Several niche, left-leaning gun advocacy groups said that since the killing of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis, they can hardly keep up with the surging demand for firearms training.
With Donald Trump sending armed federal agents into communities around the country, even more once gun-shy liberals and leftists are considering getting armed.
And while Americans tend to think of gun owners as leaning more Republican and male, already more women, gay people and people of color have taken up arms in recent years, particularly after 2020.
And this is why they now want gun control.
They don’t want “gun control”. They want “justification for their use of force”.
Trump would have loved if Alex Pretti had actually pulled his gun and landed a few shots before he was taken down. He’d have loved if Renee Good had actually hit an ICE agent with her car. These events could have served to justify their draconian misconduct, at least within his own conservative base.
Tightening gun laws to the point where all the regulations around private ownership don’t matter is about explaining away why you can pop someone in the head while crossing the street and claim they were breaking the law after the fact. It isn’t about restricting gun ownership. There’s virtually no fear among these federal agencies that any liberal group might organize an effective military deterrence. Nobody is actually afraid of the “liberal gun owner”, because individual lone wolf gun owners aren’t an effective opposition to a well-organized and well-funded Gestapo.