In light of the explosion of mass shootings in the past few years, the gun control debate has increasingly become an integral part of mainstream American political discourse. On one side are the seemingly empathetic liberals, who want “common sense” legislation to limit access to deadly firearms to prevent future deaths. On the other side, “gun-happy” conservatives defend the 2nd Amendment’s “right to bear arms” and the ability to protect themselves from malicious actors, seemingly undeterred from the mass shooting epidemic. Both sides are wrong.
I understand some of the intentions of liberals. Less firearms means less deaths, right? Guns are undoubtedly the most effective and deadly way to kill other human beings in the vast majority of circumstances, whether from closer range or from a significant distance, such as the October 1, 2017 shooting that killed 60 people and injured hundreds more at a Las Vegas country music festival. In fact, I firmly believe the world would be far better off if guns had never existed it all. People would still die, but not quite as many, because other weapons are either less effective or harder to acquire. But as much as it pains me to say, the magic disappearance of firearms is wishful thinking. The fact is that guns are here to stay, and we must deal with their consequences.
On the surface, conservatives seem to make a coherent argument that revolves around “self-defense” and “freedom”. Yet the conservative position is defined by many strawman arguments and contradictions. In a conservative persecution complex-fueled fantasy, many on the right believe that the government will one day literally send armed agents of the state from house to house to confiscate their firearms. The irony really writes itself here, because conservative Americans are the biggest supporters of violent agents of the state—law enforcement and the military—and their ever-increasing funding. Regardless, I doubt this confiscation would ever remotely be a possibility given the fierce dedication to firearms ownership mentioned earlier and the sheer logistics of this potential action. Who would want to have the job of taking people’s guns away? No one would want to do it because they would constantly face the threat of enraged gun-owners trying to snipe approaching agents from their property. Many people may choose the less violent route, opting to hide their guns in a remote, inaccessible location, making it nearly impossible to track down any serious proportion of firearms.
But I have already made an incorrect assumption—conservatives believe in everyone’s rights to bear arms. This is not the case. With those of the Black Panther Party doing cop watch patrols in California to protect their communities against systemic police violence, then-governor Reagan enacted the toughest gun control legislation this nation has ever seen as a show of state force and reactionary ideology. The same response has occurred against other groups, such as the homeless. Conservatives want gun ownership for themselves, but so much for others. I also think it is extremely silly to take the Constitution seriously and allow it to dictate future policy. Whether the Founding Fathers were correct on the intentions of the 2nd Amendment or not, the Constitution was created by unelected members of the ruling class who designed a document that would only represent the interests of white, rich, land-owning men, to the detriment of everyone else. We should immediately discontinue adherence to a document with such irreconcilable flaws and origins, and create a new system that supports the interests of the working class.
More recently with the right-wing transgender panic, many prominent conservative figures have demanded that transgender people, and often LGBTQ+ people in general, should be banned from owning firearms, citing that these groups are “mentally unstable” or something of the sort. These calls have been greatly amplified by right-wing media in the wake of the March 27, 2023 Covenant School Shooting in Nashville, TN. While the perpetrator in that case is confirmed transgender, the purported danger of armed transgender people has falsely been characterized as an epidemic, when the reality is that only a couple of trans people have been involved in mass shootings in the past few years. 0.11% of mass shootings have been committed by non-cisgender people out of 3,561 mass shootings since 2016. (which is far less than the roughly 0.5% of US adults who identify as transgender) The conservative backlash against transgender people stands in complete opposition to all available statistics and research on the topic. And there are cases of reactionaries falsely claiming that mass shooters are trans in order to push their despotic narrative. The Colorado Springs shooter, who is commonly cited to advance the right-wing, transphobic frenzy, claimed to be transgender post hoc in order to potentially avoid hate crime charges. There was no prior evidence that the shooter had claimed to be transgender or nonbinary. In fact, transgender and nonbinary people are far more likely to be victims of mass shootings. If we were to honestly single out a demographic at fault for mass shootings, it would be white, cisgender males, who are typically motivated by fascist and femicidal radicalization. It does not help that mainstream right-wing media sources are spreading “white replacement” and other conspiracy theories that too often appeal directly to these aggrieved white men with access to guns, which more often than not leads to stochastic terrorism against marginalized individuals and communities. It is very telling that the right diverts attention to an imaginary, strawman demographic instead of the real one.
So, what are the real factors that have led to so many mass shooting, and more generally, firearm-related deaths in the US? Part of the problem has to do with the sheer quantity of firearms in the US. In fact, there are more guns than people, which is unreal considering the 330 million and counting inhabiting the US. This is far more than the next-leading country, Switzerland. Access to lethal weapons is an important consideration.
However, other factors play a role in the decision to initiate violence. Mental health is a major issue at play. Because of our horrendous healthcare system, many are deprived of access to quality access to mental health services. The permeating ruling class ideology imploring us to "pick ourselves up by our bootstraps" instead of seeking help is also a serious problem. As human beings, we are by nature social and must realize our inter-dependence on one another. However, this realization is actively stifled under neoliberalism. Gun violence is compounded by the aforementioned proliferation of right-wing conspiracy theories online, which prey on the weakened mental state and miseducation of young men, radicalizing them to “take action” to “fix” our societal problems.
A staple of capitalism is alienation, another serious problem that leads to gun violence. As cogs in the machine and sellers of our labor for a wage under capitalism, we are separated from the very commodities we produce via the extraction of our surplus labor, as well as the production chain via the concept known as commodity fetishism. We, on the overwhelming whole, have been conditioned to pay no mind to the human labor (and conditions thereof) that transform raw materials into a final product or service, and this lack of human understanding has deeply impacted our collective psyche. As contradictions within capitalism increasingly become irreconcilable, we are coerced into working longer hours for less pay, as the value and purchasing power of wages decrease to make room for the unrealistic demand for ever-increasing profits. Therefore, we spend more and more hours on production for a capitalist, and less time to live—spend time with others, take care of ourselves, pursue hobbies, and everything else that brings meaning to life. In the anarchy of the “free market”, we are constantly pitted against our fellow worker to secure advancements such as higher wages and promotions, to eat before we are eaten. Such figments as the “middle class” have allowed those relatively better off to blame the lesser off, in many cases denouncing their fellow workers as “lazy” or “freeloaders” or “illegal immigrants”, while manufactured conflicts such as culture wars further divide the working class and enable far-right politics to flourish. This in-fighting only serves the interests of the bourgeoise, as attention is diverted to fighting each other instead of capitalist hegemony. The drowning of class consciousness that inevitably accompanies the atomization of capitalism has had severe social repercussions, as this article beautifully articulates.
I do not ever want to see only the military and police state have access to firearms. These two groups are historically the most violent and oppressive forces—they almost always side with reactionaries. If you’ve listened to our podcast episodes on those topics, you will have a firm idea of our criticisms of these groups, which I will refrain from discussing further here. One of the best ways to prevent a genocide is to arm the oppressed. Oppressors are far less likely to mess with a marginalized group if there is an excellent chance they will be met with heavy armed resistance before they get the chance to do so. This has been the case for many leftist groups around the world, from Zapatistas in southern Mexico to whole countries such as North Korea or the Soviet Union. The West would have loved to attack the USSR and create more markets to exploit, but a direct attack would have been extremely difficult given the advanced military capabilities of the Soviets. Hence the drawn-out but overwhelmingly peaceful Cold War between the two world superpowers. Furthermore, if the Soviets had not been adequately armed (and industrialized), they would have easily lost to the Nazis and the course of history to date would have almost certainly have been far more dystopian.
And back to LGBTQ+ people. With legislation attempting to ban, among other things, gender transitioning and the teaching of queer history, as well as forced outings at schools, the first steps of genocide are already underway. Right-wing figures have felt empowered to increasingly utilize genocidal rhetoric. The loudest example was uttered by Daily Wire-affiliated political commentator Michael Knowles: “For the good of society…transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely—the whole preposterous ideology, at every level.” This horrific rhetoric should be a wake-up call to not just transgender people, but all marginalized groups to acquire arms while they still can. It may be only a matter of time before these proposals to ban transgender people from owning firearms become reality, and any one of us could be next. My point is that whether on a large or small scale, it is important for the proletariat, and especially marginalized groups, to arm themselves.
It's totally okay if you don’t like firearms—I’m certainly one of those people who has generally shied away from any opportunity to use firearms. They’re loud, scary, and dangerous. When I was in middle school, an older student in 8th grade went hunting and was accidentally shot while he and his buddies were putting away their firearms. He did not survive the accident and that story stuck with me for a long time. Guns are to be taken very seriously. If you are not familiar with guns but would like to have one at some point, please receive training and education from an experienced and knowledgeable firearm user. And store any firearms that are not in use in a safe, secure location, out of reach of any children or fascists. I can’t stress enough the importance of firearm safety.
I believe there is a limited number of reasonable legislation that could be passed that would reduce gun violence without disproportionately impacting minorities, but this is not the focus of the article. Background checks, for example, could at least partially ensure that more fascists and other right-wing extremists do not have access to firearms. Lack of enforcement of existing gun laws is another issue that should be addressed. Firearm manufacturers like Smith and Wesson could also be held criminally liable for shooting-related deaths carried out with their products.
But I must reiterate—any attempt to disarm the working class must be harshly rejected. As Karl Marx sagely stated, “'Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.”
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