In a recent video, Don Lemon advocated for black and brown people to arm themselves in response to what he views as unlawful arrests by ICE. It begs the question: are the left and its spokespeople aware of the potential far-reaching consequences of the call to arms against federal law enforcement?
The political Left has traditionally been very hostile towards all aspects of the Second Amendment, routinely exploiting tragic mass casualty crimes and misrepresenting stats on so-called “gun violence,” while also being in favor of more government. We all remember their desire to mandate vaccines, compel us to wear masks, and enforce strict lockdowns, even wanting to legislate how many family members we can congregate with inside our own homes, and shutting down family-owned small businesses, so long as their darling corporate giants such as Starbucks, Walmart, and Target remained open.
Never having shied away from hypocrisy, Don Lemon wants to subvert the right to keep and bear arms for his political purposes, while at the same time complaining about an increase in law enforcement activity around ICE. Gun control is desired only so long as it plays into the Left’s agenda.
As arrests of illegal aliens are increasing and political activism and protests against those arrests are popularly covered by various media outlets, I recently struck up a conversation with one of my fellow Second Amendment activists. Imagining the scenario that a potential unlawful mistaken arrest of a citizen might turn violent, I was trying to formulate what my position should be and how to put that in the right words so I wouldn’t be caught off guard if I had to explain that to anyone who’d ask. There are people out there who look at me and others in the industry as subject matter experts. I asked the question specifically in the context of a hypothetical use of lethal force against an unlawful arrest.
Just days after I had this conversation, somebody sent me the aforementioned clip of former CNN host Don Lemon. In the clip, he can be heard advising:
Black people, brown people of all stripes, whether you’re an Indian American or a Mexican American or whoever you are, go out in your place where you live and get a gun legally. Get a license to carry legally, because when you have people knocking on your door and taking you away without due process as a citizen, isn’t that what the Second Amendment was written for? Go back and read what the Second Amendment says, and perhaps it will knock some sense in the head, in the heads of these people who are saying: Well, it’s all great! I don’t believe they are doing it without due process. They’re asking people for papers. They’re not really beating people up. These people are doing things that are illegal.
He goes on to say: “Nobody is illegal. It is a misdemeanor to cross the border.”
The entire video is much longer, of course, but this clip really captures the sentiment. It is a lot to unpack in a 49-second clip. Aside from several inaccuracies contained in his rant, the advice he is seemingly giving is plainly bad and outright dangerous. But let’s start with some facts about this cringeworthy verbal diarrhea.
What was the Second Amendment really written for? It was undoubtedly written in order to ensure the people legally possessed a means for self-defense, including self-defense against a tyrannical government. Surely this is the point Lemon was clumsily trying to make. Given the fact that his stance on gun ownership in the past was less than positive, one can hear the sarcasm in his voice.
He is specifically addressing Americans, because anyone other than lawful permanent residents and citizens cannot legally own firearms. So then why does he later bring up the buzz phrase: “Nobody is illegal.”? And let’s be clear, misdemeanors are in fact illegal acts and a crime, a fact which Lemon is conveniently omitting. This is something that he has gotten schooled on this before – yet he chose to verifiably spread this misinformation.
Another claim he seems to make is that citizens are being arrested. A quick Google-search reveals several numbers floating around out there, and while there is anecdotal evidence for the occasional arrest or detention of a citizen (depending on the source, in the dozens or hundreds), given the total number of apprehensions nationwide being in the hundreds of thousands, the error rate is incredibly low and usually explained by cases of mistaken identity or administrative mistakes. The insinuation that ICE or DHS is out to deport citizens, regardless of their color, simply does not hold any water. Numbers released on the official ICE website are only up to date as of January 2025. DHS, however, reports “The Trump administration arrested more than 352,000 illegal aliens and removed more than 324,000.” Surely, once the numbers are released, we will see that ICE has added many more to that.
He also mentions a lack of due process. Civil Rights expert Hans von Spakovsky puts it this way: “Immigration cases are civil rather than criminal proceedings, and aliens have limited due process rights as defined by Congress and Supreme Court precedents.” Let’s keep in mind that ICE is only interested in aliens, and not citizens, of course.
The biggest and most concerning problem with his remarks is a very different one, however. Reading between the lines, it doesn’t take much creativity to suggest that what he is actually doing is conveying that whenever a federal agency is in the process of committing an unlawful arrest of a citizen, the citizen should use guns – and therefore lethal force – to resist that arrest. This scenario is, of course, a far cry from government becoming tyrannical. Firstly, because the scale is lacking, and secondly, it is not a systemic problem. These rare cases, as impactful as they may be for the individual, are exceptions and resolvable, even if it may take time and resources on behalf of the affected party.
To suggest that lethal force is needed to resolve an issue that can be sorted out in court is irresponsible. Any civil rights violation committed by a law enforcement agency is resolvable in court and the innocent victim can surely collect a large settlement check, as we have seen in many other cases. The goal of any government agency attempting to make an arrest is just that – an arrest.
Further, his advice, as I interpret it, is outright dangerous. The idea that anything good is going to come out of violently resisting law enforcement, even when the person arrested is innocent of any wrongdoing and the arrest is unlawful, is madness. Lemon suggests people should arm themselves; therefore, he is addressing currently unarmed citizens, or in other words, beginners. The average new shooter is vastly out-gunned, out-numbered, and out-equipped by every department and agency out there. Does Lemon really think the agency is not going to return fire, endangering more people than just the person they are interested in? Use-of-force scenarios are always unique and depend heavily on the totality of the circumstances. This whole idea of innocent citizens resisting arrest with lethal force can be summed up with this question: “Do you want to be right, or do you want to be alive?”
There is no other way to interpret his statement, except that he is purposely misrepresenting our laws around gun ownership and self-defense. What makes this immensely offensive is that in doing so, he is using his celebrity status and his platform to motivate others who trust him and don’t know any better to undertake the dangerous and likely illegal task of committing assault against law enforcement officers on his behalf, without having to bear any of the risk himself. And make no mistake, if his call to violence is heard, this will undoubtedly be used by the left – probably including Lemon himself – to then call for more restrictive gun laws, and harsher punishments for gun owners, while doing nothing to help U.S. citizens with diverse ethnic backgrounds.
We should encourage others to purchase their first gun and then seek out proper training, not just in marksmanship but also in the often overlooked – judicious use of lethal force. We can all appreciate the fact that Lemon came around to embrace the Second Amendment, but once again, he is missing the point and showing his utter lack of subject matter knowledge. Whether he is simply misinformed or covertly trying to incite more left-wing political violence, Don Lemon is displaying more than just a lapse in judgment with his remarks. He is irresponsible and reckless.
