I have been teaching a permit-to-carry-a-gun class as of the passing of the law in the state of Minnesota. Why is it that White people seem to respect my teaching the class, while many Blacks think that I am crazy, or intellectually challenged?
I have had an increased number of Black women taking my class for reasons such as home invasions, street assaults, and robberies in their small businesses. Many of these women tell me that their friends and relatives tell them that they are crazy (a few other names have been used) for taking my basic gun lessons and obtaining a permit to carry a gun in public.
Black men take my class because they want to protect their families while out in public. A growing numbers of Black men ask me to teach their older children and woman how to shoot for self-protection. Yes, I teach as young as 12 years old on the gun range.
When I started teaching the class, most of my students were White and Asian Minnesotans. Why is it acceptable for law-abiding Whites and Asians to obtain permits to carry a gun but not for law-abiding Blacks in Minnesota? Why do some Blacks think this columnist is off his rocker for assisting Blacks in obtaining permits to carry a gun? Let me answer those good questions.
For years it was illegal for a Black person to have or carry a gun. The institution of slavery internalized the fear of a Black man owning a gun because to do so would give him the means to protect his wife and children from the vicious killings and rapes by evildoers. Simply, to allow the Negro to have a gun would almost warrant his retaliation against Whites. No way would newly freed Slaves be allowed to have a weapon such as a gun.
We accept White citizens’ right to protect their families against crime. However, some Blacks would rather allow their family members to be victims of crime than own a gun and protect family members. What’s scary about this is that this victim mentality is too close to the powerlessness slaves felt when their families were being lynched and their daughters were being raped.
Blacks foster this internalized fear today by using themes such as Black-on-Black crime to deny our gun ownership. Here it is molded into society that we have no law-abiding Blacks when Democrats (some Black) use this theme to say no to guns.
Guns are used by Black gangs to defend their criminal gains, not only against other gang members, but against innocent Black people and children as we have seen right here in the Twin Cities. So, why is it that law-abiding, hard-working Blacks should not have guns or legally carry a gun to defend family, such as any other race in Minnesota?
Blacks have been taught to fear gun ownership. This is a slave mentality. I have walked off the scary plantation knowing that the Second Amendment is not only for Whites, but Black Americans also. As Blacks, we have the right to defend our families in public or in our homes.
In the interim, this Uncle Tom will continue to get any Black man or woman (absent a criminal background) their permits to legally carry a gun.
Lucky Rosenbloom welcomes reader responses to 651-917-1720, or email him at l.rosenbloom@yahoo.com.
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this is an excellent article and very timely.most do not realize that the first gun laws in this country were to disarm the newly freed blacks. Great job informing people.
I highly recommend Prof. Nicolas Johnson’s recent book, “Negroes and the Gun” (he explains the title). It must have taken years of research. He argues that Blacks traditionally had a strong gun culture (logical, since the roots were rural and southern, both consistent with gun ownership and gun culture). Escaping slaves commonly took their master’s guns and used them to fight off slave-catchers, they used guns with frequency to stand off lynchers, in the west they became cowhands and gunslingers. Even W.E.B. Dubois talked of having bought a shotgun and being willing to use it on a mob. Martin Luther King applied for a concealed carry permit (and was of course turned down).
He argues this changed only late in the civil rights struggle, when radical groups such as the Black Panthers arose and got publicity. The leadership of the mainstream civil rights groups was terrified that they’d be linked to them, hurting their image and their fundraising. So they turned anti-gun, to stress their separation from the radical groups, essentially saying “not only are we not like them, we’re their opposite, we don’t even like guns.”
Prof. Johnson gave an interview on BookTV some weeks ago that summed up his work nicely.
From my documentary: