For Leftists Who Think That Gun Ownership Is A ‘White’ Thing, Get A Clue. Here’s The Real Data

One of the most consistently pathetic ideas to come from anti-gunners and their friends on the political left is the idea that any kind of politically conservative or libertarian idea is somehow “white,” as in Caucasian and, specifically, white male.

Don’t ask me why the ideas of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, being left alone by your government, holding your government representatives and bureaucrats accountable for their actions, and the right to bear arms are somehow not female, black, native American, Latino, Asian, or anything else, including differing sexualities or gender identities.

If you ask a leftist, the only reason that they can give you that any of the above ideas are “white” is because those ideas help white men. Those same leftists never stop to ask if those same ideas help everyone else, too (they do). And this is part of the problem with the lack of thinking which comes from anti-gunners in general.

So, if you have an anti-gunner friend who thinks that gun ownership is a white thing, Brian McCombie has some facts about who are the gun owners in America. McCombie writes,

In 2020 alone, Lott found that women comprised 26.4% of concealed-carry permit holders in the 14 states that tabulate data by gender. “Seven states had data from 2012 to 2019/2020, and permit numbers grew 101.2% faster for women than for men.”

Interestingly, “Three states that have detailed race and gender data for at least a decade show remarkably larger increases in permits for minorities compared to whites. In Texas, black females saw a 3.9 times greater percentage increase in permits than white males from 2002 to 2019. Oklahoma data from 2002 to 2019 indicated that the increase of licenses approved for Asians and American Indians was more than twice the rate for whites. North Carolina had black permits increase twice as fast as whites from 1996 till 2016.”

These numbers are part of longer-term trends.

“From 2015 to 2019/2020, in the four states that provide data by race over that time period, the number of black people with permits increased almost 55.6% faster than the number of whites with permits. Asians appear to be the group that has experienced the largest increase in permitted concealed carry, growing 62.9% faster than whites.”

Now, someone who actually understands statistics may say, “Of course, those numbers grew faster for women and non-white folks because there were already many more white men with guns in America.” That’s a fair attempt at a criticism, but it misses the larger point which is that women and non-white folks are buying guns legally and getting concealed carry licenses for themselves at a growing rate.

In other words, no matter how badly anti-gunners want to call gun ownership a white male thing, the facts say that it is a human being thing.