Gun purchases soar among Latinos in the United States

The first thing that Gilberto Irisson, 22, remembers about the gun ranch is the smell of gunpowder, the harsh sun and the dry climate that made it seem more like a scene from a cowboy movie. “The rest is not like that,” he says. “At first it’s very confusing, it’s very different from Hollywood movies, where you see a person who has never fired a gun suddenly grab it and fire 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 Latino origin like him, received training in Waxahachie, Texas, in order to learn how to defend themselves in a case of a violent attack. “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 rise 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 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 clients 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 how to use 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 any,” says Longoria.

Violence, insecurity and anti-immigrant or racially motivated shootings, such as the massacre in El Paso, have been a key factor in the demographic change. “Many of the people who come to me are concerned about the safety of their children and their own safety. They had never considered having a weapon, but current circumstances have led them to make this decision,” he explains.

Among the people he has trained, many are women, housewives, students and there is even the odd primary school teacher, whose sole purpose is to defend their students in the event of a school shooting, like the one that took place in Uvalde. In 2022, the eight-in-10 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, Texas was the victim of a domestic terrorist attack when a white supremacist drove 11 hours from the north of the state to a Walmart on the border and shot indiscriminately inside, 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 Gun 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 frequently the victims of gun violence. “As long as assault-type weapons remain too easily accessible, more communities will be broken and devastated by mass shootings,” says civil rights group LatinoJustice PRLDEF. Approximately 70,000 Hispanics were killed by firearms between 1999 and 2019, including 44,614 victims of firearm murders 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 each session has up to 40. His programs are free. Longoria received a certification as an instructor in Texas in 2014 and has since dedicated his time to teaching others how to properly use a firearm.

The 1968 federal gun control act prohibits undocumented immigrants from purchasing or carrying firearms. The United States considers this a felony 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 paves the way for a potential Supreme Court case to determine the scope of Second Amendment rights for approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants.

While Longoria continues to offer his 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,” he reflects. As is the case of Irisson, who sums up his reasons: “I just want to protect my family.”

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