How Can Liberal Gun Owners Vote for Democrats?

Preface: Followers of my work should know a couple of things about me and politics. First, I see myself ideologically as a liberal. It’s in the subtitle of Gun Curious after all! Second, I don’t engage in partisan politics around guns. If anything, I try to build bridges to de-polarize guns politically. But with a major election upon us, people have been asking questions. So, in the spirit of curiosity that animates my work (see Baruch Spinoza), here are some thoughts on the question: How can liberal gun owners vote for Democrats? (Note: I obviously don’t speak for all liberal gun owners.)

Yesterday I wrote about liberal gun owners as liminal gun owners – a key idea from my keynote address at the Liberal Gun Club National Meeting in Las Vegas last weekend.

When a gun world friend saw an announcement about my keynote address, she emailed me a question that many of my non-liberal gun world friends have:

“I just do not understand that if Liberal Gun Owners believe in the right to own, how in the world can they vote for people that are 100% committed to strip you of that right? Seems insane to me.”

I take this question as sincere (and not merely rhetorical) and have been thinking about how to respond for a few weeks now. I am going to try to answer the question below, but before I do, a couple of caveats.

First, I have to challenge one of its premises. Although there is no question that the Democratic Party is the party of gun control — gun control being in the party platform since 1968 — I do not believe that the Democratic Party or most Democratic politicians are 100% committed to stripping Americans of their gun rights. Limiting that right? To be sure, see Assault Weapon Ban. Making it more difficult to exercise that right? To be sure, see Universal Background Checks. Expanding the list of people who are prohibited from exercising that right? To be sure, see Red Flag Laws. But very few people favor complete civilian disarmament along the lines that historian Andrew McKevitt chronicled in his book, Gun Country. And even Antonin Scalia famously declared in Heller that “the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.”

Second, I am registered unaffiliated in North Carolina and hate how the Democratic Party has leaned into gun control as a key issue. I don’t think that is the primary reason I see so many Republican/Trump/MAGA signs when I drive through rural and small-town parts of the state, but it plays a part. (One of my earliest and most popular Light Over Heat videos was on “Chainsaws, Guns, and the Rural-Urban Divide in America.”)

That said, how can a liberal gun owner like me vote for people who favor greater restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms?

I was reminded of the need to address this question when I got home from the LGC National Meeting in Las Vegas to find the National Rifle Association magazine Shooting Illustrated in my mailbox.

Although Shooting Illustrated is not by design a political publication, the cover shows an image of presidential candidate Donald Trump after he had been shot at in Butler, Pennsylvania. The accompanying headline is, “Trump’s 2A Vision for His Second Term.” The subhead reads, “Fight for President Trump; Vote November 5th!”

I don’t have time to enumerate the reasons I would never vote for Donald Trump. Suffice it to say, I have reservations about him from his politics to his persona to his policies. He lost me at Obama birther conspiracy and “some, I assume, are good people” and “I moved on her like a bitch.” And he’s done nothing since to regain my confidence that he is fit to lead the country or that his policies would align with my values. (Forget Project 2025, I’m more worried about the America First Policy Institute’s plans for a second Trump administration.) On November 9, 2016, I actually posted “10 Initial Gut Reactions and Reflections” on Trump’s election that expressed hope that it would not be as bad as many of my fellow liberals thought. Hopes dashed.

Beyond the presidential election, the bottom of the Shooting Illustrated cover shows an “Official 2024 Pro-Gun Ballot” customized for my zip code. The recommendation for U.S. House of Representatives is Republican incumbent Virginia Foxx — a 2020 election denier who is gearing up for Big Lie 2.0, opponent of reproductive freedom, etc. Ultra MAGA I think it is fair to say.

The recommendation for my vote for Governor is the man that Donald Trump called “Martin Luther King on steroids,” the Ultra MAGA and self-described “Black Nazi” Mark Robinson. Robinson is a member of the NRA Board of Directors so the endorsement is not surprising. It would be shocking if the NRA did not endorse one of its own board members. NudeAfrica aside, Robinson has undeniably said abhorrent things in relation to policies he would support or oppose as governor (someone has an abortion because she wasn’t “responsible enough to keep your skirt down”), not to mention being the very definition of a hypocrite (a perv with anti-LGBT views whose wife benefitted from legal abortion).

If I cared only about maximal gun rights, the NRA-endorsed candidates are the obvious choices. But, like the Liberal Gun Club says, I care about “every single civil right for every single person.”

Furthermore, when I vote, I look at the entire governmental complex not just a single office. The Republican Party in North Carolina has so severely gerrymandered the state legislature that the only hope of checking their legislative power is to have a Democratic executive. With Mark Robinson as the Republican gubernatorial candidate, this makes voting for the Democratic candidate, Josh Stein, that much easier.

Additionally, when I vote, I don’t just look at specific policy proposals. In fact, like most people, policy details are the last thing I look at since I am not a public policy expert on all of the issues of concern to me. Political parties, therefore, serve as heuristic devices (i.e., decision-making shortcuts) for voting.

Beyond policy, I look for candidates whose conception of a good society is closest to mine. For example, we should feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick, empathize with prisoners, and welcome strangers. Strong communities play an important role in this, but local charity needs to be complemented by local, state, and federal government action to ensure justice in these areas. Professional civil servants play a role in this. The government should also safeguard civil rights and the courts need to provide a safety net when the government fails to do so.

No candidate perfectly embodies this vision of a good society, but those with a “D” beside their name typically come closer to supporting this conception than those with an “R” beside their name. In my judgment. YMMV.

Last, not only gun rights, but democracy itself is on the ballot. Which party better supports the hallmarks of liberal democracy: free and fair elections, judicial and legislative constraints on executive power, and protection of civil liberties? Given our two-party reality, I would say the Democratic Party, though imperfectly. Again, in my judgment. YMMV.

I certainly don’t expect to convince my conservative gun-owning friends, especially the gun rights culture warriors among them, that voting for Democratic candidates is not “insane.” (Any more than I expect to convince liberal cultured despisers of guns that backing off “common sense” gun laws is not “insane.”)

But I hope this at least begins to make clear where my particular insanity comes from and why I voted for Kamala Harris for President.

I should also make clear that I respect the sincerely held beliefs and values that propel some of my friends in different political directions than I take. I only ask that they do the same for me.

I routinely hear about fellow liberals who lost friends when they became gun owners. I wonder if I will lose friends in gun culture over these revelations?