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 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.
That’s the one I was thinking of.
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.
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