Last year, I wrote a post about how Asian-Americans were buying guns. Their concern was anti-Asian hate crimes that seemed to be dominating social media. The mainstream media reported them as well but often dropped the story fairly quickly.

Yet people knew about these crimes and bought guns. It was prudent, to say the least.

A year later, we don’t hear nearly as much about these hate crimes, but it seems people of Asian descent are still arming themselves due to concerns over racism.

Asian-Americans in the United States are buying guns in record numbers to fend off violent, racist attacks, a new report has revealed.

In a report on Tuesday, British daily The Guardian recounted the experience of a number of Asian Americans, among many, in arming themselves to counter increasing racial attacks in the United States.

Figures show that more than five million people in the US became first-time owners during the COVID-19 pandemic as gun sales to the Asian Americans community soared by about 43 percent, according to the trade organization National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF).

Gun ownership rates soared to record heights as videos of anti-Asian violence began flooding social media and cable news.

“I realized I have to take ownership of how I want to live my life,” said Vivian Moon, 33, a real estate agent and artist who lives alone in Buena Park, a small California city outside Los Angeles.

Moon, who describes herself as a brave woman in case of attacks, became disillusioned with the police’s ability, and also willingness. Therefore, since early last year, when violent attacks against Asian women and seniors increased across the US, she has decided to protect people who looked like her.

I’d like to say I don’t question the police’s willingness to deal with racially-motivated attacks, but after Uvalde, it’s hard for me to really do so. I know most officers will do what they can, but I have to question just how many others won’t make a move unless forced to do so.

Regardless, Moon’s decision, while motivated by tragic concerns, is most definitely a wise one.

One’s race should never actually matter. We’re all humans and there’s no difference between us based on anything we can call “race.” I mean, there’s no single gene for race. It’s a combination of adaptive features that we lump together when we’re all just the human race.

So racism is dumb.

However, we have a lot of really stupid people out there who actually do make determinations based on those adaptive features, and Asian-Americans have been targeted simply for possessing those features. As such, getting a gun and getting training only makes sense.

It also means those who would target such folks will be in for a rude awakening. Enough such awakenings may well result in such hate crimes coming to an abrupt halt, which is a win for everyone.

Racism is dumb, but even dumb people can sometimes become enlightened enough to realize attacking armed folks is a losing proposition.