In the gun control debate, one reason why self-defense against tyranny is brushed off so often is because a lot of folks making that argument love tyranny.
No conservative militia would defend their black and brown neighbors against state violence. None of them lift a finger against ICE. They always defend the most repressive elements of the state, from the police to the army. They always make excuses for grotesque wealth inequality. They’re happy to attack whistleblowers at the service of the deep state (the only reason some of them criticize it now is because they think it’s politically biased, as opposed to the enormous power it wields).
The vast majority of marginalized people, including myself, don’t believe that mainstream gun culture favors our freedom. It’s exclusively authoritarian, made by and for traditionalists, nationalists, and others like them. These people want to regulate what kind of marriage is legitimate, what bathrooms trans and non-binary people can use, whether their kids are gay or straight, who can come into the country, and so on. At their worst, they’ll kill us themselves. The idea that those same people will stop LARPing the American Revolution and actually fight tyranny today is hilarious. Nobody believes it.
It’s terrible, because the core argument is correct. Taking guns away from the public and leaving the state with the authority to use them is terrifying. The state is always the greatest purveyor of violence. In the US, where police regularly profile and kill black people for the most trival bullshit, robbing them of even the slightest chance of an equal playing field is incredibly dangerous. The old Black Panther Party was able to prevent police violence against black people by open-carrying guns, and because of this, conservatives at the time were strong proponents of gun control. (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act)
