Meet America’s Newest Gun Owners: Black Women
When Javondlynn Dunagan started her business JMD Defense LLC a few years ago, she would never have imagined that the events of 2020 would be the boost that brought her more customers. The social unrest following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, the country’s toxic political culture and an uptick in car jackings and other violent crime in Chicago, however, caused many to flock into her concealed carry classes.
Dunagan, who is a licensed Illinois Concealed Carry Instructor, said her business increased 200 percent last year and the waiting time to get into her classes at one point was eight weeks.
Last year, the FBI conducted a record high 39.7 million firearm background checks according to statistics from the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NCIS), which checks for the criminal records of people who may be disqualified from receiving firearms.
The FBI reported a 40 percent surge in firearm background checks in 2020 over the previous record total of 28,369,750 in 2019. Much of this could have been in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the social unrest in the country.
The 3,937,066 firearm background checks conducted in December 2020 alone represent the largest monthly tally since the FBI started keeping track in 1998.
Black Americans saw the highest increase in new gun owners of any demographic, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), a firearm industry trade association. Gun ownership among Black Americans increased 58.2 percent, with a significant portion of that group being Black women.
After 25 years as a federal probation officer, Dunagan opened up her business, JMD Defense LLC. She also started a gun club, Ladies of Steel, so women could keep up their skills and learn proper firearm use with other women. Dunagan, a member of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, found that many Black women were feeling uncomfortable in what has traditionally been a male-dominated social circle.
The Ladies of Steel allows women to learn more about guns through monthly meetings and guest speakers, who touch on a range of topics, including those that are specific to female gun owners, such as the options for safely carrying your gun. Ladies of Steel began with seven ladies in April of 2017. It now has 344 members.
“I got over my fear of guns in about a week, so I can relate to what many of my first-time students are going through,” Dunagan said. “I don’t think just going through a concealed carry class is enough. If you really want to be proficient with your weapon, you have to practice, and you have to learn when not to shoot, what the rules are in any given state and all the other things that come with being a responsible gun owner.”
Dunagan and others said they have seen such a shift in the Black community’s relationship with firearms over the past year, given the climate in the country. Dunagan said especially in Chicago, which has historically made firearm ownership difficult, Black citizens have had to deal with the deluge of bad press about firearms. This bad press is accompanied by politicians and community leaders like Father Michael Pfleger, who regularly host gun turn-in events.
“I’ve seen an exponential increase in my business as of June 1, 2020; the day after all of the looting took place in Chicago because of the George Floyd murder,” Dunagan said. “Black folks vilified guns. The pastors and politicians helped push a false narrative with their incorrect information, when the truth is the good people need to have guns. When the pandemic hit, we were buying toilet tissue while the white people were buying guns and bullets. But when the looters hit Chicago, I went from having 10 to 14 people in a class, to being booked up two months in advance.”
One of those new shooters is Melva Ansah. She had been thinking of purchasing a gun for several years. She received her FOID card back in 2017 but never did anything with it. Being a single woman and homeowner on the South Side, she said the looting that took place last year scared her into action.
“I didn’t want to purchase without knowing what I was doing,” said Ansah, who took Dunagan’s ‘Intro To Firearms course.’ “Coming to the range with Ladies of Steel… I learned so much. Understanding that you must protect yourself, your family or even your block, was such an eye-opening experience for me. I mean we have all seen in the movies where the gangster is holding the gun to the side and shooting because it looks so cool. But then when people do this in real life, you see why they are shooting up the whole block and injuring innocent people because that’s not the proper way to hold a gun when shooting.”
Ansah said by being in the group she learned that other women were learning about guns for the same reasons she was. But she also questioned the motives of Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the City Council for the city’s anti-gun policies.
“It’s concerning that the city of Chicago still won’t allow a gun range within city limits,” Ansah said. “It discourages proper firearm usage. I don’t understand what their goal is. With the violence that plagues the city of Chicago, I don’t understand what would be wrong with responsible people learning how to use a firearm to protect their neighborhood and family. We are clearly outnumbered. I don’t understand how city leaders can’t understand this, especially when they see the police are overwhelmed.”
Nicole Kimmons from Oak Lawn is an old shooter who is learning new tricks. She had not shot a gun in nearly 20 years, in her previous job when she was a security guard with Brinks. She said back then, they were issued six-shot, .38-caliber revolvers. She took Dunagan’s class so she could learn how to use the modern semi-automatic handgun, which is the standard for self-defense.
“I pray that I never have to pull a gun or use it on anyone, but they [criminals] are targeting people now, especially women,” Kimmons said. “I mean you are out on the streets with your kids or trying to put groceries in your car, and you have to be worried about someone carjacking you, kidnapping you or just trying to hurt you in general. I also wanted to learn a lot about the gun laws here in Illinois, because that is very important.”
A former CTA bus driver, who herself was attacked on a bus, Kimmons said she knows more Black women taking firearm classes today than she ever has before. She said it is the talk in beauty salons and other places women frequent.
Dunagan said with so many new students, it brings different challenges. She said so many people don’t realize the financial lifestyle changes that being a legal gun owner bring. In addition to buying the gun and bullets, she said new gun owners also have to invest time and money at the range, purchase insurance, maintain the firearm itself and change some of their habits, like not consuming alcohol when out at dinner and carrying your firearm.
“One of the funniest lifestyle changes for some of my students is trimming their fingernails,” she said with a laugh. “Having long fingernails doesn’t really go with being a firearm owner because you have to get your finger inside that trigger guard during a hostile situation.”
She also encourages her students to try out different firearms before making a purchase. She said you can’t trust the salesperson at the store, because they are just trying to get guns off the shelves. But it is not just the salesperson women have to worry about getting bad information from. Dunagan said many of her students listen to what a male friend tells them and that could be a problem.
“I’ve heard so much bad advice given to women of color about gun purchasing from men that I could write a book about it,” she said. “There is no ‘one size fits all’ gun. You should buy the gun that you can afford, handle with the best accuracy, and one that can get the job done for any situation you might find yourself in. People get caught up on name brands and calibers. I really don’t like it when some men think that a woman cannot handle a weapon like a 9mm or .40 caliber and want to arm them with a little ‘Saturday Night Special’ [.22 caliber]. That bullet isn’t going to immediately stop a threat, so why would you want to carry that? I advise all of my students to try as many different types of guns as they can before making a purchase, because what is right for me, might not be right for you.”
Dunagan said the most important part of what she teaches, though, are the gun laws and how to properly carry your weapon. She said so many people are uninformed and base their beliefs off of what they see on TV. She said the biggest mistake she sees with women are those who are carrying a firearm in their purse and not having a proper holster for their clothing choice that day.
“I always ask them why they would carry their gun in their purse and not on their person. If your purse gets stolen, there goes your gun, too, so you can no longer protect yourself,” Dunagan said. “That’s one of the hardest things I have to convince women not to do. Plus, you also have children going in your purse, and there is lipstick that can get inside the trigger guard of the gun and cause the gun to go off.
I just told some ladies today not to keep their gun in these bra holsters they sell as well. It’s cute and all, but it is not functional and it is not safe.”
Dunagan does not see the trend of Black people becoming legal gun owners slowing down anytime soon. The events of January 6, when thousands of violent seditionists stormed the U.S. Capitol and were being treated with kid gloves by law enforcement, only increased anxiety for many Blacks. Others are just tired of being victims lying in wait for community terrorists, some as young as 10, to commit violent acts.
With a downstate judge last month ruling the State’s F.O.I.D. card unconstitutional, Dunagan and others believe Illinois’ gun laws are on the verge of changing, which is something many 2nd Amendment advocates have been waiting to occur for a long time.
With those changes, the paradigm of gun owner demographics will change as well.
Next week, in part two of our series, the Crusader will examine stories of Black people who were injured, wrongfully jailed or killed while exercising their Constitutional Right to carry a firearm.
The 3-Part Series “Carrying While Black” chronicles one of the areas in Black lives impacted during the COVID-19 pandemic. This series was made possible by a grant from The Field Foundation of Illinois, Inc.
