In my head they are very normalburger if that makes sense. They think Trump can stop the war enough to affect the market, right?
In my head they are very normalburger if that makes sense. They think Trump can stop the war enough to affect the market, right?
This is anecdotal, but I’m basically what passes for being the “gun guy” among my mostly very liberal friends
Basically my qualifications are that I went shooting when I was in boy scouts, have a few friends who own guns and have gone shooting with them, and have a lot of outdoorsy hobbies that have overlap with hunters and such (my own attempts at hunting have been with a bow, and I wasn’t very successful,) and generally have a casual interest in guns, but don’t really have money to throw at them, I have plenty of other hobbies and things I’m worried about and guns are near the bottom of my priority list.
Which isn’t all that much, but it’s a lot more firearms experience than most of them have. And they also know I’m someone who will do some research and not just make stupid recommendations.
But a good handful of those people have been asking me about guns because they’ve been thinking about buying one themselves. And some of these same people were, at one point, fervently anti-gun.
And those who already have guns have been going to the range more, trying to stockpile a little extra ammo, maybe acquiring some new guns, getting a carry permit when they never felt the need to and we’re content to leave their guns at home in a safe before, etc.
They’re not out there talking about it, spreading it all over social media, posting pictures of their guns or at the range. Some of them, I think, are a little ashamed of it, others just (probably justifiably) think it’s not wise to spread that knowledge that they have them.
So there is arming happening, I don’t think it’s on a massive scale but I do think it’s happening, but you probably won’t hear much about it unless you’re someone those people have already decided that you’re a safe person to discuss guns with.
And I don’t think it’s specifically building up to any sort of an armed revolution or anything. I think it’s mostly people wanting to be prepared to defend themselves if/when things get bad. I think we’re a long way off from liberals wanting to take to the streets, pull a Jan 6, or even show up to protests armed in any significant numbers. The overwhelming sentiment I’ve gotten from most of my liberal gun owner friends is that they really don’t want to be the ones who take the first shot.
I’m in the Twin Cities, I’m guessing the person you’re responding to is in a first or second ring suburb (and I’m not dismissing their experience for that - ICE never left Minnesota, they’re just operating in the suburbs now where it’s harder to build a response against them so they’re seeing some shit right now), but concealed carry permit requests are way up right now in the twin cities proper. People here are buying guns in response to the gestapo. I don’t know anyone personally who has purchased a firearm, but I’ve seen the local news articles about the phenomenon.