Hey, Geoff,

There is another issue, mostly statistical (although also somewhat cultural) in compiling the numbers. There is a relatively statistically high incidence of gang involvement among black, inner-city yoots – and I’m fairly certain they don’t show up in any official statistics of “black gun ownership rates”. Also, I think there is a certain cachet among gangbangers to NOT have a legal gat, so they can (i) be more immune from police seizures, and (ii) probably most gangbangers would be “prohibited purchasers”, for one reason or another. The cultural thing probably does have an impact, as well.

This reminds us that you really can’t pigeonhole academics by race. See, e.g., Thomas Sowell, John McWhorter.

One of my favorite undergrad professors (John Sibley Butler) was the *fourth* generation in his family to teach at a university. He was also one of the first to integrate LSU in the sixties . . . where his roommate was David Duke (whom he has publicly debated many times since). Did a tour in ‘Nam (as a LRRP squaddie) after he graduated, then got his PhD in sociology (data driven), with a specialty on military race relations, and also applied his hard science approach to business (and made a fortune in the process).

He was brought in as a guest to my freshman Plan II (UT lib arts honors program) seminar, where I was blown away with his DATA-DATA-DATA approach to hot-button race issues. Took as many classes as I could from him. Decades later, he brought me in to guest lecture to *his* business classes.

“Q: Is firearm ownership lower among blacks than whites?

A: “It is, though it’s hard to say why. There is no general firearm registry, thank goodness, so we don’t really have a full picture. The black population is more urban than the white population.”

I suspect the reason is largely cultural. Look how black gun ownership is seen in the media, as mostly a gang violence thing. There may be blacks would very much like to own guns, but their own friends and families may try to pressure them not to, sad to say…