Gun ownership continues to soar in the United States. A good part of that growth is driven by first-time owners, women, and minorities. In a story on the trend, The Hill offers a number of evidence-free assumptions about why it’s happening, making it sound as if the hundreds of thousands of black gun owners are “armed social justice advocates.”
And look at this picture:
Gun ownership among Black Americans is soaring https://t.co/eb8ULoz4Ag pic.twitter.com/OyFTYLMXrK
— The Hill (@thehill) April 5, 2021
Rather than focus on an average gun owner, someone like Shelly Parker — an African-American woman who, after drug dealers in her neighborhood began vandalizing her property and threatening her life, became one of the driving forces in the case that would become District of Columbia v. Heller – The Hill offers a picture of black militia members and tells the story of small groups like the “Not F***ing Around Coalition.” Now, large or small, I have zero problem with Americans assembling with their AR-15s to protect their rights. I can assure you, though, that the vast majority of gun owners, white and black, do not generally march around in pseudo-military garb. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard gun restrictionists claim that if African Americans owned firearms in large numbers, conservatives would quickly turn on the Second Amendment. Yet, all gun advocates I see cheer it on. It seems to me that others are doing the scaremongering.
(Hat tip, Lyndsey Fifield.)