Trump's Victory Has Fearful Minorities Buying Up Guns

Discussion in 'Race, Religion, Science and Politics' started by OckyDub, Nov 26, 2016.

  1. OckyDub

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    After Donald Trump's win, Yolanda Scott is upgrading the crowbar she keeps in her purse to a small-caliber pistol.

    Scott, an African-American, is one of many minorities who have been flocking to gun stores to protect themselves, afraid Trump's victory will incite more hate crimes.

    "You feel that racists now feel like they can attack us just because the president is doing it," Earl Curtis, the owner of Blue Ridge Arsenal in Chantilly, Virginia, told NBC News.

    Gun store owners told NBC News that since November 8 they're seeing up to four times as many black and minority customers —and black gun groups are reporting double the normal number of attendees at their meetings since the election.

    Racial tension was already at a high during the election, with a spate of videoed shootings and deaths of black men by police officers, followed by ardent protests and the fatal targeting of white police officers.

    In one high-profile incident, the live-streamed aftermath of the shooting of Philando Castile at a traffic stop at the hands of police in Minnesota sparked country-wide outrage and was ruled manslaughter. That and another death in Louisiana sparked a protest in Dallas, which a sniper took advantage of to kill five police officers.

    Swastikas have been found spray-painted on churches, playgrounds, and college walls. White Texas high school students chanted "Build that wall" during a volleyball game with a predominantly Hispanic rival school. Internet personality and model Tila Tequila was suspended from Twitter after she was photographed giving a "Heil Hitler" sign at a restaurant following the post-election gathering in Washington, D.C., of the National Policy Institute, an "alt-right" organization.

    "It's best that I be proactive," said Scott, a fiery 49-year-old financial analyst. "I know where I live."

    She's from Alpharetta, Georgia. It borders Forsyth County, which in 1912 systematically drove out nearly all its black residents for the next quarter century. After two alleged attacks on white women, a black suspect was lynched and two more were hanged after a short trial. Armed bands of whites began terrorizing blacks, torching homes and churches in night raids, firing through the door, telling them it was time to "get" [out of America] and then seized their homes and land. As recently as 1987 the county saw the marching of 5,000 white supremacists.

    Scott still sees racist bumper stickers and large Confederate flags flying from the backs of pickup trucks when she ventures across the county line there to go outlet mall shopping. And she pauses to wonder what motivates her white neighbor to tuck a handgun in his pants before driving to the grocery store.

    Gun Run

    October saw 2.3 million FBI background checks for gun sales, an all-time record; and the 18th month in a row to set a new high. November could be on pace to break that.

    But while gun company stocks and firearm sales saw a run-up before the election — based on fears a Hillary Clinton victory would result in increased gun-control measures — shares in gun companies fell as much as 20 percent after Trump's win.


    So, while store owners say that traffic is up overall, the new rush of minority customers arming themselves is something of an unexpected glimmer for the industry.

    "They thought Trump won't win," said the 53-year-old Curtis, who has noticed an "uptick" in the number of black and minority customers.

    Largely, says Curtis, they're "shell-shocked" first-time shooters looking to get a handgun to protect themselves from "race riots and being attacked by racists" — afraid that what Trump and his supporters have already done is just the beginning.

    Trump already had a checkered past with the black community. Though he once donated office space to Jesse Jackson's civil rights group and hosted a NAACP party, he was also sued by the Justice Department in 1975 for refusing to rent to black people. Trump countersued for defamation, demanding $100 million, and the case was settled without admission of guilt.

    In 1978, he was sued again by the Justice Department for denying rentals to black people and steering them into mixed race housing. The case was closed in 1982.

    Seven years later, he took out full-page ads to suggest the death penalty for black suspects in a rape trial who years later were released after the introduction of new DNA evidence.

    His position doesn't seem to have softened since then.

    On the campaign trail this year, Trump hired Steve Bannon, the executive editor of Breitbart, a far-right news website the Southern Poverty Law Center called a "white ethno-nationalist propaganda mill." Bannon has since been named chief strategist and Senior Counselor for the Trump administration.

    In a February TV interview, Trump blamed his failure to condemn the Ku Klux Klan's support on a "bad earpiece."

    After he suggested African-American protesters should be "roughed up," attacks on minority protesters at his rallies followed.

    Even Trump's Twitter slam last weekend on the Broadway musical Hamilton is ringing alarm bellsfor minorities. After Vice-President-elect Mike Pence's attendance was met with boos and cheers in the audience, a cast member read a short speech to Pence at the curtain call. Trump blasted the show in several tweets and demanded an apology. Trump supporters lobbed their own negative tweets and sent two different "boycott Hamilton" hashtags trending.

    For anxious minorities, it's yet another foreboding sign of how Trump can whip up his fans to magnify and echo messages of intolerance. And when they compare his full-throated denunciation of a piece of musical theater to his garbled, terse, and delayed disavowals of the support by white supremacists, they see a wink and a nod, and fear it's a nudge.

    Texas gun store owner Michael Cargill fires a handgun at a shooting range. Courtesy of Michael Cargill
    Philip Smith, founder of the 14,000-member National African American Gun Association said his members are buying up every kind of gun, from Glock handguns to AR-15 rifles to AK-47 semi-automatic weapons — though most first-time buyers gravitate toward a nine-millimeter pistol or .38 revolver. He said that twice the usual attendees have RSVP'd for the next meeting of the Georgia chapter, which he heads.

    "Most folks are pretty nervous about what kind of America we're going to see over the next 5-10 years," he said. That includes members apprehensive about protests against Trump becoming unruly, as well as an "apocalyptic end result where there's anarchy, jobs are gone, the economy is tipped in the wrong direction and everyone has to fend for themselves." They don't know who might be busting down their door at 2 a.m.

    He hopes people are just overreacting.

    "I tell everyone don't panic, use your head. If you see something not normal, get out. You're probably right. And if you're not able to get out, you're prepared to do what you need to do," said Smith.

    Being Prepared

    Since the election, Scott and her family and friends have tried not to venture outside except to go to work and come back home. When she had to get gas for her car, she made sure she stopped at a station where other people were around.

    "I'M GOING TO PROTECT MYSELF, WHATEVER THAT MEANS"
    Scott fears a scenario where she's approached with a gun just because she's black. She hopes a "few choice words that I learned from my grandfather" would be enough to scare anyone off, but she's prepared if the situation escalates.

    "I'm not the type of person who is afraid of my own shadow. I'm going to protect myself, whatever that means," Scott told NBC News by phone on her way to the police station to apply for a firearms license.

    Gun sales to minorities surge after Trump's win
     
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  2. Cyrus-Brooks

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    I've been saying black and gay people and especially black gay people should arm themselves for years now. I normally get shouted down by gun control people online many of whom are black and or gay and liberal. But the way things are going things you'd crazy not to protect yourself. Gun control or not these peckerwoods aren't giving up their weapons.
     
  3. Winston Smith

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    While I'm definitely a libertarian, 2nd Amendment brother (one of the many reasons I hate Hillary and the current Democrats and hope that Ryan of Ohio defeats Nancy Pelosi to gain control of the Dems in the House), I hope that black folk aren't arming up for the purpose of turning into chocolate tea partiers. You should own guns because you like hunting, you like collecting them, you like shooting sports (I used to help with weapons training evolutions when I was n the military), and most importantly, because you have a NATURAL RIGHT to defend yourself as a man or woman. You should NOT buy weapons in the hopes of becoming a negro Clive Bundy thinking that that you can hold off the government at bay in some Alex Jones like fantasy. I always point to the fact that there were a lot of gunowners in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, but individual gun ownership didn't stop him him from ruling his people with an iron hand.

    This is not a new phenomenon. Former NAACP leader Robert Williams addressed the issue in his famous 1960s book, Negroes With Guns.
    Negroes with Guns - Wikipedia
    And I also love how all the liberal black Democrats who told black people they should be good unarmed little pickanninnies like our white liberal spavemasters tell us, usually are armed themselves, such as when former Lyndon Johnson official and black journalist, Carl Rowan, a vocal anti-gun advocate, turned out to be a pistol owner in reality and shooting a kid who trespassed by his private swimming pool (oh those cute and cuddly Democrats and liberals!)
    Taking Shots at Carl Rowan's Liberalism

    We need to use brains and tactics to deal with racist elements in power. Gun ownership is part of the mix but not the entire mix. There's always been a vigorous debate among black folk about guns in a political context. Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad forbade the men of the Nation of Islam to own or carry weapons as a tactical move, so that white supremacists in political office or law enforcement couldnt use that as an excuse for an outright wholesale slaughter of black groups. And I have to admit, I was super fucking impressed as a youngster when the NOI went into a Washington DC housing project in 1988 and beat the shit out of shotgun wielding crack dealers with only their fists and and a nice suit, making it safe for black kids to play again
    Muslims Keep Lid on Drugs in Capital

    The Black Panthers took a different tack. At first, they embraced what Williams had wrote but then the Panther movement degenerated into toxic masculinity wrapped with gun worship and we still see the effects of that today in a lot of black male culture. So, yeah, by all means don't swallow the Congressional Black Caucus/white liberal line is n blacks eschewing guns and being sitting ducks, but bring some intelligence and tactics to any push for gun ownership among more black folk.

    On a final note, one idea was in the article that made me do one of those dreaded eye rolls that Ock hates (lol). Pence at a musical is current intellectual impedance for our reaction? really? You don't have to be a Trump supporter to say

    FUCK HAMILTON THE MUSICAL,

    as black left wing novelist Ishmael Reed points out.
    Hamilton and the Negro Whisperers: Miranda’s Consumer Fraud

    Really, a fucking musical from a white Latino appropriating hip hop for white liberal culture and then putting black actors in the roles of white supremacist slaveowners. I have the same feelings toward that musical that Wynton Marsalis had towards his brother Bradford for going Jolson on Sting's first solo album; or black actors who participate in faux African shit like The Lion King musical, which makes a mockery of REAL AFRICAN culture and peoples (any black actor or dancer that participates in the Lion King should have a Fela, Miriam Makeba, or King Sunny Ade album shoved down their throats). Blacks on broadway seem to have forgotten Robert Townshend's dictum, "There's work at the post office." But I digress.... lol
     
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