This post was originally published on Defender Network
Are Blacks for or against gun ownership? Both. And it’s complicated… or maybe it’s not.
To some, Hu Sani Sallah-Wilson doesn’t fit the media image of the typical gun enthusiast, i.e., white, male, MAGA-leaning, outspoken and often anti-Black. Though definitely male, Sallah-Wilson is progressive in his worldview, humble and soft-spoken and unapologetically pro-Black. And he has no problem letting you know that he’s a proud gun owner.
He also thinks more Black people must consider owning and becoming proficient with a weapon.
“I agree with gun ownership for us,” said Sallah-Wilson. “It allows for self-defense and protection of family, friends and loved ones. The choice to say I will or won’t own a weapon is important to me, as well. I prefer to have a gun or more in my household and/or on my person.”
Unlike many conservative, right-wing 2nd Amendment zealots, Sallah-Wilson recognizes both the positives and negatives of guns in society.
“The plusses regarding gun ownership include the fact that as violent as our cohabitants can be, we must be able to defend ourselves and our families. It levels the playing field against others who carry guns. I’d rather meet my enemy with it than without it,” he said.
Regarding the minuses, Sallah-Wilson pointed out that guns are used to “take precious human lives.”
“They are mishandled and used by our people to hurt and kill our people,” he added.
Still, Sallah-Wilson owns multiple guns and trains his children on their proper use, adding, “I teach my kids to shoot responsibly and to assemble and disassemble the weapons. Why? Because I have accepted the responsibility of defending myself and certain others by any means necessary.”
Sallah-Wilson is far from alone. Black people have a long history of gun ownership, using them for hunting and self-defense from the ever-present threat of white domestic terrorism.
Still, because Black people are most impacted by gun violence in the U.S., countless Black voices are calling for gun control or standing against gun ownership
Complicated History
Alain Stephens, a reporter with The Trace, a website dedicated to investigating gun violence in America, says Black people’s relationship with guns in the U.S. started even before our ancestors made it to these shores.
“Right from the jump, guns were tied up in America’s thorny relationship with race,” Stephens told NPR, referring to the fact that guns were the currency used by Protestant slavers to purchase captured Africans. “There’s a direct correlation between the increase of gunpowder imports into the African continent, going along with the increase in slave exports leaving the continent.”
So, even as guns symbolize self-determination and freedom for Black people, as they do for whites, for us, they also symbolize the mechanism of our bondage. Again, the relationship is complicated.
Pre-Civil War
Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676 saw enslaved Black people and white indentured servants fight together using firearms against wealthy white landowners. In response, the U.S. government passed multiple “slave laws” making it illegal for Black people, free or enslaved, to own guns.
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 allowed “slave patrollers” to enter northern free state territories to capture Blacks who had emancipated themselves from slavery. Blacks realized immediately that this law put all Black people, legally free or freed yet considered “fugitive slaves,” in danger.
“So what you actually see here is this entire self-defense armament movement that restarts back up… Black people and abolitionist whites had flooded to gun stores to start purchasing revolvers [in response to the act] and how white accomplices and allies were actually donating firearms to their Black compatriots for self-defense,” shared Stephens.
Post-Civil War
With the end of the Civil War, Black people were determined to maintain their freedom by any means necessary and were technically free to secure guns. However, the federal government responded to white fears of armed Black people by passing a law allowing the rearmament of white militias strictly to go out and police Black people, which they did via torture, harassment and stealing their weapons.
But while this was happening, and even before, some states (Texas, Arkansas, and South Carolina) that were threatened by violent insurrectionist activities by confederate/white supremacists, formed “Negro” militias that Stephens says fought an “underground war against white supremacists throughout the country.” In fact, Arkansas’s governor in the 1860s “raised a [mostly] Black militia that combed Arkansas for four months and essentially eradicated the Ku Klux Klan there,” for a brief time.
Civil Rights Movement
The “non-violent” Civil Rights Movement was full of non-stop violence perpetrated by whites against Blacks. And contrary to popular belief, Black people were all about defending themselves with guns.
“Non-violence was a movement tactic to raise awareness to injustice, not a way of life for Blacks,” said an African American Studies professor who asked that his name not be used for fear of institutional reprisals.
Still, many are surprised to learn that Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizers were involved in an ongoing battle to attempt to convince Black southerners not to bring guns to protests. Moreover, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose family was constantly threatened, owned a gun. So, too, did civil rights activist Medgar Evers, who had a rifle and a pistol in his car the day that he was assassinated in front of his home.
DEACONS OF DEFENSE VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox4dWMfPKGo&rco=1
Rosa Parks stated that while she was being told to get up out of her seat on that bus, she thought of the man she most admired: her grandfather, who owned a rifle and spoke of his willingness to use it to defend his family. Voting rights legend Fannie Lou Hamer told every Black person she encountered that she kept the shotgun in every corner of her house for protection against white violence. Additionally, the Deacons for Defense, a pro-gun, pro-self-defense group out of Louisiana, often provided protection for MLK and other activists.
Two-Faced 2nd Amendment
Gun advocates regularly mention the 2nd Amendment as their constitutional protection to own guns, as essential to U.S. citizenship. However, when Ronald Reagan was governor of California, and members of the Black Panther Party marched on the California state Capitol armed with guns, as was their constitutional right, they were stopped and guns were confiscated. Reagan, with blessings from the National Rifle Association (NRA) – the biggest supporter of open and free gun ownership – passed laws restricting gun ownership.
Today
Regardless of which side you’re on in the gun debate, gun violence impacts Black people disproportionately.
Black people account for only 14% of the U.S. population, yet make up 60% of those killed by firearm homicide each year, according to the gun prevention organization, Brady, named after the person for whom the famous Brady Bill was named. On average, Black people are over 11.5 times more likely to be victims of firearm homicide than their non-Hispanic white peers.
The report also showed that among young Black people, the disparities are even higher. Black children (aged 0-17) are over 13.6 times more likely to die by firearm homicide than their non-Hispanic white peers. However, this disparity is largest among young, Black people (aged 18-24), who are 19 times more likely to die by firearm homicide than white people (aged 18-24).
Young Black males (aged 18-24) are nearly 23 times more likely to die by firearm homicide than their white male peers. Black males under the age of 18 are 14.5 times more likely to die by firearm homicide than their white male peers. While Black females continue to be more likely to die by firearm homicide than their white peers, the likelihood of such is far lower than for Black males.
That said, Black gun enthusiasts remain committed to carrying on the long tradition of African Americans staying armed, especially in America’s current racial climate.
