First they called gun ownership racist. Never mind the surging rate of people of color buying firearms to protect themselves in the craziness which is America these days.
Now, the mainstream media went beyond guns being racist to saying that owning a gun store is racist. Unless you’re a minority who owns a gun store, of course. Anything to make gun owners in America sound like racist white folks, right?
But, as stupid as this sounds (and it is stupid), the mainstream media article is real (hat tip to here for the lead). Ezra Kaplan tells about the experience current gun store owner Geneva Solomon (who, apparently, is a woman of color) had when she bought her first gun. Kaplan writes,
“It was a terrifying, horrible experience, not just because I was buying the gun; it was because of how I was treated,” Solomon told NBC News. “I looked around the room and there was nothing but white men behind the counter. There wasn’t even a woman there.”
Whether Solomon actually meant this or not, Kaplan’s choice of quotes basically says, “Solomon had a terrible experience because she is a black woman and there were just white guys in the shop.”
Notice that there is no mention as to why her experience was bad. Was it poor customer service? Did they talk down to her? Was it just frustrating because she didn’t know enough to know what she was looking for? Was it the amount of ridiculous paperwork that she had to go through to buy that gun? We don’t know, but Kaplan’s use of Solomon’s second quote above makes it seem like it had something to do with white men.
The next point that Kaplan mentions has to do with gun training. Kaplan writes,
The class of 20 new gun owners was predominantly Black — exactly what fellow student Erin Wood was looking for.
“It’s just nice to have people that look like you in the group. It just makes you feel a little more comfortable to have the instructors be from your community,” Wood said, emphasizing that she sought out Redstone Firearms specifically because it is Black-owned.
Because, you know, it would be okay for white racists to choose where to buy their gun and to get their gun training based on the ethnicity of the gun shop’s owner, right?
Then, Kaplan tells of how Solomon and her husband had difficulty getting a lease until they hired a white realtor to find space to lease for the store. Like that has anything to do with white gun owners.
And, finally, Kaplan finishes the piece with the following:
“I think that economic power is important,” she said. “And if certain people don’t have access, they get left behind. I think that’s why it’s important for people of color to own more gun shops, to run more schools like this.”
This passage came at the end of a piece which quite clearly implied that white people were an impediment to Solomon being a gun owner and a gun shop owner. Because gun owners and gun shop owners are, apparently, racist.
Yet, notice, that no where is it clearly said that any gun shop owner did or said anything racist. No gun shop owner tried to prevent Solomon from owning a firearm or starting her own gun store business.
But, apparently, owning a gun shop, unless you’re a person of color who owns a gun shop, is clearly racist.
What nonsense.
Let me be clear: Solomon wanted to own a gun store, and she started one. She had obstacles. We don’t know what else happened with that white realtor that made them able to find a lease for Solomon. We certainly don’t know that it was their skin color. For all we know, that realtor may have simply been a better realtor.
But that wouldn’t have fit the narrative, would it?
Don’t buy into the whole “gun ownership and gun shop ownership is racist” story. It’s not true, and we need to call out garbage like Kaplan’s story whenever we see it. Because it’s evil that Kaplan is pimping out parts of Solomon’s story to push his personal agenda.