While the elite flock to Beverly Hill’s only gun shop looking for guns for self-defense, poor California minorities are finding it difficult to get through the state’s many gun control laws and acquire a firearm to use to keep themselves and their families safe.
On December 30, 2021, Breitbart News noted that the rich and famous were flocking to Beverly Hill Guns for protection from the craziness that has overtaken day-to-day life in Los Angeles.
FOX News now reports that other Californians, particularly minorities, are finding the acquisition of a firearm difficult.
Geneva Solomon, owner of Los Angeles County’s Redstone Firearms, told FOX News, “The gun control laws here are set up and intended to disproportionately affect those within the minority communities.”
Moreover, Solomon pointed to the “good cause” requirement for getting a concealed carry permit, suggesting the requirement may put minorities, and especially single parent minority homes, at a disadvantage when it comes to proving importance.
She said, “If the single parent is walking home and can’t prove that they’re ‘important’ by having money or high-value items taken from them, it may be really hard. Which goes back to the ‘[good] cause’ requirement of the insurance of the CCW. Having ‘[good] cause’ is too big of a gray area. That means it’s up for interpretation of the person interviewing you and can lead to underlying bias.”
Solomon ultimately summed up her view by stating that “California has gun control by ZIP code.”
California abolished the open carry of loaded firearms in 1967 and in 2018, KRON-TV’s Warren Olney wrote a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed claiming the move against open carry was in response to armed Black Panthers.
On May 3, 1967, armed Black Panthers rallied on the steps of the California Capitol. During that rally, a Black Panther allegedly spoke to a television cameraman, decrying “the racist California Legislature” for “keeping the black people disarmed and powerless.”
History.com reports that the Black Panthers indicated California gun laws played a role in “the subjugation of African-Americans.”
A gun supporter holds a sign which reads, “I’ll Keep My Guns, Freedom and Money. You Can Keep The “Change,” in Beverly Hills, California. (ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)
The Mulford Act, banning the open carry of loaded firearms, passed in April 1967 and was enacted in July of that same year.
UCLA law professor Adam Winkler observed, “The law was part of a wave of laws that were passed in the late 1960s regulating guns, especially to target African-Americans.” He also pointed to the Gun Control Act of 1968, “which adopted new laws prohibiting certain people from owning guns, providing for beefed up licensing and inspections of gun dealers and restricting the importation of cheap Saturday night specials [pocket pistols] that were popular in some urban communities.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.