Michael Render writes, “Following [Ahmaud] Arbery’s death, I issued a statement urging Black people and people of color to take seriously their Second Amendment rights. I was urging people who look like me to take seriously shooting, training, and the protection of our rights. I put this statement out because the police cannot always get to you on time, and the world is not a just place. I also released these remarks because we cannot assume that everyone who wears a police uniform is just and fair.” He adds, “The last thing that any of us need is more laws that will criminalize us.”
Render recommends a couple of books: This Nonviolent Stuff′ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible, by Charles E. Cobb Jr.; and Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence, by Kellie Carter Jackson.