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The chairman of Gun Appreciation Day may be taking "Django Unchained" a little too seriously.

Larry Ward on Friday told CNN that he created the first annual Gun Appreciation Day just days before President Barack Obama's inauguration and the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday to "honor the legacy of Dr. King" and that slavery may never have happened in the United States if African-Americans had owned guns.

In a press release earlier this week, Ward called on gun owners to turn out "en masse at gun stores, ranges, and shows from coast to coast" on January 19. And he explained to The Blaze that the event should “strike the fear of God in the gun-grabbing politicians."

United for Change USA founder Maria Roach, who created a petition opposing Gun Appreciation Day, confronted Ward during a Friday appearance on CNN over the timing of his event.

"There are common sense, sensible ways to exercise your Second Amendment rights, and then there's theater," she explained. "I think too much of the argument and the discussion and the discourse this week is focused on just theater, ways that organizations are looking to fund raise and build their membership."

"I'd like to address the Martin Luther King Day charge," Ward replied. "I believe that Gun Appreciation Day honors the legacy of Dr. King."

He added: "The truth is, I think Martin Luther King would agree with me if he were alive today that if 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. And I believe wholeheartedly that's essential to liberty."

Roach pointed out that Ward's argument was ridiculous because "slavery means that you are a possession just like a gun."

"So to say that if slaves had been armed -- that's just theater," she remarked. "There is selfish, self-serving intent in a Gun Appreciation Day. I've spoken to thousands of people, they are outraged that you would plan your event two days before an American icon -- a day that we celebrate nationally -- who was murdered, he was slain by a rifle."

"I think we need to step back and really question, what is the intent of these Gun Appreciation Days? Why not appreciate victims? Why not appeciate the Second Amendment? But Gun Appreciation Day is really a power play."

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Ed Schultz and the NAACP's Ben Jealous took Glenn Beck to task for his revisionist history, dismissing the fact that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. died while fighting for the rights of public sector union members. As they rightfully pointed out, if he were alive today, he'd be out there with these protesters marching against these Republican governors who are doing their best to destroy what's left of collective bargaining rights for unions in America.

Media Matters has more on Beck's nonsense and you can read the full report here -- Beck Dismisses The Fact That MLK Died While Fighting For Labor Rights.

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Beck has said that his "Restoring Honor" rally would "reclaim" the civil rights movement but there is one important part of Martin Luther King's agenda that he doesn't intend to restore.

Beck told Fox News' Chris Wallace Sunday that he doesn't agree with the economic agenda of the civil rights movement.

After learning that his rally would be held on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, Beck claimed it was simply a coincidence. But the Fox News host soon attempted to co-opt part of King's message.

"This is going to be a moment that you'll never be able to paint people as haters, racists, none of it," Beck said before the rally. "This is a moment, quite honestly, that I think we reclaim the civil rights movement."

Beck appeared on Fox News Sunday following the Sunday rally.

"The civil rights movement always had an agenda beyond just equality, beyond just 'justice,'" noted Chris Wallace. "The full name of the march 47 years ago was 'The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.'"

"John Lewis, then a student, now a congressman, said this at the event, 'We need a bill that will ensure the equality of a maid who earns five dollars a week in the home of a family whose total income is $100,000 a year,'" he continued.

"The civil rights movement was always about an economic agenda," Wallace told Beck.

"Well, you know what Chris?" asked Beck. "I think that is part of it but that's a part of it that I don't agree with."

"The real agenda should be equal justice, an equal shot," said Beck.

Prior to the rally, Comedy Central's Jon Stewart preemptively blasted Beck's upcoming speech.

"I think he's funny," Beck said of Stewart Sunday. "Quite honestly, I think he should write me a check."

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Rocker and gun nut Ted Nugent has found a new cause in the Tea Party. Nugent went on Fox News' Hannity Friday to defend the movement and launched an attack on President Barack Obama.

"Everybody I hang with, the ranchers, the farmers, the cops, the teachers, the plumbers, everybody I hang with," said Nugent. "They want to be a productive member of society and then they see an administration that is spitting on the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule."

"So, we the Tea Partiers, we the people who are speaking up," he continued.

"I'm going to quote my hero, Dr. Martin Luther King. 'We who engage in non-violent direct action are not the cause of tension, but rather, bringing to the surface a tension that already exists,'" he said.

"That's the job of we the people to be watchdogs and whistleblowers. The government works for us. They are absolutely out of control."

"The Tea Party, what I stand for, what you stand for, Sean, one big A-word: accountability," Nugent told Hannity.

"You, Sean Hannity and Fox News, represent by word and deed the pulse of the most productive and conscientious members of this American dream across the board and I bring you a salute and a thank you," said Nugent.

The 61-year-old rocker is also an outspoken advocate of the Second Amendment. In a recent Washington Times column, Nugent blasted Obama and the four Supreme Court justices who dissented in a landmark case that overturned gun laws in cities like Chicago.

"With the Mao Zedong fan club in the White House, a clueless, rookie president hellbent on spending like a maniac as unprecedented debt piles up all around him, and every other imaginable indicator of an America turned upside-down, it comes as no surprise that this insane level of madness has metastasized into a Supreme Court where the Bill of Rights is being trashed by clueless, dangerously insulated old people intentionally disconnected from the real world, where the possession of a firearm often means the difference between life and death for good, innocent Americans every day of the year," wrote Nugent.

Man oh man... Rand Paul did not do himself any favors by appearing in this interview with Rachel Maddow. His remarks about the Civil Rights Act might go over alright with his Tea Party crowd, but as his opponent Jack Conway said on Hardball tonight, that's not "going to be acceptable across the country". He just got a small dose of what he's in for until the election in November with this interview.

Joan Walsh summed up the interview nicely at Salon -- Rachel Maddow demolishes Rand Paul:

Kentucky GOP Senate nominee Rand Paul is squirming under the bright lights of national media attention since he toppled Mitch McConnell's handpicked candidate Trey Grayson Tuesday night. On Wednesday, an interview he gave to the Louisville Courier-Journal, in which he seemed to say he would have opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, hit the Internet and cable television. Wednesday night MSNBC's Rachel Maddow interviewed him and tried to get him to clarify his remarks, and Paul tried to talk his way out of siding with the terrible folks who wouldn't let black students sit at those Southern lunch counters in 1960.

But Paul basically sided with the terrible folks. The Tea Party hero said he thought the Civil Rights Act was fine when it came to desegregating public institutions, but not private businesses. He called the issue of desegregating lunch counters "obscure," and implied the First Amendment gave business owners the right to be racist. Read on...

As Joan noted, it's going to become very apparent to voters in Kentucky that the tea party crowd just wants to dismantle the Great Society, the New Deal and the civil rights movement. Any of us that have been watching them in action have known that for some time now.

Dave N.: Wow. That was a devastating interview. Next, I'd like to see someone ask Rand's dad the same questions ...

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From In Living Color during the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday controversy.

h/t ArizonaLiberal at DU

Colbert takes apart Glenn Beck as only he can.

Glenn Beck transforms like a snake that sheds his skin and becomes a beautiful butterfly.

...Every time Glenn Beck says something King-like, he moves away from being a rodeo clown towards the mountaintop with Martin Luther King.