The double standard of gun ownership and race
As we’re all regularly reminded, our American right to openly or covertly carry legally owned fire arms is rendered sacrosanct by the Supreme Court and is militantly defended by the National Rifle Association and the Republican Party.
But when black people legally possess, own, publicly carry and/or conceal such armaments, a curious phenomenon emerges.
When white people do it — even when they parade around publicly flaunting grotesque automatic weapons — it’s simply accepted as the way things have always been and must ever be.
But when black people carry and conceal even small hand guns, they’re instantly imagined by many white-minded Americans to present a fearsome imminent danger.
Will recent revelations of this glaring contradiction prompt any change in the Republican caucus’s willingness to consider how we might more reasonably think about guns in America, much less approve just one sensible gun control measure?
Never in this life!
Jay Salter, Atascadero
This story was originally published July 14, 2016 at 8:27 PM with the headline "The double standard of gun ownership and race."