Francis Wilkinson: Guns Are for White People: Noted for July 30, 2013

Frances Wilkinson: Guns Are for White People:

Everybody's white. That's the conclusion from a survey of gun magazines I bought the other day…. There are pictures of guys with guns, gals with guns, animals with guns, ammo with guns and guns with guns. Curiously absent are pictures of black people with guns, brown people with guns or Asian people with guns…. Combat Handguns Magazine, November 2013: Whites: 92. Blacks: 1. Hispanics: 1 Asian: 1.I… Guns & Weapons Magazine, October 2013: Whites: 131. Blacks: 2 (both law enforcement officers, one of whom is accompanied by 4 whites). Hispanics: 0. Asians: 0. GUNS Magazine, September 2013: Whites: 60. Blacks: 0. Hispanics: 0. Asians: 2 (Does it still count if they're Japanese soldiers from WW II in an ad for military surplus?). It's hard to know exactly what to infer from this blizzard of white. Gun politics is always racially fraught. Blacks commit firearms offenses at a much higher rate than whites…. In general, blacks also support gun control much more strenuously than whites. Whether the gun magazines figure it's politically safer to make everyone the same color, or whether they're simply catering to a monochromatic readership with a strong hankering for all-white cultural nostalgia--or both--is impossible to tell.