Guns and the Left
Guns don’t kill people, as the old gun-advocate adage goes, people kill people. Progressives opposed to gun legislation only slightly modify that idea and claim that it’s not guns but bigotry that kills people. There is of course an obvious truth to the claim — a capitalist and imperialist state breeds a violent civic culture. But the fact remains that without the assault rifle used by the Orlando shooter, for instance, there was little damage he could do with his homophobic views. Bigoted and alienated people without guns do not conduct shootings.
The students marching across the country clearly see the link between the political influence of the National Rifles Association (NRA) and mass killings. In remaining ambivalent towards gun legislation, progressives shift their target from the NRA to what they believe are the root cause that fuels violence like racism and capitalism. But doesn’t the NRA, with its racist politics and its corporate hold over the political establishment, represent precisely such root causes? Political protests typically erupt against an immediate offending entity — it could be a police precinct or a health care company. But just as these entities are manifestation of larger social forces, so is the NRA.
While socialists may lose sight of the NRA in their focus on root causes, the NRA knows how to recognize the enemy. In a speech after the Parkland shooting, the NRA CEO, Wayne LaPierre repeatedly issued warnings of a tidal wave of socialists and a “socialist agenda” of stripping firearms from citizens.
There is a recurring theme in social media about the double standard of the media in according sympathetic coverage to the anti-gun student protestors compared to the negative attention to the Black Lives Matter protests that highlighted racist state violence. While the observation is correct, it does not amount to a critique of the student protests. Confronted with a failure of the state in providing them basic safety, students took to the streets. They may not be protesting institutional racism or capitalism but they grew up in an era when the country saw more of those protests then it did in the prior four decades. Compared to their parents, the generation is much more liberal on questions of oppression and discrimination, and there is every reason to believe these protests will radicalize many of them. Instead of bemoaning the media attention accorded to the protesters, progressive critics should come out in wholehearted support.
At the core of left ambivalence about gun control are notions of armed defense against a militarized state. The Left draws on a history of such pockets of resistance in struggles against colonialism and fascism. But here’s the thing. Whatever the successes of such resistance in prior regimes, because of today’s capitalist state’s overwhelming superiority in the scale of violence it can perpetrate, ideas of armed resistance are both untethered to ground realities and actively counterproductive. The notion that today a civilian armory can hold its own against the military might of the state is absurd. And such romanticized notions, unchecked, can cause a lot of harm. Imagine the state response if Occupy or Black Lives Matter included the idea of armed defense or resistance. And also imagine what it would have done for the future of organizing.
There’s a reason the carceral state is happy to promote the proliferation of arms among its citizenry. It knows that such proliferation poses no threat to its rule. But there’s a deeper more insidious logic at play beyond pandering to gun manufacturers. A gun culture builds the specter of perpetual threat, thereby heightening the atomization and alienation of ordinary people in a capitalist society. The false sense of security offered by guns only serves to further disempower people by undercutting collective trust and community strength.
Guns have a terrible record in the face of actual threats. They provide succor to an alienated culture. And the state will not only crush the first sign of any real threat from armed resistance but will also become much more draconian in dealing with any organized resistance.
The Left needs to abandon its reliance on the imagined power of guns, and focus on what does build alternative sources of power. The only way to fight against the capitalist order is patient, ground-level organizing in our organizations, our unions, our community forums, and when possible, in the electoral arena. What we need are not isolated armories but the mobilization of the masses. And joining with powerful student protestors and millions of people finding their voices against gun manufacturers and the NRA will help with that work.
Guns in the United States pose a real threat to public health and safety and disproportionately impact communities of color. Their preponderance only serves corporate interests, a corrupt political establishment, and an alienated capitalist culture. We have a moral obligation to challenge a regime callously destroying the lives of ordinary people.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/02/gun-control-parkland-students-race-police
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