(JustPatriots.com)- Following last week’s Supreme Court ruling overturning New York’s concealed carry limitations, a Los Angeles Times editorial piece on Monday questioned if California was “ready for more Black people to carry firearms in public lawfully.”
The column’s author, Erika Smith, spoke with Nathan Jones, president of the Bay Area Black Gun Owners Association branch.
While Jones stated that he supports the right of law-abiding individuals to self-defense, Smith claimed that he also warned her that “the concept of armed Black people may incite ‘fear and anger.”
There is no overt racism at the gun range, but Jones assured her that his group knows how people are looking at them.
The writer, Smith, said that California might be forced to confront a fact that has long made many self-proclaimed liberals uncomfortable – Black people lawfully carrying weapons in public.
After describing how the NRA backed the Mulford Act, which prohibited the open carrying of loaded firearms without a permit in the wake of a 1967 Black Panther protest at the state capitol, Smith made a racial allusion.
She said matter of factly that the NRA is quite anti-gun control these days, but their view on Black people don’t appear to have altered too much.
She also spoke with Emmanuel Choice, the leader of a black firearms club in Los Angeles.
Smith stated, mentioning the ten deadly Buffalo grocery massacres, that Choice and Jones concur that most members claim to have acquired a firearm for self-defense. She said that many seek help after being — pardon the expression — “triggered” by prominent racial occurrences. Additionally, she implied that Republican lawmakers were racist and would enact stricter gun control measures if black people started carrying firearms.
Nevertheless, she acknowledged the contribution of Justice Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court’s decision in the weapons case. She pointed out that the conservative black justice had written how the right to bear guns was vital for the self-protection of Black people in the South during Reconstruction.
Smith noted that even carrying legal guns is risky in the eyes of many black people.
In addition, she said in the piece, most Black individuals just want to get home safe every night and will avoid taking risks that may end in harm or death.
Choice, the L.A. gun club leader, predicts that more black individuals will start carrying guns in public.
Smith said that is a risky situation that appears more plausible in our fractured political atmosphere. Just as probable as Black folks being mistakenly shot by cops while lawfully holding a gun. When society is heavily armed, unpleasant things are inevitable.
Conservatives were shocked by the piece.
