Pistol-packing preacher.(Making A Difference)(Kenneth Blanchard)

Kenneth Blanchard of Prince George's County, Maryland, is known as the "Pistol Packing Preacher," the title of a motivational compact disc he produced primarily for black and Hispanic audiences.

He is, according to Maryland writer James L. Pate, "among a growing number of black activists who are increasingly vocal against gun control."

Blanchard, an assistant minister with the Mount Sinai Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., firmly believes that "gun rights are civil rights" and that "self-defense is a divine right." Churches that "allow evil men to deny the right to self-protection by hosting [gun] buybacks and turn-ins" should, he suggests, be opposed.

Journalist Pate, in a special report published in the April 3rd Washington Times under the caption "Preaching for God and guns," quotes Blanchard: "Ignorance can be fatal. Knowledge is power. We must educate our people, not feed them feel-good gun-control garbage." Blanchard scolds Maryland's Democratic Party for exploiting blacks on the gun control issue, contending that "Democrats in Maryland want to keep people in fear and ignorance" and noting that "our country has more than 40,000 gun laws on the books and not one has ever saved a single child's life. It's a travesty and a sham."

After a five-year stint with the Marine Corps, Blanchard joined the operations directorate of the Central Intelligence Agency and was deployed on anti-terrorist operations in the Middle East and elsewhere. After returning to the U.S., the CIA loaned him to the Federal Law ...