The right to keep and bear arms applies to one and all, and while we often point out that it's a defense against tyranny, there are some who seem to decry every politician they don't like as "literally Hitler," while also wanting to be disarmed so they can't resist "literally Hitler."
No, it's never made a lick of sense to me, either.
But in the wake of everything that's transpired in Minneapolis, it seems that at least some of the usual suspects are waking up to the fact that maybe, just maybe, gun rights matter to them, too, and are flocking to liberal gun groups.
Several niche, left-leaning gun advocacy groups said that since the killing of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis, they can hardly keep up with the surging demand for firearms training.
With President Donald Trump sending armed federal agents into communities around the country, even more once gun-shy liberals and leftists are considering getting armed. And while Americans tend to think of gun owners as leaning more Republican and male, already more women, gay people and people of color have taken up arms in recent years, particularly after 2020.
Weekend classes at L.A. Progressive Shooters are sold out through March. Registrations for permit-to-carry courses at Pink Pistols Twin Cities, which serves LGBTQ people in Minneapolis and St. Paul, are up from an average of five people per class to 25 — the group recently added seven more courses to accommodate increased interest, and those are filling up, too. To paraphrase a recent meme: The right is arguing for gun control, and the left is buying guns.
“In the past couple of days, there has been a shift,” Lara Smith, national spokesperson for the Liberal Gun Club, says. “This changed views on the left.”
...Jordan Levine, founder of the inclusive gun community A Better Way 2A, says his organization has seen an influx of gun groups and instructors asking to join its resource page in the last few weeks — Ready Rainbow in Chicago, Grassroots Defense in Iowa and Solidarity Defense in Sacramento are a few recent additions. “People are scared and angry and want to equalize the power imbalance that we’re seeing on the news, where you’ve got ICE steamrolling people with no recourse,” he adds.
Philip Smith, founder and president of the National African American Gun Association, says membership in his organization has grown since Trump’s second term began and since Pretti was killed. “People join when they’re scared,” Smith says. “People join when certain people get in office, because it scares them. People join when they see these shootings across the country, and it seems like it’s just madness starting to grow more and more.”
Now, on one hand, there's a reason to feel a bit of concern. We've seen quite a few people on the left talking about killing ICE agents, and them buying guns and all that could be some kind of precursor toward violent action.
However, despite my near hysteria over the left trying to get rowdy, I'm not sure that's as widespread among leftists as we might believe. Most aren't quite as ready to kill as some of their brethren, not unlike the right, where some are ready for the Boogaloo right here and now, while others would rather avoid the entire thing.
If that's true, then more leftists buying and owning guns is a good thing.
Look, part of the reason Democrats push gun control is that it sells with their constituents. If you suddenly turn their base into gun owners who value their right to resist a tyrannical government, guess what happens? That's right, they either drop gun control from their platform or they find themselves out of a job because they lost a primary to a pro-gun Democrat.
That's not likely to happen in the near future, unfortunately, but as long as everyone stays peaceful, this is potentially good news for the right to keep and bear arms.
Of course, we can't dismiss that some on the left aren't exactly interested in being peaceful, and they're a lot more likely to start pulling triggers than folks on the right, which means we should be cautiously optimistic, at best, with this news.
Still, I'd really like a world where the Second Amendment just doesn't need as much defending as it does now.
Sure, I might be out of work, but I guess I could start talking about woodworking or something instead. At least my gun rights would be safe.
