[E453]Black gun owners worried about treatment after shooting
Black gun owners worried about treatment after shooting
By Jesse J. Holland | AP July 8 at 3:59 AM
WASHINGTON — One man told an officer during a Minnesota[明尼苏达州] traffic stop that he was a licensed gun owner, and that he was reaching for his wallet[掏钱包], a witness said. The other was on the ground with police officers on top of him in Louisiana[路易斯安那州] when someone shouted “He has a gun!”
Police in each circumstance thought the black man carrying a gun was dangerous and immediately shot him dead. Activists say black gun owners are often treated differently than white gun owners to a sometimes fatal[致命的] degree.
The perception of an armed black person has not changed much since the days of slave rebellions, said the Rev. Kenn Blanchard, a former firearms instructor[枪械教练员;枪械教官] who runs BlackManWithAGun.com.
“If you have a firearm[枪械;枪支] or you scare the wrong people, you’re going to get shot. You’re going to get killed. The perception of the scary black man still exists. The threat of the slave going rogue[1], it’s still there. The bad gangbanger[2],” Blanchard said.
Snipers[狙击手] opened fire on police officers in the heart of Dallas[达拉斯], Thursday evening, killing five officers and injuring six others during protests over two recent fatal police shootings of black men, according to police.
The gunfire broke while hundreds of people were gathered to protest fatal police shootings this week in Baton Rouge[巴吞鲁日], Louisiana[路易斯安那州], and suburban[郊区的;城外的] St. Paul, Minnesota[明尼苏达州]. Protests were also held in several other cities across the country after a Minnesota[明尼苏达州] officer on Wednesday fatally shot Philando Castile while he was in a car with a woman and a child. The aftermath of the shooting was livestreamed[直播] in a widely shared Facebook video. A day earlier, Alton Sterling was shot in Louisiana[路易斯安那州] after being pinned to the pavement[路面] by two white officers. That, too, was captured on a cellphone video.
Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, said he told the officer during a traffic stop that he was carrying a gun for which he was licensed. Castile did “nothing but what the police officer asked of us, which was to put your hands in the air and get your license and registration,” she said.
On a video purporting[3] to show the aftermath[后果;余波;结果], the officer tells her: “I told him not to reach for it. I told him to get his hand out.”
“You shot four bullets into him, sir. He was just getting his license and registration, sir,” the woman responds.
This all comes during a discussion in the United States about the killing of black men and women by police officers after the deaths of Travyon Martin in Florida[佛罗里达州], Michael Brown in Ferguson[弗格森], Missouri[密苏里州], and Freddy Gray in Baltimore[巴尔的摩]. Their deaths have inspired nationwide protests under the “Black Lives Matter” moniker including protests this week over the deaths of Castile and Sterling.
“Would this have happened if those passengers would have been white? I don’t think it would have,” Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton said.
“We have seen tragedies like this too many times,” President Barack Obama said Thursday. When incidents like this occur, many Americans feel it’s because they’re not being treated the same, Obama said. “That hurts.”
It can be dangerous for black men and women to own guns in this policing environment, and it shouldn’t be, considering that gun ownership is a constitutional right, said Philip Smith, president and founder of National African American Gun Association.
Sterling was a convicted felon[4], which would have barred[禁止;阻挡;拦住] him from legally carrying a gun, according to court records. It was not immediately known whether the gun held by Castile was legal.
That information might not have mattered during their confrontations with police, Smith said.
“They’re not getting any kind of the benefit of the doubt[5]. There’s no conversation. If there is a conversation, it’s a one-way conversation where the African-American male is being yelled at, pretty much, ‘Sit down and be quiet or you’re going to get shot,’ ” Smith said.
Messages left for the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the National Rifle Association were not immediately returned.
The first gun-control laws were passed to keep weapons out of the hands of black slaves and freedmen in colonial days, said Nicholas J. Johnson, a Fordham University[福德汉姆大学] law professor and author of “Negroes and The Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms.” During the post-Civil War period and the times of slavery, Southern states imposed strict gun laws against blacks that lasted through the civil rights movement.
Police have an outsized fear[巨大恐惧] of armed blacks, activists said. The majority of blacks are not armed and the majority of killers of police officers are white. The FBI said 199 law enforcement officers were killed between 2011 and 2014. Of their killers, 133 were white and 70 were black.
Blacks also are only about half as likely as whites to have a firearm in their home — 41 percent vs. 19 percent — according to a 2014 Pew Research Center[皮尤研究中心] survey.
But another Pew survey showed more and more blacks becoming comfortable with owning guns, with 54 percent saying in 2014 that gun ownership does more to protect people than endanger personal safety, nearly double the 29 percent from December 2012.
“Historically, African-Americans have viewed guns kind of like the boogeyman[(伤害小孩的)恶鬼,妖怪] — ‘The master told you not to look at the gun and we shouldn’t touch a gun,’” Smith said. “But that mindset is changing very, very quickly.”
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注释
[1]go rogue：To cease to follow orders; to act on one's own, usually against expectation or instruction. To pursue one's own interests. 不按他人指示行事；小试无赖
[2]gangbanger：a member of a violent group of young men, especially ones who use guns and commit crimes （尤指持枪犯罪的）暴力团伙成员，帮派成员
[3]purport：to pretend to be or to do something, especially in a way that is not easy to believe 声称，标榜 They purport to represent the wishes of the majority of parents at the school. 他们声称自己代表了该校大多数学生家长的愿望。
[4]convicted felon 已被定罪为重刑犯；被证明有罪的人
felon：a person who is guilty of a serious crime 重罪犯
[5]benefit of the doubt 疑点利益；无罪推定；疑点归益于被告
give sb the benefit of the doubt：to believe something good about someone, rather than something bad, when you have the possibility of doing either 往好处想（某人）
I didn't know whether his story was true or not, but I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.
我不知道他说的是真是假，不过我决定姑且相信他这一次。
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