Interesting Story on Black Gun Ownership

In the Huffington Post, not usually a source of positive views on guns.

The article is Why Black People Own Guns, by Julia Craven; I found the interviews quite interesting to read.

Comments

[phattyboombatty]

I read all the interviews, and I agree it was very interesting and informative. It's nice to read the thoughts of average Americans on guns instead of the opinions of pundits on opposite ends of the gun control spectrum.

[MikeR613]

Interesting article

[McGehee]

"As much as America loves her guns, she has never liked the idea of seeing them in black hands."

The author should have asked America before claiming to speak for it. We don't like seeing guns used for criminal purposes; if someone sees racial implications in that when most criminals are not black, they may need to look in the mirror instead.

[UVaGrad]

Interesting that California passed the Mulford Act in response to a bunch of black guys engaging in perfectly legal open carry, then.

[Absaroka]

I certainly agree that gun control has racist roots - de jure before the Civil War and de facto afterwards - but the Mulford Act was enacted 50 years ago while McGehee (and the original article) are using the present tense.

I sure don't see gun rights advocates suggesting that gun rights shouldn't extend to everyone. I'm curious where you got the notion that gun rights advocates, or America in general, wants to keep any particular group[1] disarmed.

Hmmmm... maybe you're right, after all. Look at Shaneen Allen. I must admit that there are people who agree with putting her in prison. I agree those people should be ashamed of themselves.

[1]excluding violent felons etc, who most of us want to be disarmed

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Interesting that, despite their best efforts, Huffpo couldn't get any of these people to support their Trump/White Supremacist narrative. These are all level-headed, smart, responsible Americans. Their anxiety has a lot more to do with the local cops than some ragtag gang of Nazis which is entirely rational. I'm a white man and I'm pretty sure I'm in more danger from a cop of any color than I am from a black man with a concealed carry permit.

[Variant]

Neither are a very large risk. Now, driving or heart disease...

[PersonFromPorlock]

"HuffPost spoke with 11 black gun owners to figure out what gun ownership means in a country determined to keep its black populace unarmed."

Well, not "a country", just the Democrats; and not just blacks; everyone. Nothing worse than an uppity voter.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You figure Republicans wouldn't vote and work to resegregate schools, suppress black voting, disarm blacks, and the like it they had the chance and figured they could get away with it?

[Jason Dawes the Elder]

No.

[Sevo is my bitch]

you are a moron, a racist one at that

[MikeR613]

Of course they wouldn't. You are revealing yourself as delusional.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I'm delusional. And right-wingers are "very fine people" who are color-blind and post-racial, and therefore misunderstood with respect to their positions on immigration, voter suppression, white nationalism, and the like.

Why not embrace your nature? Denying it is not fooling anyone.

[BillyG]

It'd be so much easier to have an actual discussion if you'd listen to what people said instead of being blinded by your own bigotry.

[Curly4]

This article in the HufPo is highly unusual. The view point of the people interview show them to be not the liberal outlook as published on the daily news on guns at all. The individual views were quite the stame as the conservatives, mostly for security and sporting (some even for hunting).
I must say though this is the first positive article in the HufPo on gun ownership but I guess that is because it is on Black gun ownership.

[JordanW]

It sounds like these people like the state monopoly on violence about as much as the Founding Fathers.

[LaudanumMilkshake]

I suppose it's more balanced than most Huffpo articles on guns, but there seemed to be an over abundance of quotes like "I know I'm not safer with a gun...", "this isn't the movies, I know I can't actually protect myself with it...", "I never carry it..." only a couple of the quotes in there were all that pro-gun, and even fewer that were pro-carry (open or otherwise). To me this article came across as strongly anti-gun while wanting to pretend to be balanced.

I am glad however that there is acknowledgement that if you're black, there is a history of the state wanting you disarmed, and a history just as long of black people seizing their right to defend themselves.

Full disclosure, I'm white, so take my view of the racial side for what it is, an outsider looking in.