GOP candidate for North Carolina’s Lt. Governor, Mark Robinson, is not a career politician. He is not a rich man. He is a middle-class resident of a relatively conservative state whose voters are paying attention to events across the nation.
Robinson also is a law-abiding gun owner who wants his rights affirmed and enforced rather than encroached upon, as is happening in neighboring Virginia.
The moment that propelled Robinson occurred two years ago. Robinson made an unprepared speech in front of his town’s (Greensboro, NC) City Council that went viral. He appealed to the council members to defend the majority, rather than all the “minority” considerations the council had aired.
Robinson is a black man but does not identify himself based on skin color. He identifies himself based on his lifestyle, which is that of a law-abiding, lifelong Greensboro resident who owns firearms, and does not menace his local community. Yet, his local community would deny him his Second Amendment right to bear arms based on the considerations of the few rather than the many.
Robinson correctly surmises anti-gun politicians are too quick to punish the majority while currying the favor of special-interest groups at the expense of the majority.
“Here’s who the majority is: I’m the majority,” Robinson told city council members in 2018. “I’m a law-abiding citizen who never shot anybody. Never committed a serious crime. Never committed a felony. I’ve never done anything like that. Yet, it seems like every time we have one of these shootings, nobody wants to put the blame where it goes, which is at the shooter’s feet. You want to put it at my feet. You want to turn around and restrict my right – Constitutional right that is spelled out in black and white.”
“We are the first ones taxed, and the last ones considered, and the first ones punished when things like this happen, because our rights are the ones being taken away,” he told the city council.
Robinson said if the state or council enacted a law requiring him to turn in his firearms, he would.
“You can take the guns away from us all you want to. The Crips and the Bloods on the other side of town, they are not going turn their guns in. They’re going to hold on to them,” Robinsons said.
Then he cautioned the council to wait and see what happens when they send the police in to collect outlawed firearms from people who likely already are banned from firearms possession due to criminal activity and convictions. Instead of supporting the police, the community vilifies them while supporting the violent criminals.
Robinson wants that changed. His groundswell of support due to that impassioned and unplanned speech propelled him to become a nationwide speaker and then to run for Lt Governor or North Carolina.
Robinson beat out an impressive and crowded field of candidates all vying for the Republican nomination. He beat out current state Senator Andy Wells (who came in second) and 3 other politicians. Robinson got the most votes of any candidate and achieved more than 30% of the vote, the minimum threshold needed to win outright and avoid a runoff.
Gun rights aren’t the only issue important to Robinson. He told “Fox & Friends, “Our message is so much more than the Second Amendment, which is a crucial issue.” Robinson also cited the importance of standing up for the unborn, standing up for veterans, law enforcement and “ending indoctrination in our public schooling.”
Robinson is also a supporter of President Trump. He called the President’s performance in office “fantastic” and congratulated him for achieving unprecedented low unemployment for African-Americans and women.
