Black gun-rights groups have started open-carry marches at anti-racism protests

The Not F--king Around Coalition marches in Louisville
(Image credit: Jeff Dean/AFP/Getty Images)

More than 300 heavily armed Black protesters marched in formation through Louisville, Kentucky, on Saturday, demanding progress on the slow investigation of the police killing of Breonna Taylor. The same group, the Not F---ing Around Coalition (NFAC), had recently marched in Stone Mountain, Georgia, wearing black and carrying their semi-automatic rifles, protesting the Atlanta suburb's namesake monument depicting Confederate generals, and a separate armed Black group marched in Oklahoma City in June to mark President Trump's Tulsa rally.

They have gotten mixed reactions from Black Lives Matter protesters, who do not carry firearms to demonstrations.

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Black Americans, like white Americans, have been buying firearms in unusually large numbers since the COVID-19 pandemic started, and Black gun ownership picked up more after the police killing of George Floyd, Politico reports, citing a sharp uptick in new memberships in Black gun owner organizations.

The general chaos of the pandemic was one factor in the surge in memberships, but the Floyd killing and subsequent protests were a "line in the sand" for many many new members, Phillip Smith, president of the National African American Gun Owners' Association, told Politico. "The days are over of African Americans sitting around singing 'Kumbaya' and hoping and praying that somebody will come and save them. We're gonna save ourselves." Armed Black Panther demonstrations convinced the NRA and California Gov. Ronald Reagan, the future president, to support gun control in the late 1960s.

Anti-racism proponent Ibram X. Kendi argued recently on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast that the glut of white gun ownership is one of the ways that racism has harmed white Americans, pointing to the white male gun suicide rate. White men make up 79 percent of America's 24,000 gun suicides each year, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, and people in rural areas are especially at risk. Nearly two-thirds of U.S. gun deaths are suicides.

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.