For decades, the image of gun ownership in America was white, rural and Republican, but that’s been changing, according to gun clubs, trainers, Second Amendment advocates and academic researchers.
They say more liberals, people of color and LGBTQ folks have been buying guns for years and particularly since Trump’s reelection in 2024. This story was based on more than 30 interviews. David Phillips is on the training team of the Liberal Gun Club, which has chapters in more than 30 states and provides a haven for liberals to train and learn about guns. He says club membership has grown from 2,700 in November to 4,500 today. Requests for training, he says, have quintupled.
“The concern is about the supporters of the right-wing who feel that they have been given permission to run roughshod at least, if not commit outright violence against people they don’t like,” Phillips says.
MAGA won’t back down if they don’t get a bloody nose. Be it self defense or a civil war, the good guys need to be able to trade shots when the time comes.
The time was months ago.
Better late than never.
Remember folks: don’t just buy it, train with it.
And if you can get like minded friends to do the same even better.
Personally I’m not a fan of handguns, I prefer rifles but both are good at poking holes.
Also be sure to pick a firearm that takes a common type of round, the last thing you need to worry about is trying to find some obscure round type when you need it.
9mm Parabellum and 5.56 NATO?
9mm Parabellum
I’ve never heard 9mm referred to as that (had to look it up to be sure) but yeah 9mm and 5.56 NATO rounds are great choices as they’re available basically anywhere here in the states. So is 30-06, 308, and 22LR.
Personally I’ve got guns that take 5.56, 30-06, and 22LR. The 22LR are consistently the cheapest ones to shoot and I usually buy them by the box of 500. Among my friend group the only deviation is those that have handguns, they’ve got guns that take 9mm and 38 special as well.
Please do not count on 22LR for any sort of self defense purposes. It’s a great round for shooting paper targets and small critters, but against a human it has the stopping power of a letter opener. Sure, it might stop someone if you hit just the right spot, or pain might shock someone inexperienced into pausing long enough for you to run, but you don’t really want to be counting on either of those in a life or death scenario.
Yeah the 22LR is for fun for me not for defense. The 5.56 and 30-06 are quite expensive per shot by comparison so they’re shot less for fun and more for making sure I’m still skilled with them.
Both are excellent calibers. Their extreme abundance means you will always have ammo available. They also both offer very manageable recoil.
And just like that, the GOP will be in favor of gun control.
California’s famous anti-gun policies were born out of Republican fear of the Black Panthers.
they have to find a way to be in favor of gay oral first (trump blowing bubba and putin having the kompromat), but yes that’s on the list too
What do you think DOGE was REALLY doing? I, at least hope, I have done a good job in keeping my voting history and disdain for Trump and his supporters anonymous online and IRL other than in trusted circles. And at the end of the day, it was all for naught, because anyone who voted for Harris or Biden is on a list now that has already been disseminated. When the time comes, even though their numbers will be few, they think they will go town to town running roughshod over the libs.
Won’t they be surprised.
Is voting in the US not anonymous?
Your voter registration isn’t, at least. So, for example, anyone can easily look someone up online and see what party they’re registered with, along with their home address.
Don’t just buy guns.
Train with the guns you buy!!!
And with each other.
IRL events is filled with irony.
Dems are the ones that tried to implement “may-issue” gun permit laws, which delegated the power to issue gun permits to police discretion, guess what happens if a black dude tries to get a gun permit and the officer was white. See the problem? “I have a bad feeling about this guy, DENIED!”
Meanwhile, the 6 authoritarian far-right supreme court justices ironically were the ones that stuck down those shitty laws, and now it’s “shall-issue” nationwide, meaning cops can no longer use their discretion or “gut feeling” to deny gun permits, if a person meets the requirements, they are required to issue a gun permit. Makes the process more fair.
Such irony, authoritarians end up making carrying arms easier.
Only ironic if you don’t see the motivations behind their actions.
Liberals who feared a school shooter or deranged ex aren’t the ones arming up now. Conservatives who knocked down the regulations aren’t the ones who feel particularly threatened by a liberal with a gun.
authoritarians end up making carrying arms easier
But organizing any kind of community defense significantly harder. There’s no magic bullet you can buy to protect yourself from the violence of your neighbors, much less your external oppressors.
A great deal of the pro and anti gun frameworks have been about organizing local political interests into activist groups and police-aligned influencers.
The pro-gun groups have won primarily because their organizations are in tight with sitting administrations, but because they simple have guns available to any dipshit with a credit card and a driver’s license.
A reminder to all those who want to buy a gun for protection, get training and not just shooting at paper.
I can tell you that even just being a hunter, you’re reaction to a situation that will involve potentially taking a life, you’re not going to react the way you think you will when adrenaline is pumping through you.
You saying we should practice shooting at living humans? I’m not really sure what you’re implying here…
There are many exercises to help train your reactions during actual emergencies that don’t involve firing live ammunition at real people. Im more familiar with martial arts than firearms, but sparring works.
Sparring…with guns?
Shooting competitions can be useful. Especially something like a 3-gun match where you’re moving around, reloading, changing weapons, have an accuracy penalty, and are running against a clock.
But the biggest problem there is money. Ammo is reaaly expensive these days, and 3-gun will use up a LOT of it.
Yeah, I don’t wanna go through the proper training to actually be a useful gun carrying person. I also don’t want to carry a gun. Between those two things, I haven’t bought one. If I weren’t a straight I might have to reconsider.
What if it’s a hunting trip to hunt predator animals instead of prey animals?
Wouldn’t that be better training because the creature can fight back?
Wouldn’t that be better training because the creature can fight back?
That depends. What kind of firearms training has the predator animal received and are they equally armed? Otherwise its bringing claws to a gun fight.
The hunter can always just bring humanity’s most iconic weapon to practice better: the spear.
If you are feeling fancy, a bow.
If you wanna go on a humanity fuck yeah trip, a gun.
There’s a lot of choices. What matters is that they develop a proper response in the face of danger and avoid freezing.
Hunting predators has caused massive ecological harm in the US.
Hunt hogs. They’re invasive and cause massive damage ecologically and economically. They can also fuck you up.
Hunting feral hogs is outdated management practice. It interferes with centralized operations that combat the feral hogs, but also educates the hog populations to be better at evading capture. Drop cages with baiting and cameras are the most effective management practice. Seconded by drones that use infrared to find sounders of hogs, those details are send to a helicopter with a sharpshooter to take out the whole sounder.
TL; DR: hunting feral hogs makes smart hogs and only makes thr problem of controlling and reducing population worse.
This isn’t entirely true… extermination of apex predators has brought environmental damage. Sustainable hunting is actually a net positive, brings additional revenue to the area and helps population dynamics. Specifically things like how they hunt African Lions today. The pick sick or old animals, it has high barrier to entry so it’s not something you do often and most of the money goes back into conservation and local developing economies.
So you’re saying thousands of people people who aren’t members of the rich, white, cis, straight Republican, male ruling class should spend 200 grand each to hunt old apex predators?
They shouldn’t be buying them out of fear… It should be out of the drive for the protection of genuine humanity.
If it’s about fear then America has no hope.
Good thing it is their right to keep and bear arms!
It isn’t a political party issue, it’s about defending rights when no one else can or will do it for you.
Gun rights are trans rights. They’re gay rights. They’re little old lady rights. They’re white rights, black rights, legal immigrant rights. They’re rights for weaklings, and rights for the strong.
That’s the thing about rights - we are all entitled to them!
Now go get yourself some instruction about safety, and time at the range, and don’t be stupid with your tools for death ☠️
It is good that people finally understand why its important to be able to have these. That said make sure if you buy on to train with it. A weapon you hold but cannot use belongs to your enemy.
Every “liberal” and “independent” should have at least one to carry in public and bigger one to defend your home and family with.
Don’t be the victim of a deranged, unhinged, Trump supporter and/or masked men at your door trying to kill you and your golden retriever only for the “liberal MSM” to whitewash and it relegate it to the back page by noon.
Sucks it’s out of fear, but John Brown would be proud nonetheless.
The world is like a ride in an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it you think it’s real because that’s how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it’s very brightly colored and it’s very loud and it’s fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time and they begin to question: “Is this real, or is this just a ride?” And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say: “Hey, don’t worry, don’t be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride.” … and we kill those people.
Ha ha, “Shut him up. We have a lot invested in this ride. Shut him up. Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and my family. This just has to be real.” It’s just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok. But it doesn’t matter, because it’s just a ride. And we can change it anytime we want. It’s only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as ONE.
Here’s what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defense each year, and instead spend it feeding, clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.
– Bill Hicks.
I’m surprised they hadn’t armed before this
If anybody needs any firearm purchasing, selection or safety advice. I would love to help. Ive instructed basic firearm safety, volunteered as a range safety officer, and have read dozens of arms manuals.
What does Project 2025, “Make a Christo Fascist Shithole,” say about gun control and 2A?
I thought that was a good question so I looked it up, not least because one of the right’s oft-repeated accusations has been that “the libruls want to take our guns!” which to me means that the right has been thinking about taking them all along.
Historically, authoritarian regimes are NOT big on letting citizens defend themselves against government, which is how the US got the Second Amendment to start with, so I’m still low-key convinced that the long-term strategy here is to create an environment of regular stochastic terrorism until the military is fully on board, and then to react to that public carnage by declaring all privately-held firearms illegal as part of the move to full martial law.
But in the meantime, as the Brady Campaign, a long-established gun control group, says, for Project 2025 the plan is “Guns everywhere.”
Project 2025 also seems to have a particular aversion to state-level concealed carry laws, and wants to overturn those as well.
There is a good amount of information out there if you’re interested in looking further but that’s the gist of it. Project 2025 = guns are good, and lots of 'em . . . at least for now.
Thank you and +1! I find it odd that Project 2025 supports “LIBERAL” gun policies, because when Mango F’n Mussolini goes for the full power grab, he must control the guns.
Good on you for being so helpful. You’re what’s good about this community. ❤️
Project 2025 = guns are good, and lots of 'em
(Sarcastically) Finally, an unexpectedly bipartisan opinion!
I imagine they had it in their heads that all of those left-of-fascist are cowering hoplophobes who won’t defend themselves when abused.
This will bite them in the ass, hopefully soon before or after the tsunami of “find out” from their other ideas does.
I’m of the firm belief that our current society’s issue with weapons is based in a distinct and highly politicized lack of education and sense of responsibilities around them.
The more we educate and train as a community, the better prepared we’ll be to protect ourselves and our neighbors, and the more the the blowhard cowards who need a big bad boss to do their thinking for them will think twice.
