Oakland Gun Club Leader: California Liberals ‘Uneasy When It Comes to the Idea of Black Folks Being Legally Armed’

The Los Angeles Times ran a column Monday in which an Oakland gun club leader suggests California liberals get “uneasy when it comes to the idea of black folks being armed.”

The gun club leader, Nathan W. Jones, made his comment just days after the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) struck down New York’s proper cause requirement for concealed carry permit issuance.

SCOTUS struck down New York’s requirement on June 23. On June 24 both California and New Jersey reacted to the ruling by striking certain concealed carry permit requirements in their states.

The LA Times notes that Jones, leader of the Black Gun Owners Association, believes SCOTUS’s pro-2A ruling comes at a time when black Americans have awoken to the need to carry guns for self-defense.

Jones said, “I had visions of mobs dragging people through the streets, and something just kind of switched. … We can’t rely on anybody else to come and save us. It has to be us.” But Jones makes clear that he is not sure how Californians will react to more armed black Americans on the streets.

He noted his experience at the gun range when he and fellow club members go shooting. “There’s no overt racism when we go to the gun range, but we know how people are looking at us. …We know the things that people think.”

Jones added, “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.”

He observed that while lip service is paid to “equal rights,”  he and his fellow gun club members see that others at the gun range “are still uneasy when it comes to the idea of Black folks being legally armed.”

The LA Times highlighted the fact that California Democrats are “scrambling to craft and enact new legislation” that will salvage the concealed carry structure that California partially jettisoned after the SCOTUS ruling.

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.