‘We can’t be afraid.’ In a Cincinnati church basement, black women take a class together: learning how to fire guns

https://www.dispatch.com/news/20200221/we-cant-be-afraid-in-cincinnati-church-basement-black-women-take-class-together-learning-how-to-fire-guns

‘We can’t be afraid.’ In a Cincinnati church basement, black women take a class together: learning how to fire guns

Ariel Gresham, left, and Nancy Robb, both of the Cincinnati area, hold unloaded revolvers during an all-female concealed carry and weapons class Saturday, February 8, 2020, at New Prospect Baptist Church in Roselawn sponsored Arm the Populace.

Kai Brown of Bond Hill gets instruction on how to hold a gun from Timm Penrod and Henry Ware, right, with Arm the Populace during an all-female concealed carry and weapons class at New Prospect Baptist Church Saturday, February 8, 2020.

By Sharon Coolidge

February 21, 2020

CINCINNATI – New Prospect Baptist Church has one of the largest black congregations in Cincinnati. On any weekend, you’ll find weddings, funerals and three Sunday services.

On Feb. 8, you would have found 179 women firing .22-caliber handguns in the church basement.

The church had opened its doors to what state officials believe is one of the largest women-only, concealed-carry certification classes in the state.

Over and over, the women cited the same reason for taking the class. They were tired of being scared — of guns, of being alone in a home, of walking in some neighborhoods.

Karen Bolden, 56, was so scared of her husband’s guns that she asked him to get rid of them when they married two years ago. He did, but she’s working to conquer her fear. When Bolden’s sister alerted her to the class and suggested they go together, she jumped at the chance.

“This is why this class is so important,” Bolden said. “We can’t be afraid.”

The class was organized by two men: the church’s pastor, the Rev. Damon Lynch III, and Cincinnati City Councilman Jeff Pastor, a Republican who appeared at the class sporting a T-shirt reading “All gun control is racist.”

The 179 women showed varying comfort levels with guns. Some had never touched one. Others own a gun but wanted the license needed to carry it. Some came because their mothers or sisters or friends suggested it.

The class was taught by Cincinnati-based Arm the Populace, a certified concealed-carry licensing business. The intense nine-hour class used a shooting range created just for the class in an empty storage area above the church’s community center.

Women paid $25 each to cover the cost of the space; that’s cheaper than the typical $65 class fee.

Arm the Populace donated its time.

A Pew Research Center report in 2017 delved into “America’s complex relationship with guns.” It found that gun ownership varied considerably by race and gender. Among men, 39% said they owned a gun, compared with 22% of women. And while 36% of whites reported that they were gun owners, only about a quarter of blacks and 15% of Hispanics said they were.

In the Cincinnati church class, 169 of the 179 women were black.

The class was broken into five groups, rotating into lessons about safety, laws, how to get a CCW license, which only a sheriff can issue, and then target practice.

Douglas Cooper, Arm the Populace’s founder and chief instructor, started the class by explaining: “The Second Amendment is for everyone,” he said.

Instructor Bill Maltbie then told the class why women-only classes are important.

“We do them so there are no men sitting there ‘mansplaining’ because they’ve played a lot of video games,” Maltbie said. “We’re not here for ‘Call of Duty.’ I just want to make sure I can go home at night and see my family.”

The pastor, Lynch, is not a proponent of guns, but he said: “New Prospect Baptist Church is more than a church. It’s the heart of the community.”

Without a recreation center, the church serves that need.

“I’m not a gun lover; I don’t own any guns, but people have Second Amendment rights to own a gun,” Lynch said. “In the African American community, the conversation is usually about buying guns back. But if people are lawfully trained and learn how to be responsible, they will probably never use one. It sets them on a different course. As opposed to a person who gets a gun and thinks, ‘I have to go shoot.’”

And that, Lynch said, “is a good thing.”

The shooting range was built with input from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. It was bare-bones: a sheet of wood tacked to a wall, on which targets were placed.

Tape was passed around. Bolden used it to hang her target on the wall.

Arms straight. Legs apart. Ten shots. An instructor guided her stance. She hit the target within a centimeter of the bull’s-eye.

Her sister, Sonya Jackson, was next. Same stance. An instructor lightly guided her arms into better position. Two bullets hit the target.

“I didn’t have my glasses,” Jackson noted to her sister.

Bolden told her, “You’ll just have to go with me to the range. Practice. Practice. Practice.”