As I wrote at the time, Castile’s killing raised the question of whether African Americans truly have a right to bear arms in practice. Even setting aside the questionable grounds under which Yanez had pulled Castile over (a malfunctioning taillight is a classic pretextual stop police use to question black drivers), Castile had done everything right.
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Today, some gun-rights advocates have argued that African Americans would be best served to get gun licenses. They point to the high rates of violence in places like Chicago and the killings of black men, like Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis, as proof that it’s better to be armed. The Castile case showed the naïveté of that view. His firearm didn’t serve as protection, but instead led directly to this death. This is not uncommon, as Jennifer Carlson, a sociologist at the University of Arizona, wrote in her 2015 book Citizen-Protectors: “My fieldwork shows that law-abiding men of color are ... more likely to be harassed simply for choosing to carry a gun. They must navigate the widespread presumptions that they are criminals and that their guns are illegally possessed or carried.”
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That’s why after Castile’s shooting, many gun owners, and especially black gun owners, were dismayed by the NRA’s tepid reaction to his death. Two days after the shooting, and after extensive complaint from members, the NRA finally issued a statement that didn’t mention Castile’s name and promised further reaction “once all the facts are known.”
The criminal-justice system is not designed to put things back the way they were; a jury cannot bring Castile back to life. But it is designed to at least offer some posthumous indication of wrong and right. A jury’s decision to acquit Yanez of second-degree manslaughter and other charges, and the release of a dashcam video showing Castile’s shooting, raises some pointed questions for the justice system itself and also for the NRA.
