By Chad King, President, & Kofi Kenyatta, Vice President, of the Black Bottom Gun Club (NAAGA Detroit Chapter) and Midwest Regional Director of NAAGA

You have the right to own a firearm. It is a privilege if you have children in your life – whether as a parent, aunt, uncle, or other.

The exercising of rights and privileges don’t exist in a vacuum; they come with responsibilities. The privilege of being an adult with children in your life means that you have the responsibility of ensuring that those children are safe and don’t have to recover from their childhood. The right to keep and bear arms comes with the responsibility to ensure that you are trained to be efficient with your firearm and to make sure that your firearm is inaccessible to unauthorized persons, especially children. In Detroit, we believe that the overwhelming majority of those who own firearms do so responsibly. We believe this to also be true for parents in Detroit who own guns. Unfortunately, we are seeing a confluence of two key problems; lack of faith in the public safety apparatus and poverty (Detroit is the #2 most impoverished big city in the US). The result is a tragedy that no one wants to experience – negligent discharges where children harm or fatally injure themselves or their peers.

Back in March of this year, a three year old and a 13 year old were shot when they found unsecured firearms. On June 22nd, a 12 year old boy was killed when the boy, his twin, and their 13 year old cousin found an unsecured firearm in the home. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated this unholy phenomenon – with children being at home from school – but this isn’t a new problem in Detroit. Between 2017 – when the Black Bottom Gun Club was chartered to the first half of 2021, there have been 19 instances where a minor found an unsecured firearm and shot themselves or someone else, resulting in injury or death. Empirically, this is a relatively low number compared to the amount of gun owners in Detroit, but we know that ANY harm to our children is inexcusable. It is heartbreaking and infuriating knowing that EVERY SINGLE ONE of these deaths and injuries were avoidable and preventable through education and training.

From the beginning, the Black Bottom Gun Club has upheld the importance of training, education, and community service. Dr. Cornel West is quoted as saying, “You can’t LEAD the people if you don’t LOVE the people; you can’t SAVE the people if you don’t SERVE the people.” Each member of our club takes the role of servant leadership seriously and with the utmost sincerity. As a community of people who own guns and enjoy exercising this right that our ancestors were denied, we truly believe that we must have a vested interest in preventing negligent discharges and accidental shootings. We must do this by being examples and ambassadors for those around us.

The club manager, Jessica Kelley, felt that it had gotten to a point where we needed to go directly to the people and deliver gun locks and vital safety education. It is truly a boots on the ground, grassroots effort to save lives. Recently, the Community Service Committee, led by club vice-president, Kofi Kenyatta, and outreach coordinator Derek Binford were in the Greenfield and Joy Road neighborhood of Detroit passing out gun locks and safety information to anyone they could find anywhere they could be found – grocery stores, laundromats, nail and hair salons, gas stations, liquor stores, bars, even in the intersections at red lights. We did the same during the Juneteenth celebration on Livernois, the Historic Avenue of Fashion. Since March, we have passed out more than 1,000 locks and brochures. More importantly, we had the opportunity to connect with thousands of Detroiters and engage with them on the topic of firearm safety while raising awareness around the issue of negligent discharges and unintentional shootings in our community.

Black Bottom Gun Club became an organizing partner with Project ChildSafe in 2019, after the National African American Gun Association was able to acquire locks via a grant. Since then, we’ve distributed thousands of locks anywhere our members find ourselves – gun shows, health fairs, community celebrations, or anywhere else where we could be in contact with folks and let them know about the importance of securing their firearms. We created a free firearm safety and legal seminar that approaches firearm safety as a responsibility of the individual, the family, and the community. We’ve developed the three phase Paradise Valley Youth Safety Initiative that explores the Black Tradition of Arms, along with conflict mitigation and firearm safety. Most recently, we’ve partnered with Apex Defense Solutions, Firearm Legal Protection, Uncoiled Firearms, and A-Zone Hits to create the Safe and Secure Project where we taught firearm safety and gave a shooting lesson to 60 children in May.

Maliq Hicks, the founder and operator of A-Zone Hits and BBGC member says that his motivation for being involved with the Safe and Secure Project is to, “stop this subject (of guns and gun safety) from being taboo. Guns are one of those controversial topics that make some people uncomfortable. However, could that be a factor as to why children are getting ahold of them? The lack of knowledge negatively impacts our safety, and more importantly, our children’s safety. The Safe and Secure Project was created to bridge the gap between families and firearms safety”.

Similarly, Spencer Johnson of Firearms Legal Protection (also a BBGC member) says, ”We started this project to ensure the safety of children and to help educate the parents as well. We hope to eliminate the harm that is happening to children. Our mission is to make sure that children are safe at home, and parents are equipped with the education necessary to store their firearms securely in their households.”

Another Black Bottom Gun Club member, Kevin Jordan who owns the Heavy Metal Life brand, co-created Erica’s Big Day, a children’s book that teaches about firearm safety.

“The main motivation behind the book is to teach kids how to handle and navigate their way around unsecured firearms in their environment. Teaching adults about firearms safety isn’t enough. Kids need to learn about firearms safety also. Wherever there is a parent CPL holder or other adult CPL holder, there will likely be a kid around that person or around their gun,” says Jordan.

The question remains, however, if these efforts are enough. Every time a child is harmed or killed as a result of finding an unsecured firearm, we question ourselves and our work. We think about the times where we didn’t or weren’t able to connect with a parent. But what if YOU connected with that parent, aunt, uncle, or grandparent? YOU might be able to reach people in your sphere of influence that a gun club might not be able to. YOU can SAVE people in your community by SERVING them, and being the servant leader who becomes educated and knowledgeable about firearms safety, and acting as a force multiplier. Further, H.R. 4136 is a bipartisan proposal introduced in Congress that would provide funding to purchase and distribute locking devices; everyone should support and encourage your Congressional representatives to cosponsor this legislation. The truth is that the effort of one person or one club will never be enough on its own, but the efforts of MANY people and MANY clubs are the only way to make an impact.

You can contact Chad King and the Detroit chapter of NAAGA at blackbottomgunclub.com