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The BPP would support "Stand Your Ground" laws, assuming of course that the law was applied to them as well, allowing them to stand their ground against threats to the Black community.

Violence begets violence.

But violence in Defense of Self is wholly different than violence initiated.

I am liberal; but I am not a pacificist.

I was taught a long time ago that when confronted with a threat; first attempt to talk your way out; if that fails, or is impractical, then run away; if that fails, or is impractical, defend yourself to the degree necessary to neutralize the threat.

Is a whole different animal.

While I am an unapolegetic liberal, I am not a pacificist. I learned long ago to first attempt to talk my way out of a threat ... If that proves impossible, then I will run away from the threat ... If that also proves impossible, then I will defend myself to the degree necessary to neutralize the threat.

To do otherwise, places one on the wrong end of that road.

To borrow a phrase: "I don't even call it violence when it's in self defense; I call it intelligence."

- Malcolm X

It's not my right or my role to tell people whether they are right or wrong. I'm just sharing my thoughts about what I foresee ahead if the country continues this movement toward martial law and, frankly, racist fear-mongering. The end result is going to be a lot of violence.

repigs wrote laws to limit gun ownership.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/09/the-secret-history-of-guns/8608/

A clue to the "needs hierarchy" of repigs; hatred & fear of African-Americans trumps their gun-love.

that should be labeled terrorists.

is still around and is currently serving in Congress as a former Defense Minister for the BPP in Chicago.

No matter the cause.

Black panthers
Weather Underground
KKK
Unibomber

It could be argued in three of those four cases that the cause, at least in part, was worthy. But what a slippery slope we go down, when approving of the killing of our co-citizens and destruction of our property by a group that says it has a just cause. Who in that group decides that? Do we get to vote on that? Are we sure that one of our loved ones won't be caught in the violence and harmed? Is there really no power corruption involved in a group that has violence as it means of effecting change? No egos, no money involved? That would mean we'd have to believe the group members aren't human, since those are human traits and those things are common, as history tells us.

Even the Unibomber's cause can be said to be a good one. The killing of others and destruction of property was necessary, he said, to bring attention to his cause, and was directed at the institutions involved in working against his cause.

We live in a democracy. There is a smart, non-violent way to handle things. In the Trayvon Martin case, the non-violent way is working. A public outcry, media, the DOJ and FBI are involved, there will be a civil lawsuit, the Police Chief has stepped down.

The black panthers with other terrorist groups.

Lots of misconceptions in this thread like they would have supported the stand your ground law.

So sad to see opinions based on ignorance. That's to be expected though due to media painting them as violent and terrorist.

I did research, plus I remember the group. Violence was one of its means to effect change. I didn't use the word "terrorist." That's your word. The commonality is violence as one of the means to work toward the change they wanted.

The Black Panthers were certainly smeared as a terrorist group by the FBI and establishment. There's plenty of evidence that they were not terrorist.

They were not non-violent, that's true. But it's not helpful to lump them in with the Unabomer, for instance.

from COINTELPRO.

I know this is wiki but it is accurate--COINTELPRO (an acronym for Counter Intelligence Program) are a series of covert, and often illegal,[2] projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveiling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO

With this in mind it is hard for me to accept a lot of the bad publicity the Panthers received at the time.

Here is something with four links followed at the wiki link--The FBI also conspired with the police departments of many U.S. cities (San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Philadelphia, Chicago) to encourage repeated raids on Black Panther homes—often with little or no evidence of violations of federal, state, or local laws—which resulted directly in the police killing of many members of the Black Panther Party, most notably the assassination of Chicago Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton on December 4, 1969

or ignore