In America, gun rights are for whites only - By Eugene Robinson

[DonViejo]

If you are a black man in America, exercising your constitutional right to keep and bear arms can be fatal. You might think the National Rifle Association and its amen chorus would be outraged, but apparently they believe Second Amendment rights are for whites only.

In reaching that conclusion I am accepting, for the sake of argument, the account given by the Charlotte police of how they came to fatally shoot Keith Lamont Scott on Tuesday. Scott’s killing prompted two nights of violent protests that led North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) to declare a state of emergency. Last Friday, police in Tulsa shot and killed Terence Crutcher — an unarmed black man — and the two incidents gave tragic new impetus to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Scott’s relatives claim he was unarmed as well. But let’s assume that police are telling the truth and he had a handgun. What reason was there for officers to confront him?

North Carolina, after all, is an open-carry state. A citizen has the right to walk around armed if he or she chooses to do so. The mere fact that someone has a firearm is no reason for police to take action.

-snip-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-america-gun-rights-are-for-whites-only/2016/09/22/3990d370-80f2-11e6-8327-f141a7beb626_story.html?utm_term=.11cd6b471cdb&wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1

[jmg257]

1. Yep - the NRA, and everyone else, should be supporting equal gun rights for all.

If it is/becomes normalized that people of all races may be carrying - legally, maybe police wouldn't freak out over a PoC having a handgun and automatically assume (or pretend) they're a criminal?

Hopefully, someone will tell the police.

[world wide wally]

2. The NRA supporting equal rights?

You must forget, we are talking about Ted Nugent here.

[heaven05]

3. this is america

and only one race doesn't evoke "bad dude" imaging to LEO's. Even the repub candidate is not a 'bad dude'. This society has framed black males and people in general as more violent than the other races which is bullshit......a white presiddent destroyed a country and 100's of thousands of innocent lives based on what they knew was a lie. That's mega violence committed for PNAC and Manifest Destiny of the white race. Just like most whites, most blacks are law abiding citizens. but white people need a villain. Who fits that criteria best in their minds? One guess. This country is socially and culturally diseased by racism and white hatred of PoC.

[linuxman]

4. Yeah, better just ban guns for everyone.

No need to fix the system which created this latest incident.


Now, I'm just a privileged, straight, theistic white male, but I'm pretty sure if I had a gun in my hand (Lamont did) and the cops ordered me to drop it (Don't know why I'm holding it in this scenario. You'd have to have a room temp IQ to not have it in a holster), I'd fully expect to get shot for my trouble if I didn't. Go figure.