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2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy angered "CNN This Morning" host Don Lemon during a debate on gun rights for Black Americans while on-air.

Duting the heated exchange, Lemon took offense to Ramaswamys statements at an NRA conference last week about Democrats in the South instituting gun laws to prevent African Americans from protecting their newfound rights in the post-Civil War era.

Lemon reduced Ramaswamys point to a declaration that the Civil War was fought merely to give Black people gun rights and berated him for it, telling him the statement "insulted" him as a Black American.

DON LEMON'S PATHETIC APOLOGY FOR SEXIST REMARKS SPARKS EVEN MORE FURY INSIDE CNN: F-----G A--HOLE

CNNs Don Lemon and 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy debate the Civil War and Second Amendment. (Screenshot/CNN)

The CNN host further told Ramaswamy that he had no right to talk about the experience of Black people in America because hes not Black.

Ramaswamy pushed back and insisted that Lemon was misunderstanding his point. He also argued that both men should be able to talk about the issue regardless of their skin color.

During the heated crosstalk, Lemon also snapped at his producers who were apparently distracting him over his earpiece.

The intense live debate came after the hosts played a moment from Ramaswamys speech to the NRA in Indianapolis. During the clip, the businessman and presidential candidate addressed the crowd, saying, "I want you to raise your hand if you know when the first anti-gun laws were passed in this country. Raise your hand if you do. 1865."

He continued, saying, "We fought a civil war in this country to give Black Americans the equal protection under the law that we failed to secure them in 1776. But then you wanna know what happened? Southern states passed anti-gun laws that stopped Black people from owning guns. The Democrat Party, then as in now, wanted to put them back in chains."

After clarifying to co-host Poppy Harlow that he meant that modern Democratic Party policies (he mentioned former President Lyndon B. Johnsons "Great Society") are bad for African Americans much like those post-Civil War gun laws, Lemon stepped in, voicing some major disagreement with Ramaswamys statement.

He cut in, saying, "I dont really see what one has to do with the other and using the Civil War to talk about Black Americans that war was not fought for Black people to have guns."

Ramaswamy clarified his stance, saying, "That war was fought for Black people to have freedoms in this country. Actually, thats why the Civil War was fought."

"Actually, a funny fact is Black people did not get to enjoy the other freedoms until their Second Amendment rights were secured," he said.

Lemon interjected again, "But Black people still arent allowed to enjoy the freedoms as well in this country."

Ramaswamy dismissed that claim outright, declaring, "I disagree with you on that Don I think youre doing a disservice to this country by failing to recognize the fact that we have equality before the laws here."

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Republican presidential candidate and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy speaks to the Merrimack County Republicans at an event in Manchester, New Hampshire on April 13, 2023. (Paul Steinhauser)

Getting a little flustered, Lemon tried to shut down Ramaswamy by claiming he doesnt have the requisite skin color to make such a statement. The anchor replied, "Well, OK. When you are in Black skin and you live in this country, then you can disagree with me."

The candidate shot back, saying, "Don, I think we have to be able to talk about these issues in the open regardless of the color of our skin."

"I think for you to compare 1865 and 1964 I think its insulting to Black people. Its insulting to me as an African American. I dont want to sit here and argue with you because its infuriating for you to put those things together," Lemon said.

He then declared, "Its not right, your telling of history is wrong." Ramaswamy protested, asking what exactly was wrong, to which Lemon replied, "Youre making people think that the Civil War was fought only for Black people to get guns."

Lemon called Ramaswamys talking points "reductive," while the guest shot back that the hosts interpretation of the NRA speech was "reductive and actually insulting."

As Ramaswamy continued, Lemon scolded his producers, who were apparently distracting him on his earpiece during the debate. He snapped, "Hang on, please. I cannot keep a thought if you guys are talking in my ear."

The debate continued for another minute or so before Lemon concluded, "The fact that I find insulting is that you are sitting here telling an African American about the rights and what you find insulting about the way I live, the skin I live in every day. And I know the freedoms that Black people dont have in this country, and that Black people do have."

Ramaswamy protested, stating, "I think we should be able to express our views regardless of the color of our skin. We should have this debate without me regarding you as a Black man."

CNN's Don Lemon. (CNN This Morning)

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"I think its insulting that youre sitting here whatever ethnicity you are splaining to me about what its like to be Black in America. Im sorry," Lemon said.

The candidate responded, "Im an Indian American, and Im proud of it."

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Vivek Ramaswamy angers Don Lemon in debate over civil war, Second Amendment: 'It's infuriating' - Fox News

We must take stock of the landscape and acknowledge an irrefutable reality: There are millions of Americans for whom avoidable deathswhether from guns or a pandemic for which a no-cost, life-preserving vaccine is availableare acceptable, and too many of these millions vote Republican. There are Republicans with whom I once socialized who have acknowledged this to me privately. These are highly educated and highly credentialed people, who work in industries that are far more regulated than the firearm industry. They still believe a Republican is always preferable to a Democrat. This is what political traumatization wreaks: You learn to accept needless death and become indifferent to, if not defend, politically motivated violence, whether its an insurrection at the Capitol or a punch-up at a school board meeting.

We can trace the damage to four words in the Second Amendment: Shall not be infringed. It is these four words that have turned so many of our schools, our banks, our places of worship, our malls, our movie theaters, our workplaces, our Fourth of July parades, our bars and nightclubs, ourreally, just fill in the blankinto blood-splattered abattoirs.

This is where the plot is lost, over four words that denude the Second Amendment of any modern-day contextual value and meaning. Four words useful only in a cloddish defense of guns as instruments in a holy war against imaginary boogeymen: pedophiles, sycophants of Satan, Communist plants, and covert Islamic agitants born in Kenya. Shall not be infringed, because the culture war will yield a new phantasmic threat tomorrow, against whom the GOPs traumatized foot soldiers must stand their ground.

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I Carry a Firearm Every Day. Yes, the Second Amendment Is Killing Us - The New Republic

Former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who served Illinois 11th Congressional District and later the 16th from 2011 to early this year, is one of the Republican Partys most significant truth tellers. Kinzinger is now a political commentator. In his blistering farewell address to Congress in December, Kinzinger said: Where Republicans once believed that limited government meant lower taxes and more autonomy, today, limited government means inciting violence against government officials.

On Monday night, Kinzinger spoke in Chicago at a meeting organized by The Joyce Foundation. In a session moderated by a former Tribune reporter, White House official and Democratic strategist, David Axelrod, the former congressman spoke alongside Tim Heaphy, the chief counsel and lead investigator for the Jan. 6 House committee.

This was a left-leaning audience, receptive to sharp criticism of the Republican right and far friendlier to Kinzinger than many members of his own party. But something Kinzinger said at the Arts Club caught our attention after the conversation turned to recent school shootings.

Second Amendment people, Kinzinger said, should be on the front line of gun control.

In essence, Kinzinger was saying, the people who are interested in guns, and most likely to own them, actually know far more about what works and what does not in the matter of gun control than those who have no such knowledge. And as experts on guns, he said, they are thus morally obligated to use that expertise to solve what is clearly a crisis, given all the recent examples of emotionally troubled people acquiring powerful weaponry and using them to take innocent lives, often of children.

U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger attends a gun violence hearing on Oct. 3, 2019, at Kennedy King College in Chicago. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

Many of them already know this, he implied, at least deep down, and are possibly just waiting to be asked in the right way.

Therefore, rather than seeing fervent supporters of the Second Amendment as the opposition to be defeated, he suggested, those who want to see sensible regulations on gun ownership, such as background checks, age restrictions and red flag laws, should see Second Amendment people as potential experts and allies. They know guns better than those who merely despise them.

Kinzinger was engaged in realpolitik here, noting that the constitutional protection for personal ownership of guns is unlikely to go away in our lifetimes. Better, then, to find common ground when it comes to the kinds of reform for which weve advocated here often.

Kinzinger is not the only person who has suggested that Americans try harder to find common ground in the interests of common-sense solutions. At a recent meeting in Austin, Texas, organized by the American Press Institute, a young nonprofit called The Flip Side spoke of its mission to help bridge the gap between liberals and conservatives, telling assembled opinion journalists from major newspapers that the use of less partisan language and tonality has proved to be a far more effective generator of meaningful common-sense change than rhetorical demonization.

We could not agree more. And gun control is not the only issue to which that applies, but its surely the biggest emergency.

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Editorial: Why 'Second Amendment people' should be at the forefront of gun control solutions - Chicago Tribune

By Mark Johnson

Updated: April 16, 2023 Published: April 16, 2023

FILE - Light illuminates part of the Supreme Court building at dusk on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 16, 2022. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

Growing concerns among people throughout the United States in response to increasing numbers of mass shootings and high rates of other firearm-related deaths and injuries has intensified debates about the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Many firearm owners have expressed concerns about preserving their Second Amendment rights.

Repealing the Second Amendment or any constitutional amendment would be extremely difficult. It would require a two-thirds vote of the U.S. House and Senate and ratification by three-fourths of the states. That could not happen any time soon, if ever.

So, what options do firearm safety advocates have for passing gun reform laws?

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June 2008 provides some guidance on this issue. In the District of Columbia vs. Heller decision, the Court affirmed an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia. This 5-4 majority decision was written by the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

However, Section 2 of this decision included the following statements. Like most rights, the Second Amendment rights are not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Courts opinion should not be to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carry of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and public buildings, or laws imposing conditions on qualifications of commercial sale of arms. Millers holding (United States vs Miller decision 1939) that sorts of weapons protected are those in common use of the time finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.

It appears that the Heller Supreme Court decision affirmed the individual right to possess firearms, but left open the possibilities of federal, state or local laws to promote firearm safety without violating the Second Amendment.

Mark S. Johnson retired from a career in public health and health service administration. He lives in Juneau and has lived in Alaska for 45 years.

The views expressed here are the writers and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here.

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OPINION: Interpreting the Second Amendment - Anchorage Daily News

EXCLUSIVE: Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem took firm action over the weekend to strengthen the Second Amendment rights of people in her state, signing an executive order on stage during her address to the annual National Rifle Association convention to stop what she called "discriminatory action" against those rights.

Speaking with Fox News Digital immediately after signing of the order, the rumored 2024 presidential candidate stressed the need to "lead by example" when it came to the Second Amendment, and shared what was on her mind as she mulls a potential run for the White House.

"We've recently seen in this country that banking institutions are discriminating against firearm companies or ammunition companies. So what I did was sign an executive order that would prevent the state of South Dakota from doing any business with financial institutions that would do that type of discriminatory action against our Second Amendment rights," Noem said when asked about the order she signed in front of the thousands of NRA convention attendees.

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South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem speaks to guests at the 2023 NRA-ILA Leadership Forum on April 13, 2023, in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

"It's incredibly important that we set and lead by example. And this executive order is one way that we can do that, to continue to stand for constitutional rights of the people in our state," she said.

In addressing the numerous recent deadly shootings snatching headlines across the country, Noem argued there were laws already in place needing to be enforced that she said would protect citizens and ensure the safety of children.

"Now, it's more important than ever that those of us who value this country, that value what our founders gave us as our rights, to continue to defend them and to explain why they're in place. They're in place so a normal, everyday citizen has the chance to deter a corrupt government that would come in and take away their ability to provide for their families," she said.

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With NRA Executive Vice President and CEO Wayne LaPierre by her side, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem signs an executive order to protect gun rights in her state at the 2023 NRA-ILA Leadership Forum on April 14, 2023, in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

When asked about the rumors swirling around the possibility she might launch a campaign for president, Noem said she wasn't going to announce a decision just yet, but instead said she saw a country "desperate for a president" that would fight for the values and principles America was built on.

"I'm looking for an individual like that. I hope that people in this country are as well, because now more than ever, we're seeing federal government come in and take away our ability to even conduct business, to raise our families as we see fit and to use our values that we were raised with," she said.

"I do think that it's important that we keep our eye on the ball and make sure that we have the best individuals stepping forward to take on that role because we've got some big fights ahead and we need to make sure that we have a president who will hang in there with us," she added.

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South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem takes part in a panel discussion, Nov. 15, 2022, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack, File)

Concerning the 34 felony falsification of business records charges facing Trump in a New York court, Noem described them as "unprecedented action," and argued district attorney Alvin Bragg was ignoring the statute of limitations on the former president's alleged crimes.

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"It's clearly all politics. You know, I'm sure President Trump will go through the process and will come out recognizing that these kinds of attacks can be withstood and that he will continue to work for the people in this country," she said.

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South Dakota's Kristi Noem takes action on Second Amendment as 2024 rumors ramp up - Fox News