{"id":69677,"date":"2021-07-12T16:31:01","date_gmt":"2021-07-12T21:31:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=69677"},"modified":"2021-07-12T16:31:01","modified_gmt":"2021-07-12T21:31:01","slug":"69677","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=69677","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

The Politics of Gun Ownership Change as Millions of First-Time, \u2018Anti-Gun\u2019 Americans Bought Firearms.<\/a><\/p>\n

According to this\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0article, the percentage of Americans who own guns has jumped from 32% to 39% in the past year. That\u2019s due to huge waves of new, first-time gun owners, of all political and cultural persuasions, deciding that owning a firearm is a good idea.<\/p>\n

For many new gun owners, though, the decision to arm themselves is a political pivot \u2014 an accumulation of anxieties that led them to discard long-held beliefs. It\u2019s a decision that is particularly difficult for people who belong to groups at higher risk of being on the wrong end of gun violence.<\/em><\/p>\n

Jabril Battle, a 28-year-old account representative at a financial services company in Los Angeles, had always believed that \u201canyone who had a gun was a gun nut,\u201d he said. \u201cI really bought into the whole idea that the more people have guns \u2026 the more likely it is for people to start killing each other.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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But as the pandemic paralyzed the nation, Battle said, \u201cI just saw how crazy people got.\u201d He found himself conjuring the worst scenarios: \u201cI was like, if my block has 10 houses, how many people in these houses have guns? If the food and water gets cut off, [if] supplies run out \u2026 what does that look like? Is this going to be a \u2018Mad Max\u2019 situation? Like \u2018The Walking Dead,\u2019 but not with the zombies?<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI was just, like, \u2018Do I want to be the person who has a gun or doesn\u2019t have a gun?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Battle bought a Beretta 92FS, then added a Glock 34 pistol.<\/em><\/p>\n

Still, he had reservations: \u201cBeing Black with a gun is a very high risk, a way higher risk than other races,\u201d he said. \u201cYou are seen as a threat without a gun, and with a gun you are seen as a super threat.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

He kept imagining the scene if he were stopped by a White police officer.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still in my head, honestly, when I go to the gun range and I have my gun in my car,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I get pulled over, and they ask, \u2018Are there any weapons in the car?\u2019 [and] I say there\u2019s a gun, and then I hand in my registration, will they shoot me?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

But he\u2019s enjoying the new world that guns opened to him \u2014 classes, an organization of Black gun owners, shooting competitions.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cOnce I started being around guns more, and I kind of saw the culture and the environment, I\u2019m falling in love,\u201d he said.<\/em><\/p>\n

In Battle\u2019s family, guns were \u201cnot a good thing,\u201d he said. \u201cIt kind of represented crime, especially for Black people. It\u2019s just different for African Americans.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

But his family has accepted his decision, he said. His grandmother and two aunts came to the range with him and are considering returning to take lessons.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 Marc Fisher, Miranda Green, and Andrea Eger in\u00a0\u2018Fear on top of fear\u2019: Why anti-gun Americans joined the wave of new gun owners<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Politics of Gun Ownership Change as Millions of First-Time, \u2018Anti-Gun\u2019 Americans Bought Firearms. According to this\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0article, the percentage of Americans who own guns has jumped from 32% to 39% in the past year. That\u2019s due to huge waves of new, first-time gun owners, of all political and cultural persuasions, deciding that owning a … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69678,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69677\/revisions\/69678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}