'It’s my constitutional freaking right': Black Americans arm themselves in response to pandemic, protests

Authored by politico.com and submitted by deraser
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The rush to purchase weapons and ammunition is not unique to one race — more Americans across the board are arming themselves this year, including those who are not legally eligible . However, new Black gun owners see firearms as a tool of both empowerment and self-defense.

Phillip Smith, president of the National African American Gun Owners’ Association, said his organization’s annual membership has increased by up to 2,000 new members per day — a figure he used to see annually. His organization has grown to more than 30,000 members this year and has an online following of nearly 90,000 people.

The influx of interest in gun owning — and seeking membership in Black gun owner organizations — began as soon as the pandemic set in. Fears of a damaged economy, disrupted supply chain and slow-moving federal response inspired people to take up arms.

"If you have a half a brain in your head even saying, 'Oh, this might get serious, let me plan accordingly," Smith explained.

The Floyd protests, he added, were a “line in the sand” for many of his new members. Leaders of other Black gun ownership organizations echo this response, saying the spike owes to a range of concerns many Black Americans have.

"Whether it was fear of a food shortage, lack of a grocery store, the short response times for law enforcement or whether people were just fearful they were going to be attacked, I don't know," said Derrick Morgan, national commander of the Black Gun Owners Association. Morgan said interest in his group grew so quickly that his website crashed from a surge in online traffic.

"A lot of people are reaching out to us, mainly new gun owners and people who wouldn't have considered owning a gun or firearm for their protection, have been lining up to purchase firearms and access information from our website."

Their reasoning has become much harder to ignore, especially as social media sites and phone videos turned into tools of capturing and responding to instances of police brutality. Floyd’s death catalyzed international protest in part for this reason. The video of Ahmaud Arbery, who was killed by white vigilantes in a Georgia suburb garnered similar levels of attention, as did that of Atlanta’s Rayshard Brooks, who was shot in the back by a police officer following a confrontation.

Holy-fuckballs on July 26th, 2020 at 19:57 UTC »

The 2nd amendment is there for everyone as a right, use it or don't.

greentea1985 on July 26th, 2020 at 15:35 UTC »

I’m not surprised. When the cops treated the heavily armed, mostly white protesters protesting against the shutdown and mask orders with kid gloves but were vicious towards the unarmed BLM protesters, it is not surprising to see BLM protesters start arming themselves.

-BubblePopElectric- on July 26th, 2020 at 13:58 UTC »

1) IT'S LEGAL

2) WHO CAN BLAME THEM??