One point of interest in the NJ report is that black permit applicants nearly tracked their population percentage, which isn't always the case. Often black Americans have felt uncertain about joining America's 'gun culture,' which was presented by the Democratic political party to them as being the sort of place that racists and Klansmen were likely to be found. Progress would come from disarming people, they were told, and good progressives should favor that.
As we see the chokehold of the party on the black community's vote diminishing, maybe we're seeing some more willingness to try out alternatives. Old ones, as it happens: arming and training Freedmen was one of the NRA's original missions when it was founded right after the Civil War.
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Amen. A lot of black people (increasingly including women) have military training and are knowledgeable about firearms. Disarming themselves has unfortunately included a lot of social pressure to not be like those gangs and other dangerous young men, and to leave that behind because of appearances. I take the point. I see the draw emotionally. But it's backwards. Older, less impulsive, trained heads are on-the-ground subtle deterrents to young hotheads, especially when there are lots of them.
Old ones, as it happens: arming and training Freedmen was one of the NRA's original missions when it was founded right after the Civil War.
Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms
Here is a book on the subject. Chronicling the underappreciated black tradition of bearing arms for self-defense, this book presents an array of examples reaching back to the pre-Civil War era that demonstrate a willingness of African American men and women to use firearms when necessary to defend their families and communities. From Frederick Douglass's advice to keep "a good revolver" handy as defense against slave catchers to the armed self-protection of Monroe, North Carolina, blacks against the KKK chronicled in Robert Williams's Negroes with Guns, it is clear that owning firearms was commonplace in the black community. Nicholas Johnson points out that this story has been submerged because it is hard to reconcile with the dominant narrative of nonviolence during the civil rights era. His book, however, resolves that tension by showing how the black tradition of arms maintained and demanded a critical distinction between private self-defense and political violence.Johnson also addresses the unavoidable issue of young black men with guns and the toll that gun violence takes on many in the inner city. He shows how complicated this issue is by highlighting the surprising diversity of views on gun ownership in the black community. In fact, recent Supreme Court affirmations of the right to bear arms resulted from cases led by black plaintiffs. Surprising and informative, this well-researched book strips away many stock assumptions of conventional wisdom on the issue of guns and the black freedom struggle.
I read it over 5 years ago, so I don't remember much, except that Fannie Lou Hamer had her house very well armed. Here is an appropriate passage:
In some ways, Hamer epitomized the nonviolent theme of the movement. After discrimination, abuse, and beatings, she still urged a scriptural response, “Baby you gotta love ’em. Hating just makes you sick and weak.” But Fannie Lou Hamer also exhibited an earnest practicality that epitomizes the black tradition of arms.58 Asked how she survived so many years of racist aggression, Hamer responded, “I’ll tell you why. I keep a shotgun in every corner of my bedroom and the first cracker even look like he wants to throw some dynamite on my porch won’t write his mama again.”
Gringo, I think that's about right. Mercy is not the same thing as capitulation.
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