Smell of gunpowder. The first thing Gilberto Irisson, 22, remembers about the shooting ranch –gun ranch— is the smell of gunpowder, the harsh sun and the dry climate that made everything more like a cowboy movie. The rest is not like that, he says. “At first it is very confusing, it is very different from the movies from Hollywood, where you see a person who has never fired a gun suddenly grab it and hit it with one hand. In real life these guns have a lot of force: if you don’t hold them and move in a certain way, if you don’t plant your feet correctly, you can break your wrists and hurt someone.”
Irisson and three of his friends, two of them of Latin origin like him, received training in Waxahachie, Texas, with the idea of knowing how to defend themselves in a case of violence. “After the pandemic we had economic problems and we have not been able to recover. “I live with my mother and my sister, and we had to move house to a dangerous neighborhood where gunshots are often heard.”
In recent years, there has been a notable increase in the purchase of firearms by people of Latino origin in the United States. This phenomenon, driven by various reasons including personal safety concerns, the desire to protect their families, and racially charged attacks, has transformed the landscape of gun ownership in the country.
One-fifth of new gun owners are Hispanic: Between 2019 and 2020, gun purchases by Latinos grew nearly 50%, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearms trade association. Although there are no numbers for Latino gun owners in Texas, non-white people make up 20% of new license holders.
Julián Longoria, a weapons instructor and former police officer from Brownsville, Texas, has witnessed this change firsthand; a good proportion of Latinos ask him for training in the use of weapons. “Ten years ago, most of the people who came for training already had a prior interest in weapons. Now I see a lot of people who have never had one,” Longoria compares.
Violence, insecurity, and anti-immigrant or racially motivated shootings, such as the massacre in El Paso, have been a key factor in demographic change. “Many of those who come to me are concerned about the safety of their children and their own safety. “They had never considered having a gun, but current circumstances have led them to make this decision,” he adds.
Among the people he has trained, many are women, housewives, students or some primary school teachers whose sole purpose is to defend their students in the event of a shooting, like the one that occurred in Uvalde. In 2022, the eight-in-ten Hispanic community of Uvalde, Texas, lost 19 children and two teachers after an 18-year-old armed with an assault rifle opened fire at Robb Elementary School. Three years before the shooting, El Paso, also in Texas, experienced a domestic terrorist attack when a white supremacist drove eleven hours from the north of the State to a Walmart on the border to shoot left and right, killing 23 people and wounding 23 more.
Across the United States so far in 2024, at least 250 people have been killed in separate mass shootings, according to the Armed Violence Archive. Almost three-quarters of homicide victims of Hispanic origin are killed with firearms, according to the research organization Violence Policy Center (VPC), Hispanics are frequent victims of gun violence. “As assault weapons remain easily accessible, more communities will be torn apart and devastated by mass shootings,” the civil rights group says. LatinoJustice PRLDEF. Approximately 70,000 Hispanics were killed by firearms between 1999 and 2019, including 44,614 victims of firearm homicide and 21,466 firearm suicides.
At a small shooting range in Brownsville, on the border with Mexico, the weapons instructor receives his students. At first his classes attracted few Latinos, but now they are filled with up to 40 people per session. His programs are free. Longoria received a certification as an instructor in Texas in 2014 and has since dedicated his time to teaching firearms use.
The 1968 federal gun control act prohibits undocumented immigrants from purchasing or carrying firearms, the United States considers it a felony that could be punishable by up to 10 years in prison, but earlier this year, a federal judge in Illinois ruled that a Mexican living undocumented in the country had the constitutional right to possess a firearm for self-defense. The ruling sets up a potential Supreme Court case to determine the scope of Second Amendment rights for approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants.
While Longoria continues to offer her classes, gun murders continue to rise. “The growing demand for weapons training among Latinos shows a change in the perceptions and needs of our community,” she reflects. Like the case of Irisson, she summarizes her motivation: “I just want to protect my family.”
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