The spectacle of Jim Cooley walking around Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport with a loaded AR-15 has prompted a strong reaction among African-Americans.
The FBI confirmed that Cooley was within his legal rights to stroll through parts of the airport with a semi-automatic assault rifle, and he is gaining hero status among NRA members.
But Cooley is white. What if he weren’t?
“If a brown Muslim man had legally walked into an airport with a loaded machine gun to simply ‘exercise’ his Second Amendment rights, he would probably have been immediately thrown to the ground, arrested on the spot, labeled in the media as a ‘terrorist’ and nobody in America would have given it a second thought,” said Arsalan Iftikhar, a human rights lawyer and senior editor for The Islamic Monthly magazine.
For his part, Cooley said late Wednesday that he was “disgusted” that what he did has turned into a race issue.
“I will bring you a black man who carries just like I do,” Cooley said. “We’ll go in the airport together. Why? Because he is not black and I’m not white, we’re just right. That’s constitutional right.”
Kenn Blanchard, a Maryland-based gun advocate, known nationally as “Black Man With a Gun,” said he would not take Cooley up on his challenge because there is a national double-standard when it comes to guns.
“No. I would not take that risk,” Blanchard said. “I don’t want to be a statistic to prove a point at the risk of being shot.”
With changing gun laws, an enhanced focus on anti-terrorism and a recent string of black males — many unarmed — being shot by police officers, Cooley’s actions raise ethical and cultural issues.
YouTube is filled with videos of Second Amendment defenders testing their rights.
Walking down busy streets with heavy artillery.
Trying to get into restaurants.
Proving their point.
But the media is also filled with images of unarmed black men getting shot. And of black gun advocates getting harassed by law enforcement in ways that their white counterparts are not.
But what about the video taken Aug. 5, 2014, at a Wal-Mart outside Dayton, Ohio?
John Crawford III, a 22-year-old black man, was shot and killed by police after they received a 911 call that he was walking around the store with a weapon.
Police initially said they shot Crawford after he ignored repeated demands that he drop the rifle. But the video suggests that they shot him as soon as they encountered him. The gun that Crawford was allegedly wielding was a toy that he had picked up off a Wal-Mart shelf.
In July 2013 in Florida, Jermaine McBean, a 33-year-old computer-networking engineer, was shot and killed by a Broward County deputy sheriff as he walked through his apartment complex with an unloaded air rifle across his shoulders. Last month, a federal wrongful death suit was filed by McBean’s family accusing the officer of tampering with evidence and obstructing justice.
On Tuesday, according to the police narrative on the recent airport incident, Cooley, being followed by police officers to his car, stopped at least three times, leading police to believe that Cooley was “attempting to elicit a confrontation” and “insistent on trying to record officers, debating and trying to goad us into making statements on camera.”
“The man then asked me and other officers present why was he being followed and harassed? I advised him he was not being harassed, that he approached officers asking for questions, no one was asking him any further questions at this time, nor was he being detained or prevented from leaving.”
On Wednesday, Cooley told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he stopped several times to rest, not challenge the cops.
“Because my legs wouldn’t let me go all the way at one time,” Cooley said. “I have six stents in me already. I have three in my heart and three in my legs. So the Atlanta police know nothing about my physical capabilities and why I stopped. … They shouldn’t even have been following us.”
On ajc.com, the reactions in the comments section of the original story were notably mixed:
DB2013: Actually a black man and Arab man should do the exact same thing and let's see how the story plays out.
“African-Americans in particular are pretty much enjoying their rights to bear arms. It is exploding,” said Blanchard, adding that blacks are joining and starting gun clubs as well. “I have seen more than I have ever seen in my 25 years of being a gun rights activist.”
But Blanchard acknowledges that perception is not fact and that gun laws are often “most restrictive and racist in cities with large African-American populations.”
“We still have the right to carry, but the perception is still 500 years behind,” Blanchard said. “There are still people afraid of a black man with a gun.”
About the Author
