NY Times: "The Rise of the Armed Left"

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I'm surprised they didn't mention the Liberal Gun Club, which is a real thing.

I think of myself as liberal, though not in the recently (by "recently", I mean during my lifetime) redefined sense of the word. The Constitution started as a very liberal document for its era, and has become more so over time-- freedom of speech and religion? No search or seizure without warrants? Freedom to own and use firearms? Representative government? Jury of peers? Equality under the law? Such ideas strike me as the opposite of authoritarian, and thus liberal. I really admire the Enlightenment period, with Hume and Mill and Kant and Jefferson and Payne and all those dudes.

There, now I'm out of the closet. :)
 
AZAndy said:
I'm surprised they didn't mention the Liberal Gun Club, which is a real thing.

I think of myself as liberal, though not in the recently (by "recently", I mean during my lifetime) redefined sense of the word. The Constitution started as a very liberal document for its era, and has become more so over time-- freedom of speech and religion? No search or seizure without warrants? Freedom to own and use firearms? Representative government? Jury of peers? Equality under the law? Such ideas strike me as the opposite of authoritarian, and thus liberal. I really admire the Enlightenment period, with Hume and Mill and Kant and Jefferson and Payne and all those dudes.

There, now I'm out of the closet. :)
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That is a good one. I keep abreast of all attempts on gun control from "A Well Regulated Militia...." section. I'm not a member there but I do read their posts. They are a lot more rational and less frightening than some that frequent 24HourCampfire "Hunters Campfire" section.
 
Historically both the Republican and Democrat political parties had liberal and conservative wings as well as a majority that were centrists. There were Goldwater Republicans and Rockefeller Republicans and Humphrey Democrats and Bentsen Democrats. Hubert Humphrey (Mr. Liberal), by the way was a staunch vocal supporter of the 2nd Amendment. The 1967 movement in California that made it illegal for a citizen to carry a loaded firearm in public was a response to some US citizens claiming they had the right to be armed for their personal protection and was authored by a Republican, passed by the Republican controlled legislature and signed into law by Governor Ronald Reagan.
 
Deus Machina said:
Not contradictory at all. I can donate time, money, and my hair to the local women's cancer center without being either a woman or cancer patient. Maybe his parents were factory workers. Maybe he put himself through college working construction.
Promoting a cause does not necessarily mean one directly benefits from it or even fits in the demographic, and one shouldn't steer away from a good cause because they don't themselves directly gain from it.
Whether you consider it a good cause is up to you, but if it's something that shows those that may be of an otherwise opposing viewpoint that one can still support the right of the people to their instruments of defense, and get them to see the good in it and the issues of further restrictions, that's at least one mark on the benefit side of that Venn diagram.
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You hit my observation on the mark.

My curiosity was up when I read that someone in a stereotypically anti-gun profession wants to take on a cause of arming the people that they stereotypically would rather have disarmed.
 
Decided what I wrote was too political, moral of the story was I think it would be prudent to move the 2A from a partition issue to a universal human right, something many here probably already understand but we could all be better at portraying. I don't know how to change that conversation but the fact that both sides are making firearm ownership a personal thing maybe we are closer to that conversation than a few years ago.
 
I know Dems that would be fine opening up the 1986 machine registry conversely I know hard-core republican soccer moms that advocate an "assault weapon" ban and getting rid of high capacity magazines. Assuming all liberals know nothing about guns and are anti-gun and that all republicans are pro-gun is just silly.
 
cw308 said:
Like I said before , the line is drawn in the sand , no middle of the road sad to say . Pick a side and let's see what happens.
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I hate to call this out, but this is exactly the point of this thread. Thinking about a complicated subject can be hard, and when you combine several subjects it can be really hard. I am encouraged that most in this thread understand that you can believe in public health care (for example) and still support private ownership of AR15s, or believe in mandatory prayer in schools and oppose firearm ownership. There is nothing inherently contradictory in that. If gun groups are really interested in promoting gun ownership they will form coalitions across party (or philosophical) lines to do so, as has been done in politics since the first hunter-gatherers argued about which game herd to follow. I myself have converted no fewer than a dozen liberals into die-hard gun owners (who are still liberal otherwise).

Drawing "lines in the sand" is the exact opposite of what we need to do. All that does is polarize people we should be working with.
 
AZAndy said:
I'm surprised they didn't mention the Liberal Gun Club, which is a real thing.
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I periodically check their website. It's basically dead, with very little new being posted.

Compare that with ar15.com, which is a hotbed of the extreme Right. According to most posters there, Democrats = "commies," and "commies" need to be thrown from helicopters a la Pinochet's Chile.

Pro-gun liberals (among whom I include myself) have a real dilemma. If we consider guns to be our single issue (or at least our main issue), then we are forced to vote for people with whom we disagree vehemently on everything else. This is a bitter pill to swallow. So some of us throw up our hands and refuse to vote at all.

Polarization and tribalism have caused us to become schizophrenic. I long for the days when a President Kennedy could be a Life Member of the NRA.
 
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My Dad was a LEO for 32 years, gun owner, hunter, and a 2nd Amendment supporter. He was also a life long Democrat, two term county judge, and heavily involved in the Arkansas Democrat party while Clinton was Gov. He was also an NRA member.

Dems were different then, especially in the south. He and I were on opposite sides on most issues but we agreed on 2A. Sometimes I would remind him that he voted for Nixon. I don't think he would recognize his party anymore. He passed 22 years ago.
 
reddog81 said:
I know Dems that would be fine opening up the 1986 machine registry conversely I know hard-core republican soccer moms that advocate an "assault weapon" ban and getting rid of high capacity magazines. Assuming all liberals know nothing about guns and are anti-gun and that all republicans are pro-gun is just silly.
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And yet their parties have taken hard pro- and con- positions on guns. That leaves the rank and file members with little latitude. We are all forced into partisan straightjackets.
 
like most things in life, it boils down to how you make decisions.

the relevant decisions are:

who do i vote for to protect my 2A (and maybe hunting) rights?

how do i treat people i meet that have different political views? can i convert them? should i attempt to teach them responsible behavior/gun safety/marksmanship even if i know they will be anti-gun?
 
I hope this is a wake up call for my fellow Democrats. The Democratic Party seems to have become estranged from its natural constituency after events in the 1960s drove a wedge between working class (conservative) and college-educated (liberal) Democrats. I grew up in the 1960s and became a college-educated (liberal) Democrat. My default setting was that war and military was evil, guns were bad, and pacifism (combined with an abiding trust in government) was the morally superior path. It took another 30 years to rediscover myself after placing so much emphasis on chasing ideals. The wise man seeks balance in life.

I hope the Democratic Party discovers that masculinity is not "toxic", bad behavior is. As a hybrid Democrat I have learned to walk softly and carry a big stick.
 
paulsj said:
Armed groups that are not part of the National Guard. Members of National Guard are well-regulated authorized militia.
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Are you referring to the "well regulated militia" in the Second Amendment?

If so your understanding of "well regulated" and "militia" at the time of the Second Amendment is incorrect. "Well regulated" did not mean under the law or regulated as we would understand it now. It refers to being in proper working order.

The "militia" was all white males of fighting age. Not the military.
 
The ones with guns show promise. The ones who throw bottles every time conservatives try to meet are the ones to watch.
 
Texas10mm said:
The "militia" was all white males of fighting age. Not the military.
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For 2nd Amendment purposes, the "militia" is the 18th century universal militia. Basically everybody. The closest thing we have to that under current law is the "unorganized militia" as defined in 10 U.S.C. section 246. Ad hoc armed groups (and, indeed, the National Guard itself) do not qualify for 2nd Amendment protection because they lack the element of universality.
 
2A all the way. Absolutely nothing wrong with any unrestricted person from owning a firearm or two, three, or more. Doesn't matter what motivates them.
 
KNO3 said:
2A all the way. Absolutely nothing wrong with any unrestricted person from owning a firearm or two, three, or more. Doesn't matter what motivates them.
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Yes. I believe that the 2nd Amendment means that individuals can own military weapons, including machine guns. Unfortunately the Supreme Court doesn't agree with me.

Guns are not a right vs. left issue, if we define right and left primarily in economic terms.
 
AlexanderA said:
The previous thread on this very subject was closed because it got too political, and I fear that this thread will be closed as well.

In the meantime, let me say what I've been saying for a long time -- that the real hard-core left is not against guns. The people who are against guns are well-meaning but mushy-headed people in the ideological middle -- such as the proverbial "soccer moms" -- marshaled and funded by plutocratic social engineers like Bloomberg. It is entirely incorrect to call antigunners "leftists." The fact that the antigunners have made common cause with the Democrats (and the pro-gunners with the Republicans) is entirely coincidental.
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I agree 100 percent! I remember years ago when CBS had documentaries in prime time against hunters and hunting in this country. It was as biased as anything I've ever seen. Now, today anytime there is a shooting the first words being reported by major newscasters is when are we going to have better gun control? Nothing is ever said about mental illness that all of these shooters have. Nothing is ever said about why the 2A exist. Rather it's all about guns, guns, guns and for all the mushy headed people that fear guns, getting rid of them is the perfect solution. Very sad that there isn't more education surrounding our 2A.
 
That the people who are using violence as a tactic to force their political views on us are now deciding to arm themselves is not an unexpected progession. Socialism and it's cousin, communism are often forced upon people or kept there at the point of a gun, with the number of people killed by communists at over 100 million. Tyranical governments is one of the main reasons the founders wrote the 2A and conversely one of the main reasons people promoting that form of government are so eager to do away with it.
 
roscoe said:
Apologies to the mods if this can't be kept civil. But here is an interesting article on how political events have pushed a rise in gun ownership on the left (read the comments - some good, some bad):

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/02/o...nra-trump.html

To keep this forum-safe, I will avoid talking about any political position. But I will say that I know quite a few liberals who have taken to owning guns in times in which they have felt persecuted because of their circumstances. It is less common now, but in the 1980s gay-bashing by gangs of young men was a real thing, and I had some gay friends arm themselves specifically in response to the perceived threat. And, although it is 40 years ago now, in my opinion, the Black Panthers arming themselves were the closest in recent times to embodying the purpose of the 2nd Amendment.

It is interesting how this goes - folks on the right arming themselves against some perceived Muslim invasion threat, and folks on the left arming themselves because of a perceived Nazi/White Nationalist threat. (This board and THR are pretty good, but some gun boards are full of folks talking about Muslim invaders).

I actually find it refreshing that the left sees the need to take the initiative to protect themselves, because part of some left-leaning philosophy has historically advocated pacifism (that I, as a liberal, find philosophically indefensible).

One of the NRA's big failings is not to be reaching out across the aisle. They frame themselves as pretty right wing - articles about Socialism, etc., that really have no place in advocating gun ownership. But maybe their interest is in the continued political conflict rather than actually convincing folks from different philosophies.

But, folks, let's keep it clean!
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I consider myself a Classical Liberal but I'm fairly certain thats not what you meant.

The more freedom the better.

I see nothing but positives if a side of the political spectrum that has always said they are pro individual rights decides to support one more.

Both sides left or right (Fiscally) should support our individual rights. All of them.
 
AlexanderA said:
that the real hard-core left is not against guns.
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I disagree with that, the hard core antis are almost all on the left and are at the core of the anti gun Mr & Mrs America give up your guns push. The mushy headed ones on the left, in the middle, and on the right, are the well meaning ones who do not understand why the hard core antis want to disarm people. And of course there are a few hard core antis on the right, and a few in the middle, but the majority are on the left.
 
It seems to me that some demographics typically associated with the left such as minorities (as in the case of the synagogue shooting) or those who identify as members of the LGBT community (as in the case of the Orlando nightclub incident) can reasonably be considered as being at risk of violent crime. This being the case, it would not be unreasonable for members of these groups to take the initiative to insure their safety by taking proactive steps and assuming some personal responsibility to insure their survival.
 
Wisco said:
The NRA is a political machine that needs money and they raise it from their most ardent supporters through stoking extreme tribalism and fear-mongering just like any other well-funded political group. If there was money to be raised from anyone else, they’d do it.
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The NRA does much of its work to fight second amendment distractors right there in Washington D.C. While there, they have to play pretty much the same game other lobby groups play or they will be lost in the sauce. The method used is the same the opposing side uses and they do need supporters to fund the cause.

I hesitate to think where we would be without the work they have done over the years. Mistakes have been made for sure and mistakes will continue to be made, but overall, they have done a reasonable job for our cause.[/QUOTE]
 
It
somethingbenign said:
Decided what I wrote was too political, moral of the story was I think it would be prudent to move the 2A from a partition issue to a universal human right, something many here probably already understand but we could all be better at portraying. I don't know how to change that conversation but the fact that both sides are making firearm ownership a personal thing maybe we are closer to that conversation than a few years ago.
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It would seem good to tie gun ownership to basic human need like having something to put in cooking pot. Don't lot of people hunt to help put food on the table? This is something any normal person should be able to comprehand and relate too.
 
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