In response to the recent mass shootings in Texas and Ohio, Walmart and Kroger became the first stores to publicly announce new rules forbidding customers from openly carrying guns in their establishments. Additionally, Walmart claims it will no longer sell ammunition — a move that could have adverse effects in terms of public safety.

These companies forgo the facts about gun ownership, only to bow down to left-wing myths. This regrettably leaves the most vulnerable populations wide open like sitting ducks, just waiting helplessly for the next criminal.

The black community sits in the crossfire, with many neighborhoods directly impacted by Walmart’s punishing blow to remove ammunition sales. Where I’m from, there isn’t a gun store within miles of the most densely populated black neighborhoods, leaving Walmart as the only sensible option to purchase protection.

Why does this matter? It’s only natural that gun ownership be encouraged for all Americans, but especially those who live in the most vulnerable conditions. Gang conflict and inner-city crime has reached a fever pitch in many liberal cities like Baltimore, Chicago, and beyond, leaving residents in desperate need for a good “black” guy with a gun.

For the black community, gun ownership is less of about a change in behavior than it is a return to a way of living we’ve long known. According to the Crime Prevention Research Center, the U.S. has witnessed a major surge in concealed-carry permits. In 2018, roughly 17 million Americans applied for permits — mostly women and minorities. To African Americans who know their history, this is simply a replay of the Civil Rights Era, namely the uprising of armed blacks who knew better than to leave their safety in the hands of the government.

The rise of the Black Panther movement took black empowerment to another level. With the KKK, racism, and police brutality among the strongest concerns during the Civil Rights Era, the Black Panthers took it upon themselves to encourage black people to take matters into their own hands. Taking back the community was their original mission — a mission that I believe should never have been aborted by the black community.

While my message is not to embrace unnecessary aggressiveness (after all, the Black Panthers eventually would follow police officers around to keep them in check), I do believe the Black Panther movement and gun advocacy sparked a fire in black Americans to never blindly trust anyone (namely the government) with their safety — to make those matters their own.

Today, the Left aims to smother the fire our fathers and forefathers started. Walmart and Kroger’s example just shows that the Left’s message is gradually succeeding, though ultimately at the expense of all of us. Politicians, with their elaborately armed security detail, pass laws to punish honest gun owners while emboldening criminals. And with stores scared to carry ammo and guns, it’s becoming harder for some law-abiding citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights. Sitting ducks is what the Left will make of us.

Left-wing anti-gun advocates remain oblivious to the fact that a 2:00 a.m. trip to the store is not safe for the innocent black mother in urban, inner-city America, where she could be jumped, robbed, raped, or killed just for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Should she hole up in her home? Call the police? Or could she exercise her constitutional right to arm herself? It depends on what kind of America we want her to live in.

But until we on the Right push back, we are fast approaching the future that the Black Panthers originally tried to protect us from. What will it take for the black population to reclaim this wisdom from our past? Or are we fated to become target practice for black America’s most wanted?