Murder is big business in Philadelphia. Last year, 280 corpses went to the morgue, as murder and non-negligent manslaughter. Law enforcement struggles to contain ethnically-based crime syndicates: an Italian-American crime family, an Irish mob (the K&A Gang), a Jewish mafia, a Greek mob, a Russian mob, the Kielbasa Posse (Polish), the Jamaican Posse, the black mafia, the Latin Kings, the Warlocks Motorcycle Club, the Pagans Motorcycle Club and Sex/Money/Murda.It’s a mess, but one man is trying to make a difference… in the most unusual way. His name is Maj Toure and he is 30 years old. Maj has organized a movement called Black Guns Matter. It isn’t affiliated with Black Lives Matter.
“The government works for the people,” says Maj Toure. “We do not work for them. I think we have to get back to that. You don’t tell us what to do. We tell you what to do. We’re your constituents. We’re your base. We’re the people that elect you into office and if you can’t follow through with what we’re doing, you got to go.” Maj has founded Black Guns Matter and is taking his message to inner city communities to promote gun education, ownership and concealed carry.
Maj is a gun owner and NRA member and he wants to replace gun regulations, gun buybacks and anti-gun rhetoric with firearms training, education and concealed carry permits. In short, he’s our kind of man. With no outside support, Maj has taken his beliefs on a 13-city inner-city tour, complete with free firearms training by certified instructors.
And what does he believe? That the right to keep and bear arms is fundamental to American citizenship.
“Charlton Heston said it — you basically got to pry this out of my cold, dead hand. I’m not going down that way because we are citizens, Americans,” Toure says, bluntly. “We have the right to exercise the 2nd Amendment and anyone that’s trying to infringe on that is not only in violation of the Constitution, but they’re also just a dick.”
Maj believes there is a deliberate attempt to mislead people “in the hood,” a deliberate effort to prevent them from owning guns. The preaching and political rhetoric that correlate increased regulation with increased safety is nothing more than political bait and switch.
“Gun control is a sham. It’s not about gun control. It’s about people control,” he said. “It’s about trying to convince people that somehow the government is going to be responsible for your safety. That’s the equivalent of saying, ‘Hey, we have fires. Take all of the fire extinguishers out of your home because if there’s a fire, the firemen will just come.’ No, we’re not doing it.”
Do you like this guy, yet? I do.
The well-publicized “gun buybacks” that politicians love are a sham, Maj says: “Gun buybacks just help the community feel a little bit safer but that doesn’t help. Feeling and facts are two different things.”
What does help, he says, is education and information.
“What we’re doing at Black Guns Matter is going into the grimiest places. I’m from North Philly which is always in the top whatever for murder. Going into those neighborhoods and saying, ‘Hey, single mother of three that gets off at four in the morning, this is how you secure a firearm safely so you can still feel safe in your home and at the same time one of your children that’s five years old doesn’t get a hold of that firearm and harm themselves.’”
Toure believes, “Everybody in the hood should have a firearm because they’re citizens and that’s their 2nd Amendment right. They’re not prohibited people; they go to work every day.”
Toure understands the illegal segment of the gun owning population too, and the risk they take for their own version of the 2nd Amendment. He holds them up to be among the safest in the gun community out of a need for self-preservation. He equates them to those who drive without a license.
“They’re running a risk every time they get in their car just to feed their family, just to pay bills. They are the safest drivers that I know,” he says. “They stop at every stop sign. They stop at every red light. They are 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock, looking left, right, left. That’s because they’ve trained themselves to be safer because they’re notthe bad guy. I think that when you create something that’s illegal and just based on what you think it should be as opposed to not factoring the peoples’ needs and responses, of course they’re going to be the bad guys in your eyes because they are technically doing something illegal.”
Learn more about Maj Toure on Facebook.com and in several online interviews. “Education, information and proper training are what help. Ignoring it, trying to put the guns away, acting like this isn’t the case, pretending like this isn’t a serious issue, none of that shit helps. None of it helps. What we’re doing is what’s helping.”
— Rick Sapp
