‘MeToo’ movement helping to drive the trend

A report by the Wall Street Journal revealed that nearly half of recent first-time gun purchases have been made by women.

According to the report, 3.5 million women became first-time gun owners between January of 2019 and April of this year. Their male counterparts make up 4 million of the new firearm purchases.

In addition, the study found that an estimated 28 percent of purchases were made by black Americans. This conforms to a general trend noticed by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) in August that black Americans purchasing firearms increased by 58% since 2019 amid a contentious period of anti-police protests and pandemic restrictions, Breitbart reported.

The “MeToo” movement also played a role in the momentum towards women’s gun ownership, WSJ reported. Ironically enough, the ‘MeToo’ campaign was largely dominated by leftist activists but its impact is being shown in unforeseen ways.

According to WSJ:

“After seeing women coming forward with stories of sexual assault and harassment as part of the #MeToo movement, Wendy Hauffen, chief executive of the gun-rights advocacy group San Diego Gun Owners, said she decided to found NotMeSD in 2019 to combat sexual assault and domestic violence through more women carrying firearms. About 400 women have gone through the program which pairs them with women mentors who guide them in purchasing a gun and training.”

The WSJ also pointed to Kanisha Johnson, 39, who joined NotMeSD earlier this year. Her weapon of choice for self-defense was a Glock 9mm. For Johnson, the issue of self-defense became very personal when she was almost killed after being shot by her children’s father.

“If any type of situation like that ever happens again, I just want to be better protected,” Johnson told WSJ.

Michael Cargill, owner of Central Texas Gun Works in Austin, Texas. was interviewed by Yahoo News in August 2020, when the trend in black gun ownership was already noticeably increasing, and noted that black Americans are becoming more educated on the history of gun control in America:

“They’re understanding that gun control first started in the 1800s … so people are realizing that every time there’s a gun law that’s targeting a certain group of people, it’s usually the African-American group,” he said. “So they’re saying, with everything going on, we’ve got to make sure that we’re legal with this firearm. We’re going to make sure we know what the law is, we want to make sure we know where we can take it, where we can’t take it.”

“The first gun control law in the territory that is now the United States was passed in Virginia in 1640, it explicitly banned black people from owning guns, even if they were not slaves,” Cargill continued.

If trends continue, Democrats may have a much harder time finding the political support from their traditional base for more gun control.