“Guns
are just about as American as apple pie. To many, especially white
folks, they've represented all the highfalutin ideals enshrined in
the Constitution: independence, self-reliance and the ability to live
freely. For Black folks, guns often symbolize all those same things –
but, as we like to say on the show, it's complicated.
“Firearms
have always loomed large in Black people's lives – going all the
way back to the days of colonial slavery. Right from the jump, guns
were tied up in America's thorny relationship with race; you can
actually tell the story of how America's racial order takes shape, in
part, by tracing the history of guns in the U.S. and who was allowed
to own them.
(Gene Demby and Natilie
Escobar. “From Negro Militias To Black Armament.”
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/12/22/949169826/from-negro-militias-to-black-armament.
NPR. December 22, 2020.)
To this day, nothing
frightens a White nationalist more than a Black man with a gun.
Am I wrong? I don't think
so. And, I challenge you to prove Blacks have equal access to what
many conservative Whites know as their Second Amendment rights.
Do black gun owners have
equal protection under the Second Amendment? In theory, yes. The
Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms. But Blacks have a
complicated history with gun ownership. And, it has absolutely
nothing to do with Critical Race Theory.
May the story be told.
From the beginning of
European settlement, guns, and the White men wielding them,
controlled indigenous peoples who resisted incursions onto their land
and the enslaved peoples whose labor was essential for Southern
plantations.
Gun control may have been
portrayed as a measure to reduce crime, but even in its earliest
forms firearms regulation has been used as a means to control
specific societal groups by keeping them from possessing weapons. Gun
control existed in North America even before the creation of the
United States and was racially motivated in its earliest forms. The
first law in the colony of Virginia that mentioned African-Americans
was a 1664 act that barred free blacks from owning firearms.
Gun ownership was not
free-for-all in the colonial period and in the early republic.
Because of the importance of the militias to public safety, gun
registration was mandatory and government officials had the right to
come into your home to inspect your musket. The government had
opinions as to which weapons you should buy and even as to how you
should keep your weapon – mandating, for example, that gunpowder be
stored in a safe manner.
The men who enrolled in
militias in the early days of the nation – and, under the 1792
Militia Act, enrollment was mandatory for all able-bodied free
White men between the ages of 18 and 45 – had six
months to buy themselves “a musket, bayonet, and belt, two spare
flints, a cartridge box with 24 bullets, and a knapsack.”
(Rebecca Onion.
“Automatic for the People.”
https://www.topic.com/automatic-for-the-people. July 2018.)
Before the Civil War,
enslaved people could own guns with the approval of their masters,
and freedmen in some states could get approval from local officials
to carry weapons. But, following Nat Turner's slave rebellion,
lawmakers began to curtail the gun-ownership rights of Blacks.
And, even though Black
soldiers took up arms for the Union army and Congress passed a bill
which gave Black soldiers returning from the battlefield the right to
keep their weapons, lawmakers from places like Mississippi and
Florida refused to accept this and passed Black Codes which
restricted freedmen from owning guns or other weapons. Hordes of
white vigilantes actually raided Black homes to confiscate them.
Some Southern Blacks
continued to own firearms. During Reconstruction, guns became
important symbols of freedom for ex-slaves. Observers throughout the
post-war South noted how eager freedpeople were to procure “pistols,
old muskets, and shot-guns” in preparation for self-defense, as
possessing a gun sent a clear signal that its owner would not be
intimidated.
Anecdotal evidence also
suggests that from time to time, armed freepeople successfully
repelled Klan attacks on their homes. However, they were often
outgunned by these racists.
In addition, states would
not protect Blacks from White violence. In came Jim Crow laws and and
the continued oppression of African Americans.
Segregation measures
continued into the 20th century with laws being
disproportionately enforced against Black Americans. Meanwhile as the
KKK continued to gain followers and terrorize Blacks in the South,
many politicians turned a blind eye.
Gun control measures
expanded in 1938 making it necessary to have a license to own
firearms. The government could then grant or deny gun permits to
applicants on the basis of suitability.
In 1966, members of the
Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was founded in California.
Members began openly carrying weapons in protest of police violence
and in support of Black people's right to bear arms.
On May 2, 1967, members of
the Black Panther Party congregated at the California State Capitol
building carrying guns. They protested police brutality and the
proposal of the Mulford Bill, a strict gun-control measure to to ban
open carry of loaded weapons in the state. Panther leaders Bobby
Seale and Huey Newton argued that the law was intended to disarm
Black Californians.
Despite the protests, the
bill was signed into law by Governor Ronald Reagan and supported by
the National Rifle Association. Black Panther Party members were
arrested for disturbing the peace.
"Anyone who would
approve of this kind of demonstration must be out of their minds,"
Reagan said.
(Manisha Claire.
“The Unequal History of African American Gun Rights.”
https://www.topic.com/carrying-while-black. 2022.)
“The law was part of a
wave of laws that were passed in the late 1960s regulating guns,
especially to target African-Americans,” says Adam Winkler, author
of Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms (2013).
Racial History
Continues
Since the election of
Donald Trump, guns sales to Black Americans have quadrupled, and
black gun groups, such as the National African American Gun
Association, report that attendance at their meetings has doubled.
Is it any wonder that
racial minorities are seeking ways to protect themselves, with Trump
having emboldened hate groups who see him as their long-awaited
leader and with incidents of racial harassment and violence having
escalated after his election.
And now, the latest
Supreme Court ruling guarantee’s the Second Amendment right of
people to carry their firearms in public space for “self-defense,”
according to the Los Angeles Times. These new gun laws were
advocated for because white people grew concerned about their gun
rights. And, who is even more concerned than them? Black gun owners.
Consider Amir Locke,
Philando Castile, Atatiana Jefferson – the list of Black licensed
gun owners killed by police for having a gun keeps growing. Kelly
Sampson from gun safety organization Brady told NPR this is precisely
why Black people feel left out from their constitutional protection.
Then there's the
perception of a black person carrying a gun. Tamir Rice, John
Crawford and Robert Dentmond were all shot and killed by police
because they were seen with objects that looked like real firearms.
“We live in a society
that codes Black people in general as criminal but especially when we
carry arms,” Sampson said. “So when you strip away all of the
rhetoric around the Second Amendment, you still can’t get away from
the fundamental issue that we live in a country where Black people
are disproportionately dying from gun homicides, and Black people
also are disproportionately impacted by police violence.”
Historically, the
government worked to keep guns away from Black people or apply gun
control laws specifically to us. Jabir Asa, minister of social media
for the Cleveland chapter of the Huey P. Newton Gun Club, told NPR
the court’s decision is a way to address the disparity.
Take California’s
Mulford Act of 1967 for example. The National Rifle Association even
backed it, though the bill prohibited the open carry of loaded
weapons, a move directed toward the Black Panther Party.
“We have already seen
historically that when you go on any kind of gun-grabbing campaign,
the only people with guns are the kind of people who would never
worry about the legality of having them in the first place. And then
you find yourself in a position where you’re vulnerable to
fascists,” said Asa, via NPR.
(Kalyn Womack. “Black
Gun Owners React to Supreme Court’s Concealed Carry Decision
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/black-gun-owners-react-supreme-122545424.html.
July 16, 2022.)
White Men And Guns
Since the 2008 election of
President Obama, the number of firearms manufactured in the U.S. has
tripled, while imports have doubled. This doesn’t mean more
households have guns than ever before—that percentage has stayed
fairly steady for decades. Rather, more guns are being stockpiled by
a small number of individuals. Three percent of the population now
owns half of the country’s firearms, says a recent, definitive
study from the Injury Control Research Center at Harvard University.
The findings include:
An estimated 55
million Americans own guns.
The percentage of the
U.S. population who own guns decreased slightly from 25% in 1994 to
22% last year.
Between 300,000 and
600,000 guns are stolen each year.
Gun owners tend to be
white, male, conservative, and live in rural areas.
25% of gun owners in
America are white or multi-racial, compared with 16% of
Hispanics and 14% of African Americans.
There are an
estimated 111 million handguns nationwide, a 71% increase from the
65 million handguns in 1994.
(Hepburn,
Lisa; Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David.
“The US gun stock: Results from the 2004 national firearms survey.”
Injury Prevention. 2007; 13:15-19.)
So, who is buying all
these guns – and why?
The short answer to the
first part of that question is this: men, who on average possess
almost twice the number of guns female owners do. But not all men.
Some groups of men are much more avid gun consumers than others. The
American citizen most likely to own a gun is a white male – but not
just any white guy. According to a growing number of scientific
studies, the kind of man who stockpiles weapons or applies for a
concealed-carry license meets a very specific profile.
The profile:
These are men who are
anxious about their ability to protect their families, insecure about
their place in the job market, and beset by racial fears. They tend
to be less educated.
For the most part, they
don’t appear to be religious – and, suggests one study, faith
seems to reduce their attachment to guns. In fact, stockpiling guns
seems to be a symptom of a much deeper crisis in meaning and purpose
in their lives. Taken together, these studies describe a population
that is struggling to find a new story – one in which they are once
again the heroes.
When Northland College
sociologist Angela Stroud studied applications for licenses to carry
concealed firearms in Texas, she found that when men became fathers
or got married, they started to feel very vulnerable, like they
couldn’t protect families. She said,“For them, owning a weapon is
part of what it means to be a good husband and a good father.” That
meaning is “rooted in fear and vulnerability – very motivating
emotions.”
But Stroud also discovered
another motivation: racial anxiety. “A lot of people talked about
how important Obama was to get a concealed-carry license: ‘He’s
for free health care, he’s for welfare.’ They were asking,
‘Whatever happened to hard work?’” Obama’s presidency, they
feared, would empower minorities to threaten their property and
families.
Jeremy Adam Smith, editor
of Greater Good and John S. Knight journalism fellow at Stanford
University, reports …
“The insight
Stroud gained from her interviews is backed up by many, many
studies. A 2013 paper by a team of United Kingdom researchers found
that a one-point jump in the scale they used to measure racism
increased the odds of owning a gun by 50 percent. A 2016 study from
the University of Illinois at Chicago found that racial resentment
among whites fueled opposition to gun control. This drives
political affiliations: A 2017 study in the Social Studies
Quarterly found that gun owners had become 50 percent more likely
to vote Republican since 1972 – and that gun culture had become
strongly associated with explicit racism.
“For many
conservative men, the gun feels like a force for order in a
chaotic world, suggests a study published in December of last year.
In a series of three experiments, Steven Shepherd and Aaron C. Kay
asked hundreds of liberals and conservatives to imagine holding a
handgun – and found that conservatives felt less risk and greater
personal control than liberal counterparts.
“This wasn’t
about familiarity with real-world guns – gun ownership and
experience did not affect results. Instead, conservative attachment
to guns was based entirely on ideology and emotions.”
(Jeremy Adam Smith.
“Why Are White Men Stockpiling Guns?”
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/why-are-white-men-stockpiling-guns/.
Scientific American. March 14, 2018.)
Smith continues …
“That’s an insight echoed by another
study published last year. Baylor University sociologists Paul
Froese and F. Carson Mencken created a 'gun empowerment scale'
designed to measure how a nationally representative sample of
almost 600 owners felt about their weapons. Their study
found that people at the highest level of their scale – the ones
who felt most emotionally and morally attached to their guns –
were 78 percent white and 65 percent male.
“'We found that white men who have
experienced economic setbacks or worry about their economic futures
are the group of owners most attached to their guns,' says Froese.
'Those with high attachment felt that having a gun made them a
better and more respected member of their communities.'
“That wasn’t true for women and
non-whites. In other words, they may have suffered setbacks –
but women and people of color weren’t turning to guns to make
themselves feel better. 'This suggests that these owners have other
sources of meaning and coping when facing hard times,' notes Froese
– often, religion. Indeed, Froese and Mencken found that
religious faith seemed to put the brakes on white men’s
attachment to guns.
“For these economically insecure,
irreligious white men, 'the gun is a ubiquitous symbol of power and
independence, two things white males are worried about,' says
Froese. 'Guns, therefore, provide a way to regain their
masculinity, which they perceive has been eroded by increasing
economic impotency.'
“Unfortunately, the people most likely to be
killed by the guns of white men aren’t the 'bad guys,' presumably
criminals or terrorists. It’s themselves – and their families.
(Jeremy Adam Smith.
“Why Are White Men Stockpiling Guns?”
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/why-are-white-men-stockpiling-guns/.
Scientific American. March 14, 2018.)
According to the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, White men are also the people
most likely to hurt themselves especially when they’re in some kind
of economic distress. A white man is three times more likely to shoot
himself than a black man – while the chances that a white man will
be killed by a black man are extremely slight. Most murders and
shoot-outs don’t happen between strangers. They unfold within
social networks, among people of the same race.
Smith writes: “In
addition, a gun in the home is far more likely to kill or wound the
people who live there than is a burglar or serial killer. Most of the
time, according to every single study that’s ever been done about
interpersonal gun violence, the dead and wounded know the people who
shot them. A gun in the home makes it five times more likely that a
woman will be killed by her husband.”
Every week in America, 136
children and teenagers are shot—and more often than not, it’s a
sibling, friend, parent, or relative who holds the gun. For every
homicide deemed justified by the police, guns are used in 78
suicides. A study published in 2018 in JAMA Internal Medicine
once again shows that restrictive gun laws don’t prevent white men
from defending themselves and their families. Instead, those laws
stop them from shooting themselves and each other.
Please, read Jeremy Adam
Smith's entire article by clicking here:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/why-are-white-men-stockpiling-guns/.
Conclusion
Since the days of early
settlement of America, the propagation of the myth of the predatory
Black man has been used to instill fear in whites and to justify
their brutality and violence against Black individuals and
communities The narrative has been passed down from one generation to
the next and is still used to underwrite injustice against Black
people.
White America has long
associated black men with criminality and hypersexuality. The ghost
of Nat Turner and his slave rebellion still haunts Whites today. It's
why some social science experiments show that even trained police
officers are biased to see black man as threats.
This fear of black men
doesn’t just spring from racism. It’s also psychological. There
is a body of work in literature and psychology that speaks to a
historical tradition where some White people – White men, in
particular – project the primal aggression that they refuse to see
in themselves onto black people.
This is what author James
Baldwin meant when he wrote in a 1962 essay that the racial tensions
menacing America “are involved only symbolically with color.”
“These tensions are
rooted in the very same depths as those from which love springs, or
murder,” Baldwin wrote. “The white man’s unadmitted – and
apparently, to him, unspeakable – private fears and longings are
projected onto the Negro.”
(John Blake. “There’s
one epidemic we may never find a vaccine for: fear of black men in
public spaces.” CNN. May 27, 2020.)
And, let's face it –
much of America remains segregated. Until something changes, Black
men must learn to live with the fearful white gaze. Blacks with equal
gun possession? Now, if you want to talk about “White fear” –
just read the following:
“The Afro-American
militant is a 'militant' because he defends himself, his family, his
home, and his dignity. He does not introduce violence into a racist
social system - the violence is already there, and has always been
there.
“It is precisely
this unchallenged violence that allows a racist social system to
perpetuate itself. When people say that they are opposed to Negroes
'resorting to violence' what they really mean is that they are
opposed to Negroes defending themselves and challenging the exclusive
monopoly of violence practiced by white racists.”
(Robert F. Williams.
Negroes with Guns. 1962)
“White
fear has manifested itself in outright violence post-slavery through
the imposition of Jim Crow segregation. White fear has manifested
itself legislatively via redlining laws and cruel lending practices
barring blacks from owning property in ‘white neighborhoods.’
“White
fear has manifested itself in so many structural ways that it has
become part and parcel with the fundamental functions of every
private and governmental institution in this country …
“White
fear is killing us …
“It is
criminalizing black bodies. It is incarcerating black identities. It
is limiting black potential …
“And, it
is shooting black boys in the streets of their own neighborhoods.
White fear is the single greatest cause of death for black people
today and has been so since this country’s inception.”
(Jenn M. Jackson.
“White Fear: The Single Greatest Killer of Black People in the US.”
Water Cooler Convos. 2014. Accessed April 19, 2015.)
