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In a time of rising fear and polarization, liberals are increasingly taking up arms—and challenging a gun culture long dominated by conservatives.Within a year of coming out as trans, Rachel picked up a gun for the first time. Today, she owns a rifle that she rebuilt herself.In a time of rising fear and polarization, liberals are increasingly taking up arms—and challenging a gun culture long dominated by conservatives., a recreation center in Ashburn.
While liberal politicians largely support gun control, the percentage of Democratic households that own guns has jumped from 33 percent in 2004 to 41 percent today. “I am a relatively small person,” Rachel says. “I can throw a very good punch, but with guns, you don’t need to worry about if the person you’re fighting is on drugs or is hopped up on adrenaline and can’t feel pain that much. They’re the great force equalizer.”
For Palette, gun rights are LGBTQ+ rights, allowing queer people to defend themselves in a terrifying world. “Our continued success and our continued growth,” she says of Operation Blazing Sword and Pink Pistols, “points to the fact that, yeah, we are in danger.”has a fair amount in common with its conservative antecedent—both, at their core, are about feeling safe—the two tend not to mix. Consider Clara Elliott.
For Charlotte Clymer, though, there’s nothing cute about gun ownership. The writer and LGBTQ+ activist is a trans woman who’s also an Army veteran. “I think it is completely rational for a trans person to decide to purchase a firearm for self-defense,” she says—provided that such a person trains to be a responsible gun owner.
Last spring, Rachel and Lilah attended a racial-justice demonstration in Richmond. Rachel brought along her guns to provide security for the demonstrators. Things got ugly. Someone, Rachel and Lilah say, tried to drive his car through the demonstrators. He bumped his hatchback into Rachel, who shouldered her rifle and got ready to prevent him from gunning the engine and killing people, as a neo-Nazi famously did in Charlottesville in 2017.
Rachel’s life is very, very different from mine. She was born in this century and grew up anti-gun as a child. She spent those years in Arlington, one of the most politically blue communities in the US—a jurisdiction where lawmakers and county residentsSome of Rachel’s interest stemmed from her growing embrace of far-left politics, as she decided “it’s kind of difficult to believe capitalism should be fought by any means necessary and also be against guns.
In all our conversations, however, Rachel told me about feeling unsafe or worrying about the safety of people around her. America has never been especially friendly toward LGBTQ+ people, and in recent years their growing cultural visibility and acceptance has sparked a backlash.
Palette doesn’t know exactly how many people are currently part of Pink Pistols. The group was formed, she says, “when you could still lose your job and face social ostracism for being outed as gay or any other form of queer. So the idea was, if no official paperwork exists, it can’t be subpoenaed.” However, she says there are currently 25 active chapters around the country and interest in the organization from people who want to shoot has grown since the Pulse shooting.
At the time, Elliott had blue hair. People who come to her for instruction, she says, expect “some guy standing in front of the classroom with, like, a tactical vest. That’s absolutely not me. I’m a trans woman.” Indeed, Elliott’s business is named; the initials stand for Armed Trans Women. She mostly teaches LGBTQ+ people, but also people of color and Muslims—groups, she says, who are often uncomfortable in traditional, conservative gun spaces.
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