Gun Appreciation Day Founders Plan 'What Would Django Do?' Effort To Attract Minorities

Gun Appreciation Day Founders Plan 'What Would Django Do?' Effort To Attract Minorities
FILE - This undated publicity image released by The Weinstein Company shows, from left, Christoph Waltz as Schultz and Jamie Foxx as Django in "Django Unchained," directed by Quentin Tarantino. In Los Angeles, the Weinstein Co. canceled Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012, planned premiere of the violent movie "Django Unchained." (AP Photo/The Weinstein Company, Andrew Cooper, SMPSP, File)
FILE - This undated publicity image released by The Weinstein Company shows, from left, Christoph Waltz as Schultz and Jamie Foxx as Django in "Django Unchained," directed by Quentin Tarantino. In Los Angeles, the Weinstein Co. canceled Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012, planned premiere of the violent movie "Django Unchained." (AP Photo/The Weinstein Company, Andrew Cooper, SMPSP, File)

The company behind the nationwide pro-firearms event Gun Appreciation Day has plans for a new follow-up effort meant to target minorities: "What Would Django Do?"

Following Gun Appreciation Day -- a Jan. 19 event that called for supporters to rally for the right to bear arms -- president of the Republican consulting firm Political Media, Larry Ward, plans to launch "What Would Django Do?," a campaign targeting minorities in the gun debate, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Ward has partnered with Jonathan David Farley, principal of the "progressive" Warren Group, for the "What Would Django Do?" effort, which they hope to develop into a nonprofit charity.

“We’ll make sure we aren’t violating copyrights, and if we are, we’ll have to change the name," Ward told THR. "But Django is perfect for what we’re trying to do, which is to promote gun rights to minorities. We’ll tackle the issue on the Democrats’ own turf.”

The movement was inspired both by Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained," a gun-friendly spaghetti Western about a slave's revenge on brutal plantation owners, as well as Farley's "What Would Django Do? Arms and 'The Man,'" an article commending Gun Appreciation Day, published on AbsoluteRights.com.

In his Django article, Farley cites historial black figures to support the notion that "guns have been the African-American’s greatest friend." He says journalist and activist Ida B. Wells was in favor of firearms and that Martin Luther King Jr. once applied for a gun permit.

"Gun Appreciation Day not only honors Martin Luther King, it honors Robert F. Williams, the Deacons for Defense, and the thousands of African-Americans like Secretary of State Colin Powell who got a chance at life, even success, because at some point they owned a rifle," Farely writes. "If African-Americans had had the right to keep and bear arms from the founding of the Republic, America today might be the promised land for African-Americans."

Ward raised a similar theory during an interview with CNN when he said, "[I]f African Americans had been given the right to keep and bear arms from day one of the country’s founding, perhaps slavery might not have been a chapter in our history."

Tarantino might take issue with the pro-gun lobby using his film's namesake, however.

The director has said lax gun control is partly to blame for mass shootings like the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy.

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