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February 12, 2025
Firearm Industry Celebrates Our Black Community and Family
February is Black History Month and is a specific opportunity for all Americans to highlight and celebrate the countless contributions African Americans have made to our country since even before the days of the Founding Fathers. Within the firearm industry specifically, we proudly celebrate our African American community. We know this history comes with controversy and is always in need of improvement.
But the Second Amendment is for all law-abiding Americans and we celebrate our African American community members loudly for all their contributions – from the industry as successful business owners and entrepreneurs, to the millions of everyday Black gun owners proudly exercising their Constitutional rights to keep and bear arms.
The community of gun owners in America today is larger and more diverse than it has ever been at any point in history. That is a remarkable characteristic worthy of praise. And it is so due in large part to the participation of, and contributions by, African American gun owners.
Long Road to Constitutional Rights
A significant number of today’s gun control laws have their roots in racist Jim Crow laws. Even before then, colony and territory-level Black Codes were implemented to deny gun ownership to Blacks, including in Louisiana, where colonists established the French Black Code in 1751 that required colonists to stop Blacks if they were seen carrying a firearm.
More recently, Black gun ownership has significantly ramped up during the past several decades. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., attempted to lawfully arm himself and applied for a concealed carry permit after his Alabama home was firebombed in 1956. However, the local sheriff infamously denied the permit at the time, deeming him “unsuitable.”
Still through the 1960s and beyond to this day, lawful and responsible gun ownership in the African American community grew and has become commonplace.
Beginning in 2020, the same year the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown orders came, calls to “defund the police” echoed and crime was spiking in communities across the country, African Americans were purchasing firearms at a rate of 58 percent higher than the year before. That trend continued into 2021, where 60 percent of firearm retailers surveyed said the increased traffic from African Americans.
Philip Smith, President of the National African American Gun Association (NAAGA), told NBC News he described the trend as “an awakening.” The reasons, he added, were all rooted in personal safety.
“Having a gun is OK as long as it’s done in the right way,” Smith explained. “We try to use a lot of images and imagery that really connects our people to good experiences and positive images for families, for husbands, for mothers, for kids. It’s something we should embrace and use that positive energy in a legal, law-abiding way.”
‘Empowered’ Black Women Leading the Way
Lawful and responsible gun ownership in the African American community is common today. Many choose to own a firearm for self-defense while others are finding community as a result of expanding recreational target shooting opportunities. One clearly noticeable trademark in growth of Black gun owners is that African American women have been the fastest growing segment of gun owners, with an 87 percent growth rate.
The Cut highlighted this remarkable development in an article titled, “The New Face of American Gun Ownership: Black women are pushing against the (white, rural, and male) stereotype.” News reports from across the country have highlighted the growth in Black women gun owners, too. And most always, the story is women becoming empowered and confident in taking their safety – and the safety of their children and loved ones – into their own hands.
“A lot of times men look at women and they think we are defenseless. They target us, first because they think we don’t carry. We can defend ourselves as women, we are not as weak as you think we are,” Kennette Brown told ABC 7 News in Washington, D.C., for a report on Black women buying firearms. She described the reasons why she obtained her concealed carry permit, purchased her first gun and takes the time to go to training courses.
“With all the things going on in the world, you just want to be able to protect yourself,” Brown added.
As more Black women have answered the call to become more empowered in their Constitutional rights to keep and bear arms, NAAGA’s Smith has seen the numbers to back it up. The Cut’s report referenced earlier noted Black women now make up a majority of the 40,000 members of the NAAGA membership.
Faces of Firearms™ Highlight the Community
NSSF, as the firearm industry’s trade association, knows our industry best serves law-abiding gun owners across the country when they know it’s filled with firearm enthusiasts who are just like them – including Black gun owners and Black firearm business owners.
That’s why NSSF launched its Faces of Firearms™ safety outreach campaign that demonstrates that today’s gun owners, who are from all walks of life, and the firearm industry are united in true firearm safety. Faces of Firearms celebrates the diversity of gun owners – including specifically within the African American gun owning community – and their unity in advancing safe, responsible firearm ownership. Some of the featured gun owners in the campaign are domestic violence survivors, Olympians and Purple Heart recipients.
“We are proud members of the firearm industry,” longtime Remington Ammunition worker Arthur Terry says in a video testimonial with his twin brother, Anthony.
NAAGA Vice President Douglas Jefferson added his feedback in a testimonial as well. “We all want the same thing. We want our communities to be safer. We have the same concerns as everyone else when it comes to the safety of ourselves and the safety of our community,” Jefferson said.
These, and many more, are just a handful of the firsthand experiences offered by Black members of the firearm community. The reasons why they choose to exercise their Second Amendment rights are numerous and diverse, just as the gun-owning community is itself. We celebrate them all this special month.
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