Sometimes, it’s hard to remember that “liberal” isn’t always synonymous with “gun grabber.” It shouldn’t be that hard, at least for me, but it is. After all, look who is typically coming after our guns? It’s not the libertarians or the conservatives. It’s liberals, right?

However, the Minnesota Star Tribune has a profile of a woman who is both a pro-gun activist and a liberal.

Here’s how Sarah Cade used to think of American gun owners: “old, fat, white guys, and they’re all racists and they hate everyone.”

Of course, that was before she got a gun.

Cade is young, biracial and passionately liberal. She’s also become a self-described gun nut and a staunch defender of gun ownership.

But she wants to be nice about it.

“I have a talent for disagreeing with people without being a jerk about it,” she said. “I don’t like hostility in any of my interactions. I’m very nonconfrontational.”

…

She writes pro-gun op-ed articles and testifies at legislative hearings. She lobbies her legislator, gets quoted in newspaper articles and interviewed on podcasts. She debates people online, speaks at public forums and appears in gun rights advocacy videos.

In many ways, she defies the stereotype of a Second Amendment crusader.

She has empathy for people who are scared by AR-15 rifles, one of which she owns.

“I get why people are afraid of them. Like, I understand that. I get that it’s scary for people to think that other people have the capacity to cause harm,” she said.

And she understands just how negatively gun owners are often viewed. “There’s a perception that gun owners don’t care,” she said, “and that could not be farther from the truth.”

Cade is probably one of the more effective voices the gun community can have because she’s not a conservative or libertarian. Gun control activists are used to dismissing our opinions out of hand. After all, we’re just crusty old white guys (even if we’re not). They can safely ignore us.

But they can’t with Cade. She’s a biracial woman who tends to be liberal in her politics. She shatters everything the anti-gun activists believe about gun owners. Believe me, that’s important. It gets inside their OODA loop, so to speak. It disrupts their narrative and throws them for a loop. Now, suddenly, they have to address the facts outright.

I’m sure Cade is probably not a Bearing Arms fan, and I’ll take the hit. This site isn’t particularly friendly toward pro-gun liberals. It’s not intentionally, but I sometimes lash out at anti-gun liberals in such a way that it may well feel like I’m lumping Cade in with Shannon Watts. I’m not, but I probably haven’t been clear enough on that.

Frankly, we need people like Cade. We need people like her badly. People like her, Maj Toure, and Colion Noir all contribute to undermining the idea of the crusty old white guy-gun owner. With Cade, it becomes clear that gun ownership should be bipartisan.

Hat tip: The Truth About Guns