Racist attacks spark rush for guns among African Americans

An increasing number of African Americans, particularly women, are buying guns out of fear of racially motivated violence.

"Overall the numbers of women have increased, that includes black women, who have decided to become knowledgeable about owning, and protecting their families," Mary Pitt, a firearms instructor and owner of Boom Boom Firearms Training in Maryland, told China Daily.

Pitt, who had served as a firearms instructor for the US Air Force and the police in Atlanta, Georgia, said the surge in demand for guns began when the pandemic started.

In July, 2,404,335 background checks on gun purchasers were made in the US, according to the FBI. For almost three years, the monthly totals for such checks have topped 1 million.

The background check "is often used as a proxy for sales", Douglas McIntyre, editor-in-chief of business news website 24/7 Wall St, wrote in an analysis.

As with Pitt's observation, he said gun sales began to rise when the pandemic started and have since surged.

"During the period of the increase, the number of first-time gun buyers jumped. Sales also rose among women and minorities. First-time buyers have been about 20 percent of new gun sales nationwide," said McIntyre, adding that gun sales spike when there are mass shootings, in election years or after high-profile crimes.

McIntyre has observed that African Americans feature prominently among the first-time purchasers, with sales in this group jumping 56 percent in 2020, according to data from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, or NSSF. The killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, by a white police officer sparked unrest that continued into 2021.

"We've seen a trend of more African Americans choosing to express their Second Amendment rights to own a firearm, especially for personal protection. Purchasing a firearm is one step to protecting your family, but it also means safely storing your gun away from children, so they don't hurt themselves," Philip Smith, president and founder of the National African American Gun Association, said in a statement. The organization was established by Smith in 2015 to "expose, educate and motivate" African Americans to purchase a firearm for self-defense and to take gun training.

In a September 2021 report, the NSSF estimated that more than 3.2 million people bought a gun for the first time during the first half of that year.

More than 90 percent of retailers reported an increase in African American men buying guns. Nearly 87 percent of the sellers said the same about African American women, the report said.

Nearly 84 percent of retailers reported a rise in Hispanic male customers and more than 87 percent reported the same about Hispanic female clients. For Asian-American men and women, the figures were more than 76.5 percent and 82 percent, respectively.

"This survey shows that there is a continuing demand signal for firearms from the American public. We witnessed each month background check figures associated with a gun sale that are second only to those we saw in last year's record-breaking totals," Joe Bartozzi, NSSF president and CEO, said.

An estimated 2.9 percent of adults became first-time gun owners from January 2019 to April 2021. Most of them, or 5.4 million people, had lived in homes without guns, according to a study on firearms purchasing patterns during the pandemic.