Members of the Huey P. Newton Gun Club in Dallas, Texas
Nationwide — Gun store owners are reporting that since the election on November 8th, up to four times as many Black and minority customers are buying guns. In addition, gun groups (such as the National African American Gun Association and the Huey P. Newton Gun Club) are reporting double the normal number of attendees at their meetings since the election.The reason for the spike in gun sales has been attributed to recent police brutality cases across the country, and an increasing amount of white supremecists that have become more aggressive since Trump’s win. Many of the new gun buyers have told reporters that they just want to protect themselves.
What kind of guns are they buying?
Philip Smith, founder of the National African American Gun Association (which has 14,000 members), says his members are buying all kinds of guns – from Glock handguns to AR-15 rifles to AK-47 semi and automatic weapons.
He said, however, that most first-time buyers tend to gravitate toward a nine-millimeter pistol or .38 revolver. He told NBC News, “Most folks are pretty nervous about what kind of America we’re going to see over the next 5-10 years.”
The future of gun ownership
Even before the election back in 2015, the Pew Research Center conducted a study and found that African Americans’ attitudes were changing towards gun ownership. Regarding the study, Reuters reported:
“To be sure, attitudes toward guns are still deeply divided along racial lines, with 60 percent of blacks prioritizing controls on gun ownership over protecting gun rights, while 61 percent of whites say they consider gun rights more important than gun controls, according to a December poll by the Pew Research Center. But the level of African American support for gun control has fallen by 14 percentage points since 1993, when it stood at 74 percent according to the Pew data.”
Breaking records
Whether or not the increase in gun sales among African American will continues remains unknown. But the FBI says that in October 2016, they ran 2.3 million background checks for gun sales, an all-time record; and November could be on pace to break that record.
Meanwhile, the shares of publicly-owned gun companies have not risen, but instead have fallen as much as 20 percent after Trump’s win.
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