brendan halpin

So I went down one of those internet rabbit holes yesterday looking at left-wing gun clubs. Not because I’m thinking of buying a gun, but just because I thought it might be interesting to see what the arguments for gun ownership were from the left, and whether I found those arguments more compelling than the right wing ones.

And, let me say this—I certainly found them more seductive. Because the right-wing gun people are afraid of imaginary threats—some vague notion that Black people are coming to steal all their stuff—whereas the dangers the left-wing people are afraid of—ICE, mass shooters, random guys who decide they want to be right wing death squads—are quite real.

The left wing gun websites are full of language about empowering women, LGBTQ+ people, and communities of color. And all of that sounds great to me.

But, like the right wing gun people, the left wing gun people are terribly vague about what this empowerment looks like in the real world.

They’ve got the home defense thing, though that has always seemed silly to me side by side with gun safety tips. “Hang on, Mr. Home Invader,” the safety-minded gun owner says, “let me just get my gun out of the safe, then unlock the ammo I have smartly stored elsewhere, and then I’ll be right downstairs to kill you so you don’t steal my television.” Also—do you want to be the kind of person who murders someone over a television?

I mean, yes, home invasions do happen. Incredibly incredibly rarely. I think we’ve all seen the statistic that if you have a gun in your home, the person most likely to get shot by it is a member of your family. (Including you! Pretty dangerous for anyone to have an almost foolproof suicide machine in the house!)

Ah, but what if the cops or ICE come breaking down your door? So what, you’re gonna get in a gun battle with 5 rage-addled white guys with AR-15s? Sounds like a great way to get dead to me.

Ah, but if ICE knows people are armed, they’ll be less likely to descend on the neighborhood! Or, hear me out here, they’ll come in heavy and with itchy trigger fingers. I was an adult when Ruby Ridge happened. That’s how law enforcement reacts when they know you’re heavily armed. I was alive when the City of Philadelphia bombed the house where the armed MOVE members lived and burned several people alive, including 5 children. Oh yeah, the fire also destroyed 65 other homes in the area. They knew the people inside had guns, so they burned them alive. Same technique the Nazis used to put down the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, during which, by the way, 110 Nazis and 13,000 Jews died, so if that’s your model of why armed resistance is important, you might want to reconsider.

My point here is that you can have as many guns as you want, but you’re never gonna have more than the state. The idea that you can beat the militarized police and/or the police-ized military with your little gun is so dumb as to be dangerous.

Okay, so home defense is out. Intimidating the state is out. But if you’re armed, you can protect your fellow citizens at protests in case another Kyle Rittenhouse shows up!

Damn, guys, this is the same “good guy with a gun” fantasy the right wing gun guys peddle. So you think that if some murderous incel shows up at your protest, you’re going to keep people safe by having a gun battle in the street? Really? Rittenhouse killed 2 people. How many more would have died if he and some “good guy with a gun” had been discharging dozens of rounds in a crowded street?

Ultimately, here is what I think the gun people are selling: “you don’t have to be afraid anymore.” That is a powerful drug, and I get why people succumb to it. But I think it’s important to recognize that it’s just a fantasy. You know how you can tell? By all the gun people who feel like they have to have a gun on them at all times. They’re not unafraid—they’re so terrified of the world that they dare not face it unarmed. This is ultimately where gun ownership gets you.

Tough times are here and tougher times are ahead. And I totally get the impulse to be like, “Why should all the unhinged, heavily-armed people be on the other side?” The platitudes sound great, but when you start looking at real-world scenarios, it seems to me that owning a gun you expect to use in some sort of combat situation in your home or neighborhood is a great way to get shot.