No one will remember that a 17 year old neighbor was a guest in Ja's house, getting to play pickup basketball with an NBA all star. No one will care that this 17 year old got angry first, and intentionally threw the ball full force in Ja's face, striking him, or that the 17 year old threatened to come back and "Light the place up."

All they'll remember is "Ja hit a teen!" And "Ja pulled a gun on him!"

It doesn't matter if Ja never pulled his gun out, and showed it in response to a threat.

Throwing a basketball full force in someone's face is assault. Threatening to come back and light their house up is a terroristic threat.

Standing on your own property with a legally registered handgun tucked into your waistband, is actually legal. Because 'Murica. 🤷🏿‍♂️

The police investigated the incident, and dropped the whole thing, because Ja had not committed a prosecutable crime.

But that doesn't mean that this was the best way to handle the situation.

Now Ja has been suspended for showing a handgun on Instagram live while he streamed from a night club.

Why did he even have a gun in a club? Registered or not? If you look at the screenshots, you'll see that he has over $100K of jewelry around his neck.

Chains are a big flex! But when you flex you're flexing on someone. Some people don't like that. Chains get snatched. People get killed for chains.

You wear a chunky chain to the club, but then you need to take a gun to protect your chain?

Safely wearing big ice to the club without getting robbed, and without getting in trouble for carrying a gun, is a solved problem. Hire security.

Because the reality is, that handgun is not protecting you nearly as much as you think it is. When violent men that make *extremely* poor life choices come for your chain, that handgun puts you in a life or death situation that you are not trained for.

For a kid that grew up in the suburbs, and is now a megamillionaire, there are much better choices.

I shared in one of the Black History month threads, how so many homicide victims in the US, are young Black men, who carry handguns, and get in violent confrontations over perceived disrespect.

The confrontation is usually between a young Black man *that does not have a long criminal history*, and another young Black man who is a known, multiple killer. The killer wins. It's not about aim, or size of weapon.

Carrying a gun and feeling like a gangster, makes victims more likely to escalate.

This happens a lot.

If you listen to the way that Black folk are talking about Ja Morant, you'll hear a lot of caution, that Memphis is absolutely not the city to play tough guy and confront random people in this way. His probability of meeting someone that will give him a very bad day, is very high.

The reason for that, is because of things like Tyree Nichols, the police can't stop any of these multiple killers in Memphis. There may only be 5 or 10 of them. But that's enough.