General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The whole gun regulation debate come down to 3 words, white male privilege [View all]generalhh
(20 posts)You are sadly mistaken.
A bit about me: College Educated Black Male, Married with infant child, gun owner for over 10 years. I own multiple firearms (locked and secured unless under my control/holster). I own what some call "assault rifles", bolt guns, shotguns (semi and pump and sidebyside) multiple handguns (from small shield 9mm to full size competition race guns). I buy about 2k rounds of ammunition a month and reload another 500-1000 a month. I am a CCW holder and My wife is as well she caries also. I also teach gun safety and CCW courses on the side.
I started teaching gun safety after many of the older members of my church started to inquire why I (son of dentist mother and Businessman father, never been in trouble with the law, successful good guy) have a gun. I told them for my protection and they all said surprisingly they wanted one for protection in their homes as their had been a rash of crimes in the area of older persons including a few rapes and murders. They were mostly African Americans and were very interested in going shooting and learning about guns.
That was years ago now I train 50-100 mostly minorities every 2 months (women all races, lots of African american plus 40 yrs old and lots of young african american professionals in their 20s and 30s).
We as African Americans have been taught to be subservient to the authority of another ("the man" . We have been taught that only thugs and police have and need guns. We are very uneducated about our rights as a whole and specifically the 2nd amendment. We do not even know the father of the modern gun control movement was Ronald Reagan. Modern gun control was his baby it was his way of making sure the power of "the man" could not be challenged by armed black citizens.
Most common guns i see African Americans buying are:
Handguns (usually 4" barrel or smaller for concealed carry)
Shotgun for home defense (most common are inexpensive pump shotguns like mossberg 500s Maveriks and Remingtons)
More recently modern sporting rifles like flat top AR-15s are gaining fast adoption among target and competition shooters. this is mostly because of their ease in customization and accuracy as the ar-15 is the king of rifles in 3 gun competitions.
So like music and almost everything else gun ownership and sporting use is cross racial and socioeconomic levels. and just like every thing else (money, health care access, ect...) Many blacks have a negative relationships guns. But that does not mean that their are not many African american gun owners or supporters of the. Go look at states like Alabama and Mississippi many black black families hunt and defend themselves with guns. I live in NC I do my best to educate all I know about responsible gun ownership and their gun rights.