The Racist LA Times Strikes Again: "Should Black People Get to Own Guns?"

Black guns matter -- all guns matter
because All Lives Matter

The LA Times is a racist newspaper.

They denigrated a black man, calling him the blackface of white supremacy. You can also see their hate against him here, and the LA Times promotes racist professor Melina Abdullah, who called Elder as much and more.

They have reporters on their staff who support open anti-Semites who think "The Jews should get the hell out of Palestine."

They recently published a massive editorial plus a letter from the owner of the newspaper, in which they acknowledge that the LA Times is racist.

And now, they publish an article questioning whether black people should be able to own guns:

Wow. The entire political philosophy of the American left hinges on their opponents being racists. If, as is the case, that’s not true the whole thing falls apart. https://t.co/cRtS1VDROR

— David Marcus (@BlueBoxDave) June 27, 2022

This kind of assertion sounds like something that white supremacists would chant at a Klan rally. After all, the Ku Klux Klan was committed to disarming black people (as well as white Republicans, who believed that black people were just as much American citizens as everyone else born in the United States). 

Here's the entire article (reprinted in bold print), written by racist SJW Erika Smith, with my comments:

Racist Erika Smith
(Why do black people hate other black people so much?)

Nathan W. Jones leads the Bay Area chapter of the Black Gun Owners Assn. But until a few years ago, he wasn’t even into guns.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. And George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police, sending racial justice protesters into the streets. And white supremacists trashed the U.S. Capitol in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The lies are already pouring in. There were people of all backgrounds at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. Wow, the racism just oozes out of this report already.

Suddenly, it seemed as if America was on the brink. And with the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe vs. Wade on Friday, emboldening a militant array of white Christian nationalists, we clearly still are.

"White Christian nationalists ..." really?

“I had visions of mobs dragging people through the streets, and something just kind of switched,” Jones told me. “We can’t rely on anybody else to come and save us. It has to be us.”

So, on Thursday, while many were apoplectic over the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the rights of gun owners to carry a loaded weapon in public — throwing gun control laws in California and New York into limbo at a time when shootings are increasing — Jones was thoughtful.

On the one hand, he wants it to be easy for law-abiding citizens to be able to defend themselves “if and when the time arises.” But on the other hand, he’s a 50-year-old realist who knows that fear and hatred of Black people run deep in the United States, especially when we’re armed.

Has anyone shown him the statistics, in which black people kill other black people in the highest numbers? Does anyone bother to check facts or read data anymore?

“There’s no overt racism when we go to the gun range, but we know how people are looking at us,” Jones said of the dozens of Black members who meet up to go shooting. “We know the things that people think.”

It sounds to me that this person is just obsessed with himself. Most people don't have time to care about other people, they are so busy thinking about themselves and their families. 

California Democrats are scrambling to craft and enact new legislation this week that would somehow salvage the requirement — assuming local law enforcement continues to enforce it — that residents get a permit before carrying a concealed weapon. Current law forces gun owners to show “good cause” for needing such a permit, and that is now unconstitutional.

Forcing citizens to show good cause to obtain a CCW was always unconstitutional. It's strange how this racist writer, Erika D. Smith, doesn't point out that weapons permits (limits) were initially implemented in order to prevent black people from carrying firearms in the first place.

“Our state will continue to lead in the fight to keep our people safe,” Gov. Gavin Newsom insisted on Thursday. Indeed, of all states, we have one of the lowest rates of dying by a bullet.

No, California is not a safe state. The rampant crime rates throughout the larger urban areas, combined with the declining enforcement and incarceration rates around the state, plus the growing proliferation of gan activity, have all but assured that the criminals have the rights, and the victims have to pay for it.

Gun crimes are up, murders are up. California is not a safe state for many residents. The gaslighting from Governor Hairgel is just astonishing. Of course, voters had their chance to recall this fool last year, and they threw it away. Of course Governor Newsom is arrogant.

But the governor and lawmakers could fail in their efforts, and the Supreme Court’s ruling could stand. And then, California could be forced to confront a reality that has long made many self-proclaimed liberals uncomfortable: Black people — potentially a lot of us — legally carrying guns in public.

Why is it that people find allowing black people to carry guns in public so scary? Notice also how ridiculous this question is, in that the NYPRA v. Bruen decision clearly extended to the right keep and bear arms to outside of the home, but that does not necessarily mean that people can carry a firearm openly.

Lest you think I’m being facetious, recall how California got started on its journey to having the toughest gun control laws in the country.

It was in 1967 that members of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense staged a protest at the state Capitol. Armed with the handguns and shotguns they normally used to protect Black neighborhoods in Oakland by “policing the police,” they announced that the time had come for “Black people to arm themselves against this terror before it is too late.” And then they went inside.

“We have a constitutional right to bear arms,” they shouted as they wandered the halls of the Capitol.

 Yes, indeed, American citizens do have a right to keep and bear arms. I also share the belief that citizens should be able to carry firearms in government buildings, not just in general public spaces. After all, the government is supposed to be of the people, for the people, by the people, is it not?

Lawmakers were so freaked out that they quickly passed the very bill the Black Panthers had been protesting — the Mulford Act, which banned the open carry of loaded weapons without a permit. Gov. Ronald Reagan signed it posthaste.

Shame on Gov. Reagan. Many conservatives today are moving away from Ronald Reagan as the biggest standard of conservatism now, and this action was one of them. Most people also forget that in 1968, Republicans captured marjorities in both chambers of the California State Legislature, and even then they were passing gun control measures. Sadly, California has a more liberal streak than most California conservatives are willing to recognize. Even the Republicans were pretty bad, and this is going back to when Republicans had a considerable toehold in state government and federal representation.

Over the next few years, the Mulford Act, which the National Rifle Assn. supported, inspired a slew of gun control laws in other states and Congress.

The National Rifle Association had been co-opted by liberal elements at this time. Conservatives would retake the NRA in the late 1970s.

Of course, these days, the NRA is very much against gun control, although its stance on Black people doesn’t seem to have changed very much.

Where's the proof for this? Nowhere, because the writer of this article is racist, simple as that, in part because she sees racism in everyone else, and thus cannot accept that she is a racist herself. 

Still, over the last few years as Americans have stocked up on guns at record rates, it is Black people — especially women — who have been buying them the most. Between 2019 and 2020 alone, there was a 58% spike, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

Can you blame them? The pro-criminal, pro-defund the police policies that white and black liberals, leftists, and regressive progressives favor the most are hurting black communities the most! The George Soros district attorneys getting elected in urban areas all over the country are letting criminals commit all sorts of crimes with impunity, only to release them back onto the streets a second time, and they recidivate the most in black areas!

Black people are some of the most outspoken in support of pro-police and public safety measures. They want to be safe in their communities, and racist blacks like Erika Smith.

Emmanuel Choice, who runs a Black gun club in Los Angeles, has watched this trend play out in Southern California. Black people are not only buying guns in big numbers, but also eager to get the training to follow the law and handle them safely.

Good for them. Then they need to start voting Republican so that they can keep those rights. Let's hope they learn the history lesson quickly that Democrats are committed to keeping black people enslaved, down and out, unable to protect themselves.

“This is not a country where you want folks just randomly walking around with firearms,” said Choice, who thinks the Supreme Court’s ruling on Thursday was shortsighted and reckless. “The one thing I will say about California and their concealed carry requirements is you got to get a lot of education.”

Why shouldn't we allow people to walk around with firearms? That is not an argument. That is paranoia. I visited Arizona twice one year, and I got used to the constitutional carry provision in the state. Yes, people walk around with guns, and guess what? People are safe!

Jones said he also has seen a huge uptick in interest in his Bay Area club over the last six months, often by Black people looking for camaraderie and an alternative to the NRA.

Most who join say they bought a gun for self-defense, Choice and Jones agree. Many reach out after getting — forgive the phrase — triggered by high-profile racist incidents, including last month’s massacre of Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y.

"Forgive the phrase ..." This is professional journalism now? For the Los Angeles Times, perhaps ...

But even before that, during the height of the racial justice protests in 2020, Black people armed themselves and formed groups for self-defense and community protection in Minneapolis, Atlanta and Detroit, among other cities.

Since when is burning down buildings, destroying black businesses, or anyone's businesses for that matter, an example of racial justice? Would someone please explain?

“Black folks are choosing more frequently and in greater numbers to be prepared,” Choice said. “There’s a concern that I haven’t seen before. And there’s a willingness to, you know, step up.”

But this isn’t 1967.

That meme that has been floating around social media for a few weeks — the one that half-jokingly suggests that Republican politicians could be prompted to support gun control if more Black people were to start packing heat?

Thing is, Black people are already packing more heat, both legally and, unfortunately, illegally. But gun control laws are still getting weaker — the rare exception being the bipartisan bill President Biden just signed.

That bipartisan bill is trash, and everyone who voted for it is trash. Shame on them!

And the other, truly weird thing is that race is now actually being used as an argument in support of loosening gun laws.

It should be used. It was racism that put in place gun control measures in the first place. I wonder how many of these black liberals realize that they are mouthing the same talking points as the racist Democrats of the late 1800s and early 1900s? They are useful idiots for a hateful cause to take away people's rights. Shame on them!

Justice Clarence Thomas, in his opinion for the Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority in the New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn. vs. Bruen case, waxed philosophical about how the right to bear arms was crucial for the self-protection of Black people in the South during Reconstruction.

And how in 1868, Congress “reaffirmed that freedmen were entitled to the ‘full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings concerning personal liberty [and] personal security ... including the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.’”

For some reason, Erika Smith has a problem with a black man on the highest court in the land reaffirming the natural rights of all men, including black men. Why does Erika Smith have a problem with her own community?

Meanwhile, a coalition of progressive organizations, including the Black Attorneys of Legal Aid, the Bronx Defenders and Brooklyn Defender Services, filed an amicus brief in the case, urging the Supreme Court to rule exactly as it did.

Exactly. But again, Erika Smith has a problem with black people owning guns, and therefore she thinks that those black organizations are racist, too, no doubt.

Their argument? That gun control laws in New York, like California, disproportionately harm Black and Latino people who carry guns for self-defense. They complained of clients who have been “stopped, questioned, and frisked,” and deprived of their livelihoods because they “exercised a constitutional right.”

“We represent hundreds of indigent people whom New York criminally charges for exercising their right to keep and bear arms,” they wrote. “For our clients, New York’s licensing requirement renders the Second Amendment a legal fiction.”

::

How all of this will play out remains to be seen.

It will play out with lower crime rates, that's what!

Choice, the leader of the L.A. gun club, is doubtful that more Black people in Los Angeles will start carrying guns in public, even if doing so without a permit becomes common practice in California. It would just attract too much attention.

“I don’t think I’m going to be going to Roscoe’s to sit there with a sidearm,” he said.

Besides, he added, most Black people just want to come home safe every night and so will avoid taking risks that could result in injury or death.

“No. 1 is the police. I don’t want to interact with them ever. And they never give you a break when they pull you over, so you’re always under suspicion,” Choice explained. “So, if you have something under your seat, and you want to argue with them about the new ruling from.... Please! Are you kidding me?”

But to Jones, this is part of the problem.

As a business owner in Oakland, his gun club — like Choice’s club — is full of fellow Black professionals. Doctors, even cops. Law-abiding citizens with wives and husbands and children, and deep ties to their communities.

“Still, we know that all eyes are on us,” Jones said. “And so we also know that we cannot be the group that has an accidental discharge. We cannot be the group that is handling our firearms in an unsafe manner. We have to be more in control and knowing what we’re doing more than anybody else, because all eyes are on us waiting for us to make a mistake.”

Jones sees it as part of the mission of the Black Gun Owners Assn. to challenge preconceived notions many Americans have about who should and should not be able to carry a gun. But he laments that this is the reality, even in liberal California.

Liberal California is run by racist Democrats right now. That is why there is so much suspicion about black people owning guns and protecting themselves.

“It’s, ‘We’re all for equal rights and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,’ but they are still uneasy when it comes to the idea of Black folks being legally armed,” he said.

Not me. I have no problem with anyone exercising their right to keep and bear arms.

If the Supreme Court’s ruling sticks, Jones believes more Black people could start carrying their weapons in public — particularly if the white supremacists and Christian nationalists in our midst start doing the same.

In our polarized political environment, that’s a dangerous scenario that seems increasingly likely. Just as likely as some Black people wrongly getting shot by police while legally carrying a firearm. When society is armed to the teeth, bad things are bound to happen.

Jones feels he has little choice but to be a gun owner, though.

“What we need to do,” he said, “is redefine the notion of Black people with guns and what that means.”

Final Reflection

Erika Smith is a racist. She does not believe that black people should be able to keep and bear arms. But it gets worse: the LA Times editorial board allowed this trashy article, with its hateful title, to be printed in the first place. What were they thinking? The fact is that the LA Times is a racist newspaper, simple as that.