I am for gun control. (Shocker, I know.) So why am I worrying about the sudden groundswell of support for “red flag laws” that would allow folks to report dangerous people whose guns should be taken away? Because of this: More Perfect’s podcast on how our country’s first gun-control laws were designed to take weapons away from black people. Specifically, from the Black Panthers.

Which, OK, maybe you think the Black Panthers shouldn’t have been strolling around 1960’s-era Oakland CA open-carrying rifles… although maybe that’s because you hadn’t heard that the Black Panthers formed in response to a wave of extrajudicial police killings of black people… which maybe sounds familiar, alas.

But I digress. The point is, Panthers aside, there is a lot of evidence that our culture sees black people as dangerous. So if, out of all the range of possible responses to gun violence, we’re now gonna do laws that allow reporting of people perceived to be “dangerous,” what are the guarantees that we won’t have Permit Patty turning into Rifle Renee? And that her complaint of “feeling unsafe” won’t then be upheld by a justice system with the same implicit bias? And even that the mechanism of actually going and taking someone’s guns won’t simply turn into another “I thought he was threatening me” extrajudicial police killing of the oh-so-dangerous-looking black gun owner? Or that their innocent young son or daughter won’t wind up dead because they “seem” older and threatening?

Tl;dr how can we make sure that
gun control doesn’t become
another tool of white supremacy?

Tl;dr how can we make sure that gun control doesn’t become another tool of white supremacy? We will never be able to fix the deep-rooted ills of our society without acknowledging and addressing the deepest-rooted of them all: racism.

I don’t know if I’m right to worry about this. Maybe it’s better to get whatever progress we can. We desperately need reasonable laws to counteract our nation’s bloody and ever-rising tide of gun violence.

But I do know that decisions like this should not be made without black people and other people of color who have long led grassroots movements for safe communities. And I’m not hearing those voices in my circles. Where are they? Who should I be reading and listening to? Grateful for any recommendations, friends.