Exploiting the increase in hate crimes against AANHPI communities during the COVID-19 pandemic, the gun industry is targeting those communities as potential new gun buyers and future pro-gun advocates, according to a 2021 study from the Violence Policy Center (VPC).
This ominous gun-buying trend could lead to a rise in suicides in AANHPI communities, a leading cause of death among that group, especially among young adults.
“Much like the tobacco industry’s search for replacement smokers, the firearms industry is seeking replacement shooters," says Josh Sugarmann, Executive Director, Violence Policy Center. "The targeting of Asian Americans is just the latest example of how gunmakers will cynically exploit any tragedy to fatten their bottom line, regardless of the lethal real-world impact of their actions.”
The firearms industry and gun lobby are currently targeting minority communities in their marketing in response to long-term stagnation in the traditional gun market of white men.
An April study from the Annals of Internal Medicine, which surveyed more than half a million Californians, found that people who live with handgun owners are shot to death at a higher rate than those who live in gun-free homes. Women made up 84% of victims.
Data on firearm use by AANHPI is limited, as the group, even though they make up about 7% of the US population. However, AANHPI communities have historically had low gun ownership rates.
What is alarming though, is what the rise in gun ownership might mean to AANHPI communities, which have a high rate of suicide, especially among young adults. It would be like pouring gasoline on a fire.
It is safe to assume that the additional pressures caused by the pandemic and the epidemic of anti-Asian hate from March 2020 when the pandemic was declared to the present day has only added to the stress.
Although there is no hard data to support the increase in gun purchases by AANHPI, there is anecdotal evidence that this trend is real.
Time magazine reports that at Jimmy’s Sportshop in Mineola, N.Y., where guns and pepper spray have been flying off the shelves since the pandemic, gun purchases by Asian buyers have surged 100% due to recent fears of attacks, according to Jimmy Gong and Jay Zeng, the shop’s Chinese American owners.
Al Allen, owner of Double Action Indoor Shooting Center and Gun Shop in Madison Heights, near Detroit, told Detroit News he's forced to shut down his store for two hours each afternoon to restock — "and the merchandise is going out as fast as we can bring it in," he said.
Allen said more Asians are buying guns from his shop than at any time in the 30 years he's been in business. "I'd say right now, Asians are about 35% of our customer base, and it's usually maybe around 8%," Allen said.
Today, youth firearm suicide has reached its highest rate in more than 20 years. As students continue to navigate changes in school learning environments — a result of the ongoing challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic — there is concern that the anxiety and loneliness already felt by many young people will continue to increase. This comes at the same time as an unprecedented surge in gun sales in the US, raising concern about the already growing rates of firearm suicide.
The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted the lives of teens and young adults well beyond the direct impacts of the illness itself. Experts are concerned that social isolation, along with fear surrounding the virus, can increase feelings of anxiety and loneliness,4 two factors that elevate the risk of suicide for people of all ages, according to Everytown, a gun-control advocacy group.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey (ABES) collected during the first half of 2021 found that one in five high school students seriously contemplated suicide and nearly one in 10 attempted suicide in the past year. Another recent CDC study uncovered a disturbing rise in the rate of ER visits for suspected suicide attempts among young people ages 12 to 25 during periods of the first year of the pandemic.
Students and families have had to adjust to a new normal as campuses resume in-person learning in the midst of this pandemic.
But the gun industry has not shown any indication of abandoning their marketing strategy of selling guns to AANHPI communities.
The gun industry frequently focuses on the self-defense use of firearms, a surefire draw for those AANHPI who have lost faith on the courts or law enforcement to protect them. The VPC study rebuts these false claims, citing unpublished FBI data showing that in 2019 alone, across the US, AANHPI committed only two firearm justifiable homicides and that, for the five-year period 2015 to 2019, AANHPI committed only 37 firearm justifiable homicides. During this same five-year period, 3,076 Asian/Pacific Islanders lost their lives in firearm homicides, suicides, fatal unintentional shootings, and other gun deaths: a ratio of 83 to one.
Using data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the study also reveals that in the decade from 1999 to 2019 more than 10,000 Asian/Pacific Islanders died from guns in the United States.
“Historically, Asian Americans have owned very few guns, which is precisely why we have experienced low rates of gun violence," says Gloria Pan, Vice President, MomsRising. "Safety through gun ownership is a myth that gun manufacturers peddle, and one Asian Americans must not succumb to because every credible study has shown that more gun ownership in a community only leads to more gun-related injury and death."
Not surprisingly, the firearms industry and its financial partners in the National Rifle Association never acknowledge the harm guns inflict on our nation, and on communities of color in particular.
The VPC study concludes: “For any American, regardless of race or ethnicity, bringing a gun into the home increases the risk of death or injury to the owner or a family member. If the marketing efforts targeting the AAPI community gain traction, the impact will be measured not only in dollars and cents in gunmakers’ coffers, but in increased death and injury among Asian Americans.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.
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