Lefty gun ownership is having another moment in the sun, and once again liberals are insisting that conservatives are secretly freaking out over liberals purchasing pistols and getting their concealed carry permits.
The truth is, most of us are either pleased to see folks coming around to the importance of gun ownership, or are at least nonplussed over liberals deciding that maybe gun ownership isn't all that bad.. at least when they're doing it.
Conservatives are terrified that people like me are buying guns now. Maybe they should be. https://t.co/Q2rLLvvaJx
— Slate (@Slate) February 11, 2026
No, conservatives aren't terrified that a liberal lesbian journalist is buying a gun (or rather, that she bought her pistol nearly a decade ago). First of all, the newfound interest in the Second Amendment by some progressives isn't really all that new. We saw something similar happen during Donald Trump's first term as president. But the Second Amendment protects the right of "the people" to keep and bear arms. It doesn't impose any kind of political or cultural litmus test, and it would be incredibly hypocritical for a Second Amendment supporter like me to be upset, much less terrified, by someone who doesn't share my worldview deciding to purchase a gun.
Honestly, my biggest issue with Cauterucci's column is that I don't think she's representative of most gun owners, whether they're liberal, conservative, or somewhere in between. She originally purchased her Smith & Wesson M&P almost a decade ago; not because of her support for the Second Amendment, but because of her opposition. A magazine editor thought that immersing a gun control advocate in the world of gun ownership would make for a fun feature, and Cauterucci gamely played along.
Since then, though her handgun has largely remained locked up, and her home has remained ammunition-free. In one sense, Cauterucci owns a paperweight, not a pistol. It's utterly useless for self-defense, even though she writes about multiple occasions where she and her wife were concerned for their safety.
To be fair, Cauterucci also writes about several friends and acquaintances who don't seem quite as conflicted about owning a firearm.
The shift in my own social circles came suddenly, after Trump’s reelection, in 2024. For the first time, people who’d been bewildered and low-key disturbed by the choices of our friend Roxanna (a pseudonym), a lesbian who keeps a safe filled with firearms in her home just across the Maryland border, were asking for her advice on emergency preparedness. (She was more than equipped to provide it.) Several queer friends who had never expressed a prior interest in guns began taking classes to learn how to use them.
One friend, Shane (also a pseudonym), who is transfeminine and nonbinary, once told me they’d never want a gun in their house. Their position has since changed. Last year, they purchased a 3D printer chosen specifically for its ability to make filaments that can be used to build a gun, just in case the political situation gets worse. As right-wing political leaders portray trans people as malicious or mentally ill sex criminals, Shane worries that they might be clocked as trans on the street and attacked, or followed home after using a public restroom. “It would not at all surprise me to see a fairly public and unbridled lynching of a trans person in the next year,” they said.
Shane has always supported stricter gun-control legislation, but they’ve come to the conclusion that America is unlikely to ever pass it. And if the country is overrun with firearms for the foreseeable future, “I am not interested in only people who think I shouldn’t exist having guns,” Shane said. They still don’t believe that guns keep people safe, even when kept for self-defense, “but when safety has been taken away, it can give you power.”
It's unclear whether "Shane" has actually made a 3D printed firearm, but if not they should probably get on that before Democrats make it illegal to do so, as they've done in California, New York, and several other blue states.
And whether they realize it or not, "Shane"'s attitude that people who don't think they should exist shouldn't be the only ones to own guns is arguably the entire reason we have the Second Amendment's guarantees. The British didn't think liberty-minded colonists should exist, and meant to disarm them in order to keep them under the thumb of a tyrannical government.
In the South, both before and after the Civil War, the powers that be believed that freedmen shouldn't be armed, and passed laws that either prohibited them from doing so outright or placed so many barriers between them and the Second Amendment that it was difficult and dangerous to possess a firearm, much less carry it for self-defense.
The Sullivan Act in the early 1900s took the same approach, but applied it to immigrants and others on the lower end of the socio-economic ladder. The Second Amendment has always been meant to protect the disadvantaged and the marginalized members of our political community, though often the powers that be have been able to limit or eradicate its protections.
So, no. I'm not bothered by Cauterucci or any of her fellow lefties deciding to purchase a firearm. What does bother me, though, is that she and a lot of her friends still have an anti-gun and anti-2A mindset. If they truly believe that fascism is on the rise and that they need to protect themselves from a lynching, then why on earth do they think people should have to wait a month or more to obtain a permit to purchase a pistol before they can protect themselves? If they're afraid of being the victim of mob violence, why do they support laws limiting magazine capacity to no more than ten rounds?
I honestly don't mind a bit if Cauterucci and her friends have decided to own guns. But given their stated reason for doing so, I just don't understand how they can keep hold of their love for gun control. I'm not terrified by their decision, but I'm definitely perplexed.
