Contrary to what many believe, the gun rights movement isn't really about old white dudes. Sure, the media and the extreme left--but I repeat myself, I'm afraid--like to frame it that way, but it's not. There are a lot of people of all different ethnicities who value the right to keep and bear arms and are strong defenders of it. Through the years, I've seen and met with a number of people from every ethnic group you could care to name at gun rights events.

It's not just about white people.

But, not everyone gets that. What's more, there are people who simply don't agree with us on a great deal of things.

A recent report looked at Hispanic gun owners and their support for gun control. This isn't great, to say the least, but is it the problem we might think?

As the 2024 elections near, gun violence is surfacing as a pivotal issue for Latino voters across the United States. This growing demographic is caught in a complex dynamic: they overwhelmingly support gun control, driven by the disproportionate impact of gun violence on their communities, yet they are increasingly purchasing firearms as a means of self-defense.

This urgency is echoed by activists like Phillip Gomez, a Berkeley student who founded the Latino Rifle Association in response to the 2019 El Paso shooting. "Latinos had been the target of a horrific terrorist attack by a white nationalist, and I knew that many Latinos were going to start exploring the prospect of armed self-defense," Gomez said in Berkeley Law interview. Concerned that traditional gun culture, symbolized by the National Rifle Association, was toxic and unsafe, Gomez created the LRA as a progressive, community-oriented alternative.

"We aren't interested in integrating with mainstream gun culture — we want to be a complete alternative to it," he emphasized. Gomez's initiative reflects a broader trend within the Latino community, where concerns about safety coexist with a strong desire for responsible gun ownership and gun control.

Again, this isn't great, in part because these are clearly folks who don't get that they'll be supported by the anti-gun side right up until it's convenient to throw them under the bus. Near total gun bans are where gun control inevitably leads. There is no balance between those things.

Yet the question is, just how strong is this supposed support for gun control?

According to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey, 81% of Latino immigrants believe restricting gun ownership is more important than protecting gun rights. However, this number drops to 65% among U.S.-born Latinos. The urgency of the issue is underscored by the alarming rates of gun violence in Hispanic communities.

Data from the Center for American Progress reveals that Hispanics are twice as likely to die from gun violence as their white counterparts. The CDC reports that between 1999 and 2020, nearly 75,000 Hispanic individuals lost their lives to gun violence, with violent homicides accounting for 60% of these deaths. This disparity has only grown in recent years, with gun-related deaths among Hispanics rising by 66% from 2014 to 2020.

In states like Texas, where Latinos make up over 40% of the population, the issue is particularly pressing. Texas has experienced some of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history, many of which have directly impacted Latino communities. The 2019 El Paso Walmart shooting, where a gunman specifically targeted Hispanics, and the 2022 Uvalde school shooting, which claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers, most of whom were Hispanic, are stark reminders of the threats posed by gun violence.

OK, so let's take a step back and consider a few things.

First, the Pew study was two years ago. Opinions change over time, which means a two-year-old study is about as useful as a wet fart. It doesn't indicate much of anything about here and now.

Second, though, is that the study doesn't differentiate between immigrants who are citizens and those who aren't. It's under a heading for Latino voters, but there's no mention of actually asking if people were eligible to vote, which makes a big difference.

Yet let's look at Texas since they brought it up. 

Texas has one of the largest Hispanic populations in the nation. As noted, 40 percent of the population is Hispanic, which should suggest they have a strong influence on state politics. If they support gun control at such high levels, I have to ask, why isn't Texas anti-gun?

I get that 40 percent is still a minority, even if only barely, but there have got to be at least enough folks in the rest of the population to agree on the issue that the state would flip, right? And yet, there aren't.

Maybe because only about 37 percent of Hispanic immigrants are here legally in the first place. That includes those with green cards and student visas as well as actual citizens with the right to vote, so the total number of Hispanic voters is going to be less than that.

Elections are decided by voters, not bodies in a state, and that's probably why the claims being thrown around here aren't anything to worry too much about. Granted, at least some of those Hispanic bodies will be US-born voters, but we also see that support for gun control drops among that group. 

So what do we do about it?

First, we need to reach out. There are Hispanic voters that are being hidden behind those immigrants, many of whom are here illegally. We need to make sure they understand that these are their rights as well, and show them that every time anti-gunners get what they want in some place, they start wanting more and more until nothing is left. We need to show them that gun rights are the path to protection.

We need to treat them like any other gun owner who may not realize that their rights are in danger.

That's because they are.