Holy fuck this is disgusting and just the other day someone was trying to tell me that people don’t need to be armed because of the color of their skin, gender, or sexuality.
in fairness, i am kind of skeptical that being armed will really help you against the literal, actual cops, particularly if you’re a minority in this kind of situation. maybe it’d act as a preemptive deterrent—but if it doesn’t they’d then have pretext to murder you, and they’d probably get away with it.
Either of these men being armed would have resulted in both of their deaths, without doubt.
Suggesting that more firearms could have prevented or solved anything here is ludicrous.
Suggesting that vulnerable people avoid guns or disarm in the face of rising fascism targeting them is ludicrous. That’s not to say every situation would improve, or that this situation would’ve been different.
Edit: Also, lets be clear, the police don’t need the excuse of you having a weapon to shoot you, they’ve demonstrated repeatedly they will come up with an excuse and likely get away with it.
As the kind of person who is targeted by rising fascism, I would prefer you did not speak for us. I am firmly against gun ownership. The statistics show that having a gun on you makes you less safe, not more.
You are statistically much more likely to–accidentally or intentionally–kill yourself with a gun than successfully defend yourself against an attacker. Arming minorities will just result in more dead minorities.
People are numbers. Thinking you will be the exception to statistical realities is a fool’s errand. And it would be all well and good if the only people who suffered from the myriad gun deaths in this country were the people who bought the guns, but that’s not the case. They are also endangering their families and neighbors. It is just objectively true that you and the people around you become less safe, not more, the moment you buy a gun.
As someone who nearly killed myself with a gun and was only stopped because I was too depressed to fill out the paperwork to buy one, my life was directly saved by gun control. If I had lived in a state where buying a gun was easier, I would be dead. If I had still been living with my dad who owns guns, I would be dead. And I am part of a hated minority, just like the people you seek to protect. The statisical reality is that people like me are still more likely to kill ourselves with guns than to be killed by bigots, and moreover, that having a gun on you does not protect you from bigots. It only gives them something to take from you and use against you. Adding a gun to a situation only ever benefits the most violent and unhinged person in that situation.
