Race and Gun Ownership

There are 13 million concealed carriers in the United States. About a third of American households have a gun in the home, according to 2014 data from the Pew Research Center. Of that gun owning population 41 percent are white, and half that number, just 19 percent black. So what is the experience of being a black gun owner in America today?

For two black men this week, things ended tragically. Alton B. Sterling was killed early Tuesday in Baton Rouge, Louisiana after two white police officers responded to a call about an armed man. He was pinned to the ground by police and tazed and shot multiple times.

And on Wednesday night, in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, Philando Castile was in the car with his girlfriend Diamond Reynolds and her daughter when they were pulled over for a broken taillight. Castile notified the officer that he had a firearm on him and was reaching for his license and registration when he was also shot, four times, and died on the scene. His girlfriend caught the entire aftermath on video.

Democratic Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton told reporters on Monday that he did not think a police officer would have shot a white driver for the same offense, a broken taillight.

Whether or not that is true, it appears that the common denominators in both cases were the presence of firearms, in the hands of the officers and in the possession of the civilians they were confronting, and the presence of fear.

Carol Anderson, professor of African American Studies at Emory University and author of "White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide" and she says this raises the question of whether a black man can even safely own a gun in a country that champions the second amendment right so heavily.