President Barack Obama may be the greatest gun salesman in American history—and, as with most things in American culture and politics, the root cause is race. But an unnoticed related phenomenon is that white flight is now operating on an interstate level—and gun manufacturers are leading the way.

The FBI reported a record number of background checks for gun sales in 2013. [Obama backfires, gun sales in 2013 smash all records, By Emily Miller, Washington Times, January 6, 2014] The previous record was in 2012… which broke the record of 2011, and so forth back to the year of Obama’s election.

One of the few rights that Americans seem to have successfully defended is the ability to own a firearm. The Main Stream Media occasionally pushes gun control after some spectacular gun crime committed by a white shooter. But the real pattern of gun violence in this country can be seen in cities like Baltimore, Philadelphia, St. Louis, New York City, Memphis, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Washington D.C. These cities, not surprisingly, already have strict gun control policies—and they have nothing to do with white people or Republicans.

Each year the anti-gun Violence Policy Center (VPC) puts out its Black Homicide Victimization in the United States study. [PDF] Each year the conclusion is the same:

Blacks in the United States are disproportionately affected by homicide. For the year 2011, blacks represented 13 percent of the nation’s population, yet accounted for 50 percent of all homicide victims. The devastation homicide inflicts on black teens and adults is a national crisis that should be a top priority for policymakers to address. An important part of ending our gun violence epidemic will involve reducing homicides in the African-American community. For blacks, like all victims of homicide, guns—usually handguns—are far and away the number-one murder tool. Successful efforts to reduce America’s black homicide toll, like America’s homicide toll as a whole, must put a focus on reducing access and exposure to firearms.

Any mention of the black face of America’s gun crime sends even the most militant NRA-member running for the hills. MSM Journalists also do their best to ignore the obvious when writing navel-gazing stories about gun violence. For example:

Among cities with at least 100,000 residents, Birmingham ranked No. 9 last year, according to the FBI data. That is higher even than Chicago, a city that has gained a great deal of attention as a place with an out-of-control murder problem. Alabama’s other large cities – Montgomery, Mobile and Huntsville – ranked 30, 38 and 85. Only Huntsville’s rate was in the bottom half of the country’s big cities… James Alan Fox, [Email him] a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston, said the most murderous cities and states tend to have higher concentrations of black residents, who on average are six times more likely to be involved in murders. “There are certainly patterns there,” he said. But Fox cautioned that race often masks deeper socioeconomic factors, such as poverty, unemployment and low levels of education. “Demographics is a big part of it, but it’s not the whole story,” he said. “Of course, it’s not race, itself. There’s a whole array of economic issues. … It looks like demographics, but it’s really socioeconomic issues.” [Demographics? Guns? Southern culture? Reasons for regional homicide variations remain elusive, by Brendan Kirby, Al.com, September 20, 2013. Emphases added].

But if “socioeconomics issues” were at the heart of the debate, why didn’t National Review’s Kevin D. Williamson find poverty-stricken white Appalachia replete with gun-aided homicides? [The White Ghetto , January 9, 2014]

Presumably for the same reason the Kansas City Star editors couldn’t say the obvious in a recent editorial on violence.

The statistics for all 50 large cities do show a correlation between murder rates and black populations. Seven of the 10 worst cities for murders also ranked in the top 10 for percentages of black residents: Detroit (1st in black population), Baltimore (2), Memphis (3), New Orleans (4), Atlanta (5), Cleveland (6) and Philadelphia (8). Conversely, 15 of the 25 cities with the lowest murder rates had black populations under 10 percent. [Kansas City’s sky-high murder rate defies easy explanation, February 15, 2014]

Hint: 70 percent of 2013 victims were black. [Kansas City homicides in 2013 followed a tragic pattern, By Christine Vendel, Kansas City Star, January 1, 2014]

Similarly, Omaha, Nebraska accounts for nearly half of all homicides in the state, yet it’s exclusively the black population there fueling this crisis. Nebraska has the highest black homicide rate in U.S., national group says, By Christopher Burbach , Omaha World-Herald, January 24, 2014

Fear of violent crime is driving gun sales to whites. But Second Amendment supporters shouldn’t feel smug. Cities with large black populations aren’t just the main source for gun crime—they are also a power base for “progressives” a.k.a. Leftists to pass gun control legislation at the state level. Cities are a source for both the shock troops—and the rationale for disarming the historic American nation.

Leftists recognize this and celebrate the United States’s rising non-white population as a way to eventually overwhelm Second Amendment supporters, who tend to be white. [New data: Whites twice as likely to own guns: A previously unreleased survey shows whites far more likely to own guns, and oppose reform, than blacks or Latinos, by Alex Seitz-Wald, Salon, February 20, 2013]

However, there is an interesting unforeseen consequence: Gun manufacturers are fleeing liberal stats such as Maryland, New York, and Connecticut and setting up shop in states like Alabama, South Carolina, and Tennessee. (Interestingly, these three states have also passed some of the best anti-illegal immigration legislation in the country).

Although these southern states contain cities with high black populations and gun crime (Nashville, Chattanooga in TN; Birmingham, Mobile, Montgomery in AL; Columbia and Charleston in SC), they will retain their white majority for decades to come—especially because Southern whites, unlike whites in California or the Rust Belt, vote as a bloc for the GOP (or, more accurately, for a GAP—Generic American Party).

Remington is moving large parts of its operation from New York to Huntsville, Alabama, meaning 2,000 new jobs in Dixie. [Sen. Jeff Sessions says new Remington plant is 'further testament to the world class workforce in Huntsville', Al.com, February 14, 2014] Though Magpul is moving its corporate headquarters to Texas (from Colorado, a state overrun with white liberals escaping California), the much more costly manufacturing and distribution facility will move to Cheyenne, Wyoming. Unlike Texas, there is little chance immigration will turn Wyoming blue anytime soon.

Beretta is also undertaking its own version of “white flight.” Because of overwhelmingly black gun violence in Baltimore and Prince George’s County, Maryland has passed highly restrictive gun control. In response, after much deliberation, Beretta USA decided to build a $45 million manufacturing plant in Tennessee. [Wooed by gun-friendly states, some firearms makers pull up stakes , Dallas News, August 8, 2014] Some in the state are fearful Beretta will remove its already existing plant in Maryland as well.

Riflemakers PTR Industries moved from Bristol, Connecticut to South Carolina, joining American Tactical Imports and Ithaca Gun Co.; Kahr Firearms Group is leaving New York for Pennsylvania. Sturm, Ruger, and Co. decided to build a new facility in North Carolina, leading to speculation the company will disinvest from Connecticut in the near future. [Conn. gun manufacturer Sturm, Ruger & Co. building new plant in North Carolina, Red Alert Politics, July 9, 2013 ] Mossberg and Colt Firearms (also based in Connecticut) have both had executives with their respective companies make overtures about leaving for friendlier states. Colt Firearms has been a Connecticut company for 167 years.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo famously said “extreme conservatives” have “no place” in New York. Gun manufacturers seem to be taking him at his word—fleeing blue states for red states with conservative white majorities.

America is coming apart. Leftists are allying with the rising non-white populations to dispossess the historic American nation. American whites are responding flee to safer locales.

Gun manufacturers are the canary in the coal mine for Americans. They know that changing demographics means a permanent progressive majority, the end of freedoms most Americans now take for granted—and ultimately the end of their businesses.

The long retreat of the historic American nation will continue until someone has the courage to identity the racial realities behind this process—hopefully, before we run out of places to go.

Paul Kersey[Email him] is the author of the blog SBPDL, and has published the books SBPDL Year One, Hollywood in Blackface and Escape From Detroit, Opiate of America: College Football in Black and White and Second City Confidential: The Black Experience in Chicagoland. His latest book is The Tragic City: Birmingham 1963-2013.