Armed Black Men, Our Only Hope for Gun Control

Stand your ground, brothers!

Unfortunately, the latest incident of a brown person being shot by some racist wimp with a gun  has shifted the debate in the predictable direction of demanding severe punishment for the racist shooter, rather than focusing on the laws that enable racists everywhere to tote guns around and shoot people anytime they are scared or pissed off or drunk. Notably, the Dark Lord Krugman points out that this orientation is fully in line with the Prison Industrial Complex meme, who know that more guns means more crime and more people in the private prison system.  Anthea has a great take on the big picture, the United States is an exceptionally racist nation that tolerates and even facilitates the violent oppression of brown people.  Indeed, this exceptionalism is built into the Constitution in the 2nd Amendment—the right to carry arms anywhere so white people can shoot the browns. That’s what the founding fathers meant.

In the last thirty years (after the fallout died down from Ronny Raygun being shot by a mental patient who should have never had access to any weapons or ammunition–and could easily have been denied)  the gun nut lobby has been quite successful with completely ludicrous “gun laws” which enable psychopaths to wield and brandish weapons of mass killing with impunity. Of course, the Tennesse Legislator who was damn near successful in pimping a bill that would give bar-drunks the right to have a shot if they want to just got busted for being drunk while driving with a loaded gun in his car.  And even very prominent leaders of the gun nut movement have proved to be violent felons, willing to physically harm their own family and relish in killing strangers, particularly if they are brown.

Support for Gun laws by race: 2010 GSS

What is disturbing about the contemporary situation is that the NRA and the Gun Owners of America are winning, succeeding in passing more and more inane laws enabling dumbfuck rednecks to carry guns wherever, and have no responsibility for their dangerous hobby (at best). Yet, there is absolutely no reason why this is the case. The gun nuts are WAY overrated, and declining in long term influence. First, even among white people, who always get a boner about shooting the browns, 72% favor gun laws–and not laws that let you carry guns in bars…..African Americans, who suffer the brunt of gun violence, are even more supportive of regulation, as are people with other racial identifications—85% of whom favor regulation. Not only do the vast majority of white folk agree that their redneck brethren need to be regulated, but most Americans, even real WHITE Americans do not own guns.

Gun Ownership by Race: 2010 GSS

You see, the problem with gun ownership is that only a minority of whites, who want to shoot any black person wearing a hoodie, own guns. 36.5% of white households own a gun. While white racist gunowners think that underneath every hoodie is a Glock 9mm, in fact gun ownership is rare for African Americans, and only about 15% of households are prepared to defend against an assault from the 37% of the majority race seeking to shoot them. Asians and Latin Americans (or whatever “other” means in the GSS….) are even less likely the own guns, more than four times less likely than whites.  Gun ownership in the US has declined from 47% in 1973 to under 31% in 2010.

Despite the fact that most Americans don’t own guns and most Americans support gun regulation, the gun nuts have been winning public policy victories since the late 1980s, and that is after only a brief hiatus following Raygun getting shot by a nutcase. It is time to Repeal the Second Amendment, and to put serious teeth into gun regulation. Instead, what we’ve been doing is enabling people to murder, and now to get away with it, claiming that any scared-ass pussy with a gun can kill somebody and not get arrested—as long as the person you’re scared of has brown skin.

What we need is for every African American man to apply for a gun permit, a concealed carry, or to openly brandish weapons in public. Just like the Black Panthers did. People forget, but that is where they came from, and their primary original tactic was to follow cops while openly carrying weapons–which was permitted in the lax gun laws in California. If only that boy had had his gun, he wouldn’t have been killed, maybe, eh? And, if every black person was packing heat (instead of being outgunned way more than two to one), they might confront the oppressor! Until we see that happen, there will be no gun law changes. The Panthers had it down.