In article <ssprvf$ls9s$***@news.freedyn.de>
***@gmail.com wrote:
>
> ...I get to hunt negroes and Democrats in Maryland.
>
While research shows that possessing a gun raises the risk of
violent death, some Black women are desperate for a way to feel
safer
WELCOME, Md. A 16th week had passed with no arrest in the
murder of Patrice Parkers son, another week in which she had
struggled through grief for him and fear for herself and her
surviving daughters.
It wasnt just that the person who had turned a gun on 24-year-
old Markelle Morrow was still at large, but that so many other
armed criminals were as well.
Shootings were ravaging the nations capital, on track for its
highest number of homicides in two decades. In Prince Georges
County, where Parker lives, carjackings had more than quadrupled
since 2019.
But there was a place where she felt safe, and that was here, at
a remote property amid thick woods an hours drive south of her
home in District Heights, Md. And there was no time the 52-year-
old felt safer than when holding a weapon like the one her
friend Mark Choppa Manley now handed her: a 9mm pistol similar
to those that regularly ring out in neighborhoods experiencing
the worst of the regions bloody summer.
Ive got some ammo for you, Manley said, when youre ready.
There was a time when Parker never would have been ready. During
a long career as a nursing aide she had cared for countless
shooting victims. Like many Black women in Southeast Washington
or just across the D.C. border in Prince Georges County, shed
viewed guns for most of her life as the root of the violence
that had wrecked countless lives in her community.
That changed, paradoxically, after her son was shot to death in
a parking lot not far from her home. Exasperated with the police
response and in despair over the sheer number of weapons on the
streets, Parker decided there was only one way to protect what
remained of her family. And that was to pick up a gun herself.
I always felt like you needed to take the guns off the street.
But the way things are now ... Parkers voice trailed off.
I dont feel safe anymore, she said. You cant trust nobody.
Across America, Black women are taking up arms in unprecedented
numbers. Research shows that first-time gun buyers since 2019
have been more likely to be Black and more likely to be female
than gun purchasers in previous years, a finding that aligns
with surveys of gun sellers.
Gun sales spiked across all demographic groups during the
coronavirus pandemic, and remained high through the protests
that followed the police murder of George Floyd, the attack on
the U.S. Capitol and other events that many saw as signs of a
nation in chaos. The National Rifle Association and other gun-
industry lobbyists have long exploited such fears to boost sales
of firearms and weaken the laws that restrict their use.
But Parker and others like her are part of a new chapter in the
long-running story of Americas relationship with firearms.
Scarred sometimes literally by the firsthand consequences of
gun violence and disenchanted with decades of urban gun-control
policies that they regard as largely ineffective, some Black
women in D.C. and other cities are embracing a view long
espoused by Second Amendment activists: that only guns will make
them safer.
It is a development that could upend Americas gun-rights
debate, traditionally seen as pitting largely White rural and
suburban firearms owners against city residents, many of them
Black, whose elected leaders have pursued some of the nations
strictest gun-control policies.
Nearly 3 in 4 U.S. gun owners are still White, according to a
study published by Harvard University researchers earlier this
year. And while gun ownership has long been common in rural
Black households, the surge of interest in firearms among urban
Black women profoundly alarms experts on gun violence, who point
to a large body of research demonstrating that gun possession is
correlated with a greater not lesser risk of violent death.
Rates of suicide, the cause of most gun deaths every year, go up
when a weapon is in the house, as does the likelihood of
accidental death and murder by another household member.
There is no category of violence where we have evidence to show
more firearms increase safety, said Shani A.L. Buggs, an
assistant professor with the Violence Prevention Research
Program at the University of California at Davis.
Yet Buggs, a Black woman who previously worked on community
violence interventions in Baltimore, acknowledged that a stack
of academic papers might not be convincing for a woman who
regularly hears gunfire on her street and lives in terror for
herself or her children. That is especially the case, she noted,
in places like Southeast D.C. or District Heights, where trust
in police is often as low as violent crime is high.
This phenomenon flies in the face of the scientific evidence
that we have, Buggs said. But it all sadly, tragically, is a
predictable outcome of all of these different factors that have
been converging.
Those factors had converged for Parker as she stepped to the
firing line on a Sunday in July at the Choppa Community, a
Southern Maryland gun range and gathering place for Black
firearms enthusiasts. She held a Ruger PC Charger pistol with an
extended magazine. She wore a sleeveless black blouse, and a
button with the face of her murdered son.
Parker took aim and fired about two dozen rounds at a set of
steel targets.
When she laid the gun down, she was smiling.
I feel a little bit better already, she said.
I wasnt into guns
For most of Americas history, the Second Amendment was one of
many constitutional rights withheld from those who werent
White. After the Civil War and emancipation, champions of racial
equality encouraged gun ownership among Black citizens to
protect themselves from violence perpetrated by Whites.
Those calls were reprised during the civil rights movement of
the 1960s, most famously by the militant leaders of the Black
Panther Party. In the 1980s, a seminal early victory for the NRA
the spread of state laws that eased restrictions on concealed-
carry permits was also a boon for Black gun enthusiasts, who
had frequently had their permit applications denied by White
officials.
Yet that trend coincided with another development that dampened
enthusiasm for guns in many Black communities: skyrocketing
levels of violent crime in cities entering the throes of the
crack cocaine epidemic.
As a child growing up in Southeast Washington during that era,
Keeon Johnson learned to fear the weapons that routinely ended
the lives of her neighbors.
I wasnt into guns at all, Johnson said, because we were told
that guns were bad.
Decades later, serving as the Democratic chairwoman of an
Advisory Neighborhood Commission in Ward 8, Johnson began to
wonder whether her faith in her partys repeated promises of
stricter gun control was misplaced. When her husband, originally
from South Carolina, began talking about forming a Black mens
gun club in D.C., she went with him to a concealed-carry course.
Johnson, a 36-year-old mother of six, discovered that she was a
good shot with a semiautomatic handgun. Soon she was hooked. She
and her husband, Frenchie Johnson, took additional courses and
became NRA-certified instructors last year. Now they teach
classes, catering specifically to Black people from D.C. and
Prince Georges, out of their home in White Plains, Md.
In D.C., homicides are up 11 percent from last year and are on
track to hit their highest level since 2002. Homicides
investigated by Prince Georges County police have dropped more
than 30 percent since 2021 when they reached a 14-year high
but carjackings have continued to rise. In both places, gun
seizures by police are up.
One of their first students was Janae Hammett, 37, who had gone
to elementary school with Johnson in D.C. and whose childrens
father was shot to death in 2010. Given that history, Hammett
said she was initially on eggshells around guns. But her
comfort level increased the more she shot, and eventually she
joined Johnson in forming the Second Amendment Sista Society, a
club for Black women in the Washington region who are interested
in guns.
Hammett said her transformation was driven, fundamentally, by
desperation. Illegal guns, it seemed, were everywhere. If she
couldnt count on anyone else to protect her, why shouldnt she
legally own a gun to protect herself?
I dont think the government, police or anybody will ever get a
hold of the illegal guns, she said.
Philip Smith, founder and president of the National African
American Gun Association, said Hammett has plenty of company on
the path she has taken to overcome a deep-seated aversion to
firearms.
More and more African Americans are looking at themselves in
the mirror after hearing for years and years that you shouldnt
get a gun for any reason, and saying, You know what, Im going
to get a gun, Smith said. This is a movement that has really
swept the whole country.
There is a straightforward logic to this trend. Surveys show
that most gun owners buy their weapons for self-protection, and
Black Americans are more likely than Whites to have been
threatened with a gun or to know someone who has been shot.
Yet Deborah Azrael, director of research at the Harvard Injury
Control Research Center, worries that the legitimate fears of
people who live with the daily threat of violence are being
exploited by an industry eager for new customers.
Its naive not to think that there are gun sellers who have a
pecuniary interest in expanding their markets, and in a
narrative that says that African Americans and women need guns
now more than ever, whether or not thats something true,
Azrael said.
Azrael said the instinct for self-protection among people who
live in dangerous neighborhoods is understandable. But what
happens when those instincts combine to create a heavily armed
society of the kind that studies show is more dangerous for
everybody?
The world we live in
Independence Day weekend was busy at the Choppa Community.
Manley, 32, built the gun range about a year ago with his best
friend, Alonzo Stokes. It sits on a property, owned by Stokess
uncle, off a lonely two-lane road deep in rural Charles County.
Manley grew up in Northeast D.C. and Prince Georges County and
previously worked as a bodyguard and operated a security company
in the District. One night in November 2018 he fatally shot a
masked gunman who, along with three others, was trying to rob a
vape shop Manley had been hired to protect. The shooting was
ruled justified but his security business license in the
District was revoked because the handgun he used wasnt properly
registered.
After a period of soul-searching, Manley decided to enter the
budding world of Black Second Amendment influencers. With about
70,000 followers, his gun-heavy Instagram account currently
suspended for an alleged violation of community guidelines that
Manley said he does not understand and is appealing does not
yet compare to a popular figure like Black Rambo. But Manley
said his reach is still such that he has secured sponsorship and
ad deals from firearm and ammo companies.
Just as important, he says, is the offline community he has
created at the Choppa Community. (Choppa is a slang term for
guns, often referring to AK-47s.) Nearly 100 people would come
and go throughout the day on July 3, all Black and many from
D.C. and Prince Georges. Many were women and children. In
addition to its gun range, the Choppa Community offers courses
in de-escalation strategies, hand-to-hand self-defense and basic
firearms safety.
Its sad that this is what its come to, but this is the world
we live in," Manley said. "Guns arent going anywhere.
The smell of gunpowder mixed with the scent of grilling
hamburgers as people sat in lawn chairs, conducting stop-and-go
small talk between the sharp reports of AR-15 rifles and 9mm
pistols. Among those present was Jawanna Hardy, an Air Force
veteran whose nonprofit, Guns Down Friday, works to reduce gun
violence and support the families of victims. Hardy had brought
with her a group of teen boys from Southeast Washington, some of
whom she said had been shot at the day before.
Some have criticized Guns Down Friday for organizing trips to a
firing range, she said. But Hardy said those detractors dont
understand the likelihood that the boys she works with will pick
up a gun one way or another, and the value in teaching them to
responsibly handle the weapons. Beyond that, she said, the
enjoyment of shooting and the sense of community at the Choppa
range appeal to children whose neighborhoods offer few
recreational opportunities.
I was working with these kids, and I was taking them to program
after program after program. Nothing worked, Hardy said. And
then I took them here. They itch to be here.
Parker likewise found refuge at the gun range shortly after her
son was killed in March. The violent death of Morrow, a well-
known rapper whose stage name was Goonew, became national news
in the music world, especially after Parker held a memorial for
him at a nightclub, propping his embalmed body in a standing
position onstage. Parker said she chose the unconventional
ceremony to honor her son by placing him above the crowd of
mourners. Nobody could look down on him.
Parker, numb with grief, reluctantly agreed to visit the gun
range after being invited by Manley, who had been a friend of
her son. What she found surprised her.
It wasnt just the kindness shown to her by Manley and other
instructors, the thrill that came from firing a deadly weapon or
the fascinating minutiae firearms caliber, model, accessories
and ammunition that enthusiasts discuss endlessly on range
days. It was a new worldview that she believed offered her a
glimmer of hope. Maybe guns werent just the problem. In the
right hands, maybe they were also the solution.
As a woman in a dangerous place, she had always feared she would
be unable to defend her family. Her sons killers were still out
there. But with a gun, Parker felt less vulnerable, especially
with the knowledge she had gained at the Choppa Community.
They took the fear out of me, she said.
Parker was waiting for the paperwork to come through on her
concealed-carry license, and in the meantime she was trying to
share her revelation with others. On July 3, she brought with
her James and Deshonda Johnson, as well as their 5-year-old-
daughter. Like Parker, the family lives in District Heights,
where a day-care center decided to shut its doors earlier this
year because of the gun violence surrounding it.
James, 23, has only one eye. The other was shot out during an
attack he survived. He said he was deeply rattled by all the
gunfire around him at the Choppa Community, but that rising
carjackings and home invasions in his neighborhood had led him
to believe proficiency with firearms was the only way to protect
his family.
Deshonda, also 23, wasnt so sure. She had never shot a gun
before, and when she stepped to the firing line her hands were
sweating so much she could barely hold onto a borrowed pistol.
A male instructor held the gun for her to steady it, and she
pulled the trigger, missing a paper target about 10 feet in
front of her.
Oh my God, she said, breathing rapidly as she pulled her hands
from the gun and stepped back. Im going, like, crazy. Im not
used to that.
She took a break and then stepped back to the line, refusing any
help this time as she picked up the handgun. Parker stood behind
her while she took aim.
Let it rock, Boo, Parker said.
Deshonda cupped the gun in her hands as she had been taught,
doing her best to ignore the deafening bursts of gunfire that
erupted around her. She squeezed off a round, and this time she
didnt flinch.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/28/black-women-
guns-crime/
Let them shoot as many black males as they want.