Chicago Residents Learn to Protect Themselves

As of January 2014 Illinois residents finally were given their rights back, and are now flocking to concealed carry classes to learn more about how to safely carry a firearm. Gerald Vernon, a long time Second Amendment advocate and firearms instructor living in Chicago’s south side shared with his conceal-and-carry class what he considers the most fundamental:

“The only thing that stops bad people with guns is good people with guns.”

His ten students—eight men and two women, all African-Americans—were listening intently. They had gathered in a meeting room at a south-side social service center to learn about gun ownership and self-defense from Vernon, a veteran firearms instructor who was seated at the front of the room next to a table set with an array of revolvers and semiautomatic handguns from his collection.

The students didn’t appear to need any convincing. “I’m interested in protection,” explained Thomas Brandon, 57, when it was his turn to introduce himself. The others said they were there for the same reason.

“Over the last 20 years, I’ve been places I don’t think a lot of other black people have been,” he told the class. “I’ve spent a lot of time and a lot of money traveling the country and getting this training so I could bring it back to the community.”