No one without a significant amount of training should be handling a firearm at all, which is why I think designated community patrols made up of well-trained, highly trusted individuals who are chosen by and held accountable to said community (and who do not hold any or less power than anyone else due to their position) is a far better and more equitable defense model than messy “everyone gets a gun!” rhetoric.

There is a long history of leftist gun ownership, and a concurrent theme of state repression against it. As author and anarchist scott crow notes, “our current gun control laws disproportionately hobble poor communities and communities of color.” As far as the state is concerned, black people were never meant to own guns at all; the Second Amendment was intended in part as a means of controlling the enslaved black population and suppressing possible uprisings.

I don’t have all the answers, but the bare fact of the matter here is that violent right-wing extremism is a continuing threat that has been allowed to spread unabated in this country — a country that is itself rooted in the oppression of people of color. The police will not protect us; neither will the military, or well-meaning liberals, or your favorite oh-so-progressive politicians. It is not in their interest to do so, and recognizing that is imperative to the survival of those who reject this vile status quo.