Column: Is California ready for more Black people to legally carry guns in public?

Yahoo ^ | 27 June 2022 | Erika Smith

[Erik Latranyi]

Nathan W. Jones leads the Bay Area chapter of the Black Gun Owners Assn. But until a few years ago, he wasn't even into guns.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. And George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police, sending racial justice protesters into the streets. And white supremacists trashed the U.S. Capitol in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Suddenly, it seemed as if America was on the brink. And with the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe vs. Wade on Friday, emboldening a militant array of white Christian nationalists, we clearly still are.

"I had visions of mobs dragging people through the streets, and something just kind of switched," Jones told me. "We can't rely on anybody else to come and save us. It has to be us."

So, on Thursday, while many were apoplectic over the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the rights of gun owners to carry a loaded weapon in public — throwing gun control laws in California and New York into limbo at a time when shootings are increasing — Jones was thoughtful.

On the one hand, he wants it to be easy for law-abiding citizens to be able to defend themselves "if and when the time arises." But on the other hand, he's a 50-year-old realist who knows that fear and hatred of Black people run deep in the United States, especially when we're armed.

"There's no overt racism when we go to the gun range, but we know how people are looking at us," Jones said of the dozens of Black members who meet up to go shooting. "We know the things that people think."

[Trailerpark Badass]

Thanks! Good luck!

[rxh4n1]

We should not be using the phrase “gun violence”. It is a bogus left wing talking point.

[Vendome]

“There’s no overt racism when we go to the gun range, but we know how people are looking at us,” Jones said of the dozens of Black members who meet up to go shooting. “We know the things that people think.”

You are a jerk.

I shoot a lot and no one thinks a thing about your race except....your race.

This is a multi-ethnic/mulit-cultural and you come to some idiotic conclusion that blacks are thought about in some diminished way?

We don’t objectify people.

You do.

Our friends have first names, share common interests and tell the same raunchy jokes.

I have no idea what race they are and couldn’t care less.

Your mileage apparently varies...

[17th Miss Regt]

And George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police, ... Suddenly, it seemed as if America was on the brink. And with the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe vs. Wade on Friday, emboldening a militant array of white Christian nationalists, we clearly still are.

No, clearly completely erroneous and despicable writing.

You are taking this too literally. Let me translate it for you.

"We brothers and sisters should stay on the liberal plantation picking cotton for our Democrat masters."

And yes, Erika is exactly as you imagine her.

[VanShuyten]

That was one of the arguments against carry permits and gun licensing in DC. Thirty percent of the black males were in prison, on parole or on probation, so any kind of background check was inherently racist.

[Red in Blue PA]

Understatement of the year.

[William Tell]

Caption on picture in linked article: "Romeal Taylor, a member of the Minnesota Freedom Fighters, holds a handgun in July 2020 in Minneapolis. "

Is it racist of me to point out that Romeal seems prepared to shoot his left thumb off?

Fortunately for him, it appears he might be right-handed.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

More racist nonsense from the Yahoos.

[Ban Draoi Marbh Draoi]

That reminds me of a James Baldwin quote: a liberal is someone who thinks he knows more about your experience than you do.

[Ban Draoi Marbh Draoi]

To paraphrase James Baldwin, these people seem to think that they know about the white experience than whites do.