As we’ve covered fairly heavily since the start of COVID times, lockdowns, pandemic insecurity, escalating crime, and the handcuffing of police put an afterburner on first-time firearm purchases. The last couple years have shattered all previous records for gun sales, but the story behind the story is a tough pill for The Left to swallow.
The anti-gun side of the body politic has always pushed a narrative that all those hundreds of millions of firearms in the U.S. are actually owned only by a small, extreme portion of the population that just keeps buying more and more and more guns.
This was never anywhere near as true as they wanted, but the tide has shifted so hard since early 2020 that even left-wing media outlets are admitting the truth: record gun sales have been driven by first-time gun owners who are heavily skewed female and/or minority.
From a September 27th article titled “Liberal, female and minority: America’s new gun owners aren’t who you’d think:”
[Mendez] convinced her wife to join her for a training session with Nguyen, who began LA Progressive Shooters in 2020.
“I never intended to become an instructor, but the need from the community was there,” Nguyen said. “And there’s also folks from my own liberal community who see me as, ‘oh you like guns you must be a gun nut.’ But that’s not really it at all.”
Nguyen says his clients are mostly liberal and from all backgrounds, genders and sexual orientations. He prides himself on creating an inclusive student base.
“The more I educate those who are formally anti-gun the more they actually realize that there’s more nuance to it,” he said.
Both Mendez and Regalado now have their own guns and are working toward getting their concealed carry permits. But they avoid talking about their guns with friends, who they say are firmly anti-gun.
“They’re really not open to understanding,” Mendez said. Adding that she feels more comfortable discussing her same-sex relationship with friends than her guns. “I definitely am more closeted being a gun owner, for fear of retaliation.”
Finding common ground at the range
Both Mendez and Regalado at first worried about the type of people they encounter at the gun range, many of whom, they say, advertise their conservative politics in what they’re wearing or listening to.
“It’s mostly all men, mostly all white men, older men like 70s, 80s,” Mendez said. “Seeing people looking at us, and kind of just staring… It always makes us more uncomfortable. Because we’re like, ‘oh my God are they going to come and tell us, like, get out of here… you don’t belong here.’”
Instead, they’ve gotten a different reaction.
“They’re like, ‘Hey, you’re doing well, but can I show you something that might help you more?,” Mendez said.
Mendez says not only has it changed her impression of those individuals, but she also believes it’s given some a different perception of people like her.
“When I (came) back the next day, (one of the men) was like, ‘Hey! I saw your wife out there – she looks nice. Tell her I said ‘hi’.”
Yeah. Welcome. The Second Amendment is for everyone and in my experience the “Pro 2A Community” is about as friendly, accommodating, welcoming, and helpful to folks interested in exercising their 2A rights as could be possible. I’ve never been exposed to a group of humans less concerned with the race, religion, sexual orientation, or other background or personal beliefs of people who want to join their group.
Exercise and protect your natural, unalienable, and constitutionally protected right to self defense. Improve your skills. Be safe and responsible. Be more self-sufficient and capable of protecting yourself, your family, and your community. Nobody cares who you date or what shade your skin is. Welcome. Help us stand up for the Second Amendment and individual liberty.
Nobody on our side of the aisle is surprised here. America’s new gun owners are exactly who we’d think, CNN.