A University of Texas-Austin student, Loyce Gayo, argues in The Daily Texan that conceal-and-carry on campus “fuels white privilege” and the “criminalization of black people.”
Gayo believes the racial dimension of conceal-and-carry on campus gives black students concerns that their white counterparts lack.
“Would they be met with the same inquisitive looks from tourists similar to those that met a group of armed white men who did the same earlier this year at SXSW? Or something more fatal?…
“It is crucial to consider how the aftermath of this [campus carry] legislation can potentially perpetuate the criminalization of Black students…”
The irony is that there is an uncomfortable history of white privilege in the gun control debate—but not like Gayo is implying.
For decades after the Civil War in the south, black Americans were forbidden from owning guns using gun control.
More recently, gun control laws have disparately affected young blacks. Fear of the Black Panthers in the 1960s led to the Mulford Act in California that repealed a law that allowed loaded firearms to be publicly carried.
While race-based fears that drive gun control have faded, but racial disparities in who gets prosecuted with gun-control laws remain. Of people convicted in 2013 for federal gun crimes, 47.3 percent were black. Mandatory minimum sentences for federal gun crimes have heavy racial discrepancies.
Statistically, efforts to increase gun control hit black Americans hardest.
Radley Balko summarizes the effects of gun control laws: “[Y]ou also need to understand that prosecuting people under these circumstances means that we’ll be putting more people in prison. And who those people are will reflect all of the biases, prejudices and predispositions present in the laws we already have.”
Gayo is right to be concerned about campus carry and how black students will be treated for exercising their rights. She is undoubtedly right. In this instance, however, white privilege appears in the form of gun control laws that unfairly target and restrict the rights of black students.
