I'd say 1/6 was a fairly big part of why I chose to get armed. I've never really been wealthy, but had kind of come to terms with the police response in my area. I'm not a little fella so I figured I'd probably be ok. I liked shooting in my youth, but it struck me as an expensive hobby I probably didn't need to start.
One of the more frightening aspects of 1/6 was the stark difference in police response between a crowd saying hay don't shoot us and throw us in jail so much and a crowd saying: it's time to overthrow the United States government.
I realized it's not just day to day police indifference that I'd have to worry about. Even small scale political violence will most likely be protected or aided by an increasingly militarized police force.
I mean some of those rioters could have been my neighbors. Red Dawn was suddenly much less "as likely as the zombie apocalypse", and more maybe a gun or two and some ammunition in the closet isn't such a bad idea.
The final kick in the pants was when proud boys were armed and marching two blocks away from my house and accomplished their mission by interrupting a drag brunch with police watching.
I don't know what's in store for the future, but I'm armed and trying to get proficient. Hopefully, it's just a fun hobby. I do really enjoy shooting and always have. And I really really hope my guns remain toys and never become tools.
I wonder if we start coordinating like the panthers did, if they'll start cracking down on guns like Reagan did in California. Can't have gun owners protecting drag events.
I prefer hunting over factory farming.
I agree with you. It's a controversial topic and I think you're likely to catch some downvotes any time you bring it up in a forum like this, but in my opinion anybody who disagrees with the statement that hunting for your meat is better than factory farming is seriously misguided.
I'd love to be able to get into hunting for that reason.
I typically avoid meat, but just because when you know about the source it sort of takes away a lot of the appeal.
Hunting is a pretty expensive hobby where I'm at though.
I was always mostly libertarian. But like the little "L". The kind that, from a pure philosophy stand point, might have not been able to justify universal health care but was farrrrrrrrrrr more concerned with things like mass surveillance, marriage equality, trans rights, private prisons, etc. Do I think assholes that don't want to make a cake ought to be allowed NOT to make a cake? I kind of do. But I don't loose any sleep over it.
I'm definitely not a democrat, because while republicans champion a lot of the stuff I have issues with, dems aren't far behind them on a lot of the issues I care about despite the messaging. A decade ago I probably wouldn't have been the right's left and left's right, but the right lost their entire mind so I'm not comfortable being anywhere near what I think is leading us down an incredibly dark path.
Anyway, with firearms, they weren't in my house growing up but they were around. Shooting with scouts, sometimes with friends etc. Got heavy into trap, skeet, and some hunting as an adult. But what it really comes down to is there's nothing I like less than the surge of people buying stuff "for home defense" who don't understand the responsibility. You have no business reaching for a firearm in the night if that's not something you've trained and practiced for, and a good 80-90% of that training is around NOT pulling the trigger because, while it's your right to defend yourself, the odds of it being some dumb kid or your drunk neighbor are just much higher. The people that want to play "dirty harry" bother me, and NRA/Republican messaging has made it far worse.
So yeah, I'm not totally left, but agree with more things the left does, and I find left/liberal gun owners to have a frame of mind around these tools that I have a much easier time with.
I've always been one. My whole family as well. My grandfather was die hard liberal and owned lots of guns. (He also liked to remind me back when Texas was a lot more blue).
I went to gun store recently to buy parts for my first AR build. I got some weird looks at first, but once the guy realized I knew my shit, he opened up.
Genuinely curious about when the idea that liberals are anti-gun started. 2008? 1990's?
I'd say 80s and by the mid-90s it was assumed that anybody not voting right wing hated guns. A lot of lobbyists here in the US probably take the blame for that.
It's a good question.
I've always lived in a part of the country where there really weren't anti gun democrats. People still voted Republican for guns though. I think it was because of just how powerful the NRA was and how much effort they spent demonizing democrats and endorsing republicans. I'm not sure when it started. I think it must have been before my time lol. I've never really know the NRA to be anything other than a republican fundraiser.
I think the worst of it is that the anti-democrate sentiment is still so high in modern gun culture for no real good reason.
It's not an accident. At the end of the day the NRA exists because the dynamic is they can deliver votes, and that gives them power they can turn into money. They deliver votes by riling people up. If they were genuinely interested in protecting 2A rights, there's plenty of in-between they could go for, but that doesn't get people riled up. The guy in vegas didn't use any loop-hole, and shouldn't have passed his background check; he just was never added to the database. There are plenty of laws which aren't achieving their intent for one reason or another but we all need to abide by anyway. If the NRA was true to their mission, this is the lowest hanging fruit they could address. But they aren't a 2A organization, they are a vote delivery machine first, foremost, and sometimes only.
I've always been pro gun, but I wasn't a gun owner until the pandemic hit and the riots really started to ramp up. Fuck if I'm going to allow someone into my home like that.
My parents are libertarians and I've been a gun owner since I was 10, when I received an H&R Pardner single-shot .410 shotgun as a Christmas present in 2006. So I've pretty much always been a (socially, at least) liberal gun owner. Nowadays my political convictions can more appropriately be described as left-libertarian.
Jan 6th and the way the terrorists have been treated since. Uvalde and the lack of police intervention as children had their heads blown off.
I don't feel safe anymore.
That one insurrectionist literally shot his gun at police, they left and let him "sleep it off". Anyone else would have had a swat team called and been turned into a soup by police. He got 2 years, a slap on the wrist, for attempting to kill police.
They are protecting domestic terrorists. Police are not following their oath anymore, they are weapons of the right wing extremism
I have a farm with goats at the base of a mountain range. Cougar issues necessitate firearm solutions. That being said, I don't own anything that is "assault" anything. A .243 rifle and single action .44 magnum are my tools.
