Black Gun Ownership, Interest Rise Following 2016 Election
Some say they're seeing a heightened interest in firearms amongst black communities.
Are more black people buying guns since the presidential election? At least one story by NBC News says yes, at least anecdotally.
But at Stoddard’s Range and Guns in west Midtown, evidence of such a trend is mixed. The owners here estimate the clientele here is about 50-50 black and white, when it comes to demographics.
Salesmen here say they haven’t noticed much of a difference in terms of sales, but a few weeks ago, about 300 people showed up to a “Black Guns Matter” meet-up they hosted.
“Those folks were very very interested in learning more about guns safety, about their legal rights, about purchasing guns,” said Stoddard’s owner Kenneth Baye. He says anxiety about the political climate was hard to miss.
“It was definitely an underlying tone,” said Baye.
That tone is something Phil Smith has noticed as well. He started the National African American Gun Association, based in Georgia.
“I have seen an uptick in terms of apprehension, fear kind of driving folks to do two things: talk about guns and actually go out and purchase them,” he said.
For Smith, who, obviously is a firearms enthusiast, the idea of more black gun owners is a double-edged sword. He said he’s happy people are exercising their rights, “but you look back and say what are the reasons they’re buying. And that kind of hurts, deep down.”
On top of that discomfort, Smith said there are serious concerns about biases some may feel toward non-white people carrying guns.
The truth is, as with a lot of firearms-related topics in the U.S., data on this subject is hard to come by. The Pew Research Center has tracked a slow and unsteady rise in black gun rights enthusiasm, though that pales in comparison to the number of black gun control proponents.
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