Black Man with a Gun

[Jazzy]

The Rev. Kenn Blanchard, a former federal police officer, has spent 20 years challenging gun control orthodoxy through speeches, Internet campaigns, and his “Black Man with a Gun” book franchise.

Concerned about getting falsely profiled and even killed by police as a threatening black man by carrying a legal gun openly, Mr. Blanchard says he refuses to carry weapons in plain sight, even at a time when many white gun owners are carrying openly, in places where that’s their legal right, but which might spark police attention.

“Open carry, I won’t do it,” he tells the Monitor. “I don’t want to give a police officer that second of time to say, ‘Is he a bad guy?’ I don’t want that to be on me.”

His statements (which he says are aimed at both black and white police officers) come amid national debate over high-profile police shootings in Arizona, Missouri and Ohio, after which thousands of Americans have taken to the streets to protest decisions by white police officers to resort to deadly force against unarmed black men, and the refusal by grand juries to hold officers criminally accountable.

Black communities suffer the most from gun violence, given high murder rates among young black men – a reason why there’s historically been skepticism about gun ownership in the black community. But those attitudes are changing quickly, according to a new Pew survey released this week. For the first time, a majority of African-Americans believe guns can be an effective crime deterrent when weighed against the dangers of owning guns.

But while YouTube videos of police approaching then backing off white men carrying legal guns openly on the street have become popular among gun rights proponents, such videos provide a contemporary contrast to how black people with legal guns are sometimes approached and dealt with differently than white people with legal guns.

As a former police firearms instructor and US Marine, Blanchard says his concerns as a black man about wearing guns openly even though some whites are comfortable doing so cuts to the nexus of guns and race in America.

“It’s the same thing since the Civil War, it hasn’t changed – we have a holdover from the sins of our fathers,” he says.

Source

Do you agree or disagree with what he says and why?

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

The more people begin using their right to open carry black or white the more people will get accustomed to it and not even give it a second thought.

Florida has great gun rights. I just hope now that conservatives have overwhelming control in our state they bring it up again. It's a pain to carry concealed in the land of shorts and tee shirts.

 

[+paradox]

He's playing that old, worn-out, tired, yawn-inspiring race card, yet again. It is people like him who are the ones keeping racism alive and kicking in America.  Allowing race to affect what he does, how he does it, and laying the entire fault at the hands of the white community is racist in itself. When will the black community finally lay down that crap they parrot over and over again across generations and understand their own role in why racism still exists, and then DO SOMETHING to change it?  They have the power to do so. They have the power to eliminate racism all by themselves.
Apparently it's easier to just continue on with the archaic entitlement beliefs that have been spoon-fed to them since the day they were born.

this cracks me up...

leave it to smooth to accuse a former cop for being racist because he is scared to legally open carry because cops are too trigger happy and doesn't want to get shot...

 

[Dee]

He's playing that old, worn-out, tired, yawn-inspiring race card, yet again. It is people like him who are the ones keeping racism alive and kicking in America.  Allowing race to affect what he does, how he does it, and laying the entire fault at the hands of the white community is racist in itself. When will the black community finally lay down that crap they parrot over and over again across generations and understand their own role in why racism still exists, and then DO SOMETHING to change it?  They have the power to do so. They have the power to eliminate racism all by themselves.

Actually, no they don't. You cannot get rid of something if you do not have control over someone. You can only influence, but not everyone is capable of seeing the error of their ways. There will always be that racist bigot passing down the same beliefs through generations. At least, it won't go away any time soon.

Apparently it's easier to just continue on with the archaic entitlement beliefs that have been spoon-fed to them since the day they were born.

this cracks me up...

leave it to smooth to accuse a former cop for being racist because he is scared to legally open carry because cops are too trigger happy and doesn't want to get shot...

In this case, I feel like he has a hell of a lot more experience as a black person having been a federal police officer as opposed to his fellow black American civilians who were not. If anything, this gives him all the credibility he needs, day in and day out, for twenty years experiencing something that does exist and that does still happen to this day in many parts of the country.

 

[+paradox]

He's playing that old, worn-out, tired, yawn-inspiring race card, yet again. It is people like him who are the ones keeping racism alive and kicking in America.  Allowing race to affect what he does, how he does it, and laying the entire fault at the hands of the white community is racist in itself. When will the black community finally lay down that crap they parrot over and over again across generations and understand their own role in why racism still exists, and then DO SOMETHING to change it?  They have the power to do so. They have the power to eliminate racism all by themselves.

Apparently it's easier to just continue on with the archaic entitlement beliefs that have been spoon-fed to them since the day they were born.

this cracks me up...

leave it to smooth to accuse a former cop for being racist because he is scared to legally open carry because cops are too trigger happy and doesn't want to get shot...

In this case, I feel like he has a hell of a lot more experience as a black person having been a federal police officer as opposed to his fellow black American civilians who were not. If anything, this gives him all the credibility he needs, day in and day out, for twenty years experiencing something that does exist and that does still happen to this day in many parts of the country.

thanks for quoting me so smooth can see my post...

but yeah, you're right, i bet he seen a lot of his co-workers mistreating people in his time of service...

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

He's playing that old, worn-out, tired, yawn-inspiring race card, yet again. It is people like him who are the ones keeping racism alive and kicking in America.  Allowing race to affect what he does, how he does it, and laying the entire fault at the hands of the white community is racist in itself. When will the black community finally lay down that crap they parrot over and over again across generations and understand their own role in why racism still exists, and then DO SOMETHING to change it?  They have the power to do so. They have the power to eliminate racism all by themselves.
Apparently it's easier to just continue on with the archaic entitlement beliefs that have been spoon-fed to them since the day they were born.

Well said!

 

[Sinon]

I find it kinda funny that he's racially profiling white cops. GG there.