Adrian Jawort: Native Americans are not gun rights mascots

While the NRA side of the gun debate claims the recent deaths of 20 schoolchildren and six educators from Newton, Connecticut are being exploited to promote an anti-gun agenda, another anonymous gun rights promoter has exploited the historic plight of Native Americans to fit their own political program.

In Greeley, Colorado there are signs along a busy highway that show a picture of three Native men holding guns that say, “Turn in your arms, the government will take care of you.” The people who created billboard do not want to be disclosed. Just over 200 miles away from Greeley, the site of the infamous 1864 Sand Creek Massacre took place in which 700 cowardly Colorado volunteers and soldiers gunned down over 200 mostly Arapaho and Cheyenne women, children, and elderly men while most of the warriors were out hunting.

Before the massacre, pacifist and Cheyenne “peace” Chief Black Kettle had waved an American flag he’d gotten from Abraham Lincoln himself the year prior, and told the camp they needn’t be afraid because he was assured no Americans would fire at anyone who flew this flag. The “well-regulated militia” opened fire, however, and slaughtered his people before his eyes. Later, they paraded their ghoulish “trophies” of things like women’s private parts in downtown Denver among other heinous acts.