The CBSN Originals documentary called “The New Pro-Gun Generation”, which premiered at the end of October, has caused greater debates about the increase of guns’ purchase by Latino and black populations in the United States.

The founder of “Latino Rifle Association” (LRA), who is in the film, is just 23 years old and considers his group a politically progressive and left-wing organization. The Law student explains that he seeks to exercise his rights from the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which rules about the citizen’s right to ensure self-defense and the security of a free State by carrying firearms or any defense equipment.

Note that the association's website is open to all ethnic or racial groups “as long as its mission and rules are respected”. Since it was founded in 2020, the LRA has attracted several hundred members across the U.S.

Also, according to the young student, Latino and black communities in the country lost confidence in government officials and in police protection, especially after the mass shooting on August 3rd, 2019 in El Paso, by a white supremacist who intended to take these communities out of the country by exerting terror and fear.

A report published recently by “Everytown for Gun Safety”, a non-profit organization, considered that buying guns by civilians is not the solution. The report also states that mass shootings like the one in El Paso can be avoided by applying “evidence-based policy interventions”, which could revoke the right to carry firearms, for example, by those with a criminal or violent registry.

The documentary explains other reasons for the increase in purchase of guns by Latinos and blacks, as in the case of a bi-racial couple who live in the suburbs of Dallas and suffer the impacts from prejudice in their lives. They claim that with the election of Donald Trump in 2016 the sense of fear and helplessness has increased among these communities.

According to Adam Winkler, professor of Constitutional Law at UCLA, to CBS News, there was a “dramatic rise in the number of groups that support gun rights for LGBTQ people, blacks, and other left-leaning groups in recent years" although the number of these groups is still unimpressive today.

A 2017 Pew Research Center survey found that 36% of Whites said they personally own a gun, compared with 24% of blacks and 15% of Hispanics. But gun ownership has surged since then. “In 2020, of roughly 8.5 million first-time gun buyers, 40% were women, and purchases made by black Americans increased 56% compared to 2019.”

The New Coronavirus Pandemic was also a theme related to the increased purchase of firearms in the documentary in question. Also, according to Professor Winkler, “when your life gets turned upside down and you feel that the things that you rely on for security and safety just don't seem to be there anymore, there's more interest in purchasing a gun”.

An Army veteran and founder of the Elmer Geronimo Pratt Gun Club, an organization that advocates that black Americans exercise Second Amendment rights, said that following the assassination of George Floyd, which mobilized scores of people around the world, “being armed 'evens the playing field'”. He even completed his speech by saying that "black Americans need to defend themselves" and "they can't count on the white government or the police force to really protect them."

“If they're killing people now and we have guns, imagine what would happen if we didn't have them. Our protection are firearms”.