Why dont liberals like guns

We would hope that we can have a world where people can live in unity and harmony across the color spectrum. Gun-loving libs are not, to paraphrase Barack Obama, clinging to their guns as a way to express their frustration with being left behind by globalization or whatever. For Randy Miyan, the executive director of Liberal Gun Owners, gun ownership feels like an essential part of the human experience.

Liberal Gun Owners, an organization without an official membership model, grew out of a Facebook group and remains mostly dedicated to moderating discussions between its 4, subscribers on the social-media platform. Miyan became involved with Liberal Gun Owners shortly after Adam Sorum, one of the few Democrats in his rural Minnesota community, founded the Facebook page in The mission of Liberal Gun Owners, which is registered as a c 4, is to provide a community for gun-loving lefties as well as to look for solutions for gun violence beyond gun control.

He created a set of rules and protocols to turn the group into a healthy space for gun-toting lefties. Miyan grew up in a working-class family of Democratic voters in Pittsburgh and now lives in North Carolina, but his affinity for guns is part of his spiritual questing.

From age 21 to 31, Miyan studied to become a Buddhist monk, and though he ultimately chose to follow a more conventional path of getting married and having children, his time studying under Tibetan monks taught him the importance of compassion, love, and nonviolence. It would be the biggest boost of federal aid to Amtrak since Congress created it half a century ago. Flynn said in an interview Monday.

Already a subscriber? Log in or link your magazine subscription. Account Profile. Sign Out. We spoke with four local, left-leaning gun owners and asked for their thoughts on guns and how their beliefs will influence their vote.

Duke Aaron, 49, was first exposed to firearms as a child. He saw the damage weapons could do, growing up in a high crime Brockton, Massachusetts neighborhood with his mother. But he also spent time with his father shooting in the woods in rural Massachusetts. Aaron became more involved in tactical shooting as an adult for a few different reasons, he said — one being the swastikas and white power graffiti that was popping up in Seattle's Beacon Hill neighborhood, where he lived.

The number of hate crimes reported in Seattle increased to incidents in from incidents in , according to data collected by the FBI. The most recent data shows that in , there were hate crimes reported. You may have noticed the group, armed and protecting members of the LGBTQ community during parades and attendees at other events against alt-right groups that show up.

He reasoned that, one, guns are already here a Small Arms survey in found there were more than million civilian firearms in the U. He believes restrictions put in place tend to penalize Black people and other minority groups. He said that to prevent gun deaths, the minimum wage should be raised and health care should be improved.

He believes most gun deaths are linked with socioeconomic inequities. Am I going to steal universal healthcare away from children? Leave our rights alone and focus on improving our lives. Sergey Solyanik is originally from the Soviet Union. He said in his experience, guns are not very accurate, and that the zombie films that showcase action stars landing shots in a fully-automatic mode as they run away, is not how things work in real life.

He said gun laws are created by people who know little about guns for people who know little about guns. Recently, Solyanik started leaning away from the Democratic Party, despite voting for the party in But he also sees no point in voting for Trump in a state like Washington, which swings blue.

It's whatever is driving that violence. Although they don't agree with much of the gun legislation that gets proposed, Gardner says, unlike the NRA, he knows just saying no to everything that restricts guns isn't the right approach. He uses "red flag" laws as an example of something that could help if they're done right. These laws have been passed in several states, including California, and they put a process into place for filing protective orders to remove guns from people deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.

We don't just arbitrarily and administratively take things away from people. The ACLU agrees with that position. In a blog post, the ACLU stated that red flag laws can be a reasonable way to further public safety, but the process must be fair, nondiscriminatory, and heard in court. California became the first state in the nation to pass a gun violence restraining order law in , after the Isla Vista shooting and stabbing that took the lives of six victims.

The law now gives family members and law enforcement the ability to petition the court for the order. The ACLU said it believed that the law struck the right balance between public safety and civil liberties.

Gavin Newsom signed legislation in October known as AB 61 that expands the list of people who can file for a protective order to include employers, co-workers, and teachers. The ACLU came out against AB 61, saying that it poses "a significant threat to civil liberties by expanding the authorization to seek ex parte orders," according to a Sept.

The small. I laugh at myself because my arm is getting tired and I can't hold the gun steady. This thing is heavy. And although it may look like an assault weapon—one of the ones that's banned in California—it's not. Black, with a magazine that clicks into place below the trigger, this particular gun is about 90 percent less powerful than a standard AR because of the size of the bullet and the way it fires.

Details like this are key to understanding guns, according to Michael Sodini who founded Walk the Talk America and was the keynote speaker at that night's Liberal Gun Club dinner. The only difference between something like the AR and a hunting rifle in many cases—Sodini told me over the phone later—is that one's painted black and has a bunch of tactical extras. Every time a bullet comes out of a semi-automatic weapon and this is most of the guns available for purchase , someone had to depress a trigger.

Sodini said he spends a lot of time explaining details like these as part of the work he does for his nonprofit, which is attempting to bridge the gap between the mental health and gun communities.

He takes mental health professionals to gun shows to talk about mental health and the stigmas associated with it. And he does the same in the mental health world exposing mental health professionals to firearms, gun culture and safety, and the associated stigmas.

The goal is to expose the two to one another and hopefully get people the help that they need in the process. It doesn't matter what you believe in or what your philosophies are. Let's help people stay alive and get help, get mental help, if they need it.

That's what our message is," Sodini said. There are narratives both ways, right? A lot of people in the gun community, Sodini said, believe that if they seek out help to deal with something like post-traumatic stress syndrome, that a mental health professional could take their guns away.

And that isn't true in most states. In New York, though, counselors can put their patients into a database that essentially takes that right away another form of a red flag law. Laws like that, Sodini said, also take away the incentive to go get help. Conversations like these are difficult, but Sodini said the key is to allow people to say what they need to say. I want to try to bring that back. Reach Editor Camillia Lanham at clanham newtimesslo. Reduce, reuse Not all single-use plastics are created equally recyclable, and a new state law aims to make that clearer.

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