Posted on 02/17/2017 9:51:26 AM PST by PROCON
The No More Black Targets campaign argues that shooting ranges and instructors should not use menacing black targets, and is petitioning to end the practice, citing trigger bias.
Young black men are 3X more likely to be shot by trained shooters than their white peers, notes the site for the campaign. A disturbing potential correlation: The most popular target for shooters to learn to use their firearm is a black silhouette. Unconscious bias can be deadly.
A Change.org petition by the group intends to call upon the International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors to end the use of black silhouette targets.
The group references a study by University of Illinois researchers that concluded shooters were more likely to fire at a black target.
One of the researhers in that study, Yara Mekawi, told National Public Radio in 2015 that people were quicker to shoot black targets with a gun relative to white targets with a gun. And people were more trigger-happy when shooting black targets compared to shooting white targets.
It is not the first proposal of its kind. In 2015 a lawmaker sought to ban the use of human silhouette targets in Pennsylvania for all but law enforcement use, arguing they perpetuate violence.
The No More Black Targets petiton had 18 signatures as of Feb. 17.
The group has also created a number of alternative designs rather than the traditional dark silhouette through an art collective.
If you haven't yet had a facepalm today, watch the 1:20 video.
Ha! I paint my steel targets white. So there....
Maybe black targets want to identify as blue targets?
LOL, I guess we have to make sure all prospective live targets are both backlit AND frontlit! Silhouettes are racist!
Actually, the full size B-29 silhouette targets we use at the farm are blue.
Make the targets Democrat blue since most criminals are Democrats.
Shadows will be outlawed next, but not all the people living in them.
Black ink text on white paper should be banned as well. Because, you know...reading is difficult and discriminatory. Especially cursive...
Red is too native american. I guess only “white” targets will do.
Every home security system commercial I’ve ever seen on tv has a WHITE GUY playin’ the burglar.
But blacks in Chicago regularly fire at black targets.
Young black men commit violent crime at a rate vastly greater than young white men. Young black men shoot other young black men at a vastly greater rate than young white men shoot anybody.* Perhaps young black men should quit committing violent crimes against each other and against everybody else. Then maybe they wouldn't have to worry about getting shot. Silhouette targets are just a distraction for idiots.
* Excepting war ...
...”quicker to shoot black targets with a gun relative to white targets with a gun”
I’m scratchin my head why a white or black target would have a gun unless these were live targets....
Why not have this lovely piece of human flesh take a full-size selfie, and offer THAT as a replacement for a target style that has existed since the 1920’s?
Obviously, this ‘thing’ is an anti-gun person.
They're up to 85 homicides on the year ... 29 for the month of February ...
Considering young black men are at least 10x more likely to commit violent crime I would say the shooters need to up their game.
My range has both white and black silhouette targets.
I choose black only because they are easier to see hits on.
This is stupid.
I’m really concerned with the placement of black olives at the supermarket. They’re kept on a lower shelf than all of the other olives. I think we all know what THAT means.
Rayciss.
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