Why we carry: Black gun owners discuss why they chose to arm themselves

For Redmond, who teaches concealed carry basics, gun maintenance, and defensive gun tactics under his brand Red Hill Gunsmithing at various locations across the state, he’s witnessed a massive increase in enrollment for his gun safety courses. 

“Black people have always had the same second amendment right to keep and bear arms. I think, more or less, we’re just starting to realize that and enforce it,” Redmond said. 

While Black people have always taken up arms for protection from white racists (see: Harriett Tubman, Nat Turner), our right to bear arms became protected by the Constitution after the passage of the 14th Amendment in 1866. In practice though, we’ve never been safe while exercising our second amendment rights. 

There is the 20th-century example of the Black Panthers, who had their rights stripped in 1967 when the Mulford Act repealed a law allowing open carrying of firearms in California. And there is the the contemporary example of Philando Castile who was killed in 2016 just for telling an officer that he was in possession of a gun during a traffic stop, 

In a conversation with NPR about her new book The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America, historian Carol Anderson explained the Second Amendment itself was written with Black oppression as its subtext.

According to Anderson, the reason the amendment refers specifically to the formation of a well-regulated militia is that, before they voted to ratify the constitution, folks from Virginia wanted to ensure that they could continue to form state militias that could be used to stop slave revolts. Basically, they wanted to protect their guns to keep their slaves in check.

“One of the things that I argue throughout this book is that it is just being Black that is the threat. And so when you mix that being Black as the threat with bearing arms, it’s an exponential fear,” Anderson said. “This isn’t an anti-gun or a pro-gun book. This is a book about African Americans’ rights.”

West Side resident Kwame Fisher* had his Second Amendment rights taken from him before he ever got the opportunity to be educated about guns. When he was first introduced to guns as an adolescent, Fisher had no idea he could own them legally. All he knew was that he liked them because they gave him a sense of security in the streets that he didn’t have before. 

At the age of 19, Fisher was arrested for a gun offense in Chicago. Now, at age 37, he said he still cannot legally purchase a firearm. But to this day, he is committed to ensuring that his family is properly educated and equipped with firearms.

“I can’t own guns, but I’m a gun enthusiast. My wife, the rest of the family, they’ve gotten educated. They got their licenses. They own guns,” Fisher said. “I didn’t know anything about gun safety or licenses. I didn’t know there was such a thing as sports that involved shooting guns. My elders always stressed how dangerous and scary they were, but I didn’t feel that way.” 

Gun culture and gun ownership have varying connotations based on geographic setting. According to Pew Research, nearly half of all adults living in rural areas nationwide say they own a gun, whereas urban living adults own guns at a rate of 19%. This disparity is largely based on perception. 

Gun ownership is extremely difficult to measure in the United States, partly because there’s no federal registry tracking who owns them. So, researchers have traditionally estimated ownership with surveys like the Pew one, by looking at gun-suicide data, or other methods. A recent study analyzed federal firearm licenses, which gun dealerships are required to get from the ATF, to estimate gun density in every county in the United States. The study found gun violence was higher in counties that had more gun dealers within 100 miles. In 2019, there were 58 licensed gun dealers in Cook County, (even though there are zero within Chicago). In Coles County, home to rural Mattoon, Illinois, there are 28.  

In urban locales like Cook County, guns are this ominous symbol that represents the scariest type of crime, whereas in a rural town like Mattoon, Illinois, it wouldn’t be unusual to queue up at a store like Rural King with a shotgun in the cart next to your dog food.

“It was especially important to me to have my family educated about guns because I know I can’t always be around,” Fisher said. “I can feel better knowing that my wife has the ability to protect herself and our son.”

Pavielle Goldman, a 32-year-old living in Bronzeville, said she was gifted her first gun by her ex-partner’s father at the start of the 2020 uprisings. She’s among an interesting trend within the increase in Black gun ownership; according to NSSF, 87 percent of the gun stores surveyed nationwide saw an increase in their sales to Black women in particular. 

Once Goldman went to the gun range for the first time, she started to see the value of owning a gun.

“I decided that I always wanted to be able to protect myself,” she said. “Now, as a single woman living in the city, with all of this craziness happening around me, from women being attacked by bitter men to more general violence across the city, I want some sense of security. Having my gun gives me that.”

In Chicago, the fear of guns is more deeply ingrained into the psyche of Black people than any other demographic. Black Chicagoans are most familiar with guns as victims or witnesses to shootings rather than as tools for sport or daily protection. We’ve seen too often the lives of our loved ones and neighbors cut short by gun violence so our relationship with guns is mostly traumatic.