Neither the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) attack ads against Black activists nor its silence on police killings of Black gun owners pushed the Reverend Kenn Blanchard or Ainsley Reynolds to leave the organization. But both men told The Takeway that the NRA’s ongoing "good guy with a gun" narrative doesn’t often apply to Black gun owners. 

"My biggest nightmare is that, as a legal gun owner that happens to be Black, in the case that I have to use my firearm for self-defense or defense of others, and the police arrive, would I be the one that they thought was a threat and shoot me?" Reynolds told host Tanzina Vega yesterday (December 10). 

"It’s still risky being a Black man with a gun in 2018," Rev. Blanchard added. "Fear still kills. False expecatations appear real. We assume that Black guy that’s six-foot-five is a threat."

The two guests also discussed the Hoover, Alabama, police killing of Emantic Bradford Jr.—a Black man who police shot despite his attempts to help during an active shooting. Listen to the full episode of The Takeaway: