DENVER — For several weeks in January and February, a quiet gallery at the Colorado Photographic Arts Center (CPAC) displayed images of everyday people showing off their firearms.
“Armed Doesn’t Mean Dangerous” features Black gun owners, something Christian K. Lee, the Chicago-based artist behind the work, said is rare.
“I never saw anybody in my hometown with a firearm in a positive way,” Lee said. “My father, who was a Chicago area police officer, I just knew that he couldn't be the only person who was legally carrying a firearm. It had to be someone's grandmother on the block that was just trying to defend their home against drug dealers and gang bangers. I knew that existed, and those are the type of images that I was seeking to create.”
According to the Pew Research Center, a June 2023 survey showed about four in 10 U.S. adults say they live in a household with a gun, including 32% who say they personally own one. Thirty-eight percent of white Americans own a gun, compared with smaller shares of Black (24%), Hispanic (20%) and Asian (10%) Americans, according to the center.
"Armed Doesn't Mean Dangerous" features images of Black women, men, couples, and families, all with their firearms by their sides. Lee said many of these gun owners feel excluded from widely shared positive images and conversations involving the Second Amendment.
“I think the narrative has been whatever Hollywood has portrayed, such as gang culture, you know, these stories that have kind of these tokenized characters. And they're not always characters that are the hero,” said Anubis Heru, owner of 1770 Solutions, a gun safety and training organization. “We opened up our business right at the beginning of COVID, and then from there, we were able to train hundreds and hundreds of people in firearm safety and self-protection.”
Heru noticed a surge in women of color purchasing firearms and needing self-defense training when 1770 Solutions opened in 2020. Heru said the name of the organization is rooted in American history.
“1770 is the year of the Boston Massacre. So a gentleman by the name of Crispus Attucks, along with five other individuals, were involved in a clash with the British redcoats. At that particular time, there were a lot of tensions going on, and the red coats were not paid very well, so they were taking the jobs of the locals and not treating them very well. So with everything going on politically at that time, it was only a matter of time before there was an incident of violence,” Heru said. “And unfortunately, Crispus Attucks, a Black man who freed himself from slavery, became a sailor and was also a rope maker in very large stature at that time. He was involved in the incident, and he lost his life. But that particular incident was, I believe, a catalyst to the American Revolution.”
From the Revolutionary War to the Civil War, access to guns was limited, but Black gun ownership was very much alive, according to Heru.
“Bass Reeveswas enslaved, and his owner, George Reeves, during the Civil War, he followed George around and was his bodyguard. He taught Bass how to shoot rifles and a revolver, as well. Bass was so good at shooting that he was banned from annual turkey shoots. He was banned from any competitions, he was that good. Later on, once he freed himself from slavery, he became a U.S. marshal in Oklahoma and brought over 3,000 outlaws to justice, single handedly,” Heru said. “Also, too, during the Civil War, you had the 54th Massachusetts and the1st Kansas. These were all Black regiments that served in the Civil War. I'll submit to you that because of the hundreds of thousands of Black men that signed up to fight in the Civil War, that is one of the reasons — one of the major reasons — why the North won. “
Heru said Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. applied for agun permit in 1956 but was denied. He later devoted his life to non-violence.
“Dr. King, who, his methods and his political views were nonviolent, but he understood that self-protection was extremely important,” Heru said. “There's that famous image of Malcolm X holding the rifle outside of his window to protect his family… we have the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, right? People just call it the Black Panther Party, but it's the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.”
Heru said 1770 Solutions is focused on self-defense through responsible gun ownership.
“One of the things that we try to do with our organization, 1770, is to show that, hey, this is not a bunch of guys that are, you know, just out here shooting guns on January 1st or Fourth of July. No, we emphasize responsible gun ownership,” Heru said. “Historically, there have been some negative things that have taken place in this country perpetuated against Black Americans. Black Americans having a physical means to defend themselves could potentially, in the mind of some people, say, ‘Hey, if they have access to weapons and firearms and all these different things, they could potentially retaliate and do something egregious, right?’ It's actually the furthest thing from our minds.”
Lee said he could feel invisible barriers to gun ownership stemming from stereotypes until he joined the military.
“I was thinking about the idea, like, ‘Wow, the United States said that I'm a soldier now, and now, you know what, I have the confidence to go actually go buy a firearm, or I feel like I probably won't be judged as much,'” Lee said. “I'm very excited that the work, to some degree, has become like a sociological project. So I'm excited that it can help and challenge people in that way.”
Lee's exhibit at the CPAC ended on Feb. 22, but the center’s Photography Denver Festival runs from March 1 through March 31. The festival includes the History Reimagined exhibit, which aims to “confront biases in AI algorithms, reimagine historical narratives, and question the boundaries between reality and fiction.”
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