Yes, women should be armed. Gay people should be armed. Trans people should be armed. Religious minorities should be armed. People that are on the political left never should have ceded the right to keep and bear arms to the political right.
I'm planning on getting certified as a firearms instructor through the NRA (because no matter how shitty the NRA-ILA is, the training programs are solid) this coming year so that I can start working with The Pink Pistols and Operation Blazing Spear.
Nope, time and again we see law enforcement doesn't work that way for minorities. The same gun laws that protect the majority are used against those in minorities.
Also gives cops an excuse to kill us. Which they often use.
A very american perspective, tbh. From soneone in a country where you're not allowed to carry a gun around as a random idiot, it's so wild to read.
Then again, I also understand that this external perspective has little meaning. You can't magically wish the laws + all those guns away, and like in any arms race you can't be entirely unarmed until you can enact a more permanent de-armament solution later.
It's actually a lot less common for regular citizens to open carry in the US than some might think from US News. It's unusual in a protest, and almost always a far right thing. It has been used effectively by the left, but not at scale in the last 50 years.
The most effective protest movements usually have two approaches going on at the same time, one that threatens violence, and one that is strictly non violent. Non violent movements tend to be ignored until negotiations with them are seen as more favorable than dealing with an armed movement.
Well yes, and they fear for their lives so goddamn much of the time because they're poorly trained cowards who are used to being the high school bully and the wife beater and never having their authority threatened.