Socialist Rifles

“Good Guys With Guns – Why the Left Should Arm Itself,” by James Pogue, Harpers Magazine, April 2020

I think even the left-liberals are getting nervous.  This is very straight-forward praise of the idea that knowing how to use guns should be something the ‘left’ – which has various meanings in magazines like Harpers – should do.  Pogue grew up in a rural area and while conflicted about the idea of owning a gun given the many unnecessary gun deaths in the U.S., still decided to buy a Remington 870 Pump Action shotgun.  He also joined the Socialist Rifle Association (SRA), which gets high praise and becomes the focal point of the article.  This is Harpers, remember, not the latest edition of the Black/Red Armed Revolt journal?

The long article starts off with Pogue’s personal struggle and background, which seems to be somewhat leftist.  He’s a reporter and has interviewed many right-wing militia types, who he calls ‘pedantic,’ ‘small-minded,’ ‘cruel and callous,’ ‘evasive’ and basically repellant.  Which sums up the National Rifle Association (NRA), at least psychologically.  So he went looking for left-wing groups and found the SRA.  he also checked out the John Brown Gun Club, which provides armed security for left demonstrations in Seattle and Portland, and Redneck Revolt, which showed up armed at Charlottesville to oppose the rightists.  He prefers the SRA, which says ‘we’re not a militia, we’re not a cult.”

The SRA was named-checked by Georgia rapper Killer Mike, while the North Georgia chapter got national notice for helping during Hurricane Florence in 2018 and also by the NY Times.  Pogue goes to a meeting of his local SRA chapter in California.  They are clearly working-class, multi-ethnic and young, mostly holding precariat jobs.  He goes on skeet shoots, stays at a self-defense campout in the woods and attends their national convention July 2019 in Denver.  As the SRA puts it, members cannot be cops, but they can be “working-class, progressive, anarchist, socialist, communist, eco-warrior, animal liberator, anti-fascist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, PoC and LGBTQ.”

The SRA was rejected for membership in the mainstream National Shooting Sports Federation (NSSF) after rightists attacked their application.  The NSSF said it was because the SRA has “discriminatory beliefs against law enforcement and the rich” while the NSSF “stands opposed to socialism.”  Perhaps because of this, SRA membership is rocketing up, as it is sort of a left-wing version of the NRA, believing in “community defense” not white racist defense.  Pogue profiles some of the members, whose proletarian jobs, sexual orientation, former homelessness and initial unfamiliarity with left-wing ideas all mark an organization more welcoming than the NRA. 

Pogue goes on to praise anti-slavery revolutionary John Brown and journalist Ida B. Wells, who advocated a Winchester in every black home.  And Eugene Debs, who, after the National Guard massacred miners in Ludlow, Colorado, said that when the law breaks down and becomes oppression, “an appeal to force is not only morally justified but becomes a patriotic duty.”  He notes that Martin Luther King’s request for a conceal and carry permit was denied by the State of Alabama in 1956. 

Pogue also argues that while citizens are not as well armed as the U.S. government, “depth of will, much more than matching firepower, is the real key to sustaining a rebellion.”  Police and soldiers (and fascists) think twice when dealing with those who have access to weapons, which is his logic behind the civilian need for AR-15s.  Especially when many people hold them!  Statistics show most assaults (82%) murders (64%) and suicides (nearly all) are carried out using handguns.  Suicide of mostly working-class men is the leading cause of gun death in the U.S., which tells you that there is also a mental health issue here.

Pogue’s article in Harpers is immediately followed by a more traditional short liberal one which celebrates a Harlem gun group having their ammo confiscated by police.  It thunders against ‘extremist groups, black or white’ and “ultras, antis and other fanatics.”  And so it goes, snug in the safety of the police, the army, the fascists - and the criminals. 

Marx and many other Marxists were quite clear on the need for the proletariat to be armed.  The SRA is carrying on that tradition.

Other prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left:  “Loaded,” “The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment,” “Panzer Destroyer,” “A Culture War Debate,” “Rise of the Warrior Cop,” “The Outlaws,” “Rebellion,” “A Fascist Edge, “Antifascism, Sports, Sobriety,” “The Ultra-Right,” “Charlottesville,” “US/EU Meddling.”

And I bought it at May Day Books!  … which has a large section of left and ‘leftish’ periodicals. 

We are on lockdown now, so please knock if you need to.

Red Frog

April 18, 2020