Black Folk and the NRA

[goon]

Just remember, the NRA is desperate for new member$, and since they've cornered the market on "racist old white guys" who ostensibly won't be around much longer, you can bet your bippy they are honestly trying to reach more diverse groups to raise funds, as well as protect the rights of all their members.

Let's hope so.
As a matter of principle, the RKBA belongs to everyone so it would be good to see more people exercising and supporting it.

As for the racism... some of those old white guys are racist or bigoted or just very set in their ways. But some of them are surprisingly socially liberal... they just get grouped in with the non-thinkers because they're old white guys.

 

[Powderman]

White folk" that I've met who are in the NRA, are unabashedly racist.

They may wait a few months before revealing their true selves, telling a racist anti-black joke with racist slurs in it, but they eventually get there.

We've got the violence and hatred across the planet, on television, in the city, and I can't even go to the range to relax and shoot w/o some white trash scumbag NEEDING to let me know just HOW RACIST he/she is, and that they're pretty proud of it.

Interesting to watch the politics of it as the GOP looks for new ways to court black/brown voters...

I don't know where you have encountered this...but it has been my experience with fellow instructors and shooters--most of whom are NRA members--that the surest way to get a LOT of people VERY angry is to make a racially oriented joke or slur.

Most of the people I know will simply turn their backs and refuse to have anything else to do with the person who said it. The rest will reply angrily and with vigor that the person concerned just said a REALLY bad thing.

 

[harrygunner]

About seven or eight years ago I invited a Black person who understood the Second Amendment, was a NRA member, who had a California CCW, to a NRA meeting in Orange County, CA where Wayne LaPierre spoke.

He was the only Black person there. A few people glared at him as if he was someone from an enemy camp. He laughed it off but did not attend another meeting while remaining a member.

Years later, I was speaking to an Asian woman who lives in Orange County. I taught her how to shoot. She was talking to me about a member of Dr. Martin Luther King's family embracing conservatism as she did. She was wondering why few minorities were conservative. I told her fifty years ago, she would have not been able to own her home in the conservative OC. If she somehow gained ownership, "kindly neighbors" would stop by to offer to buy the home and ask her to leave. Whereas, liberal areas like San Francisco would had had few issues with her arrival.

Some of that past lingers in the present and hurts our cause. We should be smart enough to embrace conservatives regardless of superficial differences. But, some are not that smart.

 

[Starship1st]

Sadly, many of the people interviewed had their opinions based on some liberal propaganda and talking points:

I like how one person said Martin Luther King was denied a gun permit from the NRA. What?

When I got my license, the state of AZ issued it. I find that it is the liberals who has the facts mixed up and then talk about them as if they are true.

Even sadder is when a "minority" bursts their bubble by being an NRA member, voting conservative, or being in the Tea Party, they are dismissed by the liberals.

 

[Vonderek]

I wasn't aware that the word "folk" has racist connotations. The church I used to go to was half black and the preacher used the word "folk" to refer to people in general and nobody seemed to take issue.

Back on subject, the NRA has had people such as Roy Innes and Karl Malone on its board. Although a Life Member, I personally have lost interest in attending NRA events because they all seem to cater to the country music and conservative crowd. And as a result the preponderence of attendees are all white people. I have no interest in either country music or listening to Sarah Palin and Sean Hannity give speeches. So yes, I think the NRA does need to do a much better job at reaching out to members of other demographics who share the same end goal of preserving RKBA.

 

[22-rimfire]

All I can say is that the National Rifle Association should be working to gain members and support on the RKBA issue (Second Amendment) from a broad slice of Americana because it impacts everyone. What color your skin is should make no difference.

 

[xXxplosive]

Look.............stop playing the darn Race Card......every group is racist to some degree and so are all people.....admit it. This entire subject is nonsense....the POTUS is the poster boy for racisim in this country... IMO. Live with it, get over it, it's reality. You can't control another persons thoughts.....the sooner we all stop harping on this B.S. just maybe no one will care anymore...the end.

 

[Midwest]

Sadly, many of the people interviewed had their opinions based on some liberal propaganda and talking points:

I like how one person said Martin Luther King was denied a gun permit from the NRA. What?

I'm sure the procedure back in the day was to apply from the Sheriff. I don't know how someone could think the NRA issues gun permits. Here is a description of what happened.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/09/the-secret-history-of-guns/308608/


"Martin Luther King Jr. applied for a permit to carry a concealed firearm in 1956, after his house was bombed. His application was denied, but from then on, armed supporters guarded his home. One adviser, Glenn Smiley, described the King home as “an arsenal.” William Worthy, a black reporter who covered the civil-rights movement, almost sat on a loaded gun in a living-room armchair during a visit to King’s parsonage. "

 

[barnbwt]

"I wasn't aware that the word "folk" has racist connotations. The church I used to go to was half black and the preacher used the word "folk" to refer to people in general and nobody seemed to take issue."

"Folk" has southern connotations, and a good deal of non-southerners ("northerners," you might say ) see the south as entirely racist. Thus, we and our language are racist by nature. Yes, that's hypocritical as all get out, but them's the facts of our perception in the country. Like I said before, too many people nowadays don't know the difference between an intentional insult (like racial epithets, denial of access, and violent attack) and feeling offended by what they see (like a lack of minorties in an organization's literature, or being 'noticed' more in a crowd of whites, or being perceived as a novelty when you're one of the first outsiders to join a group of homogenous folks).

TCB

 

[Walkalong]

Some good dialogue here, but too much calling folks on both sides racist now.

The hatred/stupidity that sometimes comes from folks of all sorts simply makes me sick. The antis must love that sort of infighting.

And again, please, it's not liberal vs conservative, black against white, polar bear against brown bear. It is gun owners against anti's.

We must be inclusive of all responsible pro gun voters if we are to keep our gun rights, and our freedoms along with them.