Two friends are bearing the burden to promote responsible gun ownership and safety as one of the country’s few Black-owned gun stores.
Prolific Arms, 2192 S. 60th St., West Allis, was founded by Theron Rogers and Eddie Silas after the two combined their love for firearms and understanding the gaps in firearm safety that plague the nation. The two in tandem look to battle rampant gun violence through tackling root issues like poor training and advocacy for responsible ownership of firearms, as they fight an uphill battle.
Their story goes back years as friends from high school. How the two met is up for debate, but Silas swears he met Rogers on the basketball court during junior high, getting into a fight.
“We were playing basketball at an elementary school called Happy Hill and there was this big grown man and we were really kicking their butts,” Silas said. “[Rogers] was a teammate of mine up there. The grown men were really aggressive; they wanted to fight. I think me and my friends from the neighborhood were like, ‘Okay, let’s go.’”
Silas looked around and saw one of his teammates running away. He swears to this day it was Rogers. Rogers denies that it was him, but the two did fully meet each other during freshman homeroom during high school.
Silas described himself as the class clown and Rogers as smart and witty. While Silas believed that their personalities clashed, a mutual love for basketball brought them together as teammates — which affirmed his certainty about the fight story in middle school.
“It organically grew to friendship and he’s been my right hand ever since,” Silas said.
The two became like family quickly. Silas, who is from East St. Louis, Illinois, didn’t have much family when he moved to Milwaukee. Rogers’ family opened their doors to him and the two became inseparable.
He recalled Rogers’ aunt, who helped the two grow a strong sense of community, discipline and structure they needed growing up.
The duo didn’t immediately go into business together after high school. Silas, who had a child right out of high school, took to supervisory roles as a manager and late foreman. Rogers went to the Air Force, served as a state trooper, court officer at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an officer at Shorewood Police for a bit.
During that time, in 2018, Rogers started a security company. It was a strictly nightlife security agency all over the north side. Its growth hit around 50-75 staff covering clubs on weekends at its height.
However, Rogers would soon deploy again and was feeling some of the burnout from security.
“We were entering that stage of just the physical, emotional burnout of that fast-paced, high-risk lifestyle, and we kind of just made a decision to walk away,” Rogers said. “I deployed to Afghanistan for six months, and then upon returning, I started preparing for another short-term assignment.”
The new assignment was in Arizona to get trained on F-35 fighter jets to come back to Madison and train others on it. For this next assignment, he lobbied Silas a test: Rogers asked him to manage the security company while he was gone.
The two already spoke previously about transitioning to firearm instruction, as the two had familiarity. A side venture within the security company was firearm instruction and instructing concealed carry classes.
In the mix of classes, a frequent question they would hear was where people could actually purchase firearms. A licensed dealer often came in to give recommendations to students, but the two thought about being a source instead of a place for reference.
Silas spoke with Rogers near his return, where the latter decided that it was time to open one up themselves. Rogers had a few months left in Arizona, so Silas started researching.
The two ended up speaking to the owner of Shorty’s Shooting Sports. The owner, who was well known in the community as “Shorty,” built up a somewhat negative reputation for his frequent refusal to sell firearms to people he believed wouldn’t use them safely.
Silas recalled people often painting Shorty as racist, but he’s known the gun shop owner for years now. He understood the nature of owning a gun shop is to test potential buyers about their plans to purchase a firearm.
“Shortry just happened to be retiring, and I’m at the gun show where I see he has a retirement going-out-of-business sale,” Silas said. “I see this and I’m like, ‘What the hell? Are you going out of business?’ He said, ‘Hell yeah, man. It’s been 13-14 years. It’s time to go.’”
Silas asked for guidance on starting his own gun shop. He set up a meeting with the three of them a couple of weeks later to check out Shorty’s shop and inventory. Afterwards, Rogers and Silas stood outside the building in deep contemplation, dead set on how to actually start a gun store.
They ended up purchasing the building from Shorty and renovated the place from its dated, dimly lit, carpeted store to a brighter, more friendly space that would become Prolific Arms.
“Eventually, those wishes, those dreams, we were able to manifest them into actual physical being,” Silas said.
(Photo by Omar Waheed)
A place for the community to learn
With the store open, the two grappled with how to be a responsible gun shop for the benefit of the community. They held themselves to a high account and realized that there would be some natural issues stacked against them.
Prolific Arms is one of the very few Black-owned gun stores in the entire country. The total of Black-owned gun stores varies, with estimates ranging from less than a dozen to 15, according to mixed data from The Firearm Industry Trade Association and the National African American Gun Association.
For frame of reference, Prolific Arms, as one of the very few Black-owned gun stores, is part of the ranks of an estimated 6,000 gun stores nationwide.
Silas and Rogers knew there was a different weight on their shoulders than most. They decided to be community-focused with education, which was heavily inspired by Silas going to shooting ranges in small towns while he was a railroad foreman.
“What I noticed before I left, every town, every state, you would step into every little small town and there was a bunch of resources available for the community that surrounded those areas,” Silas said. “When I got back to Milwaukee, I didn’t recognize any of those resources available to us as a community, meaning a predominantly Black community.”
They decided they needed to do right by the community by not simply selling guns, but changing the landscape of gun safety and education in Milwaukee.
Silas and Rogers went down a research hole to understand problems related to guns in Milwaukee. A lack of education and safety training was clear, but what that leaked into became their mission.
“We noticed right away that guns have been stolen, and most of the guns being used. How do we prevent that? We started to study things that made a lot of sense to build a remedy to the problem,” Silas said. “We have a culture problem when it comes to gun safety.”
It didn’t make sense to them to combat issues in gun violence by not allowing access to firearms if the majority of guns being used in incidents were stolen.
It’s an easy solution to just strip guns away from citizens with no apparent ill intent to remove them from circulation, but understands with Milwaukee that a solution like that would be racially charged in more cases than not, Silas said.
“The easy thing to do is to point the finger and say, ‘Hey, yes, that’s a gun store. Take it away,’ When we need to say, ‘Hey, that’s a gun store. Do they provide education? Do they provide services for the community?’ Those are the things we need to tackle,” Silas said.
That approach has been paying off so far — but there is always a balance.
A fear Silas and Roger always has is if one of the firearms they sell are used to hurt the community. Everything could go right in the purchase from licensing, background checks, safety, but the end result could be dire down the road.
“One of my biggest challenges would be every time I get a trace report,” Silas said. “Every time I get something like that, my stomach turns. It’s hard dealing with knowing that this gun was probably not used in a great situation. Knowing the fact that something like that could happen is a tough pill to swallow.”
Trace reports are used by law enforcement to track the history of a gun used in a crime. The process goes to the gun manufacturer, importer, supplier and retail point — so Prolific Arms is made aware when a gun they’ve sold in the past has been used in a crime.
But there are positives to balancing out the worst outcomes. Silas recalled a story of an elderly woman who came into the store after her husband died.
Her husband was an avid gun collector, and, while she didn’t have any firm issues with him owning guns while he was alive, she became nervous to have firearms in the home without knowing how to handle them.
“She was thinking about selling. She didn’t know if she wanted to or not, because they were his, but she was absolutely terrified. She really didn’t stay in the best neighborhood,” Silas said.
She instead opted to take lessons. The first time she shot a gun, she trembled. Silas saw the nervousness and helped her relax to regain control.
“She picked the gun back up and she pulled the trigger. Fast forward, and she did three or four more lessons. Every time she came, she built on her confidence,” Silas said. “She’s delivering rounds on target. She’s shooting with both her eyes open now. She’s actually doing everything I instructed her to do.”
One session saw her blow through a box of ammo quickly. Silas went to get another box to bring back to the woman, now filled with confidence, instructing someone else at the range.
“This is what it’s about. Each person has a responsibility of safety,” Sials said. “She went from being this terrified lady to now being somebody who’s empowered and in charge of herself and her safety is her own responsibility. She knows that now. And to have her instruct someone else, it’s what it’s all about.”
Rogers mirrored the sentiment. He enjoys seeing the constant personal and community growth. He tells people frequently that Prolific Arms isn’t just a gun store, but a force in the community promoting safety.
Prolific Arms is working to expand its outreach in the community. It offers required training for law enforcement, has a partnership to provide vehicle gun lockboxes at no cost to the community and held a summer enrichment program with Marquette University to talk with youth about firearm safety.
“They were able to share with us some of their testimonials about what was the best part of their experience this summer. Several of them called out us in the education we provided,” Rogers said.
Prolific Arms is looking to continue educating the community. It recently brought in Heal The Hood’s MKE’s founder, Ajamou Butler, to help expand its community outreach. Butler, who is going back and forth from Milwaukee to North Carolina, notes that Prolific Arms is the only Black-owned firearm distribution company in Wisconsin. He says that he initially wanted to join its security team.
Prolific Arms saw a different avenue to utilize his expertise and drive within the community.
“People in my life who I would be telling about this position were excited for me because they know I love security and firearms and martial arts… and I really love the community,” Butler said. “There’s so much Black boy joy because this is something I’m really passionate about.”
Prolific Arms is open Monday-Thursday from 10-6 p.m., Friday 10-7 p.m., Saturday 10-5 p.m. and closed on Sunday. A full list of its trainings, programs, resources and stock can be found on its website.
