[HN Gopher] More liberals, people of color and LGBTQ say they're...
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More liberals, people of color and LGBTQ say they're buying guns
out of fear
Author : makerdiety
Score : 27 points
Date : 2025-11-17 21:57 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| catigula wrote:
| >This story was based on more than 30 interviews
|
| Yikes
| nomel wrote:
| I'd be interesting in seeing the recruitment method and spatial
| distribution of those 30.
| 000ooo000 wrote:
| Subjects selected from local gun store line
| greenavocado wrote:
| The student-run cafe in the basement of the Sociology
| building, whose patio opens onto the main quad's designated
| protest lawn.
| warbaker wrote:
| See https://www.reddit.com/r/liberalgunowners/
| unionjack22 wrote:
| I'm really curious about the amount of screen time and
| news/social media consumption of these groups. I assume it's a
| couple standard deviations above what's healthy.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| Why would you explicitly assume something that confirms your
| bias? Why not just say that you _suspect_ a trend?
|
| Individual anecdote, but I bought a pistol for defense in the
| US because of the (two way) threats I constantly read and _hear
| in my real life_ , and I do not consume _any_ social media. No
| Twitter, no Facebook. I don 't read news outside HN, my local
| paper, and the occasional CS Monitor story. I rarely sit around
| scrolling TikTok/YouTube/etc on my phone, and when I do, it
| thankfully just shows me engineering/trades stuff (BigClive
| type stuff, plumbers, etc). Admittedly, I have visited 4chan
| occasionally since it was established.
|
| My opinion is: It's fallacious to imply that the hatred and
| violence of Americans against Americans is negligible, and
| could only be considered a real problem through the lens of
| dishonest media. Yes, consuming garbage media will amplify that
| fear, but the fear is absolutely, obviously based on real,
| actual attitudes and words in the US.
| integralid wrote:
| >because of the (two way) threats I constantly hear and read,
| and I do not consume any social media
|
| Where do you hear the threats then? In real life? Are they
| quoted in the local news you read?
|
| (Sight nitpick - HN is social media)
| qwerpy wrote:
| In my social circle (mostly Asian tech employees in the PNW)
| there were many first-time gun purchases immediately after
| the social unrest in 2020. Hysterical social media posts
| about "the riots are going to come to the suburbs" factored
| into it. The fears ended up being completely overblown.
|
| Now there are different groups of people who are predicting
| violence and feeling the need to do something about it. Too
| early to tell whether the fears are overblown this time
| around as well.
|
| In any case, I hope all first-time gun owners properly train
| with them and secure their guns at home. I wouldn't be
| surprised if the main outcome of both of these clusters of
| gun buying is not actual defense against the feared threats,
| but that guns get stolen and used for crimes.
| m-hodges wrote:
| I assume the social media consumption of [whatever you think
| the opposite groups are] is also a couple standard deviations
| above what's healthy.
| ekidd wrote:
| I know a bunch of trans gun owners. They're pretty standard gun
| geeks, and a few of them do shooting competitions.
|
| I've asked them how they got into shooting sports, and a lot
| times, they tell me some pretty scary stories of real-life
| encounters with bigots. Some have also encountered armed right-
| wing protestors outside of a bar that held a late night drag
| event.
| SunshineTheCat wrote:
| I wonder if it has anything to do with reading NPR.
| tharne wrote:
| This makes sense. If one of your political platforms is to weaken
| and reduce the police force, then buying a gun is a very logical
| and practical thing to do.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| This seems dishonest. Surely the liberal position - on average
| - is the rejection of dangerous police, even if that means
| rejecting a large number of police officers, until the police
| force (nationally and/or locally) is once again a trustworthy
| foundation of democratic civilization? The unfortunate reality
| is that, when you have a class of people with authority and
| guns, even if only a small minority of them are dangerous, that
| immediately ruins the image of the whole thing until they are
| rooted out. Americans have historically proven that, if there's
| one thing they won't stand for, it's being oppressed/frightened
| by those in power.
| HeinzStuckeIt wrote:
| That might be the liberal position on average, but if you
| have a social circle that's lefter than average, as in many
| metro areas, you'll occasionally hear a desire for outright
| abolition of police. Not even a simple local constabulary
| walking the beat, as there is a meme going around that such
| law enforcement came out of gangs that hunted down fugitive
| slaves and is inherently tainted. (Nevermind the existence of
| such police in countries around the world that never had
| race-based chattel slavery.) Instead, more investment in
| social services will supposedly remove the need for them
| entirely.
|
| But of course, whether that position or the number of people
| who hold it, has any real influence on gun sales is doubtful
| and the GP may have been a bait post.
| lukev wrote:
| Quite the opposite. The increased fear is that there will be
| bad actors (brownshirts, racists, klansmen, etc) that the
| police are not making an effort to restrain, or even with whom
| the police are are allied.
|
| Your average liberal/progressive is still probably less afraid
| (relative to the median) about random or property crime.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| Ratio of gun ownership per party has shifted maybe from 40:1 to
| 39.99:1. While this is real, by the numbers it's inconsequential
| and of no note. _But it is a vibe shift._ Both inconsequential.
| But: _this is worth noting._
|
| And it's just _cursed as frell_ that the left has seen such a
| shift that they abandon governance, abandon the state, feel the
| Dont Step On Me militarizing insanitude viruses that has
| afflicted & demented so much of America for hundreds of years.
|
| One of the circulated highly-discussed topics of the day on
| BlueSky was The South. There was a lot of dragging & disdain, and
| some occasional _' I can't believe we're being so hostile here'_
| outcries, but largely just bitter anger that US history has faced
| such a strong adversary against equanimity, such a tilted wild
| force built so purely around negative hateful biases that has
| resorted to such violence & force again and again. That violent
| clutching to illegitemacy has ridden so rough-shod over America
| for so very deep long, has once again gotten such an _enormous_
| violent clutch-hold over the land.
|
| But with regards to this article: the tables aren't tipping IMO.
| Nothing's changing, violence wise. The violence insurrectionist
| tendencies are still 100% on one side. None of the people who
| were wetting their pants / podcasting ad infinitum about Jade
| Helm (a hypothetical violent government takeover of states) have
| said a peep about the radically unprecedented incursion of
| military forces into peaceful "what so happens to be"-liberal
| American cities. I empathize strongly with those who see whats
| happening, the horrific vile acts & the enjoyment of
| despicability/deplorability, who decide to arm up. But this story
| is about exceptions that prove the rule. This story is a tell: a
| tell about how brutal and mean and nasty much of America is, and
| how 0.02% of the good decent respectful folk have decided that,
| for their basic most primitive safety, they _have_ to go buy
| guns. Most such calls for arms have never been in any real sense
| out of defense, IMO.
|
| The longer story, what the viewpoint should really be looking at,
| is how radical and extremist so much of America has been for so
| long. How much they defy (have defied for getting near two
| centuries) even the most basic constitutional calls for respect &
| peace are, and how armed they've made themselves to resist the
| state/become a vigilante force of fear. This minor anomaly is an
| indicator that the corrupt pro-violence mafia-state has just
| gotten way way too uppity & dangerous. But in truth, very few of
| even these people have any hope of resisting this bitter
| violence-happy mafia-state if these hooligans keep escalating.
| delichon wrote:
| > Ratio of gun ownership per party has shifted maybe from 40:1
| to 39.99:1.
|
| More like 5:2.
|
| https://news.gallup.com/poll/653621/gun-ownership-rates-spik...
| m-hodges wrote:
| In case anyone is actually interested in US gun ownership trends
| in the data -- instead of just posting your prior-affirming vibe
| take -- there is a lot of data.12
|
| 1 https://news.gallup.com/poll/653621/gun-ownership-rates-spik...
|
| 2 https://news.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx
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