Bubba, Blacks and Guns

One of the first students killed in the Virginia Tech shootings was Ryan Clark, a young African American student. The fatal shootings have thrust the issue of gun control back on the national political agenda and illustrate another gap in attitudes that separates blacks and whites. African Americans are more likely to support gun control and less likely to own a handgun than whites.

Bubba with the gun rack on his pickup truck remains a real and consistent threat for blacks in America. As white Americans in Congress and statehouses fret about 2nd Amendment rights after Virginia Tech, African American families involved in the nation’s most heinous racial hate crime committed with firearms have yet to have the issue addressed and resolved.

The dastardly deed occurred in 2003 at a Lockheed Martin assembly plant in Meridian, Miss., when a white factory worker went on a rampage, shooting five blacks and one white dead before killing himself. During the morning break, the gunman opened fire at the aircraft parts plant with a shotgun and a semi-automatic rifle.

The shooter, Doug Williams, was a 19-year company employee who didn't like blacks and had talked about wanting to kill people. Williams had previously exhibited racist behavior and undergone psychological evaluation as a result of a racially charged argument he’d had with a fellow worker less than two years before the rampage.

Erica and Jonathan Willis, children of shooting victim Thomas Willis, now allege that Milwaukee, Wis.-based NEAS Inc. and Meridian-based Psychology Associates caused the problem when their evaluation failed to address Williams’ racism and rage. Their attorney -- William F. Blair -- says the family is suing the companies "for damages and acknowledgment that this was a senseless racial murder."

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