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Joy Reid Asks Rapper ‘Killer Mike’ If Black People Can Carry Guns Without Risking Their Lives

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Joy Reid asked rapper Michael Render, aka “Killer Mike,” if black people are able to legally carry guns without putting their lives in danger, on MSNBC’s “AM Joy” Sunday.

Reid played a video of two black men being arrested at a Starbucks in Philadelphia after they asked to use the bathroom without making any purchases. The manager asked them to leave and when they refused, he called the authorities.

“My thinking on is that if either of those two men had been concealed carry holders, and any of those police officers had seen a gun, even though they were being as peaceful as they were, there is a great probability that they would be dead,” Reid said. “Do you worry that encouraging black people to carry endangers black people’s lives? We know that implicit bias is real.”

“Michael Brown was not armed. Michael Brown was not armed,” Render replied.

“But do you think those two men would have been in danger if they had been?” Reid asked

“I think black men are in danger from law enforcement because we need to teach better policing,” Render said. “I’m going to tell you what struck me about that video. White people stood up and immediately were allies, thank you for that. But the black men are to be congratulated and saluted.”

Render also brought up the killing of Philando Castile by Minnesota police officer Jeronimo Yanez and took a moment to posthumously congratulate him for being a legal gun owner.

“In matters of Philando Castile, I would rather start to congratulate the man he was,” Render concluded. “He was a working man. He was a legal firearms owner. He exercised that right, and that’s what I think we should be doing. And I don’t think those police would have killed those young men because those young men handled that spectacularly.”

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