Black and white gun owners are not equally protected by the 2nd Amendment. This is one of the reason why I choose not to carry a gun in public.

I’m an African American Army veteran who has possessed and fired several types of firearms. While I am a skilled marksman who is comfortable handling a gun, I have rarely carried a gun in public as a civilian. My experience with law enforcement and the legal system in America has convinced me that it is not in my best interest to carry a gun in public.

I also believe that the gun culture in America is totally out of control, another reason why I choose not to carry a gun. My reflections here, however, are not about gun control or my interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. This article is less about “correct” interpretations of the 2nd Amendment and more about how the 2nd Amendment has been and continues to be applied differently toward black and white gun owners in America.

The 2nd Amendment and self-protection

The US Supreme Court ruled in New York Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen on June 23, 2022, that the Second Amendment provides “a right to keep and bear arms in public for self-defense.”

To the delight of many 2nd Amendment supporters, the court declared that the ruling is about “self-defense.”

While people have different interpretations regarding the 2nd Amendment, I think most people will agree that people should have the right to defend themselves and those whom they love from violence.

Throughout much of the history of America, however, when Black people have turned to guns in the name of self-defense, there has been little if any legal support for their action. Black acts of armed self-defense are often labeled as “violent.” When Black life is threatened, Black people are expected to respond with what is typically identified as “nonviolence.”

In 1956, nearly a decade before the formation of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, Robert Williams, president of a local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Monroe, NC, formed the Black Armed Guard, which represented what Williams called “armed self-reliance.”

In Monroe, NC (like most of America at that time), Black children were prohibited from swimming in public pools. Williams organized a peaceful protest. Protesters were fired upon. Williams asserted that Black people had the right to defend themselves from such violence.

While Williams respected the “nonviolent direct action” preached by Martin Luther King Jr, Williams argued that Monroe protesters weren’t just being beaten — they were being shot at. Williams argued that “non-violence” does not protect Black people from bullets.

In 1959, a Monroe jury acquitted two white men who had been charged with raping a Black woman, Williams stood on the courthouse steps and declared,

“We cannot rely on the law. We can get no justice under the present system. If we feel that injustice is done, we must then be prepared to inflict justice on these people. Since the federal government will not bring a halt to lynching, and since the so-called courts lynch our people legally, if it’s necessary to stop lynching with lynching, then we must be willing to resort to that method. We must meet violence with violence.”

Williams was making an argument for armed self-defense.

In 1961, student activists from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) came to Monroe, NC as Freedom Riders to challenge segregation on interstate buses and bus terminals. They were bloodied, beaten, and jailed. The riders called on Williams and the Black Armed Guard for protection from thousands of rioting Klansmen.

Despite the threatening mobs, Williams sheltered a white family from violence, only later to be accused of kidnapping them. Williams and his family fled for their lives pursued by FBI agents. Williams and his family spent five years in Cuba where he wrote his 1962 book, Negroes With Guns. In this seminal work, Williams makes his self-defense position clear:

“I do not advocate violence for its own sake or for the sake of reprisals against whites. Nor am I against the passive resistance advocated by the Reverend Martin Luther King and others. My only difference with Dr. King is that I believe in flexibility in the freedom struggle. This means I believe in non-violent tactics ​where​ feasible … Massive civil disobedience is a powerful weapon under civilized conditions where the law safeguards the citizens​’ rights of peaceful demonstrations. In a civilized society, the law serves ​as a deterrent against lawless forces that would destroy the ​​democratic process. Where there is a breakdown of the law​,​ the individual​ citizen​ has a right to protect his person, his family, his home, and his property. To me, this is so simple and proper that it is self-evident.

The legitimacy of Black Americans engaging in armed self-defense, however, has rarely been “self-evident” to much of white America.

The Second Amendment has rarely protected Black gun owners

According to the prevailing interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, Black citizens — like all citizens — should have a legal right to keep and bear arms. The 2nd Amendment, however, was not crafted to ensure the right of all Americans to keep and bear arms.

In her book, The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America, Carol Anderson traces racial distinctions in Americans’ treatment of gun ownership back to the founding of the country and the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment states:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

While it is usually asserted that the Second Amendment was originally written to allow people the right to arm and protect themselves from a tyrannical government, Anderson argues that the language of the amendment was also crafted to ensure that slave owners could quickly crush any rebellion or resistance from those whom they enslaved.

The Second Amendment has never allowed Black people to keep and bear arms so they can protect themselves from a tyrannical [racist] government.

The Second Amendment was added to the Constitution on December 15, 1791. That date is significant.

Between the 17th and 19th centuries, enslaved Africans and African Americans in British North America and the United States staged hundreds of revolts.

The Haitian Revolution has often been described as the largest and most successful slave rebellion in the Western Hemisphere. Enslaved Black people initiated the rebellion in 1791. By 1803 enslaved Black people had succeeded in ending not just slavery but French control over the colony.

The Haitian Revolution sowed fear of insurrection in slaveholders who passed numerous “slave codes” designed to control the behavior of enslaved Black people and ensure white dominance. Fueled by concern over the revolution, the Second Amendment functioned as a “slave code.”

Demonstrating that the Second Amendment was never intended for Black people in America, Chief Justice Roger Taney argued in Dred Scott v. Sandford,4. 60 U.S. 393 (1857) that one reason Black people could not be citizens under the Constitution was that it “would give to persons of the negro race” the right “to keep and carry arms wherever they went.” This idea was unimaginable!

The U.S. Constitution and the Second Amendment were never intended for Black people. As Taney also wrote in the Dred Scott ruling,

“[African Americans] had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect…”

In many ways, the current SCOTUS ruling is in keeping with the original racist intent of both the U.S. Constitution and the 2nd Amendment.

Racism, implicit bias, and Black gun ownership

Because of implicit bias and systemic racism, legal gun ownership is significantly more dangerous for Black people than for white people in America.

Earlier this year, Amir Locke was fatally shot by Minneapolis police officers in an apartment as officers executed a “no-knock” search warrant. Locke, a legal gun owner, had been sleeping under a blanket on the couch. Startled by the unexpected police entry, Locke set up with his gun in hand and the police immediately opened fire on him.

In July 2016, Philando Castile was shot and killed by police in front of his girlfriend and her daughter after being pulled over for a broken brake light in St. Paul, Minnesota. Castile was a registered gun owner and told the officer he had a firearm in the car.

In March 2020, Breonna Taylor, 26, was sleeping when police executed a no-knock warrant on her apartment late at night. They entered the home in plainclothes, and her boyfriend and legal gun owner Kenneth Walker fired his gun in an attempt to defend himself from intruders. The officers fired back, and Taylor was killed by police in the gunfire.

Black people are about three times more likely to be killed by police than white people in the U.S., according to the independent research organization Mapping Police Violence.

When it comes to no-knock warrants, the ACLU found that 42% of SWAT search raids in major U.S. cities had Black suspects. Racism, implicit bias, and negative stereotypes continue to put Black gun owners at a heightened risk of discrimination, especially when protecting themselves from perceived intruders or while legally carrying a firearm.

A personal story

Rather than continuing with a long list of examples of Black gun owners killed by police because they legally possessed a firearm, I share my own story.

Several years ago I was driving from my home in Iowa to visit family in Indiana. It was approximately 10 p.m. when I noticed police lights in my rear-view mirror. I was on an unlit back-road and terrified to pull over, but knew I had no choice.

The officer shined a spotlight on my car and, over his loudspeaker, ordered me to lower my window and place my hands outside the window. When the officer walked up to the side of my car he informed me that he pulled me over for not properly slowing down as the speed limit changed when I entered the city limits. The officer very quickly, however, shifted his focus and asked me if I had any drugs in my car.

While there were so many things I wanted to say in response, I knew it was not in my best interest to say what I was actually feeling so I responded with a simple, “no.”

The officer then asked if I had any weapons in the car. While I wanted to say these are questions that have nothing to do with failure to observe the speed limit, I simply responded with another, “no.”

The officer then asked if I mind if he searched me and my vehicle. While I did mind, I knew I could not say that, so I said, “No, I don’t mind.”

As I stepped out of the car and the officer began to pat me down, his hand felt my cell phone that was in a case on my hip. Before I knew what was happening I could see the officer unholstering his gun. I began screaming, “it’s a phone! It’s a phone!”

At that moment I was convinced that I was going to be killed on a back-road in Iowa with no one ever knowing what happened.

Rather than unpack all of the racism involved in the events of that night, I’m going to focus on the mere fact that even if my phone had been a gun, that was no reason for the officer to pull his gun on me.

While I am not a gun owner, I have a legal right to carry a gun in the state of Iowa. When I was pulled over, Iowa was a “shall issue” state, which simply means as long as an applicant passes the basic requirements set out by state law, the issuing authority (county sheriff, police department, state police, etc.) is compelled to issue a permit.

On July 1, 2021, Iowa became a constitutional carry state, which means anyone who is old enough to possess a handgun and is otherwise eligible for a permit can carry a concealed firearm in the state, whether or not they actually do have a permit.

There was no reason for that police officer to pull his gun on me because he thought my phone was a gun. Iowa law allowed me to possess a gun.

If, as gun advocates repeatedly claim, “Guns don’t kill people, people do,” then the presence of a gun on my hip was no threat to the officer. If my phone had been a gun, the gun wasn’t going to kill the officer, so there was no reason to fear what he thought was a gun.

There was also no reason to fear me. I had done nothing to present myself as a threat to the officer. I had submitted to every request (as unreasonable as they were) made by the officer.

What was the basis of the officer’s fear when he thought my cell phone was a gun? Did he not recognize my right to possess and bear a firearm? Did the Second Amendment not apply to me?

Had I been shot numerous times that night by the police, I would have simply been one more unarmed Black man killed by the police. The officer would have most likely made the common claim of fearing for his life, and many white people would have claimed the officer’s fear was reasonable, even though I was the only one whose fear was reasonable.

While 73 police officers were shot and killed in the line of duty in 2021, more than 1000 people were killed by police that year and every year in America for the past seven years — with Black and Brown people killed at a higher rate than any other group. I’m the one who had a reason to fear for his life that night.

Had my phone been a gun, I’m sure I would have been shot and killed. Even though the 2nd Amendment supposedly provides me the right to possess and carry a firearm, the 2nd Amendment would have provided me little (if any) protection that night.

The SCOTUS ruling will probably do very little for Black gun owners

While the latest Supreme Court ruling guarantee’s the Second Amendment right of people to carry their firearms in public spaces for “self-defense,” the ruling is primarily the result of white people being concerned about their gun rights and being able to protect themselves from people they perceive as threats. The ruling actually provides even more reason for Black gun owners to be concerned.

American society has rarely been concerned with ensuring Black Americans have the right to engage in self-defense. Martin Luther King Jr. was denied a concealed carry permit even after his house was firebombed.

Historically, the government has worked to keep guns away from Black people or to apply gun control laws specifically to Black people.

Take California’s 1967 Mulford Act for example. The bill was the first major piece of legislation restricting the right to carry a gun. It was drafted by a conservative Republican and signed into law by Gov. Ronald Reagan.

The bill prohibited the open carry of loaded weapons. It was crafted to disarm members of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense who were conducting armed patrols of Oakland neighborhoods to prevent white violence (primarily police violence) against Black residents. Even the NRA supported this type of “gun control.”

Ironically, it was the gun control laws that were put into effect against African-Americans and the Black Panthers that led “rural white conservatives” across the country to fear any restriction of their guns.

In less than a decade, the NRA went from backing gun control regulations that inhibit groups they felt threatened by, to refusing to support any gun control legislation at all.

Despite the proclaimed defense of the right for all Americans to keep and bear arms, NRA leadership rarely comes to the defense of Black gun owners when they are killed by police for possessing firearms.

While some may argue that the SCOTUS ruling allowing all Americans the right to keep and bear arms for “self-defense” finally provides Black gun owners opportunities to protect themselves from racist violence, I fear implicit bias and the history of anti-Black racism in America (especially with regard to gun legislation) will most likely prevent the ideal of “self-defense” from becoming a reality for most Black Americans.

Thanks for taking the time to read to the end. I hope this piece will help provoke constructive discussion and reflection on who we are as a nation, where we have come from, and where we need to be.

Please respond with your thoughts. I’d love to hear where people are on this issue. Also, please feel free to share this piece with others.

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