Black women picking up firearms for self-defense
Associated Press
LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. — Sitting in a classroom above a gun range, a woman hesitantly says she isn’t sure she could ever shoot and kill someone, even to protect herself. Couldn’t she just aim for a leg and try to maim the person?
Her instructor says selfdefense is not about killing someone but is instead about eliminating a threat.
If the gun gets taken away by a bad guy, the instructor says, “I promise you they’re not going to be having any sympathy or going through the thought process you are.”
Gently, she adds that if the student isn’t comfortable with the lethal potential of the gun, buying one might not be for her.
Marchelle Tigner is on a mission: to train at least 1 million women how to shoot a firearm. She had spent no time around guns before joining the National Guard. Now, as a survivor of domestic violence and sexual assault, she wants to give other women of color the training she hadn’t had.
“It’s important, especially for black women, to learn how to shoot,” Ms. Tigner said, noting that black women are more likely to be victims of domestic violence. “We need to learn how to defend ourselves.”
It’s hard to find definitive statistics on gun ownership, but a study by the Pew Research Center released this month indicated that just 16 percent of “non-white women” identified themselves as gun owners, compared with about 25 percent of white women. Other Pew surveys in recent years have shown a growing acceptance of firearms among AfricanAmericans: In 2012, one found that less than a third of black households viewed gun ownership as positive; three years later, that number had jumped. By then, 59 percent of black families saw owning guns as a necessity.
A recent study by gunrights advocate and researcher John Lott showed that black women outpaced other races and genders in securing concealed carry permits between 2000 and 2016 in Texas, one of the few states that keep detailed demographic information.
Philip Smith founded the National African American Gun Association in 2012 during Black History Month to spread the word that gun ownership was not something reserved for whites. He figured it would ultimately attract about 300 members, a number achieved in its first month. It now boasts 20,000 members in 30 chapters across the country.
“I thought it would be the brothers joining,” Mr. Smith said. Instead, he found something surprising — more black women joining, most of them expressing concerns about living either alone or as single parents and wanting to protect themselves and their homes.
In recent months, he said, politics also have emerged as a reason he finds more blacks interested in becoming gun owners.
“Regardless of what side you’re on, in the fabric of society right now, there’s an undertone, a tension that you see that groups you saw on the fringes 20 years ago are now in the open,” he said. “It seems to me it’s very cool to be a racist right now, it’s in fashion, it’s a trend.”