[Chad King, gun instructor, saying:] "Frederick Douglass said that 'a man's rights rest in three boxes, the ballot box, the jury box and the cartridge box'."
Chad King says he quotes the great American abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, to his students often.
King is a firearms instructor, and a man of color. He started the Black Bottom Gun Club in Michigan to teach African Americans how to handle a firearm after a Black man was fatally shot in 2016.
And he says that membership has grown 70% to 200 people, since March -- fueled by safety fears and a rise in white supremacy groups.
"No one else is going to save you (...) Just because of everything that's happened this year so far, whether it's, again, the pandemic itself, whether it's racist violence, which is a longstanding pandemic, whether it's unease about the election, I think, again, that those things are causes for spikes."
"We don't acquire firearms to create chaos or intimidate anyone. We do so, we purchase firearms and purchase ammunition, we take training classes, simply because we want to defend against the violence that's already there."
It's not just African Americans -- the gun industry is reporting record sales nationwide.
In Pennsylvania, firearms were flying off the shelves of Bob's Gun Shop in the last days before the U.S. election, according to its owners.
It's essentially driven by two factors. Some people fear a contested election could spark civil unrest, and some gun advocates worry that a Biden win could lead to tighter laws on purchases.
The gun shop's owner is Bob McDowell:
"If you took everything that Obama did, everything that Clinton, did and all the school shootings. And combined them all, they would not equal what's going on right now in the firearms industry. That's how much greater this is this time. The demand for firearms and ammunition far eclipses those three incidents all put together."
Video Transcript
CHAD KING: Frederick Douglass said that a man's rights rest in three boxes, the ballot box, the jury box and the cartridge box.
NARRATOR: Chad King says he quotes the great American abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, to his students often. King is a firearms instructor and a man of color. He started the Black Bottom Gun Club in Michigan to teach African-Americans how to handle a firearm after a black man was fatally shot in 2016. And he says that membership has grown 70% to 200 people since March, fueled by safety fears and a rise in white supremacy groups.
CHAD KING: No one else is going to save you. just because of everything that's happened this year so far-- whether it's, again, the pandemic itself, whether it's racist violence-- which is a longstanding pandemic-- whether it's unease about the election. I think again that those things are causes for spikes.
We don't acquire firearms to create chaos or intimidate anyone. We do so-- we purchase firearms. We purchase ammunition. We take training classes simply because we want to defend against the violence that's already there.
NARRATOR: It's not just African-Americans. The gun industry is reporting record sales nationwide.
- Normally, that is full.
NARRATOR: In Pennsylvania, firearms were flying off the shelves of Bob's Gun Shop in the last days before the US election. According to its owners, it's essentially driven by two factors. Some people fear a contested election could spark civil unrest, and some gun advocates worry that a Biden win could lead to tighter laws on purchases. The gun shop's owner is Bob McDowell.
BOB MCDOWELL: If you took everything that Obama did, everything that Clinton did and all the school shootings and combined them all, they would not equal what's going on right now in the firearms industry. That's how much greater this is this time. The demand for firearms and ammunition far eclipses those three incidents all put together.