When Charles was growing up in the 1970s in Brooklyn, N.Y., his mother was so strict, she forbade toy guns of any kind, including squirt guns.

"I remember vividly, summertime, when my friends would have water gun fights and I couldn't participate," he recalls.

He grew up and became a doctor, and these days, he heads to a shooting range in Maryland each week for target practice with his Smith & Wesson .380.

Charles, who is Black, says he bought the handgun after the Trump administration did things that scared him, including arresting a foreign student who criticized her university's policy on Israel and handcuffing a U.S. senator who was forcibly removed from a Homeland Security news conference.

"What I'm talking about is protecting myself from a situation where there may be some kind o

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