Right now, if I want to speak to any of my representatives in Congress, I can. I won't accomplish anything, though. Rep. Sanford Bishop and Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock aren't exactly open to gun rights. I still reach out, of course, but I'm not surprised when they don't listen. They know I'm not going to vote for them anyway.
But there are groups that they will listen to, and some of those are embracing guns.
See, while the LGBT+ community is generally fairly small, they tend to have the ear of Democrats far better than you or I might, in most cases, and it seems a lot of trans people are embracing their right to keep and bear arms.
Since Donald Trump won the election on November 5, Aeryn has been quietly stockpiling hormone replacement therapy and ammunition, things she sees as essential for living as a transgender woman under the current administration.
She has filled her garage with “20 to 30,000 rounds of ammunition” and up to a year’s worth of estrogen—reaching the outer boundary of the drug’s one- to two-year shelf life.
“Starting with the election, I became very concerned,” she told Uncloseted Media.
Animosity toward trans people in the U.S. is at an all-time high. President Trump has signed a laundry list of executive orders rolling back transgender rights, including one that says—in the eyes of the federal government—trans people don’t exist. Trump has vilified trans people with rhetoric that casts them as a threat to women and children, and during the campaign he made it a promise to get rid of so-called “transgender insanity.”
Anti-trans sentiment has seeped into left-wing circles, too. Some Democrats blamed Kamala Harris’ loss on the party’s stance on trans rights.
All of this has created a perfect storm where nearly three-quarters of trans people in the U.S. now fear physical violence. That’s why many trans people are taking measures to defend themselves by enrolling in training programs, buying guns and learning self-defense.
And, honestly, I'm happy to see it.
Look, I'm not going to get into the animosity thing, though I have thoughts on that. What matters is whether or not people fear there is a potential assault on themselves or people of their group, and if so, they should take steps to address their own personal protection. It sounds like more people are doing just that, as they should.
The odds of any one person being attacked aren't exactly high, but for someone out there, possibly reading this, the odds of it happening are one. It's going to happen. Hell, I've had to put my gun sights on a human being twice, which is more than most people ever will, and I'm not someone who is part of a group that is largely targeted for violence because I'm part of that group. Most of us have little to fear, but we understand that stuff happens.
If you're part of a group that believes it's going to be targeted for violence, I think you're stupid if you don't take steps to protect yourself. Especially considering so many trans people are also inclined to think poorly of police following the whole "Summer of Love" thing in 2020.
They're not right in their opinions, for the most part, but they have them, and arguing with them that they're misguided isn't going to do anything except waste time.
Yet if they're buying guns, they're also seeing what the actual laws are. They're seeing how easy, or how difficult, it is to actually buy a firearm. They're seeing that the "gun show loophole" is nothing of the sort. They're learning all of the things that you or I might be well aware of already, and they're learning them in person. They're not hearing it from us, whose opinions they care nothing for right now, but from their own experiences.
Where that benefits us is that when anti-gun lawmakers decide to push gun control once again, these are people that those lawmakers likely will listen to.
If there's a gun culture on both the left and the right, one that politicians have to respond to, then in time, politicians will stop trying to restrict our right to keep and bear arms and focus on expanding those rights.
Winning people over to our side is a key strategy in winning the debate on guns, and they can't all be on one side of the aisle.
The Second Amendment should be a nonpartisan issue. If these folks are crossing the line and embracing their rights, then maybe the day when politicians act like it's a nonpartisan issue is close.
