{"id":82397,"date":"2022-06-15T23:30:26","date_gmt":"2022-06-16T04:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=82397"},"modified":"2022-06-15T23:30:26","modified_gmt":"2022-06-16T04:30:26","slug":"82397","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=82397","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

The Latest Wave of New Firearm Owners Shreds Another Anti-Gun Narrative<\/a><\/p>\n

First, I\u2019m shocked NBC News would write a story like this about gun owners. Second, it\u2019s about yet another hurdle anti-gunners have to scale when pushing their \u2018take all the guns\u2019 initiatives. This isn\u2019t necessarily a new trend. Nonwhite Americans and women have flocked to gun shows and concealed carry permit classes. In fact, there are so many female concealed carry holders that they\u2019re changing the industry. Female participation in shooting sports spiked during the Obama presidency. That alone is a problem for anti-gunners and Democrats. It\u2019s never a good idea to go against what middle-class women like\u2014that\u2019s a long-established political reality. You\u2019re gambling there.<\/p>\n

Now, you have to factor in that the latest wave of new gun owners are black Americans\u2014and you have to tread carefully about the silly talking points about gun ownership and the Second Amendment (via\u00a0NBC News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

Two days after a white man shot and killed 10 Black people in Buffalo last month, Michael Moody reversed his thinking about possessing a firearm. He had watched the aftermath of the carnage on the news, the anguish of the victims\u2019 families, and decided he \u201cneeded a gun. Needed, not wanted,\u201d he said……<\/p>\n

Moody\u2019s sentiments represent one reason the sale of guns to Black Americans rose 58 percent in 2020 \u2014 the year George Floyd was murdered by a Minnesota police officer, sparking a nationwide social justice movement \u2014 according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearms trade association. It was the highest bump in gun sales of any ethnic group that year.<\/p>\n

Further, in the first quarter of 2021, another NSSF report revealed 90 percent of gun retailers reported a general increase of Black customers, including an 87 percent increase among Black women.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you wonder why?\u201d said Moody, who works for the federal government. \u201cYou look at Buffalo and the feeling of \u2018This could have been me\u2019 is there. We could be the next target. And when it\u2019s you, what are you going to do? Are you going to run and hide? Or are you going to be able to protect yourself? Protect your family? I didn\u2019t want a gun; I\u2019m not a gun person. But this world has made me get one. Getting one for my wife next.\u201d<\/p>\n

The foundation said 40 percent of the overall gun sales in 2020 were to first-time gun purchasers. Black gun owners, old and new, say the rise is a byproduct primarily of a heightened fear they could be targeted like those in Buffalo or at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, when nine Black church members were killed by a white supremacist.<\/p>\n

To that point, anti-Black hate crimes rose nearly 40 percent in 2020, the latest year available, according to FBI statistics. There were 2,755 reported incidents targeting Black people in the U.S. that year, the most besieged racial group by a large margin.<\/p>\n

Two weeks after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the Capitol in Washington, Destiny Hawkins, a divorced mother of one who lives near Atlanta, waited in line to purchase her first gun, a Glock 43. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t the gun I wanted because their selection was so low; people were buying guns like crazy,\u201d she said……<\/p>\n

This increased interest in firearms delights Philip Smith, who started the National African American Gun Association in 2015. A human resources executive in Atlanta, Smith said he owns \u201cabout 30\u201d weapons, including the lethal AR-15-style rifles used in the Buffalo mass shooting and the Uvalde elementary school massacre in Texas on May 24.<\/p>\n

The increased number of Black gun ownership represents \u201can awakening,\u201d Smith said. \u201cIt\u2019s a value-add to their family household, as opposed to, let\u2019s say, 10 years ago or six years ago. This is a movement in a certain direction, and I think it\u2019s a good direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

His organization has 48,000 members nationwide, he said, and has gained more than 1,000 or more each month since 2020. It has nearly 107,000 followers on Facebook.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sure, there are differing opinions about possession in this piece, but it\u2019s clear that Black Americans are exercising their Second Amendment rights\u00a0which is a good thing<\/em>. Ideally, everyone should. Ideally, every household should have a firearm.<\/p>\n

Whether the reasoning is a stalker, Antifa, terrorism, a spike in crime, and yes\u2014a crazy white nationalist shooting up a market, you have the right to own a firearm in this country and use it for self-defense. That\u2019s what is so great about the Bill of Rights. They\u2019re all connected. They\u2019re all equally important with regards to upholding the other amendments. There is no graduated scale here; only liberals think that way. There\u2019s no cafeteria support for the Bill of Rights either. It\u2019s either you support them or don\u2019t. There\u2019s no filleting of the first ten amendments. The notion that the Second Amendment is for white Americans only is dead. The notion that the Second Amendment was meant to maintain white supremacy was never real, but it\u2019s obviously not an old white man\u2019s game anymore. Women and minorities are all packing heat. Americans of all stripes are buying guns.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a homemade American apple pie, with a side of 9mm I guess. That\u2019s fine. What we need to worry about is Democrats\u00a0and Republicans\u00a0<\/em>now working to set the foundation that could strip those rights down the line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Latest Wave of New Firearm Owners Shreds Another Anti-Gun Narrative First, I\u2019m shocked NBC News would write a story like this about gun owners. Second, it\u2019s about yet another hurdle anti-gunners have to scale when pushing their \u2018take all the guns\u2019 initiatives. This isn\u2019t necessarily a new trend. Nonwhite Americans and women have flocked … 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":[75,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82397","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=82397"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82398,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82397\/revisions\/82398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}