It’s time to admit it: Democratic gun control laws are racist

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Seventeen people were shot in Chicago last weekend. Four of these people lost their lives. Tragically, it was just a normal weekend in the Windy City and many others, which are seeing a spike in violent crime. And black Americans bear the brunt of this violence.

The overall rate of gun violence hit a 28-year high last year with a drastic increase in murders among black men, according to an analysis of federal data conducted by The Wall Street Journal.

And that, my god. The rate of gun homicides among black men is back to where it was during the height of the wave of violence in the early 90s. Keep that in mind the next time someone tries to downplay the current resurgence. pic.twitter.com/GTFRzWCL5l

— Alec MacGillis (@AlecMacGillis) November 30, 2022

Some of these elements are not new; since 1990, rates of firearm-related homicides have been highest among black men in their twenties. And yet, after the peaks of the 1990s, homicide rates have fallen, especially among black men. What we are seeing now is a reversal of that trend.

In 2021, there were 142 deaths per 100,000 Black Americans, a 74% increase since 2014 and a figure that dwarfs the homicide rate for other races. “Homicide rates are up to 23 times higher among black men and up to nearly four times higher among Hispanic men than among white men,” the WSJ analysis found.

Unfortunately, the people who run the cities where black Americans live are not up to solving this problem. During the recent midterm election campaign, Republicans hammered Democrats for soft-on-crime policies, which Republicans say have contributed to increased gun violence. In response, Democrats downplayed the issue, calling the criticism an attempt to sow fear or racism.

But for black families, the reality on the ground is very real. And it’s devastating.

Yet time and time again, instead of standing up for black lives, Democrats are focusing on the wrong thing: they’re trying to limit gun ownership instead of gun violence.

President Joe Biden recently indicated that he plans to push through a bill banning “assault rifles” in the lame session before the next session of Congress next year. In doing so, the president played on the Democrats’ pattern of focusing on high-profile mass shootings rather than everyday violence in black and Latino communities, which claim far more casualties than mass shootings.

Black gun owners march to the Governor’s Mansion in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on June 20, 2020 during a pro-Second Amendment rally on the same day that US President Donald Trump is holding his first political rally in months amid the coronavirus pandemic. SETH HERALD/AFP via Getty Images

But pushing for more gun restrictions for law-abiding gun owners isn’t just the wrong approach; it will directly contribute to the problem that desperately needs to be solved.

Limiting legal gun ownership has a disproportionate negative impact on Black Americans because it hinders their ability to defend themselves where law enforcement has failed.

To put it simply, Democratic gun control laws are deeply racist. And it’s time to admit it.

What happened at a meeting of the Assembly Judiciary Committee in the New Jersey Legislature is a prime example. Lawmakers were debating Bill A4769, which proposes to further restrict citizens’ right to bear arms. It is designed to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, a landmark case that dramatically limited the ability of states and local governments to restrict gun carrying through onerous licensing requirements.

New Jersey’s bill, passed last month, makes nearly the entire state a de facto “hot spot” where citizens aren’t allowed to carry guns. It also dramatically increases the cost of obtaining a carry license, firearms identification card, or gun purchase license while adding even more requirements.

And then they said the quiet part out loud.

“Does anyone really want to put more guns in the hands of people who live in Paterson and Newark and Elizabeth and Camden?” said Assemblyman John McKeon, arguing for the legislation.

Of course, Newark and Elizabeth and Camden are mostly populated by blacks and Latinos. They also have some of the highest crime rates.

But is he right? Shouldn’t we want fewer guns in places where crime is highest?

Not legal weapons. “Handguns are used more often to prevent the commission of crimes than by criminals who attempt them,” found a 1991 study. “The gun lobby supports the common-sense intuition that the average criminal has no more desire to confront an armed citizen than the average citizen has to confront an armed criminal.” Meanwhile, a 2013 study commissioned by the CDC, No Friends of Gun Ownership, found that “almost all national survey estimates indicate that victims’ defensive uses of firearms are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from approximately 500,000 to over 3 million, in the context of approximately 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.” More recently, the polling firm Centiment conducted a study in March 2021 revealing that Americans use firearms for self-defense about 1.7 million times a year. And a 2022 study estimated there were 162,000 cases a year where someone “almost certainly would have been killed” if they “hadn’t used a firearm for self-protection”.

The numbers clearly show that deliberately making it harder for black Americans to carry guns only puts them at greater risk.

Despite what McKeon seems to believe, most black people are not violent criminals. But they are more likely to be victims of violent criminals. Law-abiding African Americans should have the same opportunity to exercise their right to bear arms as everyone else.

Unfortunately, Democrats, who loudly proclaim their supposed concern for the plight of this demographic, don’t seem to care about the black lives lost as a result of the policies they support.

Jeff Charles is the host of the “A Fresh Perspective” podcast and a contributor for RedState and Liberty Nation.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.

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