Ben Crump

Opinion contributor

Second Amendment proponents often say the way to save lives in active shooter situations is for more "good guys" to be armed with guns and trained to use them.

But that logic breaks down dangerously when that "good guy" is black.

It’s not safe for a black man to carry a gun in America even when he’s a law-abiding citizen. It’s not safe even if he had been enlisted in the military. It’s not safe because when police encounter a black man with a gun in America, they often shoot first and ask questions later.

E.J. Bradford, 21, was just the kind of citizen you’d want to be armed in an active shooter situation. He worked for the city of Birmingham and helped care for his father — a former corrections officer who is battling cancer. He enlisted in the Army. His father stated that Bradford had obtained a concealed carry weapons permit from his local sheriff’s department, as prescribed by Alabama law.

But when a gunman opened fire in Riverchase Galleria mall near Birmingham on Thanksgiving night, wounding a young man and a 12-year-old girl, an off-duty police officer working as mall security randomly shot a black man who happened to have a gun. He assumed Bradford was the shooter and killed him.

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The Hoover Police Department quickly praised the officer's response.

Later, the department recognized its error and retracted the statement, saying the shooter was still at large — that it was not Bradford, that Bradford was not the threat. And yet, in the same statement, the department said that Bradford “brandished a gun during the seconds following the gunshots,” and that the fact he had a weapon made him a threat.

My interpretation of that statement: Bradford shouldn’t have pulled out his gun because he was black, and black people in America apparently don’t have the same right to defend themselves as other citizens. Why do law-abiding people obtain concealed weapons permits and carry guns, if not to protect themselves should the need arise? Where is the NRA’s defense of a black citizen's right to legally and safely bear arms?

Last year, after the Parkland school massacre, the Florida Legislature was so convinced that arming private citizens was the best way to prevent future tragedies, it passed a law that allowed schools to arm specially trained individuals.

The concern I raised then was borne out last month in Alabama: If those armed individuals are black, they run the same risk that cost Bradford his young, promising life. When police arrive at a crime scene, they see all black people as a threat — even if what they are really looking at is a black person legally carrying a gun.

How can we reasonably expect the police to quickly and accurately determine "good guys" with guns versus bad guys with guns, when they instantly assume that the black guy with a gun is bad?

Bradford paid the ultimate price — not on the battlefield, but in a shopping mall.

His family members will carry the pain of his unnecessary loss every day for the rest of their lives.

How much more evidence do we need to be convinced that implicit bias against people of color is a real and present danger in America?

Our nation is overdue to have a crisis of conscience, and to finally do something about it.

Ben Crump, a nationally known civil rights attorney and advocate, is the founder and principal of Ben Crump Law. Crump is representing the family of E.J. Bradford Jr.