Reply #6

Freeman (blackgunowners.org) says:

December 16, 2010 at 11:13 am

(reposting with better formatting)

This was an interesting read. As a Black man who grew up on the South Side of Chicago, as a gun owner and as a believer in Black Self-Defense I happen to run up against most of the topics covered in this article.

1. I agree with the author that there are many dishonest people in the “2nd Amendment” movement who use the “gun control is racist” argument as a convenient tool to help hammer their political nail.

2. I agree that historical examples of Black Self-Defense have been met with even more powerful examples of State-driven and community-driven repression. Likewise,

3. I agree that legally-armed contemporary Black people are likely to be targeted for police attention and, perhaps, abuse.
As an aside, I find it odd that the author completely fails to make any mention of The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and the resulting repressive California gun laws as signed by Republican Idol Ronald Reagan.

4. I agree that it’s an unfortunate condition that leaves Black and brown communities vulnerable to a pandemic of gun violence.

–WHERE I DISAGREE–

5. I disagree that the absence of Black faces in 2nd Amendment events is indicative of Black political thought. It’s important to note that (anecdotally-speaking) Black people do not typically frame gun ownership in the terms of the constitution, so the idea of a “2nd Amendment” is a conversational non-starter. Further, Black people, in general, are largely absent from public demonstrations and political rallies.

6. The Pew poll lacks nuance. It fails to demonstrate any numbers to demonstrate any degree of a “gap… among gun owners” that involves ethnicity. In short, how do Black gun owners feel about ‘gun control’? One must ask the right questions of the right people to get complete answers.
E.g., My mother is highly likely to agree that controlling gun access is important, but she also owns her own .38 revolver and will not be forfeiting it to anyone.

7. I disagree that arming one’s self for self-defense is in itself anathema to “non-violence”. Sure, King-ian or Ghandi-esque philosophy might suggest that’s so, but neither of them are here to clarify the position. Both, of course, having been assassinated by armed opposition.

By my estimation, Black people and communities can either adhere to an outsider’s philosophy of “non-violence” and leave ourselves vulnerable as the only people without viable means of defending ourselves. Or we can create a culture of community and family self-defense that challenges the perspective of Black gun ownership and perhaps can shift the balance away from the modern position of the gun-as-a-fetish toward the return to a fundamental respect for the gun as a tool for self-defense, sport or sustenance.

While this was a well-written article, I believe the author possesses an unrealistic, outdated (dare I say nostalgic) view of Black community self-defense and would likely benefit greatly by getting away from the statistics for a while and talking with real life Black people about violence, non-violence, self-defense and gun control.

You can start over at http://www.blackgunowners.org

And after that, you can follow this link: http://www.lizmichael.com/racistgc.htm