Should the Left Embrace Gun Ownership? I'm Worried by What I'm Seeing

The growing lefty 2A movement is promoting a narrative that is likely ineffective and certainly dangerous. Raw thoughts as I work it through.

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Since the re-election of Donald Trump, I’ve observed a steady drumbeat of media articles and influencer-promoted narratives around the prospect of American liberals and leftists embracing gun ownership. It’s couched in the language of sensible preparedness and self-protection—topics I am demonstrably invested in.

These pro-Second Amendment arguments intensified over the course of 2025, as ICE increasingly acted in blatant violation of the Constitution (and often in violation of basic decency). In the wake of the public execution of Renee Good—and now reaching fever pitch with the execution of Alex Pretti, who exercised his legal right to concealed carry (though was not actually brandishing his weapon when he was killed).

Perhaps I’m colored by what I’m seeing and learning in Ken Burns’s superb The American Revolution documentary, but what’s happening now feels like it has the jagged edges of revolutionary spirit. There’s much to be excited about in this; the American imperial project has produced untold harms for its entire existence, and the neoliberal status quo has been harming us for decades—and left unchecked these systems will render the planet uninhabitable. In some form, what will be required to survive this century is a dramatic overhaul of our current accepted systems. Revolution is perhaps the “loudest” answer that has historically produced such an effect, and indeed some form of “revolution” will inevitably be necessary to break the stranglehold toxic capitalism (or, what Yanis Varoufakis has called ‘technofeudalism’) has on all over our other social and political systems.

But as the gun conversations have intensified, my spidey sense has started to tingle. I should say up front that I’m speaking from my affective experience, predominantly accumulated via various forms of doomscrolling. That said, my track record when it comes to following my spidey sense is (unfortunately) pretty strong. I noted and extensively covered the rise of lefty prepping throughout 2025, and essentially called the broad strokes of what we should expect from a Donald Trump 2.0 presidency within a week of the election in 2024:

So take all that for what you will.

Yes, owning a gun is still a right possessed by all Americans (at least, for now); yes, it’s a right that was designed as a counter-tyranny measure; and yes, tyranny is ascendant in America.

I just can’t shake the feeling we’re being politically kettled into the exact position the tyrants want us in.

It is now something like common knowledge that Trump will compromise the midterm elections. After all, his actions are increasingly unpopular, and the only remaining possible check under normative democratic processes would be for the Democrats to flip both houses of Congress (though please, even if by some miracle this were to happen, I beg you to remember the Democratic Party’s track record on opposing authoritarianism). In what follows, the impression I don’t want you to take away from this is that I think we should all sit back, wait for the elections, and cross our fingers. Quite the opposite.

Many believe Trump’s election interference will live and die with martial law. Indeed, martial law is the most powerful lever for outright election cancellation or postponement—I’ll come back to this in a bit—but it’s foolish to think they would bet the farm on that lever alone. Instead, we should expect to see them roll out a bevy of tactics, form-fit for different contexts. These could include:

• Executive orders by Trump that federally restrict mail-in voting, absentee ballots, or voting methods. Sure, courts might block these—but the Supreme Court could then overturn those rulings.

• Pushing for strict ID or citizenship documentation requirements that make it harder for people to register or vote.

• Pressure federal agencies to demand detailed voter data (e.g., Social Security numbers), increasing risk of inaccurate purges from voter rolls.

• Targeting or pressuring local and state election officials to change how elections are run or counted (see: Georgia in the 2020 election). While this form of interference could still happen after the fact if the election goes against Trump’s desires, it could also happen beforehand (read: now), with the administration encouraging state legislatures to pass election laws or redraw districts (gerrymandering) to favor one party, especially in states with tight races.

• The deployment of “poll watchers,” federal agents (ICE, CBP, or otherwise) or National Guard units at polling locations under the pretext of security, but in fact to intimidate voters or election workers. It’s also possible Trump will simply encourage “patriots” to undertake these actions in their duty as citizens.

• Using federal data systems (like the SAVE program) to remove eligible voters from rolls by misclassifying their eligibility status. Going further: the administration could actively encourage or legitimize state roll purges under the banner of “cleaning voter lists,” even if they disproportionately affect certain demographic groups. Because of DOGE and cooperation with surveillance companies like Palantir, this information is readily available.

• States, meanwhile, could proffer alternative electors if a (requisite majority of) their respective lawmakers greenlight such overt interference. Because Republicans currently hold the trifecta of power in government, nobody would necessarily be able to stop them from doing this.

I worry that many who are celebrating folks on the left becoming gun owners are unwittingly playing into the Trump administration’s hand, providing easy fodder for narrative warfare that will be used to bolster support for any of the above.

Now, again, does that mean I’m saying you should not own a gun if you believe it’s critical for your own self-defense? No. You should do whatever feels right for you and your situation. But there’s a whole lot of narrative smuggling happening right now—the sense that owning a gun is a precursor step to bringing about long overdue systemic change. What I’m cautioning against is jumping headfirst into that narrative.

Recently, your weirdo friend laid out the case that promoting violence through gun ownership is a doom loop, writing “all of this 2A yeehaw bullshit is going to get vulnerable people killed. You are being manipulated.”

It’s worth watching the video in full here. I want to specifically direct your attention to this clip:

I recognize there are meaningful reasons why you would consider embracing your Second Amendment rights right now, and to repeat myself one more time for folks who only scan articles: if this feels like a necessary self-defense action for you and your circumstances, by all means, follow your conscience. But what do I vehemently caution against is viewing this as true change for the exact reason your weirdo friend highlights: by doing so, you are playing on the gameboard the tyrants want you on, rather than pursuing the strategies they don’t want. This aspect isn’t a moral argument so much as a strategic one.

Of course, the moral dimension focuses on the outcomes of civil conflict—or God forbid a new kinetic Civil War—which will produce outsized harm for children and endangered groups.

So I’m asking you to be very, very vigilant about the feelings of cathartic frisson that might arise within you from the prospect of gun ownership. That affective dimension might feel like an afterthought, but it’s the absolute core of the matter. There is a critical difference between quietly becoming a gun owner and communicating that privately with friends and family for awareness vs. openly parading this choice on social media and calling for others to do the same, pointing to government tyranny as the raison d’etre.

Because the actual “war” that’s being fought right now—and the “war” that will determine what happens over the next few months and years—is a narrative one. It might surprise you to hear that, right now, the left is winning that war. Support for ICE is decreasing, and even Republicans are beginning to worry about the impacts this will have in the midterms. This is precisely because the tyranny is being made explicit; people are legally protesting without open violence and being executed in the streets for it.

To be clear, I do not intend this to mean that we should celebrate people being killed by our government because it helps our narrative. All of this is devastating; all of this has produced overwhelming moral injury in me, and in many ways disrupted my ability to think about anything other than ICE and the evolution of American fascism. But the facts are I know are this: whatever guns we might bring to the gun fight, they have us vastly outgunned. Their technologies of violence are many orders of magnitude more powerful and effective than anything we might try to counter them with.

Fighting fire with fire here will lead to many more deaths, and would inevitably bolster the administration’s arguments for why ICE actions are necessary—not only to sweep up innocent immigrants, but to crack down on “domestic terrorists,” and more broadly to make the case for intensifying their authoritarian crackdown.

It would be one thing if violence were our only option, but it’s not. We have a whole toolset for upending authoritarianism predicated on strategic nonviolence, adaptations of historical tactics that have actually worked. I don’t mean protests like No Kings—while those are perhaps a productive and cathartic first step for many, there’s so much more we can do that we haven’t yet embraced at scale: community organizing, constructing parallel systems of support, legal physical obstruction in your neighborhood, economic warfare (namely: a general strike!), and digital self-defense, to name just a few categories. I’m going to spend some time over the coming days and weeks researching and publishing what these tactics might look like in practice. But for now it feels critical to get this simple message out: promoting violence through gun ownership might feel cathartic, but it’s not the answer. Of course, neither is sitting around and waiting for the midterms. So we need to double down on the strategies that will actually yield durable, positive outcomes.

As I said in the subhead, this is still raw for me. I recognize there might be points I’m missing—and certainly recognize that it’s not a simple issue because violence has indeed worked to bring about systemic change in the past. I just feel strongly that it’s not the only or even best option, for the reasons outlined above. Put simply, I believe violence should only ever be considered as an absolute last resort, and despite how it may feel, we have so many other options at our fingertips right now.

I welcome disagreement in the comments, or, for subscribers, via a response to this email. What I want to share with my friends and comrades who are more excited about the gun narrative is an urgent desire to topple authoritarianism and promote democracy in the United States, one that is more just than this country has ever been, that lives into its stated ideals.

I’m sharing this not as an indictment of those who have been heartened by the lefty 2A movement—I recognize your feelings of righteous anger and I share those feelings. Rather, I’m asking you to slow down (following Báyò Akómoláfé’s usage) and remember that we have so many other, better options available to us to bring about systemic change. Yes, they involve hard work—work that is much more complex and multifaceted than the simplistic abstraction of gunfights in the streets. But if we want durable change, we’re going to have to get a whole lot more strategic than what I’ve been seeing. I hope you’re able to hear this.

Stay safe out there.