The Wall Street Journal reported this week that more and more liberals are buying guns, calling it a “surprising” trend among a group of voters that typically supports restrictions.
In an article published Thursday, the outlet looked at new ideas Gun Ownership To understand what’s behind this trend, I studied the data and spoke to experts and several Democratic gun owners.
“American gun culture has long been dominated by conservative, white men. Now, in a marked shift, a growing number of liberals are buying firearms, according to surveys and fast-growing gun groups that attract minorities and progressives,” The Wall Street Journal reported,
A recent Wall Street Journal report found that Democratic voters are the “most surprising” new group of gun owners in America. (Daniel Aaker/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The article began with the example of Michael Simanokolowski, a lifelong Democrat and gun restriction supporter who recently purchased his first gun.
Simanokolowski, a liquor store clerk in Iowa City, Iowa, told the magazine he bought the weapon because he was concerned about “street crime, armed right-wing extremists” and expressed fear that American politics were getting worse.
He said, “Bittery is increasing in domestic politics.” media outlet.
The Journal noted that Democrats have historically been gun owners, but a trend away from firearm ownership began in the “early ’90s” when “an increasingly divisive political battle over the role of firearms in American society turned the Democratic Party into a proponent of gun regulation. Republicans became the party of gun rights.”
Now they are “rediscovering guns,” the article said, citing statistics that Democratic gun ownership is rising from record lows.
“29 percent of people who are Democrats or lean Democrat in 2022 said they would have a gun at home, compared to a four-decade low of 22 percent in 2010,” the report said, citing a survey by the University of Chicago’s NORC research group.
Of all Democratic voters who purchased guns after 2020, “more than half were first-time gun buyers,” according to data from the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, the article said.
“This is a group of people who five years ago would never have thought of buying a gun,” Jennifer Hubert, an anthropology professor at Lewis & Clark College, told the Journal.
The rise in gun ownership among liberals is perhaps why Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris now bills herself as a gun owner, where she spoke of supporting mandatory gun buyback programs in 2019.
Voters criticize Harris for ‘racial discrimination’ and ‘fear-mongering’ during debate
Vice President Kamala Harris joked about being a gun owner during a campaign event with Oprah Winfrey on Thursday night. (YouTube Screenshot)
During the latest presidential debate, he described how he and his running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minnesota, Both are gun owners,
And at a campaign event with Oprah Winfrey on Thursday, Harris told the media mogul, “If anybody broke into my house, I would kill them.” they are being shot,
The article also points out that this group of liberal gun owners is “much more diverse” than it was in the 90s, stating, “Four decades ago, Democratic gun owners were typically white males, including auto or steel union workers who grew up hunting.”
“According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, an industry group, gun dealers in 2023 are seeing the largest increase in gun purchases by Black Americans than any other racial group,” the report said. Women make up half of the new liberal gun owners between 2019 and 2021, the report said.
The outlet spoke to pro-gun libertarian Tom Nguyen, a Los Angeles resident who founded a pro-gun group for libertarians on Facebook in 2020 because many of them were concerned about that year’s unrest in connection to the pandemic and the presidential election.
“People were craving a place that wasn’t the hyper-aggressive, male-dominated, toxic gun world,” Nguyen said, adding that he trains about 300 people each year in firearms handling.
Alejandra Mendez, a lesbian woman who takes Nguyen’s class, told the Journal that she receives criticism from her fellow liberals for owning four firearms. “I don’t understand the rhetoric of ‘protecting my right’ and not protecting other people’s rights,” she said, arguing that she has a right to own guns, just as she has a right to free speech.
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The Journal also found a quote from former President Jimmy Carter’s grandson, jason carterHunter, the former Georgia senator, spoke at the Democratic National Convention last month about finding a middle ground in America on the gun issue.
“More people are saying, ‘Let’s find a middle ground. Let’s work to respect Second Amendment rights, but let’s also find ways to make ourselves safer,'” he told the Journal.
