Gun rights activists reach out at Black Women's Expo in Chicago

August 9, 12:06 PMChicago Gun Rights ExaminerDon Gwinn

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The Second Amendment Sisters/CORE/Illinois
Carry booth was pulling no punches with this
poster courtesy of Jews for the Preservation of
Firearms Ownership (You didn't think all Jewish
people were anti-gun political liberals, did
you?)

For more photos and images, be sure to check the slide show at the bottom of this article!

"You know you're wrong for that poster, right?" The lady asked, eyeing Representative Bobby Rush's face under the prominent words "I Sold Out to White Politicians . . . ." It didn't surprise Illinois Carry representative "Dr. G" that she took offense; the poster is obviously meant to be too provocative to ignore. What's surprising, he says, is the number of people at a Chicago event who made a point of signing his petition for concealed carry reform. He wasn't at a gun show or a gun-rights rally, after all.  For only the second year, Illinois gun rights groups including the ISRA, Illinois Carry, and the Second Amendment Sisters, joined by civil rights group CORE Chicago, had purchased space at the Black Women's Expo in Chicago.

Sean Horton, The Militant Marksman, pictured with an
Authorized Journalist at the ISRA booth.

The four pro-gun groups, spread across two information booths, displayed artwork from Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership and posters created by Oleg Volk, played the JPFO's documentary "No Guns for Negroes" and passed out FOID card applications to passersby. But what did the crowd at a non-gun-related gathering in Chicago think of all this?

Sean Horton, The Militant Marksman, estmated that " . . . .the vast majority, 95% support CCW." Horton says he only encountered one person who expressed anti-gun sentiment all weekend: a man who said he was a police officer from Ohio asked whether the ISRA wanted to "put more guns on the street." But even he felt compelled to admit that Ohio, which passed its own CCW statute in 2004, hasn't experienced the "problems" he predicted at the time.

Anti-gun activists consider Chicago a stronghold. It's supposed to be their base of operations, the place where they can raise money, agitate the public to demand their anti-gun agenda, and rely on ignorance to keep everyone in line while they do it.  "Dr. G" noted the effect a few key pieces of information could have: "Many people (maybe 50%) were shocked to find out that the police are not responsible for their individual safety, and that Illinois and Wisconsin were the only two states in the country without concealed carry laws in place."  To pro-gun activists reading this article, that might sound like two trite soundbites everyone has heard a million times, but in Chicago, that's not the case. By bringing this information to people who would never have thought of attending a gun show or an IGOLD rally, these volunteers are putting down grass roots through Chicago pavement.

• Pro-Gun Activism at the Black Women's Expo
• Watch No Guns For Negroes, the new documentary from Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership
• Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea has a link to a survey of Chicago-area lawyers from 50 years ago that you'll have to read for yourself to believe: "Legal ignorance of Second Amendment not new"