December 26, 2017
Source/Black Guns Matter via YouTube
Carrying a gun is a Constitutional right, says Maj Toure, a Philadelphia activists who founded Black Guns Matter.
Maj Toure knows there is a right way and a wrong way to handle guns.
The Philadelphia activist told Huffington Post that his early experience – "guys in my neighborhood would get drunk and shoot their guns into the air on New Year's Eve" – was balanced by uncles who served time in Vietnam and Desert Storm and carried themselves and their firearms with respect.
Toure, an entrepreneur who founded Black Guns Matter, was recently interviewed for a HuffPo story headlined, "Why Black People Own Guns." In the story, which posted Tuesday, the web site spoke with "11 black gun owners to figure out what gun ownership means in a country determined to keep its black populace unarmed."
The story begins: "As much as America loves her guns, she has never liked the idea of seeing them in black hands."
But it's a Constitutional right to own and carry a gun, he told HuffPo.
Toure believes that educating people about the Second Amendment leads not only to responsible gun owners but responsible citizens. Black Guns Matter offers free classes for everybody on firearm safety, gun regulations and how to apply for a license to carry in your town. He stresses the basics – from gun safety to civics.
Firearms are just as normal as your cell phone. You don’t drop your cell phone in water. You have a lock on your phone. It’s very private. It’s yours. You know how to operate it. It’s like a car. When you first start driving, you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. Then you start paying attention, being observant, looking around and being a responsible driver. Get drunk and shooting your gun is the same as getting drunk and driving. The difference is one is a right. A human right. One is a privilege.
And that’s to put people on the path to good citizenship. When you start paying attention to the Second Amendment, you start having more of a value for all of the other amendments. That creates good citizens: people who are politically active, who are going to their school board meetings, who are seeing what’s up with budgets, talking to their city councils, talking to their state representatives. We’re getting them involved politically on most angles.
America would not have even been created without firearms. Some people say it’s a contradiction for me as an African-American man to have a position: “When they wrote the Second Amendment, they didn’t mean it for you.” I don’t give a f*** who they meant it for. It’s mine now.
To learn more about Black Guns Matter, click here.
To read HuffPo's full interview with all 11 gun owners, click here.
