liberal gun owners
Liberal Gun Owners member Kat Ellsworth of Chicago, poses for a portrait with five of the seven guns she owns at the Caliber Tactical Gun Range in Waukegan, Ill. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
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By Lisa Marie Pane, AP

Like many liberals, Lara Smith considers herself a feminist, favors abortion rights and believes the nation’s immigration policies under the Trump administration have just been “vile.”

But when it comes to guns, Smith sounds more like a conservative: She opposes reviving the nation’s assault weapons ban, enacting red-flag laws or creating a registry of firearms. The 48-year-old California lawyer owns a cache of firearms, from pistols to rifles such as the AR-15.

Smith and liberal gun owners like her face a quandary as voting in the Democratic primary intensifies with Super Tuesday next week. They are nervous about some of the gun control measures the Democratic candidates are pushing and are unsure who to trust on this issue.

“You’re alienating a huge part of your constituency,” Smith says of the Democratic field’s gun proposals. “You have a huge constituency that is looking for something different and when you are talking about restricting a right which is so different than everything else you talk about, you are being anti-liberal.”

Gun owners have long been seen as a solidly Republican voting bloc, but there are millions of Democrats who own firearms, too.

Many of them are feeling increasingly disillusioned by their party as it lurches toward the left on the Second Amendment, but they’re also wary of President Donald Trump for a variety of reasons: his conservative leanings but a track record in office that has led to several gun restrictions, such as the banning of bump stocks.

An estimated 23 percent of Democrats nationally lived in households with guns in 2018, according to the General Social Survey, which is conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. And roughly 20 percent of gun owners — about 12 million people — identify as liberal, according to results from survey between 2014 and 2018. More than a third describe themselves as moderates while just under 45 percent call themselves conservatives.

The liberals who are opposed to gun control are at odds with a broader trend among Democrats when it comes to tougher firearms restrictions. According to polling by Gallup last year, 88 percent of Democrats said laws governing firearm sales should be made more strict, up from 77 percent in 2015 and 63 percent in 2010.

The political dilemma for Democratic gun owners grew when former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg entered the campaign. Bloomberg heads one of the most politically active gun control groups and has spent vast sums of money pushing his agenda in races around the country.

All the Democrats running for president are seeking one form or another of gun restrictions. But current frontrunner Sen. Bernie Sanders finds himself under attack for being too pro gun. Bloomberg launched an attack on Sanders’ gun record this week, noting he had been endorsed by the NRA earlier in his career and balked at expanding background checks.

The candidates brought up guns on several occasions during Tuesday’s debate in South Carolina, held in the city that lived through the mass murder of nine black church goers by a white supremacist in 2015.

David Yamane
Courtesy David Yamane

David Yamane, a sociology professor at Wake Forest University who studies American gun culture, said polarization over the issue began in the 1970s in the wake of the Gun Control Act of 1968, which was enacted amid national outcry over the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Subsequent efforts by the NRA to seize on gun rights as a partisan issue only heightened the divide.

Before that, gun politics wasn’t divided so sharply on political lines. One Democratic president, John F. Kennedy, was actually a member of the National Rifle Association.

Liberal gun owners, Yamane said, are generally newer to gun ownership and are less likely to be the stereotypical face of gun owners: older, white men. It’s a dynamic that doesn’t “get as much play because the public/political ‘face’ of gun owners for many remains Wayne LaPierre,” the firebrand leader of the NRA.

Yamane himself is part of the Democratic gun-loving public, describing himself as a “liberal snowflake gun owner.”

Kat Ellsworth, from Chicago, was firmly against firearms and favored gun-control until just a few years ago, when she went with a friend to a gun range and discovered a love for guns and shooting.

Kat Ellsworth of Chicago, fires her Sig Sauer P320 X-Five Legion hand gun, one of the seven guns she owns at the Caliber Tactical Gun Range in Waukegan, Ill. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

As she looks at the upcoming election, she’s torn as a self-described liberal and registered Democrat. With the Illinois primary approaching in mid-March, she is leaning toward Sanders or Sen. Elizabeth Warren, two candidates whose gun-control positions she doesn’t believe are all that rigid.

“They were both slower than others to develop and make public their proposals for gun control policies, and I believe the reason is that both of them are really not as anti-gun as they are forced to show publicly,” she said.

If she could give Democratic presidential candidates any advice, she said, it would be this: “I feel like they would really gain a lot more votes if they would just drop the gun-control crap.”

The Democratic stance on guns is directed at multiple constituencies — suburban voters horrified by school shootings and urban voters fed up with gun violence in their neighborhoods.

When it comes to black voters, Kevin Dixie sees guns in a different light. An African American, Dixie grew up in St. Louis and experienced firsthand the toll of gun violence.

liberal gun owners
In this Sunday, Feb. 9, 2020 photo, Kevin Dixie poses for a portrait at a shooting range in Ballwin, Mo. Dixie considers himself agnostic when it comes to politics. But he’s an ardent supporter of the Second Amendment who believes that gun rights are about empowering minority communities and ensuring freedom is available to every American, regardless of race, ethnicity or gender. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

He believes that gun rights are about empowering communities of color and ensuring freedom is available to every American, regardless of race, ethnicity or gender. He runs a firearms training business called No Other Choice.

One of his aims is to turn around the perception of firearms, especially within minority and urban communities, as being something that is only for criminals or police.

“This is much deeper than guns,” Dixie said. “It’s not just about owning a gun, it’s about maintaining your freedom, and we shouldn’t be politicizing it.”

Less than a week before the California primary, Smith says she’s still unsure who she’ll vote for. At the top of her list are Sanders and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, two candidates she believes gun owners could at least have a conversation with. But she worries about the impact a Bloomberg candidacy might have on the Democratic field, pushing them even more vigorously toward gun-control.

“I think liberal gun owners have no good choice here,” she said.

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218 COMMENTS

  1. Lessee here…

    Pro-abortion, pro- open borders, but against gun restrictions and the government intruding into private affairs. These people sound more like Libertarians to me than Liberals, meaning they don’t want anyone to tell them what they can and cannot do.

    Except that one of the core legitimate duties of government is to protect innocent human life, and no nation is secure without a common language and defined borders.

    • People who support open borders support child molesters coming and going as they please.
      Same as other alien criminals.

        • …and believes the nation’s immigration policies under the Trump administration have just been “vile.”

          She must mean “opinions” on immigration. Because virtually none of the prior immigration polices have been changed.

      • You know, liberals don’t actually supports the so-called open borders.

        Liberals and most Democrats support continuing the laws we have in place while also offering sanctuary to refugees like Melania and her parents as well as brown and black people.

        I know of no Democrats who are advocating we abolish all border control statutes, we just don’t think a wall is the best way to protect America from illegal immigration.

        • Dems are calling for sanctuary cities, sanctuary states, abolishing ICE and CBP, etc. I don’t consider that supporting borders. If there’s no enforcement, they don’t exist for all intents and purposes.

        • Really? Because more than one Dem candidate promises to actually TEAR DOWN the wall.

          I guess you don’t want to do any research.

        • Maybe you have heard of Alexandria Occasio-Cortez. She is not a presidential candidate (yet), but Democrat currently sitting in Congress who called for abolition of ICE and open borders among other idiotic proposals.

    • Off base as usual and the usual suspects show up as always. Have you even read the stance on any of these things?

      Why don’t you start here:

      https://www.lp.org/issues/

      There are always things you will disagree with about my only one with the Libertarian party is they do not support the death penalty. Somethings are pipe dreams like no taxes unless you want to pay them but the Libertarian party would at a minimum work to make taxes less and even across the board including for corporations unlike both parties who currently worship them.

      • “Libertarian party would at a minimum work to make taxes less and even across the board including for corporations unlike both parties who currently worship them.”

        There were some pretty big tax changes recently by one of those parties.

        • The atheist Libertarians can’t bring themselves to support church based welfare instead of government welfare. They can’t bring themselves to support church based health care instead of government health care. Over 100 years ago baptist hospitals, jewish hospitals, catholic hospitals, Lutheran hospitals, presbyterian hospitals, all cared for the sick. The only government hospital that existed was for wounded soldiers.

        • @Chris — You can bring yourself to stop knowingly lying about Libertarians, who don’t support government welfare or healthcare, and would actually rather have churches and mutual aid societies take over taking care of the less fortunate.

        • to Excedrine
          You’re Links please. Showing atheist Libertarians support for the 1st amendment rights and actions of christians.

    • Not pro-abortion, but pro-choice. (Don’t believe in third trimester abortion at all.) But before a fetus is viable outside the womb? I don’t buy into that baby at conception crap. I’m certainly not for telling anyone what they can or can’t do with their own body. I don’t want anyone telling me that.

      I’m also a liberal gun owner. I believe the 2nd Amendment is absolute. The Democratic party has gone so far off the deep end it sucks. (Kinda like the Republican party abandoning their ideology and becoming the party of the orange lying assclown.

      The choices this November are garbage and shitty garbage. We are screwed. The Dems shit on the 2nd Amendment, King Trump shits on the Constitution completely.

      Time to eliminate both ridiculous parties and start over.

      • Your hero Obama signed the Patriot Act reauthorization. He had more people arrested than Bush did. He dropped more bombs than bush did. He expanded wars without congressional approval.
        You voted twice for Obama correct??? The protector of civil rights???

      • “The Democratic party has gone so far off the deep end it sucks.”

        But it is your party, nonetheless. You cannot pick and choose a party with an agenda you fully support, so you must eventually buy into whatever the Democrat party sells.

        The battle cry, “I believe the Second Amendment is absolute, but….I must vote with the party seeking to eliminate gun ownership because there are things more important than the Second Amendment.” is simply laughable. When you vote against your Second Amendment protected right, you declare yourself. Either vote to eliminate your right to own firearms, or refuse to vote at all (you cannot ever vote for the anti-Democrat party).

        Pick a lane because standing in the middle of the road (I believe in the Second Amendment, but…) means you get run over by traffic in both directions.

      • Imperium1974 says “I’m also a liberal gun owner. I believe the 2nd Amendment is absolute.”

        Imp,

        You should look up the term ‘cognitive dissonance’.

        If you think Trump “shits on the Constitution completely” and the “Dems (DEMS AKA the constitution is a living breathing document/which translates to “It means whatever we say it does”) shit (only) on the 2nd Amendment” you should seek professional help.

        No really…having a severe case of TDS… AND cognitive dissonance at the same time must be wicked to live with.

      • “Not pro-abortion, but pro-choice.”

        Except for cases of rape, incest, failure of contraception etc., the woman made her choice when she opted for unprotected sex. So “pro-choice” is a bogus construct, a phony creation like “assault weapons.”

        • Yeah, but the whamenses want to be a special class. All the rights of men, but none of the responsibilities.

        • Even in the case of rape and incest, abortion is an enormous evil. You do not execute the innocent children of criminals. If someone needs to die, then hang the rapist himself. The innocent have a right to live.

          If course the whole rape and incest question is a scam anyway. The real issue has always been abortion for any reason or no reason. The pro-abortionists just use rape and incest as a tool to trick emotional and fuzzy thinking moderates into permitting the murder of babies.

          Anyone who supports the murder of babies is either deluded beyond belief, or a monster.
          Hillary, Bernie, etc. are monsters. Most average Democrats on the street are more in the deluded category.

          Frankly, a lot of regular people who support abortion rights are women who have had them, and cannot deal with the moral guilt of knowing themselves to be murderers. They will never heal until they admit their wrongdoing and come to Christ for mercy. There is mercy available for all who humble themselves before their Creator.

        • Boom! The truth liberals don’t want to hear. Women have the choice to keep their legs closed and if by chase they get pregnant by circumstances outside of their control, the kid still has God given and constitutional rights which can’t be deprived without due process of law.

        • “If course the whole rape and incest question is a scam anyway.”

          By saying rape AND incest, they are implying that the incest is consensual. Then why should the innocent baby be terminated? Is it because the baby is more likely to get those recessive genes or lower intelligence? Are disabled or slow people not deserving of life? So is it okay to terminate life because they possess an undesirable characteristic? Let’s follow that logic. The left tells us that babies are born gay. What happens when we find the gay gene? Is it okay to terminate the baby because they’re likely to be gay?

      • Perhaps you could explain this “viable outside the womb” notion that pro-abortion folks are always throwing about. What exactly does this mean? So far as I can tell NO baby full term or otherwise is viable outside the womb for several years after birth. All of them will die within hours without maternal care. They are not insects or reptiles that can just hatch and wonder off and look after themselves. So, how is this a meaningful distinction? A fetus needs the correct environment to grow and thrive ie. the mother’s womb, likewise a new born baby needs the correct environment to grow and thrive. Given the demands that the average 2-3 year old place on the mother’s body, it seems to me that a fetus is not viable outside the womb until it is about, I don’t know, given all the “helicopter mom” parenting going on today, 28, shall we say.

        So again, what exactly does the expression “viable outside the womb” mean exactly?\

        • I’ll take that question. Current medical science allows most babies to have a fighting chance at life outside the womb around 23 weeks, some people have pushed 22 especially in France.

          So, if a baby is 100 percent reliant on his or her mother to live, he or she is not viable outside of the womb and as such would not be considered an independent life. If the baby can be kept alive without the parental involvement, it is an independent living creature with rights and privileges. If that baby needs others to live that’s fine for this definition, as long as it is not 100% reliant on his or her maternal body.

          I think that’s a fair definition, want to change the definition of alive? Work towards the science to support fetuses younger than 23 weeks. We will get there eventually I believe. If that’s God’s plan.

          Problem with saying life starts at conception if then why not take it further and say that a woman’s eggs and man’s sperm are potential life. No more masturbating for men, you are killing potential babies. And every woman should get pregnant at puberty, or you are wasting eggs that are potential life. We can go right back 5000 years to the time of Moses.

          Everyone draws their line differently, but viability seems like a good line for me.

        • The other question with the viability argument comes down to when child becomes a person of moral value, such that it would be immoral to kill it. If medical viability outside the womb is the standard, then you must also accept the claim that the moral value of a human life is dependent on its geographic location, and socioeconomic status.

          With the best of medical care, babies have survived being born at less than 25 weeks. By the viability argument, if the mother is in a location/situation where this is feasible, then that child has moral value and must be protected. If the mother is in a location or financial situation where this is not possible, then the child has no moral value and you can abort it with impunity. Very few people are willing to hold the viability argument to its logical/moral conclusion. Taken to the further extreme the viability argument supports infanticide, killing the disabled, euthanizing the elderly. If they can’t take care of themselves then they have no moral value, might as well kill them.

          At inception a separate and unique DNA is created, and it is no longer the mother’s body. It is in fact the child’s body with unique moral value as a new person.

        • ‘liljoe says:
          “…why not take it further and say that a woman’s eggs and man’s sperm are potential life.”

          Because that line of reasoning would make you a potential mass murderer.

        • “At inception a separate and unique DNA is created, and it is no longer the mother’s body. It is in fact the child’s body with unique moral value as a new person.”

          Truth

        • “So, if a baby is 100 percent reliant on his or her mother to live, he or she is not viable outside of the womb and as such would not be considered an independent life.”

          Is the baby not 100 percent reliant on someone after being born? What would happen if you don’t care for the baby after birth? This logic is severely flawed. Furthermore, babies in the womb react to their mother’s voice, hiccup, and feel pain.

        • Notice I didn’t say not reliant on anyone, I said not reliant on the mother. If the baby can survive without needing the mother, even if it needs 10 doctors, 5 nurses and a partridge in a pear tree, it is an independent human.

          I hear the argument about assigning value based on viability. But we actually do it all the time now. I worked in a rural hospital for more than 5 years. I had a baby born at roughly 22.5 weeks and our facility was not equipped to care for it. The transport team would not fly the baby out because the risk of a plane crash outweighed the baby’s chance for survival. We withheld resuscitation efforts after discussing it with mom because the chance of the baby living more than a day was minimal.

          My point is, if you want to draw the line, saying the baby has to have an actual chance outside of mom seems like a reasonable line to me. I know it’s only my opinion, but is it murder if the baby cannot live outside of its womb? Did we murder that baby because we didn’t do cpr?

        • Talk about a specious argument. You are not “viable,” if someone does not pay you for work, someone does not sell you food, someone does not sell you utensils to eat, someone does not build a road for you to drive to the store…., see how that is done! A fetus is not medically “viable,” before 27 weeks, when the lungs have formed sufficiently to function. Under 27 weeks, a fetus “may,” be born, and with massive medical assistance, helped to survive outside the womb, with limited success. For people who “believe in science,” some are sure dumb!

      • So Imperium is an idiot. Got.

        The dem has been the party of idiot for at least a century so nothing new with this idiot damn female shyster who likes shiny things. Today, next week it will be the shiny dildo or VW. WGAF.

      • Guess you don’t know that many babies born before the last trimester have survived.

        Pro choice about what women can do with THEIR bodies? What about pro choice for what unborn female babies can allow to happen to THEIR bodies?

      • I’m with you! The two party system doesn’t work anymore. I’m a Independent now because both parties have gone too extreme. Trump has proven to be a complete idiot, and Republicans won’t stand up to his crap. I agree with the Dems when it comes to environmental, labor and marriage rights, but NOT their views on gun ownership. It sucks when it comes to election time.

    • The problem is the libertarian party became the liberaltarian party over the past few years. They pretty much side with the left on everything now, just a lighter form of what the left wants. They even got squishy on gun control in 2016.

    • The key to the abortion debate is simple.

      Pro abortion people typically, and unsurprisingly don’t have kids.

      Anti abortion people, unsurprisingly do have kids.

      The pro abortion people simply don’t understand or appreciate children.

      It’s like people who own dogs vs people who don’t. People who don’t own dogs typically fear them and think they’re gross and smell and why would anyone want one in a house. People who do own dogs tell them they won’t ever understand.

      • I don’t find this to be true. I know, and have known, a fair number of rabidly “pro-choice” people who have kids whereas I know a fair number of people generally opposed to abortion (such as my wife and I) who do not have children.

        The real difference is whether or not the person in question believes, generally speaking, that people are responsible for the outcomes of decisions that they make even when the decision is “small” and the outcome is “large”.

        Many of the people I know who have kids but support “abortion rights” believe, quite earnestly, that people shouldn’t spend 18 years “paying for a small mistake” with regards to “something we all do”. They view the idea that a short term decision might affect your life for two plus decades as unacceptable for people who didn’t willingly and knowingly accept the consequences beforehand and they feel that there should be an “out” since it was just a biological urge that the people involved couldn’t really control.

        Now, personally, I’d agree with that to a point. Yeah, it’s a biological urge that you cannot control BUT you can control when/how/if you ACT on it. And, with few exceptions in this country, by the time you’re old enough to be having sex you already know the biological purpose of the act so “she might get pregnant” shouldn’t come as some sort of surprise. As Carlin remarked on this topic “Where does the surprise part come in?”

        Overall I see this as a reflection of how the person in question views the depth and breadth of that thing we call “personal responsibility”. It also doesn’t help, in terms of rational argument, that when it comes to the facts of the actual biology of pregnancy, both of the “bright line” sides of the argument are full of shit. “Pro-choice” folks don’t want you to know certain things about how a fetus develops while “pro-life” folks actively deny how often an unsurvivable [for both mother and child] ectopic pregnancy actually is.

        • Seems like I’ve read somewhere that attempting to legislate a thing out of existence is futile. People who want a prohibited thing tend to get it, and the richer they are, the easier it is to get it and the less they have to worry about social or civil repercussions. Seems like a lot of virtue signaling at this point. Doesn’t sound like any opinions shared came from anyone who could potentially ever face a pregnancy so I can’t help but hear a bIt of Monday morning quarterbacking. With so much talk about “the cat’s out of the bag with firearms” and “let’s live in the real world”, its hard to take all the moral high ground jockeying seriously. Face it, women who want will get abortions like people who want them will own weapons. Women you know, love and respect have had abortions, they just don’t bother to share that information because they don’t give hoot what you think of their decisions. Sound familiar?

          All that said I find decisions regarding abortion to be a total moral gray area filled with nuance, circumstance, regret and pain to the point where I’m glad to be male and can only offer support and gratitude for the women in my life. I know I kicked the hornet nest but as a gun owner and a logger in California I’m already signed up to be told I’m wrong and evil.

          Thanks for the conversation platform TTAG, this really is a remarkable comments section.

        • 18 years? I’m in the second generation of my little ‘mistakes’. Once you have one, unless you’re a dysfunctional person, they are yours to worry about until one of you shuffles off this mortal coil.

          And then come the grandkids. They make up for all the pain and suffering which raising their parents caused you. All in my circle that elected not to have kids and therefore grandkids have regretted that choice when it was too late to correct.

        • Well said, jwm. I certainly didn’t expect my comment at the top of this page to start such a lengthy firestorm of comments, but here we are, and I think your statement above sums it all up nicely.

          My wife and I married very young due to our first “mistake”. Our baby (and the ensuing years afterward as we started a family at such an early age) wasn’t easy, but the gems in life that are worth our time seldom are. Now all our children are grown, and I’ve reached the point where I’m gratefully awaiting grandchildren. I really miss wrestling on the floor and playing “monster daddy”, catching the running children from all over the house as we round them up for bedtime.

    • Liberal gun owners summed up:

      “I like guns, but I’m willing to sacrifice them for more important issues, like socialist healthcare and transgender supremacy.”

      They really aren’t 2A supporters. At all.

        • I assure you us liberal gun owners have FAR BETTER parties than the conservative type gun owners (and no, we aren’t giving up any rights, period).

        • to nate
          I’m glad your Liberal sex orgies are well attended. You are easily distracted. Which is why civil rights are going away in Blue states.
          Now party on dude!!!

    • Its not too unusual, but we rarely hear about such people in today’s hyper polarized politics. It doesn’t fit the narrative of you have to be absolutely one or the other and support the party line on every issue. If we did that, we might as well just stop calling ourselves Americans and split the country up by political party.

      On the right: I support weapon of the day and 2A absolutism, strong private property rights, privacy rights, at-will business practices, pro-life, secure borders, and all around individual liberty. However, I also support what could be argued as left wing positions, such as: ending the drug war (war on American civil rights) which IMHO will strengthen individual liberty and the rights over your own mind and body, strengthening environmental protections, protecting data privacy rights, reigning in corporate power and their tax dodging practices, cleaning up and simplifying campaign finance, and ending corporate meddling in war and politics. No more revolving door from big business to politics and approval boards.

      Of course having loyalty only to the COTUS gets me hated by both parties that want their own version of absolute power.

      • “If we did that, we might as well just stop calling ourselves Americans and split the country up by political party.”

        No opposition from me.

    • Hey, they’re right on firearms. Thats a hell of a good first step. I dont need people to agree with me on everything. If we can agree on 1 thing, at least we’re talking.

  2. “… but there are millions of Democrats who own firearms,…”

    Perhaps they shouldn’t continue to vote for a party that has gun restrictions or varying degrees as one of their broadest planks.

    Just sayin’.

    Of course, while there are many RINOs who support restrictions as well, the Libertarian party can’t hardly get no traction, so they’re not much help here. 8~(

      • Which is why he has my vote for 2020, stack those courts with people who will respect the US Constitution. I hope someone better than VP Pence comes along for 2024, otherwise, hello revitalized war on drugs and all the governmental abuses that come with it.

  3. Whats a liberal gun owner to do?

    Don’t comply.
    Tell your Dem. Reps to shove off gun control.
    Show them how many Dems. own the very guns they wish to ban.
    Don’t comply.
    Vote in Pro-gun dems(oxymoron I know)
    Don’t comply.
    Make gun control a career ending position for democrats
    Don’t comply.

    We should be allies in this. Gun control needs to become incredibly unpopular if we are to incrementally regain our rights.

      • I am reticent to call it “many,” but I sure hope I’m wrong and I wish you all the luck in the world! Keep fighting the good fight.

        • If Bloomberg buys the nomination, I will be voting for Trump.

          That’s all I am 100% sure about at this point. Fuck that guy.

    • A pro gun democrat shouldn’t have to be an oxy moron. Social issues and our 2A American rights are separate issues.

      We can argue non constitutional rights all we want later.

    • Indeed, (D) need to shove off gun control and (R) need to stop pushing the war on drugs and terror. With a little elbow grease, we just might get somewhere.

    • Take a look at the comments here again, and then tell me, why the fuсk would we want allies like that? Those people is *why* we have guns in the first place.

      • You are a typical Liberal gun owner. Thin skinned and not a supporter of gun community dialog. Yes it’s really ruff in here. Perhaps you should return to your safe space. Liberal gun owners are not reliable supporters of the Second Amendment. Because to them guns just vibrate in their hands and make loud noises which excite them. To them guns are not an instrument of Liberty. Only an instrument of entertainment.

  4. Maybe oughta re-think some choices. If all these nitwits are for unconstitutional positions about guns, it certainly bleeds over into other rights. That should be apparent.

    Also, “liberal snowflake with a gun” seems like an oxymoron. Or at least it should be.
    Makes it obvious the term “liberal” has been corrupted to “leftist authoritarian”.

    • I couldn’t agree more with your last sentence. The vast majority of TTaG are liberals in the real sense; it’s the leftists, authoritarian socialists that they are, who are present day Democrats. We unnecessarily weaken ourselves when we use the language of the left and calling leftists “liberals” is like talking about “gun violence” or “assault weapons”. Modern day leftists are about as illiberal as you can possibly get

  5. Generally I’m in favor of everyone owning firearms if they so choose. BUT I am NOT in favor of people who vote to destroy our rights being allowed to exercise those rights. Lefty gun owner, turn it in, and until you quit voting for leftist filth, don’t buy another one.

  6. There is only one sensible, ethical thing for liberals that disagree with a key plank in their party’s platform to do.

    Stay home in November.

    • I disagree Friendly Conservative,

      Their party has moved so far left, that it has become destructive to this Republic. Having a platform of open boarders and FREE health care, FREE college, FREE housing, FREE everything means you hate the country and want it destroyed from the inside.

      I would say their duty to their country, is to move their party back to the center, by voting against it. When their party realigns with JFK, and not the Soviet Union, they will have succeeded.

      They need to do to their party what their party is attempting to do to the nation.

  7. The libs just say they support the 2-A , other wise how could they vote for a Democrat knowing they will lose their right to bear arms.?

      • Obama was too busy “next level” screwing over our country to bother with gun laws.
        He spent his time loading pallets with cash to fund the terrorists and the enemies our troops were fighting, and hangin with Holder running guns to the Mex drug cartels.
        Gun laws? Those are “small potatoes” to a world class enemy of the state like Obama.

        • Aren’t you the ‘man’ who carries a PPQ w/ AMT backup? In what other ways do you let the world know you have a microscopic penis?

        • What a loser. Small d!ck comments? When are you getting out of grade school?
          Try to stay on topic troll.

      • Obama didn’t enact any gun control because the GOP took the house in 2010 then the senate in 2014. All you obama worshipping nutjobs around here conveniently forget that.

        • The Conald took away our bump stocks via executive fiat. He’s going to do the same thing with suppressors soon. All you tough talking asshats like that insufferable fatso ‘Serge’ who you just know is a basement dwelling former high school punching bag are missing the fact that the Conald is taking away our rights one fiat at a time.

        • I had a Fiat once. I wish someone had taken it away from me. More of a waste of resources than a socialist, if you can believe that.

      • Or remember when Trump ran guns to mexico in an effort to clamp down on background checks and so called straw purchases while it was the feds that made the straw purchases?

        • Nope. No need to go to Mexico or anywhere else when he just sits his fat ass behind the ‘Resolute Desk’ and takes our god given rights away with the stroke of a pen.

        • Don’t forget how those Trump guns ended up killing US citizens. The Mex drug cartels used them to run their drugs into the US with TRUMP provided firearms, even included Barrett 50BMGs with sniper scopes.
          Oh, nevermind. That was Obama and his self proclaimed “wingman” E Holder.

      • James Campbell has made tons of ‘jokes’ about banging dudes’ moms and tossing salad yet ‘he’ clutches pearls about dick jokes. Whatever ‘man’.

      • Leave ‘James Campbell’ alone. After all, it’s the world’s first sentient crash test dummy.
        Trolls upon trolls. Enjoy your troll farm salad toss tonight.
        Get help with your TDS losers.

        • First time posters with knowledge of TTAG posts from last year?
          Rest assured, you are the lowest form of scum on the internet.
          Cowards.

        • The sweetest revenge against the TTAG troll farm will be how the vast majority just disappear after the election in a few months.
          They’ll all go back to playing Minecraft in their mommies basements and polishing their participation trophies.
          Oh, but still get together for the salad tosses, they LOVE the taste of each others asses.

        • “You’re replying to yourself, Mr. Red Flag/CrashTest Dummy. Get help.”

          Oh, what’s wrong little girl? Too much truth making you cry “red flag” to the brown shirts? Hoping they take away the bad person who doesn’t think like you?
          Grow the F up crybaby. Go ask mommies to tuck you in for a nap and give you a bottle soyboy.
          You need to be well rested for the circular salad toss with the other trolls later on.

      • I remember how he not only threatened to take away much more than just supressors. When he couldn’t push it through the Congress, he scolded our congresscritters and called it ‘a pretty shameful day in Washington’. I remember why he was called the best gun salesman in history. You seem to have forgotten.

  8. Liberal gun owners will ALWAYS find something ‘more important’ to vote for or against than your 2nd Amendment rights. Every single time.
    “Well, I didn’t want to put the guy who said he’d enact Soviet-style gun control, but gosh darn it our country is being judged by how it treats its transsexuals!”

  9. Nice to hear from Kat again. Glad to see you still in the fight, Kat!
    Now if only we could get you fully off the Democrat plantation…
    🤠

    • @ Bloving:

      Kat Ellsworth referring to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren:

      “They were both slower than others to develop and make public their proposals for gun control policies, and I believe the reason is that both of them are really not as anti-gun as they are forced to show publicly…”

      I think she’s delusional. They’re really just slicker anti-gunners than some of the others.

  10. I rightly place the beginning of class warfare against American gun owners, the NRA, our Second Amendment heritage, and private ownership of firearms via Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ: the worse and most dictatorial corrupt and abusive president in American history! No president deserved more to be hated and despised! We continue to pay for his political atrocities, high crimes, and treasonous acts today even into the 21st century! When is the establishment news media, who walks in lock step with our government controlled socialist public schools, colleges, universities, and academia going to stop whitewashing LBJ? When are they collectively going to come clean and forthright about LBJ”s alleged role in JFK’s November 22, 1963 assassination in Dallas, Texas. Also, the criminality of both the Earl Warren and Warren Burger Supreme Courts and their abusive dictatorial judicial abuse, including career criminal politicians from our nation’s shameful past: Ted Kennedy, Thomas Dodd (D) of Connecticut (LBJ’s corrupt lieutenant then in the U.S. Senate and fabricator of the unconstitutional 1968 Federal Gun Control Act), the Daly Democratic Machine in Cook County, Illinois (Chicago) and all this rotten ilk! Read on:

    Klamath Falls Herald and News: Tuesday, September 27, 2016/Letters To The Editor

    Trump description would fit LBJ well

    In her Sept. 20th letter Sandy Couch describes Donald Trump as “narcissistic and egotistical.” That is an accurate description of Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) , perhaps the worst president in American history. Unfortunately, an issue doesn’t disappear simply because it’s been ignored, censored, covered up and concealed for decades. Also, the legacy of deceit, abuse of power, and political corruption that continues to curse America today! Case in point: “American Experience, “LBJ: Beautiful Texas/My Fellow Americans. A profile of Lyndon B. Johnson.” This recently aired on KSYS Channel 8.1 Aug. 15 and 16, respectively.

    Consider the following the itemized links below:
    Barr McClellan’s 2003 book: “Blood, Money, and Power: How LBJ Killed JFK”. Also posted at YouTube.

    J. Evett Haley’s 1964 book: “A Texan Looks At Lyndon: A Study In Illegitimate Power.”
    “How Persecution of American Christians Really Began in The US!” via the Constitution Party of Oregon (www.constitutionpartyoregon.net) posted under “Liberty In The News.”

    Trump to Pastors: ‘Christians Have Been Silenced Like a Child” via Pat Robertson’s 700 club confronts the 1954 Johnson Amendment which remains blatant censorship.

    “Lyndon Johnson Murdered John F. Kennedy” at YouTube. The oppressive 1968 Gun Control Act LBJ signed into federal legislation and its Nazi/ racist roots long since exposed by JPFO, Inc. at http://www.jpfo.org.

    Finally, the Vietnam War (1961-1975). How LBJ and then Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara greatly escalated this “no win war” in Southeast Asia. And at a cost of 58,000 American lives. Lyndon B. Johnson likewise paved the way for Carter, Clinton, and Obama .And while Richard M. Nixon was no saint, he wasn’t even in the ballpark with Lyndon when it came to the above political atrocities, abuses, and crimes against the American people.

    James A. Farmer, Ashland
    Since October 2016 a resident of Merrill, Oregon (Klamath County) . Long Live The State of Jefferson!

    • who killed Kennedy?….the oil barons?…the republican establishment?….disaffected members of the military?…the CIA?…the mafia?….or all of the above……

    • FDR rounded up Americans, stole their property and their rights and placed them in concentration camps based solely on their race.

      But FDR was a hero to the left.

  11. Ultimately, so-called liberal gun owners must abandon their guns in favor of the totalitarian doctrine of the liberal/leftist/authoritarian agenda. They can’t let “rights” stand in the way of doing what is right. Their decision is foregone, and they can end their anguish and troubled spirit by yielding now to the collective, rather than worry themselves over their ownership of guns. The author is just another example of the phrase, “A double-minded person is unstable in all their ways”.

  12. The problem with Liberal gun owners is they place gun civil rights last in order of priorities. Getting “free stuff” from the government. Drug legalization. Abortion comes before gun rights.
    They support government public housing projects. And when they are declared “gun free zones”, Liberals are totally silent. It has been the NRA that has used expensive lawsuits to end these racist gun control policies in public housing projects. Liberal support for the Welfare Industrial Complex is legendary.

    Gov Reagan is dead. He has been dead for a very time now. But Liberals publicly endorsed his racist gun control law the Mulford Act. It was a member of the ACLU board of Directors, California State Senator Alan Sieroty, Democrat that co-wrote the racist Mulford Act.

    As far as I can tell Liberals want THEIR guns. But supporting a candidate who supported civil rights is not a priority with them. Getting “Frees stuff” from the government is a higher priority.
    They proudly support Obama. What did he do for civil rights???
    They supported both the Clintons. What did they do for civil rights???

    btw
    Nothing prevents a Liberal from buying a gun. Nothing ever has. So what is it they want from the rest of the gun community???

    • ….having it both ways?…i’m a registered democrat…and agree with some liberal causes…particularly when it comes to economics….but gun ownership is a constitutional right that must be preserved….

      • “…but gun ownership is a constitutional right that must be preserved….”

        Preserved to what purpose?

        The Dem party agenda is government control over every aspect of life, even what you eat and drink. That agenda is totally incompatible with the Second Amendment.

      • Fear of people’s armed resistance to enactment of liberal causes…particularly when it comes to economics… is the main reason behing Democratic party’s gun grabbing schemes.

  13. Liberal gun owners: “We support the Second Amendment, but . . . .”

    They are not friends. They are not allies. They are not sane.

    • Somehow think that the vast confiscation of wealth and nationalisation of 17 % of GDP (Medicare for all) proposed by Warren and Sanders will happen without civilian disarmament.

      Very confused!

  14. If republicans weren’t so obsessed with legislating morality and saving unborn babies, fewer people would vote for democrats.

    • Democrats are obsessed with making single mothers marry the government. They have always supported their version of government morality laws. It was much better when democrats stayed out of the bedroom and every other room in the American home.

    • Most laws are “legislating morality”. Without a strong moral backbone, a nation cannot stand. Murder of convenience is wrong. It doesn’t matter if you shoot some guy who lets his dog piss on your lawn or murder an unborn baby because you want to continue being a feckless ho.

        • Yeah… no. We’ll simply outlaw the Demokkkommie party, and line the ring leaders up against a wall. Bullets beat ballots. The hillarious part is that the Demokkkommies think that they will ever be allowed to have real political power again.

        • Pretty sure it was a Bernie staffer who recently publicly declared that given the chance, that they, would “put conservatives in re-education camps until they submitted to socialist philosophy.”

      • “Most laws are “legislating morality”. Without a strong moral backbone, a nation cannot stand. Murder of convenience is wrong. It doesn’t matter if you shoot some guy who lets his dog piss on your lawn or murder an unborn baby because you want to continue being a feckless ho.”

        Nicely done.

    • true conservatives are a minority in this country…and have been for some time…they win only when they ally themselves with other groups whose interests are not properly served…

  15. What is the Liberal gun owner position on:
    1. machine Gun ownership?
    2. Slingshot ownership? In NJ it’s a felony to have one.
    3. Flamethrowers?
    4. Grenade Launchers?
    5. Open Carry long gun?
    6. Arming teachers who volunteer?
    7. Parents with guns dropping their kids off to school on school property?
    8. carry in government buildings?
    9. carry on government land?
    10. age restrictions to gun ownership?
    11. 2A education in public schools?
    12. rifle teams in public schools?
    13. children with access to guns in the home? A parent’s right or a government’s right to stop it?
    14. open carry of a handgun?
    15. training requirements to exercise you 2A civil rights?
    16. waiting period to get a gun? And for how long?
    17. can children open carry a firearm with supervision from a parent? or a responsible adult?
    18. explosive device ownership?
    19. the NFA tax?
    20. suppressor waiting period?
    21. can an 18 year old have a CCW?
    22. can an 18 year buy their own gun?
    23. should a 16 year old be able to buy a shotgun or deer rifle without the parents permission?

    I await your response.

    • I think you know the answer. Leftist gun owners are in the same vein as right wing fudds: They’re no friends of ours and they have no actual convictions re firearm ownership

    • Liberal gun owner here. My answers in parensthesis

      What is the Liberal gun owner position on:
      1. machine Gun ownership? (No restrictions)
      2. Slingshot ownership? In NJ it’s a felony to have one. (No restrictions)
      3. Flamethrowers? (No restrictions)
      4. Grenade Launchers? (No thanks, I don’t trust people enough with AOE weapons)
      5. Open Carry long gun? (No restrictions)
      6. Arming teachers who volunteer? (Great)
      7. Parents with guns dropping their kids off to school on school property? (No restrictions)
      8. carry in government buildings? (No restrictions)
      9. carry on government land? (No restrictions)
      10. age restrictions to gun ownership? (18, or whatever military age is)
      11. 2A education in public schools? (Yes, but should happen at home as well)
      12. rifle teams in public schools? (No restrictions)
      13. children with access to guns in the home? A parent’s right or a government’s right to stop it? (Parents should control access)
      14. open carry of a handgun? (No restrictions)
      15. training requirements to exercise you 2A civil rights? (No restrictions)
      16. waiting period to get a gun? And for how long? (nope)
      17. can children open carry a firearm with supervision from a parent? or a responsible adult? (Not a loaded one, kids make terrible choices constantly)
      18. explosive device ownership? (Same feelings as grenade launchers)
      19. the NFA tax? (No)
      20. suppressor waiting period? (No)
      21. can an 18 year old have a CCW? (Yes)
      22. can an 18 year buy their own gun? (Yes)
      23. should a 16 year old be able to buy a shotgun or deer rifle without the parents permission? (nope. They shouldn’t be even in a car without their parents, which is a whole different topic).

      • I got a shotgun as a Xmas gift when I was 15…and nobody thought it was a big deal at the time…and daddy kept a pistol in his nightstand drawer…so what?

        • those seeking repeal of the NFA are embarking on a fool’s errand…congress…regardless of party affiliation…will never support widespread ownership of automatic weapons…..as evidenced by what happened back in the eighties…

  16. The dem voting gun owners I know fall into two camps:
    Old Fudds clinging to fading memories of the 60’s and young hipsters who didn’t get into guns until after the AWB expired and act as though it would never happen again.
    Both piss me off to no end. I don’t mind if you want to sell your rights away but you selling my rights away will not be tolerated.

    • constantly threatening further restrictions on pseudo-assault weapons has been a big factor in spurring their sale…something the left seems unable to grasp…

  17. “According to polling by Gallup last year, 88 percent of Democrats said laws governing firearm sales should be made more strict, up from 77 percent in 2015 and 63 percent in 2010.”
    And how many of this 88 percent are aware of what actual gun laws there are?

  18. What is the Liberal gun owner position on:
    24. Civilian armed watercraft? Guns mounted?
    25. Armed vehicle ownership. Tanks or just a gun mounted on my Honda minivan?
    26. Civilian armed, guns mounted aircraft ownership?
    27. Stand your ground laws?
    28. Third party defense laws?
    29. Shoot looters after a natural disaster? Yes or No.

  19. Blow me. Leftist gun owners expecting a warm welcome from gun people is like registered Republicans expecting a warm welcome from the LGBT community. We don’t care what your individual opinions are, we care what you vote for, and if you vote for gun control you are not our friends.

    (To the point about supporting the LGBT community, I’m now actively hostile toward them thanks to the authoritarianism of the trannies. However, it is a useful analogy in this instance, since there are Republican voters who are pro-LGBT “rights”. But most of them are smart enough to avoid going to a gay bar or whatever the fvck and saying “hey guys I’m a Conservative voted but I do support you! Accept me!”)

    • the gay crowd…or whatever the hell they’e calling themselves these days…tend to throw a lot of money around on capitol hill….it’s a political lubricant….

    • “To the point about supporting the LGBT community, I’m now actively hostile toward them thanks to the authoritarianism of the trannies.”

      I have been hostile toward the LGBT,QXYZ crowd for a very long time now. They are the ones passing and supporting racist gun control laws. California State senator Tom Ammiano is a excellent example. He wrote the law making rape victims and everyone else wait an extra ten days to get a gun. This is what happened to Carol Bowne in New Jersey.

      They didn’t care if women are raped and murdered. Children kidnapped never to be seen again. And still supporting the Welfare Industrial Complex. Supporting the replacement of the father with government $$$ and replacing his guns with the guns of a big city police department.

      Only now have they discovered that they do want THEIR guns.

  20. Frankly, a “liberal gun owner,” is a very confused person. If they vote for the Domonrat of their choice, they are saying, “I voted for you, please don’t take MY gun, it’s okay if you take everyone elses!” Many issues have gray areas, the 2nd Amendment, and the rest of the Bill of Rights is not a “living breathing document,” it sets in stone strict restrictions on the limits of GOVERNMENT. The issues pursued in the article, Abortion, and Immigration, are both outside of the BOR. There is no “right” to abortion, and so it is an area one can have varying ooinions on. I for one, am ambivalent about abortions into the early part of the second trimester, but oppose anything after viability,(26-27 weeks) , but I know medical personnel who oppose it even earlier, and I definitely oppose my tax dollars being used at all. Immigration is also not in the BOR, and any nation that does not have control of its borders, is not a nation! As for the current admonistration being “vile,” in handling immigration, take off the rose colored glasses, and stop watching MSDNC, the corrupt Obama administration was much more severe in handling Immigration!

    Anyway, people who think they are “liberal,” and are gun owners, are fools, believing that they will be spared when their candidate wins, and starts shipping people off to the gulags!

  21. Hates gun control but loves the big government high tax policies of Sanders and Warren.

    The only way to confiscate the kind of money that Sanders and Warren propose is through civilian disarmament. Warren and Sanders are slow because it’s simply assumed.

    Smh

    California residents should heal themselves before they vote in any more Presidential elections.

    And no: In no universe is a vast welfare state consistent with loose immigration either. we simply cannot have people come here and suck the public tit.

    Quite the opposite in fact: to have loose immigration policy we need to *reduce* the welfare state.

    • I would add that in no universe is a vast welfare state consistent with democracy. Once people realize they can vote themself some “free” (read stolen from someone else) stuff, it’s over.

  22. There are socialists. There are “progressives.” There are communists. But there are no more liberals.

    Liberalism is dead.

    • Socialist… Communist… It’s like the difference between wood handled hammer and a fiberglass handled hammer. Same impact, same method of destruction.

  23. Sorry I don’t give a rat’s azz if
    leftards have guns. I will NOT fight to the death to protect your right’s. And all black women don’t vote D! My honey doesn’t…

    • @ Bloving:

      Kat Ellsworth referring to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren

      “They were both slower than others to develop and make public their proposals for gun control policies, and I believe the reason is that both of them are really not as anti-gun as they are forced to show publicly…”

      I think she’s delusional. They’re really just slicker anti-gunners than some of the others.

        • “Tonald Drump says:
          February 29, 2020 at 06:01
          Absolutely nobody cares.”

          Hey demoncrapic loser troll, ONLY those with TDS don’t care.
          Your kind are in the MINORITY here on TTAG, so STFU, adults are discussing the topic.

          Go polish your participation trophies, or have mommies watch you jump in the pool, and tell you what an AWESOME athlete you are.

  24. There is a time coming where there will be liberal gun owners shooting conservative gun owners. Kinda like a civil war you know. Liberals and guns don’t mix very well regardless.

    • I live in an area that is predominately democratic…but where gun ownership is common….yet it went for trump the last time…people are capable of making decisions that serve their own interests…..

  25. Once you’re a liberal, you’ve lost all credibility with me. You can’t be trusted to analyze, understand and act prudently upon issues. I don’t care what incidental point of tangency might crop up linking our views, such as firearms. You’re a liberal gun owner? Great. You’re just a fool, not some noble conflicted hero.

    • the fool is you with your over-simplistic response….life can be complex at times…simple minds crave simple solutions…

    • I think of them (LGOs) as smarty pants having nuanced positions on every issue, but “noble, conflicted heroes” is much better because it’s how they see themselves.

  26. “a track record in office that has led to several gun restrictions, such as the banning of bump stocks”

    “several gun restrictions”? Is that three, four, a half dozen? Please list all the restrictions added at the federal level please.

    • the banning of bump-stocks was not with the device itself…but with the methodology employed…setting a dangerous precedent that may be open to further abuse….

      • How so, ATF issued an opinion that they were not illegal, then changed their mind under pressure, and issued an opinion that they were illegal. So what “method” do you decry? Personally, I thought, and think of bump stocks as a “toy,” and was never interested. I have extensive use of full auto, and know it’s limitations, so spraying rounds downrange is just a joke, and I could not care less about bump stocks, but on strictly 2A reasons find the whole discussion, on both sides, silly.

        • “…I could not care less about bump stocks, but on strictly 2A reasons find the whole discussion, on both sides, silly.”

          I cannot find a discussion about government determining which weapons I may use as a bulwark against government tyranny to be “silly”.

          Vertical foregrips on rifles or rifle-calibre pistols, are silly. Single-point slings on rifles are silly. Single stage triggers for rifles are silly. Red dot sights on pistols are silly. Silencers, compensators, muzzle brakes, flash hiders are silly. Machine guns are silly; no one needs full-auto capability for hunting, or self-defense. Magazine-fed firearms are silly; if you can’t stop the prey, or the threat with one well-placed shot, you shouldn’t be allowed to own a gun. In the end, all that matters is government not inhibit my choices of weaponry, but your choices are rightly constrained. See how that works?

  27. What a bunch of pathetic excuses for humans. If you can’t be consistent in your beliefs, do us all a favor and use retroactive abortion on yourself.

  28. “[Kat Ellsworth] is leaning toward Sanders or Sen. Elizabeth Warren, two candidates whose gun-control positions she doesn’t believe are all that rigid.”

    Kat Ellsworth is deluding herself. They espouse the same nonsense that Bloomberg does.

    I recommend to Kat and all those like her to wake up and smell the coffee. Democrats are for government involvement in every aspect of Americans’ lives [except abortion]. For Democrats, it’s restrict, regulate, regulate and restrict. The people need an ‘enightened’ elite to guide them – by government force. It’s what they live for.

    As former President Obama said [as a U.S. senator from Chicago], “The Constitution is a document of negative liberties. It says what the government can’t do TO you, but it DOESN’T say what the government must do FOR you.”

    This, friends, is an alien and antithetical view, in diametric opposition to our founding principles. The core American ethos is exquisitely simple: Get outta the way and leave me alone (GOTWALMA).

    The only cure for liberalism is to face this fact: Liberals are folks who stand on their heads and insist that the world is upside-down.

    I bid you Peace, Health and Liberty, friends.

  29. The largest voting group in the USA is the moderates. Moderate right wingers, moderate left wingers. All those extreme righties and extreme lefties that think themselves to be so damned special? Minority, the lot of them.

  30. Get out an vote pro-2nd Amendment in Illinois and other states. The outcomes of the 2020 election cycle in Illinois stand to influence the state’s redistricting process following the 2020 Census. In Illinois, the state legislature is responsible for drafting both congressional and state legislative district plans. Do not let the Democrats split up pro-2nd Amendment districts any more than they are now. Also, a veteran and Democratic President John F. Kennedy, was actually a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association. He made this famous quote, “… By calling attention to a well-regulated militia for the security of the Nation, and the right of each citizen to keep and bear arms, our founding fathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy. Although it is extremely unlikely that the fear of governmental tyranny, which gave rise to the 2nd amendment, will ever be a major danger to our Nation, the amendment still remains an important declaration of our basic military-civilian relationship, in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country. For that reason I believe the 2nd Amendment will always be important.” Times have really changed. Do not forget that Vice President Johnson pushed for the 1968 gun control act after President Kennedy was killed. It was not the start of Democratic gun control in our country thou. It was in the late 19th Century in Eastern Cities and states and leading up to the 1930’s with NFA and serveral other laws.

    • Johnson fell into the “we have to do something” trap…that has persisted ever since…the NFA was a different kettle of fish as gangsters were viewed as terrorists in their day…and a real threat to public order…its restrictions had little impact on most of the population that generally supported it…[but not the handgun restriction that was originally part of it]….

      • What a courageous statesman LBJ was. Men and women who fought and died for this country must really be impressed with his resistance to a little political pressure.

  31. “Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.” Karl Marx

    • Well unless they refuse to give up their other private property. I’m sure marx would love to have had a monopoly on the use of force against anyone that wanted to keep their wealth. “The worker” as marx sees it is a good little collectivist commie. He would consider free men to be everyone else. Any more dead commies that never worked a day in there life you wanna quote?

    • Yet…. it’s also 100% true that every single socialist country… every single Fucking one… has had a total draconian gun bans on the entire civilian population.

    • “Socialist says:
      February 28, 2020 at 20:26
      “Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.” Karl Marx”

      Context dimwit!
      This “armed worker” statement is the Marxist position BEFORE overtaking the government currently in power, the workers must retain arms to OVERTHROW that existing gov.
      Once the gov is overthrown, and Marxism is in charge, the workers are QUICKLY disarmed.

  32. I’m in the same boat with the folks detailed in the article. My approach has been to vote for who best fits my ideals but double-down on my support for pro-gun organizations that are taking real legal action.

    This has been increasingly difficult for me as gun-rights orgs drift further and further in right-wing rhetoric. The New York State Rifle and Pistol Association’s newsletter/magazine (for example) is super right-wing and have recently printed an article blaming the leftists and, specifically, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for the increase in antisemitic attacks in NY/NJ. It’s a nutty article and drove me to ask them how to donate directly to their legal fund (I appreciate their legal challenges against NYS and NYC firearms policies) but I’d rather not support dangerous and false rhetoric.

    So as much as liberal candidates would do well to remember that liberals own guns too (as is stated above), firearms rights organizations would do well to remember that as well.

    • Maybe AOC should not align herself with the BDS movement, and her terrorist excusing fellow squad members if she doesn’t want to be seen as anti-semitic. AOC is a poster child for stupidity, she got into a twitter war with Ted Cruz, and merely proved that she has poor english skills, to complement her poor grasp of economics, and then touted her high school science (2nd place) award to claim MIT authority to comment on science. It is like me saying, “I got a merit badge in camping in boy scouts,” to say that I am an expert in camping.

      • “It is like me saying, “I got a merit badge in camping in boy scouts,” to say that I am an expert in camping.”

        Well, crap. Does that mean my camping merit badge is no good? I wanna be expert at something….I do have a cooking merit badge.

      • Except for the part where I’m not a socialist. Nor ever claimed to be a liberal. The point of the article was that modern leftism/liberalism is incompatible with gun ownership, and everyone who claims they are pro gun and a liberal is lying to themselves.

        But kudos for reading through it.

        • to Tim U
          I didn’t mean that you were a socialist. The Link has great examples of people who claim they are Libertarian socialist. And other Libertarians are arguing and rejecting them. Sadly most Libertarians are asleep on this issue of infiltration into their political party and philosophy.

      • Except that there’s no such thing, and physically cannot be, as a “Libertarian Socialist.” Libertarianism and socialism are wholly incompatible, full-stop, point-blank, period. You’d know this had you ever actually learned anything about either. You clearly don’t, because you clearly haven’t — don’t lie to me by saying you did.

  33. Fun fact: almost all mass shootings are committed by leftist statists. Maybe leftists should be red flagging each other preemptively for the children.

  34. The two party system sucks for many reasons. George Washington summarized it well in his farewell speech. It goes, briefly, like this I believe in ABC, party One stands for aBc and party Two for abC. Who do I vote for if A is my highest priority?

    • The two party system isn’t as rigid as you would have people believe. Look at the “Democratic” [read: National] Socialist takeover of major DNC seats.

      That’s why primaries are important. Get a candidate who believes in A strongly, run them in a district with an incumbent for a party that you mostly support, and don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

  35. What exactly does she find “vile” about Trump’s immigration policy? The fact he’s actually enforcing laws? Illegal immigration is a drain on the societies that fall victim to it. These people have some sort of weird “Noble Savage” complex.

    • trump’s support for a return to a more traditional judiciary is probably the most effective thing he has done, although immigration reforms remains a close second in most parts of the country…how that will affect gun owners remains to be seen…but we remain hopeful…I still believe the primary thrust of all these judges will be serving the interests of big business…but we’ll see….

    • Like plenty of others, she’s probably susceptible to the endless propaganda pumped out by open borders industrial complex. It’s an emotional response, not a rational one; just like about every other democratic position.

      • edit
        She is a vile disgusting Liberal woman who supports child molsters crossing the border as they please.
        She would do nothing to stop the rapes and kidnappings of women and children. Never to be seen again. She sure is happy with HER guns however.

  36. You can’t vote for any democrat party candidate, at any level and think you are a supporer of the 2nd Amendment. The democrat party will ban and confiscate all guns when they have the power to do so. This isn’t hyperbole, this is the truth. Your shotgun and bolt action deer rifle will be banned too, and if you doubt this you are being a fool. The shotgun and bolt action rifle are just farther down on their list of guns they want bannned and confiscated. The truth is this…..any vote, for any democrat, at any level of government is a vote to end the 2nd Amendment. This is the truth. Local democrats at the local and state level are the tip of the spear now in the anti-gun movement. Then, the federal level democrats in the Senate will confirm anti-gun judges nominated by democrat Presidents……those democrat judges and justices will rule any gun control law, gun ban or gun confiscation Constitutional…….these left wingers who say they support the 2nd Amendment are fooling themselves…..their position cannot be sustained………

      • BSanders is MORE then happy to chop them up, and sell them by the bucket too. Just as long as it adds a few zeros to his bank account.

        • The Jew In Name Only, Bernie Sanders is just as dangerous as the early Adolf Hitler. Ya that’s right I said it. They both had ill informed young followers. Many willing to commit violence against their opponents. And both want to confiscate guns and disarm the civilian population.
          That is what a democrat socialist does. Same for a National or International socialist.

          And many people just can’t bring themselves to say this about an american jewish person.

          https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/bernie-is-either-ignorant-uninformed-or-lying-about-gun-laws-in-the-u-s/

        • Too much truth for the socialists to handle here. I bet their slinging their shit around mommies basement.

        • Correction,…..they’re slinging their sh!t……
          Need proper grammar else the trolls comment on the mistakes.
          Trolling 101. When you can’t discuss/debate content, pivot to shallow attacks off topic, such as spelling.

  37. Stopped reading after the first line of this piece. Can’t afford the loss of brain cells that reading any further might have caused.

  38. “When one person dies it is a tragedy. When thousands die it is a statistic.” – J. Stalin

    Looks like you 2A people are going to be a statistic in 2021.

  39. “In this Sunday, Feb. 9, 2020 photo, Kevin Dixie poses for a portrait at a shooting range in Ballwin, Mo. Dixie considers himself agnostic when it comes to politics”

    Thank you Sir, for the wonder things you are doing. I have heard you on the Firearms Radio Network gun podcasts. You are getting to be like Tom Givens also. Your students, his like his, are using your training to survive a gun battle. Keep spreading the good word sir!
    (smile)

    • edit
      Your students, like his, are using your training to survive a gun battle. Keep spreading the good word sir!

      auto correct!?!?

  40. A Libertarian (Anarcho-Capitalist) Socialist explained. If you want to spend 2 1/2 hours of your valuable time watching. I call myself a fan of Stefan Molyneux.

    “Debating An Anarcho-Capitalist (Matthew McManus vs. Stefan Molyneux)”

  41. I think the main issue liberal gun owners have to face is that the radical left has taken over their party and it no longer cares to work with or for you or your interests. The only reason you haven’t been exiled completely is because you still support their interests, but don’t expect them to support yours. They figure when push comes to shove they’ll just bully, threaten, shun, or malign you; wear you down, and then infringe on your gun rights.

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