North Philadelphia native Maj Toure feels urban centers need more legal guns, and more informed gun education, to truly have less crime. (Photo: Black Guns Matter)
A group formed in urban Philadelphia wants to replace more gun regulations, buybacks and rhetoric with firearms training, education, and concealed carry permits.
Not affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement, 29-year-old community leader Maj Toure is a gun owner and a card-carrying member of the National Rifle Association and believes that the right to keep and bear arms is fundamental. And he is bringing that message, without any outside support, to the black community through outreach and free firearms training conducted by certified instructors.
âCharlton Heston said it â you basically got to pry this out of my cold, dead hand. Iâm not going down that way because we are citizens, Americans,â Toure told Guns.com. âWe are citizens. We have the right to exercise the Second Amendment and anyone thatâs tryinâ to infringe on that is not only in violation of the Constitution but theyâre also just a dick.â
Toureâs group, Black Guns Matter, came about after he saw a lot of misinformation in his neighborhood and similar urban areas nationwide on his travels as an artist and it disturbed him.
âYou know, our information base started to look as if â to us, it looked like this was deliberate â like there is a deliberate attempt to make sure that people in the hood donât have firearms,â Toure said. âAnd then doing a little bit of research we start to see that all gun control laws come from right after the emancipation of newly freed African people. So that being the case, instead of complaining about we just came up with something that could address that ignorance and itâs Black Guns Matter.â
Contrary to the typical talking points on gun crime and violence in inner city areas, which hold increased regulation on legal firearms sales and possession and denying the right to carry as a solution, Toure feels that it is a political bait and switch.
âGun control is a sham. Itâs not about gun control. Itâs about people control,â he said. âItâs about trying to convince people that somehow the government is going to be responsible for your safety. Thatâs the equivalent of saying, âHey, we have fires. Take all of the fire extinguishers out of your home because if thereâs a fire, the firemen will just come.â No, weâre not doing it.â
Toure goes on to quote Thomas Jeffersonâs words on firearms, making the clear delineation that the Second Amendment is not about duck hunting or muskets, and is instead about resisting tyranny by a well-regulated militia formed of the people.
âThat doesnât mean control by, you know, state or federal government,â Toure said. âThat means the people. I think whatâs happening is a lot of people are getting away from what that understanding of things meant. So no, I donât think control is, one, what the Founding Fathers were talking about. Two, I donât think gun control helps anything. The guy that shot up the Orlando Pulse Nightclub had a legal firearm. Thatâs a mental health issue right there.â
Another staple offered to stop urban crime â the gun buyback â likewise, falls by the wayside in Toureâs view.
âGun buybacks just help the community âfeelâ a little bit safer but it doesnât help. Feeling and what the facts are are two different things, you know what I mean? And, you know, the gun buybacks â the question becomes, âOkay, well, what are you doinâ with the firearms?â None of that stuff helps,â Toure said.
What does help, and the mantra for his group, is education and information.
âWhat weâre doing at Black Guns Matter is going into the grimiest places. Iâm from North Philly which is always in the top whatever for murder,â he said. âGoing into those neighborhoods and saying, âHey, single mother of three that gets off at 4:00 in the morning, this is how you secure a firearm safely so you can still feel safe in your home and at the same time one of your children thatâs 5 years old doesnât get a hold of that firearm and harm themselves.'â
Toure mentions the NRAâs Eddie Eagle Program training for young people as an example of needed firearms safety, âHey, if youâre under a certain age if you see this firearm, this is what you do. You get an adult. You donât touch it,â he said. âEducation, information, and proper training are what help. Ignoring it, trying to put the guns away, acting like this isnât the case, pretending like this isnât a serious issue, none of that shit helps. None of it helps. What weâre doing is whatâs helping.â
Guns.com asked Toure about his take on the dogma in large urban areas that if the powers that be make legal ownership very hard â such as in Chicago and New York City â that by reducing the number of legal guns in circulation itâll translate into less crime, to which he disagreed.
âIt hasnât,â he said flatly. âWe can look at the stats. It hasnât. It has not. That is â to me â it looks like an attempt on an infringement on Second Amendment rights. Thatâs all it looks like to me.â
Toure said making legal guns harder to buy and possess is not the solution, and turns a blind eye to reality.
âNow, okay, how does that make that ordinary citizen that just wants to go to the range or hunt or protect his family or her family, how does that make them safer? So now youâre going to criminalize them and make them get an illegal gun, too?â he said.
The disconnect, he feels, is with lawmakers, and the constituency needs to reconnect.
âThe government works for the people. We do not work for them. Itâs an interdependent mutually beneficial relationship,â Toure holds. âItâs not a, âYou say this and we do it.â And I think we have to get back to that. We have to get back to those principles that, âListen, not only do I matter, you work for me now and weâre going to hold you to a standard.â So no, that, âweâll just make it harder for the actual good guys and good girls to get firearmsâ â you donât tell us what to do. We tell you what to do. Weâre your constituents. Weâre your base. Weâre the people that elect you into office and if you canât follow through with what weâre doing, you got to go. Thatâs what I think would change that.â
In the inevitable interactions between the community and law enforcement, Toure thinks the breakdown in communication needs to be addressed on both sides, with more training for police and, through more lawful carry of legal firearms by the black community.
âEverybody in the hood should have a firearm because theyâre citizens and thatâs their Second Amendment right. Theyâre not prohibited people â they go to work every day,â he said. âThese are people that go to work every day, you know what I mean? So the aim is to really destroy the conversation. The aim is to make it be like breathing. I want it to be so foreign. I want it to be like me asking you the marital status of the number 7.â
In the case of Philando Castile, the licensed concealed carrier killed in a controversial officer-involved shooting in Minnesota earlier this month, Toure feels such incidents could be avoided.
âThe officers need better training and sometimes we need better understanding of how to approach those officers because we can get frustrated as well,â he said. âYou know, Mr. Castile was stopped some over 50 times, so he knew the protocol. That officer didnât. So we donât have to walk on eggshells. The officers need to respect the law that they say that theyâre serving.â
Across the nation â and in urban areas in particular â illegal guns in the hands of honest people are never going away. While strict gun laws may push such acts underground, the guns will always be out there and are sometimes carried by those who would rather risk criminal penalties for having the gun, than to go unprotected and risk their life. A very real world, âIâd rather be judged by 12 than carried by sixâ bumper sticker backed up with actual people and events not of their choosing.
Toure knows that segment of the gun owning population, and knows the risk they take to interpret their own version of the Second Amendment. He also holds them up to be among the safest in the gun community out of a need for self-preservation. He equates them to those who drive without a license.
âTheyâre running a risk every time they get in their car just to feed their family, just to pay bills. They are the safest drivers that I know,â he said. âThey stop at every stop sign. They stop at every red light. They are 10 oâclock and 2 oâclock, lookinâ left, right, left. That is because theyâve trained themselves to be safer because theyâre not the bad guy. I think that when you create something thatâs illegal and just based on what you think it should be as opposed to not factoring the peoplesâ needs and responses, of course theyâre going to be the bad guys in your eyes because they are technically doing something illegal.â
Besides his work in Philly, Toure is taking his group on the road, embarking on a 13-city tour to address the same situation in other urban areas. In the future, he hopes to make it a nationwide push.
âI mean, the hood is the hood everywhere,â he said.
Not backed by any organization, left, right or center, the group is pledging their own funds as well as raising money through merchandise sales and exploring crowd sourcing, but Toure feels the urgency is now to move ahead regardless of dollars.
âWhen those Founding Fathers said, âYo, thereâs tyranny over here,â they didnât just wait to get the right funding,â he said. âYou know, they started doing it. You know what Iâm saying? It wasnât, like, âWell, we got to wait.â No, they started doing stuff. They started putting their own sweat equity and blood, sweat and tears into creating a situation.â