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Gun Laws Probably Won’t Change, And More Americans Than Ever Are Buying Guns

Today, fewer people trust the state to protect its citizens

Ryan Fan
7 min readJun 7, 2022
Photo by Frankie Lu on Unsplash

When I was training to be a teacher, I sat at a table with two other very interesting training teachers. One was a retired police officer. The other was an adjunct professor. The cop was white and single. The adjunct professor was Black, married, and a father of two.

The two of them engaged in a conversation where the adjunct professor talked about his need to protect his family and asked the cop what gun he should buy to protect them.

This was a conversation three years ago, but I remember it going something like this:

“You know, I have two daughters and a wife and as the man of the house, I need to protect them. But as a man of color, obviously I don’t want to be seen as a threat. What gun would you recommend for self-defense?”

There was an awkward 10 second pause. The ex-police officer stayed silent and nodded.

“Yeah, I’m pretty old-fashioned too. I’d recommend the Remington 870 shotgun.”

The two nodded before the session started.

Obviously, this was one of the more jarring conversations during my teaching program, and at a table of four…

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Ryan Fan
Ryan Fan

Written by Ryan Fan

Believer, Baltimore City IEP Chair, and 2:35 marathon runner. Diehard fan of “The Wire.”

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