shattering some myths.

African Americans have always had a sort of attachment to firearms. I understand that this may sound racist to you at this specific moment, but just wait until you read the book I'm reviewing, you'll realize that my statement was super scholarly.

In his well-researched book, Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms, law professor and author Nicholas Johnson shows us the importance and cost of self defense as he takes us back in time, chronicling the use of arms by Black people throughout US history, especially in the South.

Black people and guns have been getting a bad rap for decades. Johnson documents, time after, time how enslaved Africans and fugitive Africans would fight their way to freedom with guns. How they had an underground market to buy, and or steal these guns. How these guns and their willingness to use them allowed many enslaved Africans to get to Free States. The history of the fight against slavery and the civil rights struggle has been modified and right of self-defense, political violence has been minimized. We live in a time where everyone can agree that enslaving people was completely disgusting and wrong, so did it take Professor Johnson to really open our eyes to the Black perspective in history as well as today? Johnson doesn't condone street violence in Black communities, he gives a compelling argument for the right to own arms by law abiding citizens.