSNBC guest Mark Thompson frequently twists reality and often outright makes stuff up in order to fit whatever ideological point he's trying to make. It appears he's moved on from being a theological historian when he claimed baby Jesus would've died if he was alive due to then-President Trump's immigration policies. He now pretends to be a constitutional scholar and interpreter of the intentions of the founding fathers.
Thompson joined MSNBC's Joy Reid on The ReidOut on Monday night to let Reid and her audience know that despite what any reputable historian will tell you, the Second Amendment wasn't created to fight against potential government tyranny, it was instead drafted so the founders could prevent slave rebellions.
Reid spent the opening portion of the segment fretting to Thompson that a grand jury in Ohio decided not to indict the Akron police officers who shot Jayland Walker. She then twisted that legal decision into an attack on the GOP and Fox News: "You have the right, the Republican Party, Fox News all saying, buy more guns and then use them."
Thompson pointed to the recent mass shooting in Tennessee, and falsely claimed it happened "because of an obsolete amendment."
"The Second Amendment was meant to prevent slave insurrection and slave rebellions," Thompson lied.
Continuing to just make up American history on the fly, Thompson proclaimed "There was no individual right. That's what it was really about. They didn't want to give up their arms to the state to fight the British because they needed to keep arms in the words of Patrick Henry, to fight against insurrections on the plantation."
Federalist senior editor David Harsanyi wrote a brilliant piece about this in 2018 which perfectly summed up the necessity for Americans to have the right to keep and bear arms:
In an 1823 letter to John Adams, William H. Sumner, a politician and general in the Massachusetts militia, noted that if the population of the United States, “like that of Europe, chiefly consisted of an unarmed peasantry,” it would be conquerable. “Here,” he went on, “every house is a castle, and every man a soldier. Arms are in every hand, confidence in every mind, and courage in every heart. It depends upon its own will, and not upon the force of the enemy, whether such a country shall ever be conquered.”
The founders left records explaining their reasoning for every decision they made when drafting our Constitution. That was by design. Yet people like Thompson insist on putting words in their mouths.
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To read the transcript click "expand":
MSNBC’s The ReidOut
4/17/2023
7:13:25 p.m. EasternJOY REID: You have the right, the Republican Party, Fox News all saying, buy more guns and then use them.
REV. MARK THOMPSON: Yeah, yeah. Well, and you have, as Reverend Sharpton said, you have people of all races. These were white children that were killed here in Tennessee. All nine, because of an obsolete amendment that was established really, people need to read the history, do your homework folks. The hidden history of the Second Amendment by Professor Carl T. Bogus. An amendment–the Second Amendment was meant to prevent slave insurrection and slave rebellions. That is why people are losing—there was no individual right. That's what it was really about. They didn't want to give up their arms to the state to fight the British because they needed to keep arms in the words of Patrick Henry, to fight against insurrections on the plantation.
So that is what this is really all about. It is depraved culture. It is tragic, and might I also say, we have to tie all this up, the gun violence is in the streets, the gun violence in the schools, the gun violence on the part of the police. Grand Jury today decided not to charge eight officers who fired 96 shots at Jayland Walker last June and hit him 46 times and killed him. So this gun culture is a very sick one and we must continue to do something about it. Thoughts and prayers, and Rev and I are ministers and we pray all the time–
REID: That’s right.
THOMPSON: But we’ve to pray with our feet.
