Dismantling the stigma of guns

His ten students—eight men and two women, all African-Americans—were listening intently. They had gathered in a meeting room at a south-side social service center to learn about gun ownership and self-defense from Vernon, a veteran firearms instructor who was seated at the front of the room next to a table set with an array of revolvers and semiautomatic handguns from his collection.

The students didn’t appear to need any convincing. “I’m interested in protection,” explained Thomas Brandon, 57, when it was his turn to introduce himself. The others said they were there for the same reason.

Vernon, 57, has a full, round face that’s often locked in a look of earnest contemplation, even when he switches to a goofy, higher-pitched voice to make a humorous point. His movements are quick and strong from decades of martial arts, though he jokes about his ample midsection, and he’s walked with a limp and the assistance of a cane since a near-fatal car accident 15 years ago. He is polite and patient but will say exactly what he thinks.

“Over the last 20 years, I’ve been places I don’t think a lot of other black people have been,” he told the class. “I’ve spent a lot of time and a lot of money traveling the country and getting this training so I could bring it back to the community.”

He added: “Most of what Americans know about guns they learned from TV and the movies, and 99 percent of it is wrong.” 

Interest in gun ownership has been growing across the country. The FBI conducted more than 21 million background checks of potential gun buyers in 2013, the most since the system was put into place in 1998. In Illinois 1.7 million people currently have firearm owner identification cards issued by the state police, including more than 150,000 in Chicago, up 30 percent since 2011.

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