great article in Salon

[taliv]

http://www.salon.com/2013/11/05/who...ll_conflicted_about_guns_as_a_black_feminist/

Black woman "on the fence" uses VPC's own statistics to show why she rejects anti-gun proponents, even while saying she doesn't own a gun but knows many educated women who do.

Given these realities, some of us are pragmatic about self-defense. Even when we identify as feminist, as I do, we remain uncommitted to anti-gun feminism that erases our specific experience.

She also brings up the racial past

If the roots of our nation’s gun culture, so carefully analyzed in “Guns in America,” trace back to colonial expansion, revolutionary wars, militias, hunting and living on the frontier, African-Americans share some of this history. But the roots of black gun ownership originate, also, in black Americans’ need to protect themselves against white racial violence. In her documentation of southern lynching, Ida B. Wells famously wrote, “The only times an Afro-American who was assaulted got away has been when he had a gun and used it in self-defense. The lesson this teaches and which every Afro-American should ponder well, is that a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give.” Wells, along with the NAACP and Tuskegee Institute, gathered and published lynching statistics from 1882 to 1968. 1968 was the not-so-distant past for the black homeowners where I grew up as a girl.

and brings up police abuse to say not only are the police not there to protect you, but they are often the abusers and oppressors!

This generation also witnessed widespread abuses against African-Americans by police officers who carried guns. Such abuses led to uprisings in Watts in 1965, and Detroit and Newark in 1967. In 1966, police abuse in black communities prompted the formation of the Black Panther Party in Oakland

I also like this quote about why she got a gun (note long before CCW)

“Well, I knew that there were break-ins happening in that neighborhood. I wasn’t fearful, but I was aware of what was happening.”

lots more good stuff about changing demographics and black women being the fastest growing group of gun owners. of course, being conflicted and on the fence, she does flip flop a bit like this:

In a 1994 interview published in Health magazine, Betty Friedan said that the trend toward gun ownership by women was a “horrifying obscene perversion of feminism.” In “All About Love: New Visions,” bell hooks warns us against obsessions with safety, writing that it is madness to have such obsessions without a real threat, and that the need for aggression and aggressive protection of property can mask patriarchal and white supremacist worldviews. I don’t disagree with either argument. But I can’t enter a conversation about self-defense from a narrow anti-gun position. Not with the statistics about murder rates for black women. Not when people I know have experienced stunning gun violence. Not after 1982.

all in all, it's a great perspective to help us get to know fence sitters and how some arrive at this with conflicting emotions and logic.

 

[Somewhere in NM]

Another reason for us to stick to our support of the 2nd Amendment in these forums, and not bring in other political ideas that can be polarizing. No need to drive the fence sitters away.

 

[Steel Horse Rider]

People who use logic can reason out how the ability to defend oneself against marauders is enhanced by the ownership of a weapon but if they are using emotions to arrive at their conclusions it is of no value to engage them in conversation.

 

[Hacker15E]

I'm wondering about this quote in the article:

Unlike his registered handgun, which he had to turn in to the state of Michigan when he moved to the Southwest, the ownership and movement of our shotgun happened off the radar.

 

[Leanwolf]

Nevermind.

L.W.

 

[ATLDave]

I wonder if she will be banned/fired/silenced for deviating, in a fairly modest way, from the groupthink of that online publication...

 

[taliv]

ATLDave, i was wondering same thing. i think she wrote the article in such a wishy washy way that she could recant if her social standing got upset. but there is a good chance she could get lumped in with the condoleeza ricess and clarence thomases of the world

 

[316SS]

I applaud the author for not unthinkingly adopting the anti-gun views of her peers (what she calls "enter[ing] a conversation about self-defense from a narrow anti-gun position").

That said, I wouldn't describe it as a "great article." Throughout the somewhat rambling collection of anecdotes were themes of fearfulness, both of guns themselves and of the crime they were purchased to prevent. Guns were portrayed as talismans to ward against violence rather than a tool to be used in response to violence.

It doesn't advance our cause when guns are attributed magical properties, either as inherently evil and harmful, or as amulets that by their very presence protect from harm.

I don't get all the angst and the hand-wringing. If you don't think you would pull the trigger when the time comes, or you aren't willing to learn how to use it properly, don't buy a gun.

 

[ATLDave]

Yeah, I don't think there's much doubt at all. While the left side of the political spectrum is absolutely full of groupthink, it seems that its members are generally allowed to deviate on 1-2 points of orthodoxy without truly being given the heave-ho. (There are certain non-negotiable positions, such as opposition to overt racism.) Here's another salon article from the beginning of this year. http://www.salon.com/2013/01/20/we_need_to_make_the_gun_control_debate_about_crime_control/

 

[taliv]

well, it's certainly not 'great' for the THR audience, or the Guns and Ammo audience, but i think it's pretty dang good for the Salon audience. I think it will resonate with them, where it wouldn't with us, because through it's rambling, i think she hits on the things that bother the anti-gunners, which is their irrational fear.

 

[HoosierQ]

well, it's certainly not 'great' for the THR audience, or the Guns and Ammo audience, but i think it's pretty dang good for the Salon audience. I think it will resonate with them, where it wouldn't with us, because through it's rambling, i think she hits on the things that bother the anti-gunners, which is their irrational fear.

Exactly. A different voice for a different audience. LZ Granderson said some of the same thing and they don't get more "liberal" than he. The fact is, guns shouldn't (and needn't) be a "liberal" vs. "conservative" thing. As we find society more and more stratified down the divide between the two, so too has there been a tendency (waxing and waning in intesity since the 1960s) for gun control and the RKBA to also split. There was a time when one's political and/or philosophical affiliation was no predictor at all of where one stood on gun control and RKBA. Our victory will come in convincing those who are on the fence, and whose most general tendency is to come down in favor of a right rather than in opposition to one. A lot of fence sitters are like this. Don't care a hoot about guns as tools, objects, icons, or weapons. Never gonna be interested in them. But a lot of these people, when pressed to vote, can be convinced that it is a bad ideas to take away this right. Why? Because they can come to believe, rightly, that they too, interest or not, may find the need to protect themselves outweighing these "public safety issues" that are so often, wrongly, touted as a reason to foist gun control on America.

 

[316SS]

I think it will resonate with them, where it wouldn't with us, because through it's rambling, i think she hits on the things that bother the anti-gunners, which is their irrational fear.

She doesn't seem to have dispelled her own fear, nor does anything in that article strike me as encouraging others to confront their own irrational fear. Relative to "guns are bad, mmmmkay!" I guess it's an improvement. It may be milquetoast enough that those who default to anti won't disregard it out of hand.

 

[Tipro]

People who use logic can reason out how the ability to defend oneself against marauders is enhanced by the ownership of a weapon but if they are using emotions to arrive at their conclusions it is of no value to engage them in conversation.

Very interesting you should say this in response to an article written by a black feminist. Feminism has long argued that patriarchy is exhibited through cultural values, one of which is the valuing of logic and reason over emotion, with women being associated with emotion and men with reason.

Feminists would argue that there is no justification for statements like yours, and that we should combine logic with emotion in equal parts. To take your own words, you want "to defend [yourself] against marauders." That's great. I do too. However, we figure out HOW to protect ourselves using logic. We figure out WHY we should protect ourselves using emotions. For isn't it your love of life that makes you want to keep living? From what do you deduce this? At its root, you deduce it from nothing - it's a claim on your being that comes not from logic, but from something that is not and cannot be justified by anything else; it comes from emotion.

Now, to make this post related to guns, I like 40 S&W over 9mm!

 

[316SS]

with women being associated with emotion and men with reason.

THAT'S SEXIST!

9mm rules!