Anyone who tries to tout that the NRA doesn’t like the idea of blacks carrying guns is absolutely ignorant. For one, the NRA News has a commentator by the name of Colion Noir. He’s black. And he’s had a YouTube channel since before he joined up with the NRA as a commentator. And in one of his videos, he stomped over the idea of the NRA picking him as the “token black guy” (or in one case, he was called the NRA’s “porch monkey“):
Beyond that, the NRA is about defending everyone’s right to carry a firearm. It’s the anti-gunners who seem to have a problem with blacks being armed. So let’s play a game.
Who is the real racist: the NRA and other gun rights organizations who readily welcome black and other minority members, or the law enforcement agents who deny the issuance of a concealed carry permit to black persons with clean records, while issuing to whites with less than clean records?
Who is the real racist: the biracial president who says that “Saturday night specials” are a problem, or the gun rights advocates who say that such firearms allow our poorest people to arm themselves and defend themselves in some of the more crime-ridden parts of the country — i.e. the “inner cities”? Now contrary to the President’s assertion, “cheap handguns” aren’t being used in crimes. The FBI’s own statistics and studies contradict that notion.
Who is the real racist: the gun rights advocates who fight hard for ammunition availability, even going so far as to “rally the troops” against the ATF’s attempted ban on a popular rifle round, or the people who call for banning bullets and like seeing prices go up and availability go down, apparently not realizing that the poorest people who need inexpensive guns will be the first affected when that happens? After all, if you have to choose between buying food and buying the ammo to keep up practice at the firing range on the off chance you have to defend yourself with your pistol, I think all of us would choose buying food. And so the economically disadvantaged are the ones who are first affected when ammo prices go up with increased demand and decreasing supplies and availability. This is known as “being priced out of a market”.
Not everyone can afford to pay $10 for a box of 50 9mm rounds. .22LR ammo used to be very inexpensive and very available. A lot of people use it for self defense because the ammo and pistols were both inexpensive, affordable even for the poor. Now, not so much thanks to the ammo scares following Sandy Hook.
Just like free speech means that messages with which you disagree are still protected, the right to keep and bear arms means those who you don’t want owning guns (excluding those convicted of felonies or involuntarily held in a mental hospital) also have the right to own them. And the entire history of gun control in the United States has very racist overtones. Indeed the Gun Control Act of 1968, which established the FFL system, implemented a points system regarding the importation of firearms. Some of the firearms excluded under this new system were firearms owned primarily by lower-income minorities.
Back in 1999 the NRA-ILA posted a set of bullet points regarding “Saturday night specials”. One point is rather key:
A law against “Saturday Night Specials” would disproportionately affect poor citizens by reducing the availability of defensive handguns to low income Americans. (Gary Kleck, Targeting Guns, 1997.) The violent crime victimization rate is highest among people in households with annual incomes below $7,500. (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Criminal Victimization 1997, Changes 1996-97 with Trends 1993-97, Dec. 1998)
And the poverty rate is highest among blacks, meaning blacks would be affected at a far greater rate than whites. And in larger urban areas, the need for firearms for self defense is even more acute. Detroit’s police chief even openly advocated for it, knowing that public confidence in the police to actually respond when people dial 911 just isn’t there.
Yet anti-gun advocates, like the late Sarah and James Brady, have routinely said that firearms for home defense are unnecessary because… police. What they fail to forget is that the Courts have also routinely said that you are not entitled to police protection. Law enforcement is about enforcing laws, apprehending those who break them and providing evidence a prosecutor can use against the apprehended in Court. If they get there in time to stop a crime in progress, great. But that is not their job.
So who are the real racists: those who support gun rights, or those who target them?
What is even more sickening is the willingness to abrogate due process, especially when it comes to anti-gun advocates. After Tuscon, Aurora and Sandy Hook, many asked the same question: how did these “obviously” mentally ill people get their guns? What they probably realize behind the scenes is that the only way someone can be stripped of their right to a firearm is to first put them through the system. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments require this. Setting aside Adam Lanza, since he didn’t actually legally acquire the firearms he used, the only way Jared Loughner and James Holmes could’ve been blocked through an NICS background check is if they were first adjudicated through the system and their information provided to the NICS system.
Without the Court record, any attempt to block them from acquiring a firearm would’ve been a violation of the Second, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Suspecting a person should not be able to acquire a firearm is quite different from proving it, and the Constitution requires proving it.
And the fact that blacks are more likely to end up in the system also shows that blacks are very, very disproportionately targeted by gun laws. So who’s the real racist? In trying to answer that question, bear in mind that Otis McDonald, the lead plaintiff in the McDonald v. Chicago case at the Supreme Court, is also black.
