Escalating political violence in this country — including the recent killings of Alex Pretti, Renee Good, and Keith Porter by federal immigration agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the US Border Patrol — has raised the question: In the face of an increasingly authoritarian state, should people on the Left arm themselves?
Although registered Republicans are more than twice as likely to own at least one gun compared to registered Democrats (45 percent versus 18 percent, respectively), gun ownership on the Left is on the rise. For many, in the face of such state violence, guns may offer a last line of self-defense against government violence.
This argument is not new, and it is not frivolous. It is rooted in real fear, real grief, and real anger at a state that has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to use violence against anyone who stands in its way. But it is also deeply mistaken.
From a public health perspective, and from the standpoint of how power actually operates in capitalist societies, expanding civilian gun ownership is not a path toward safety or liberation. It is a path toward more death, more political weakness, and deeper entrenchment of the very forces the Left opposes.
As a public health researcher, I approach this debate through outcomes. What happens when guns proliferate, who is harmed, and who benefits — and which strategies have actually constrained authoritarian power in the past — are empirically answerable questions.
The answers point away from firearms and toward collective action as the only credible counterweight to rising authoritarianism.
Any serious discussion of arming civilians must begin with a basic empirical reality: the United States already has more guns than people. According to estimates from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, there are likely 400 to 500 million firearms in civilian possession, which is a level of saturation unmatched by any other country in the world….
Auteur: Rachel Hoopsick
