As people of color buy more guns, they face more risk — that’s what Boston Globe columnist Renée Graham wrote in a piece published Sunday.
Citing a rise in hate crimes since the election of Donald Trump, as well as increasing numbers of people of color buying guns for protection, Graham says both trends will lead to more minorities dead or in jail.
“When citizens of color feel the incoming government will do nothing about the hate crimes endangering their lives, they will feel compelled to defend themselves,” writes Graham. “But in a nation with as many guns as people, we must find other ways of challenging conflict, especially because African-Americans, Latinos, and Muslims with firearms will always be treated as suspects, not victims.”
Graham cited several recent instances where black people were gunned down by law enforcement or arrested for having or using guns, though she misappropriated the four instances to a problem of open carry laws — a point outlined in a post by the editor of Bearing Arms, Bob Owens.
“Renée Graham is deceiving the readers of the Boston Globe in an apparent attempt to dissuade law-abiding African-Americans from exercising their natural right to armed self-defense of themselves and their loved ones,” writes Owens.
For Black Guns Matter founder Maj Toure, people of color are buying up guns less because of Trump, and more because of a greater understanding of their rights.
“I say more urban people are becoming informed about their human rights via the Second Amendment,” Toure told Breitbart News. “Nobody in the ‘hood is scared of Trump, just like any other president. And if any supporters – Hillary, Trump, whoever – attacks another citizen, they are well within their rights to defend their lives, and they should have firearms education and training.”
Graham agrees, saying people of color “should exercise their Second Amendment rights as they see fit.”
But she has a caveat.
“Even in a time of threat and peril, they must also carry the sobering knowledge that constitutional guarantees tend to fall short when the hand holding a gun is black or brown,” she wrote.
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