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.
I’m a die hard anti-gun liberal & I have 100% thought about getting a gun.
I’m a leftist and life long gun owner, I go to the range every other weekend and enjoy it greatly as a hobby. I shoot competively in both long range and pistol competitions. I also think we are in dire need of much strickter gun control here in the US. I would say a full 80% of gun owners should not be allowed to have them due to a lack of training and understanding of firearms and their use.
If you’re thinking about buying a gun I would suggest first going to a range and taking a basic firearms class. I would suggest finding one of the corporate owned chains simply because your less likely to run into the wrong (far right wing) type of gun enthusiast. RangeUSA is a good option. But really any range will have classes available for first time gun owners, usually for under $100. They also offer rentals once you’ve familiarized yourself with safe operation and handling. For home self defence purposes I always reccomend a mid or fullsize 9mm handgun. They have relatively little recoil, are plentiful, cheap, and easy to handle.
I was trying to steer people toward a 9mm handgun over a pump shotgun for HD here a little while back and people didn’t want to hear it. Almost no one fires defensively with ear protection, among all the other downsides imaging your ears ringing for 2 mins after a singe shot before youre able to hear again, no thank you.
I have mixed feels on that 9mm v pump shotty for the home debate. Personally I’d argue for an AR over the shotgun, but that’s less universally legal and doesn’t have the same binary roadmap of “870 or 590, who cares” and the AR field is FILLED with vendor trash.
But. If it’ll literally never leave the house and you can shoot it, a 12 gauge pump beats the pistol every day imo. Pick a hallway/stairwell, and camp your chosen angle with said shotgun. Compared to a pistol it’s hands down better; shooting handguns quickly and accurately is HARD. The handgun gives up a stock, longer sight rib/radius, use of slugs, and a much better trigger without throwing money away.
The handgun’s primary benefit as a platform is concealment. That’s it. So if someone literally only has $600 and needs a catch all solution - police trade-in Glock 19/17, a real holster, and (plz please puleaze) a lockbox of some kind. If they can swing another $300 or so, then add on a shotgun.
Pistols also have maneuverability on their side. Moving around a house is more difficult with something as long as a shotgun, which is fine if like you said you post up at the stairs or a choke point. But I have kids, if someone comes in my house, getting to them and ensuring they’re safe is my priority. Pistols also give you more rounds and easier reloads. It all depends on individual preference and situation. You’re right pistols take more practice to use effectively, but they’re way more versatile.
I hear you, and like you said it all depends on your scenario. Someone on a ranch compound with multiple buildings they need/want to check on versus a RV/boat living alone are dramatically different ends of the home defense spectrum.
Your scenario may be vastly different from mine or someone else’s - which is why I have a hard time giving universal advice. Pick your platform, and test it. See if it’ll will or will not work out at 3am when you’re carrying a frightened child back to your safe area, or if your long gun needs a sling added, or if that 33rd Glock magazine is actually kinda massive and gets in your way.
A 12g is a little too big for a home. A 14g works just as well. And breach load isn’t too difficult to reload either. Pistols are harder to aim in a panic, shotguns allow for errors in accuracy. Home defense only, of course. Plus 14g make for decent varmint guns too, if you have issues with invading or dangerous wildlife (coyotes, raccoons, opossums, snakes, etc.)
They may be thinking as my aunt/uncle do - the sound of the pump action is the first defense. After that the ears are a small problem by comparison to what gets through the first defense.
I’d much rather have a handgun myself, but that may be the mentality.
Yea, the whole “sound of a pump action” is really the last thing you want in an SD situation. Its always better to have surprise on your side.
Hey, its not my take.
I’d rather not give them a chance to take out a weapon either. But its not my shotgun either.
I didn’t think it was your take, I was just adding to it. But yea, people do as they do lol.
I grew up around guns, I’m rather familiar with them. That said refamilliarizing myself with it is an excellent idea.
I was seriously looking into a shotgun until we decided to flee the country instead
Not assuming you don’t know this but just in case:
https://vote.gov/voting-outside-of-us
I have a similar contingency, but as you already know, moving abroad is not easy and a lot of the people who need it the most won’t have the means.
I’m proud to say I was able to vote for Zohran in the primary before I left :)
But you’re right, moving abroad is incredibly difficult and not accessible to most. You also have to be mentally ready to take the opportunity the second it presents itself. Things are still difficult for my partner and I and we share a lot of grief for the friends and lifestyle we left behind.
Mossberg shockwave, small, 5 shot, 12 gauge
Even legal in Cali
Edit: can’t modify it at all tho :(
I think that’s fine. I don’t think we should be able to mod guns.
Modifications generally don’t make a gun more dangerous, they’re generally about making them easier to operate for the user. Different grips to fit bigger or smaller hands, flashlights so you can see what your shooting in a dark house, different sights for different situations or eye conditions etc. I for one have astigmatism so many standard sights don’t work for me and I’m also very tall so a longer butt stock enables me to be more accurate and stable.
That makes more sense. I also know these things exist so idk what I’m on about. Think I just have travel brain.
Alright, I’ll bite, why shouldn’t you be able to mod guns?
I’m not talking about something like converting a semi auto to a machine gun
I’m talking about stuff like choosing a different stock or grip that feels more comfortable.
Or maybe you’d prefer a lighter or heavier trigger pull, or maybe you find that your gun’s not cycling properly with a certain kind of ammo and you’d like to swap out some springs or other internal components to address that?
Or maybe there’s a part that wasn’t deburred properly from the factory that is making your gun jam and it needs a little filing or polishing to make it move properly?
Or maybe you have a shotgun for hunting, maybe you’d like to have just one gun and swap between a rifled barrel to fire slugs for deer and a smoothbore barrel for bird shot?
Maybe you want to add a different optic, a scope more suited to the distances you shoot at, or iron sights with colored dots on them so they’re easier for you to see?
Maybe you’d just like to add a sling?
Yeah those are fine, I think in general I’m thinking of bump stocks or something. Basic maintenance & accessibility are cool with me.
It sounds like you need to think about your word choice better then, because that’s exactly the kind of thing many gun owners have in mind when they talk about modding their guns.
And a lot of our gun laws are already incredibly stupid without people trying to drum up stupid ideas like “you shouldn’t be allowed to modify your guns”
I might be misremembering, but I think even the much maligned bump stock was created as an accessibility device originally. It might be another kind of similar stock that was victimized by the media, but IIRC the bump stock was designed as an aid for veterans who had lost a limb to allow them to use a pistol one-handed.
There’s a lot of stuff like that that has been fear mongered by the media. Like suppressors. Everybody has been told that they make a gun basically silent when what they actually do is reduce the sound of a gun from “permanent hearing damage” to “not permanent hearing loss.”
The bump stock is derpy and just for simulating full auto. You’re thinking of the pistol brace that you strap to your arm - they both were in discussion for bans around the same era, that’s likely where you got them mixed up 🙂
Pistol braces are in a “legal but the ATF doesn’t like that fact” area atm. Tl; dr they made an interpretative rule change out of whole cloth, got slapped in the courts, and have a permanent stay on enforcing their rule change.
To add to that, the whole short barrel rifle/shotgun thing is a mistake anyways. When they were first hammering out the national firearms act in the 1930s they were going to outlaw handguns entirely. To cover their bases they wanted to ensure that no one would simply cut down a rifle or shotgun to make a “pistol” they put in a section outlawing those too. After a lot of lobbying from the gun industry they ditched the legislation on handguns, but more or less forgot to remove the parts about SBRs and SBSs.
That’s the one I was thinking of.
Your anti gun in general so I’m not surprised to hear thst
I’m super envious. I’ve been begging my wife to consider this, but she won’t even listen. She thinks I’m crazy. I joke she prefers her head in the sand.
It’s hard. It’s really hard. And expensive. Getting the right to be in the country legally is only the first step, and there is a mountain of grief to process on top of that
Guns aren’t inherently bad. Gun worship is bad. Gun ownership without proper safety and use is bad. Gun as a toy philosophy is bad. Gun’s being taught to children as a weapon to destroy those they hate is bad. Guns are a qeapon to be used fr defense, or a tool to hunt to eat. Guns aren’t a hotrod that gets modifications for fun, or a contest to see who can get the most. Teach children they can’t touch guns without supervision, keep them locked up. Practice with guns, read or get training on maintenance and safety. If you are a person who thinks about using a gun more than a few times a week or so you probably should question why you think that way. If you have anything but a sick feeling at the thought of killing someone with a gun you need therapy. Guns are a last resort, and they should be respected as the grim reapers they are.
Yup, I was pretty anti gun until about 6 months ago. Now I have three (pistol, AR-15, shotgun).
Based on your selection I bet you have a large house with some property around it. I have a tiny place with a small patch of back yard.
Raised around guns but have never owned. Been thinking a lot about getting an AR-15 because it is less hassle in California.
Any thoughts?
No actually, pretty small house and lot. I just like to be prepared and that load out was the consensus among my gun-knowledge friends for general cover-your-bases utility.
The AR-15 was the first one I got, the others were just in case. It seems like it’s pretty much accepted as one of the best options out there if you can only have one gun. It’s an extremely well-supported system with lots of options for customization to fit particular niches. Based on my research, I would recommend it. Not only is it pretty flexible, but it looks imposing as an open carry if that’s your use case.
I went with a Ruger 556 because it reviewed well as a fantastic budget option and I found a good deal on a used one, but Palmetto State Armory has a well-reviewed option for a tad cheaper.
You can make an AR pretty small, even smaller if you get a sbr tax stamp.
Didn’t know about sbr stamp but i know an AR can small. Figure an AR is more versatile than a shotgun of the same length.
Im glad im not the only one. It’s generally something I keep to myself. I fear im running out of time to make a decision
Guns are a good example of how everything else went. Like I believe in regulation. Allowing it to be banned on private property and at local levels if the citizen majority want it. Also to limit modern capabilities. At the same time I think it should not be banned nationally or limited to a point of not being able to work as defense or hunting or such (and I mean reasonable not bend over backward like silencers are necessary because you can’t be bothered to wear ear protection.) One side looks at me as super anti gun liberal commie etc and the other as promoting murder as such. Admitadely the one side is the average folk of the side while the other is an extreme few.
Buying into antigun rhetoric is one of the biggest missteps “the left” has made in recent decades.
We have an authoritarian fascist state coalescing as we speak and there are still leftists advocating gun control. It’s a losing argument in the U.S. right now. I tell people as often as I can, especially my trans and bipoc friends; now is the time. Get a couple guns (a long one and a short one) and learn how to use them. Learn some basic first aid, you really just need to know how to stabilize someone. Start networking with like-minded people in your communities. The police will not protect us, they’ve proven they’ll happily club senior citizens to the ground and shoot any protesters in the face with rubber bullets while escorting a rightwing murderer to safety. Iran was a secular, liberal state until almost 1980 when they (mostly legitimately) elected an Islamist theocracy; it could happen here.
Our current situation really is the culmination of almost 70 years of rightwing efforts. It’s a long listen but worth checking out How Conservatism Won by Robert Evans. He lays out in a clear concise way “how a consortium of rich failsons got together to fund a network of right wing think tanks and shift American culture in a fun new direction. (note: it was not actually fun at all).” They’ve been very successful and those think tanks are now pipelines used to funnel ideological purists into powerful positions like our current Supreme Court.
The shadowy cabals the rightwing says are behind everything is classic projection again, they’re controlled by shadowy cabals of rich people. One of the primary ghouls/traitors responsible for the attempted overthrow of our government on J6 was Roger Stone, the same traitorous ratfucker who began his career working for Nixon and has a fucking Nixon tattoo on his back. It’s really impossible to overstate how bad these people are and they’re winning.
The coup was successful, they’re in power and if they don’t want to give it up they won’t.
Get to know people in your community. Take an interest in growing food, learn how to fix things. Establish secondary lines of communication and start preparing.
https://www.dsausa.org/
https://mutualaiddisasterrelief.org/
https://socialistra.org/
https://generalstrikeus.com/
https://afsc.org/news/how-create-mutual-aid-network
https://www.immigrantdefenseproject.org/raids/
https://mutualaidhub.org/
I mean im still for it as much as I have ever been but its never been something important enough to negotiate for. I won’t give up one iota of social safetynets or civil rights or whatever for it. Of course gun control is like regulation to me. I want businesses regulated but I don’t want to throw out capitalism.
“…but I don’t want to throw out capitalism.”
Suppressors are a prime example of how Hollywood has shaped so much of the population’s perception of firearms. You even make a great example yourself by calling them silencers.
Suppressors are a great tool for making a loud hobby less likely to damage people’s hearing (yes, even with proper ear protection) and less annoying to everybody else within a few miles. They don’t make guns silent like in the movies. Some countries like the UK even require them or make them readily available because they’re so obviously beneficial.
I really think the folks who get all up in arms about silencers (another legitamate word for suppressors) are being disengenous. It makes guns a fuck ton less noisy and that is what people know. No one thinks it makes them silent any more than a bow, sling, or rail gun is silent. When folks hear gunshots though they get the hell out but if “suppressed” they might react with. What is that. Thats weird.