DEFENDING PERSONAL SAFETY ON BOTH LEFT AND RIGHT: “The idea of guns granting power to the oppressed isn't unique to black power groups. "Gun control means disarming the revolutionary masses and oppressed classes”...we can't trust Trump to not tweet out a declaration of war or the Democratic Party to hold a fair primary, so why should we trust the government to regulate firearms?
..."As a black leftist male from and in the south who's a gun owner, I find the conversations on gun control in liberal and left circles oftentimes deeply ill-informed," Jones explained. "I'll be frank, I'm not comfortable with giving the state (the US proper)—which was founded on, by, and sustained through genocide, slavery, and theft—a total monopoly on violence. I believe that for folks that look like me, surrendering effective means of self defense and trusting that system is suicide. Also, let's not forget that gun control in the late twentieth century in the States has basically been an effort to disarm people of color."
Others agreed that the state shouldn't have a "monopoly" on violence. "Law enforcement officers as a whole kill way more people in a year than mass shooters or spree killers do," Paul de Revere, a 32-year-old freelancer from Florida, wrote to me. "Until they disarm, citizens (particularly poor ones of color living in blighted, over-patrolled and/or surveilled communities) shouldn't either."
Those arguments contain a somewhat ironic echo of the ethos of right-wing militias, who often say that they need guns in order to protect themselves from the federal government. In either case, the Second Amendment is seen as a bulwark against tyranny, and gun ownership is considered a symbol of freedom.”
DEFENDING PERSONAL SAFETY ON BOTH LEFT AND RIGHT: “The idea of guns granting power to the oppressed isn't unique to black power groups. "Gun control means disarming the revolutionary masses and oppressed classes”...we can't trust Trump to not tweet out a declaration of war or the Democratic Party to hold a fair primary, so why should we trust the government to regulate firearms?
..."As a black leftist male from and in the south who's a gun owner, I find the conversations on gun control in liberal and left circles oftentimes deeply ill-informed," Jones explained. "I'll be frank, I'm not comfortable with giving the state (the US proper)—which was founded on, by, and sustained through genocide, slavery, and theft—a total monopoly on violence. I believe that for folks that look like me, surrendering effective means of self defense and trusting that system is suicide. Also, let's not forget that gun control in the late twentieth century in the States has basically been an effort to disarm people of color."
Others agreed that the state shouldn't have a "monopoly" on violence. "Law enforcement officers as a whole kill way more people in a year than mass shooters or spree killers do," Paul de Revere, a 32-year-old freelancer from Florida, wrote to me. "Until they disarm, citizens (particularly poor ones of color living in blighted, over-patrolled and/or surveilled communities) shouldn't either."
Those arguments contain a somewhat ironic echo of the ethos of right-wing militias, who often say that they need guns in order to protect themselves from the federal government. In either case, the Second Amendment is seen as a bulwark against tyranny, and gun ownership is considered a symbol of freedom.”
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gy5ex9/the-leftist-argument-against-gun-control