David Yamane

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?

20 comments

  1. No lost friends here David, but I will say that I vote along policy and taxation lines almost exclusively. Whether a candidate is a nice guy or not a nice guy doesn’t really impact me, as I’ve met very few politicians that I’d actually welcome into my home. The policy that he/she votes for does impact me, regardless of whether I like them or not.

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  2. I’m with you about 97.57(.33) percent of the way. Been a registered D most of my life, actually although I vote the person, not the party and have voted for some R’s along the way. Been on the board of directors of a university faculty union, a strike picket captain, as well as presently on the board of directors of a large gun club–I get teased I am the “token liberal”. Was on a first name basis with Gov. Ben Cayetano in Hawai’i as well as some of the Republican leadership, such as it was. I have friends in both parties. Somehow, those relationship has survived. The polarization pains me. I think David French got it right the other day in the NY Times when he said that when we segregate by political philosophy, differences with The Other get magnified irrationally.

    As far as the Second Amendment thing, what galls me about Harris/Walz is their statement “we are gun owners and support the 2A but…”. I don’t think a right should sunset with changes in technology. Imagine if Harris/Walz said the 1A did not apply to the internet, since we can do so much damage on the WWW by disseminating hate speech (or the recipe for a pressure cooker bomb) with the flick of a send button. Harris opposed the individual right philosophy. And Progressive D’s have made a hellhole out of places like NYS and California. I find the Dems to operationally be vindictive to gun owners and I’m not only a gun owner with two ARs, but on the BoD of a club where 1,000 of us Neanderthals live.

    Still, there are other issues, to put it mildly, and on most of them I am center-left. I don’t entirely like elevating most issues to Washington, DC and think that raises a lot of needless anger because we are a large, diverse country. Just as blue states don’t like red ideas rammed down their throats, red states don’t like blue ideas rammed down theirs. Where is the middle ground? I think Federalism is a potential solution, if we could establish reasonable boundaries to national vs. local rules. Some things have to be 50 state solutions if they are “rights”.

    I can’t think of any of the conservatives I read (Tom Nichols, David French, Jonah Goldberg, the other Dispatch writers, etc) who would trust Trump returning to the White House. I take their positions seriously, as they reflect my own worries. I won’t vote for Trump, period. Doesn’t matter in my case as NM is likely to go full bore blue. Question is, will I vote for either Presidential ticket. Still thinking about it. Pat Paulsen/George Papoon comes to mind….they are not insane, as the Firesign Theatre skit goes.

    All the best, David. You won’t lose me and I hope I don’t lose you.

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  3. It is almost as if you read my mind after I read your “Liminal” post – and as if the comment to describe my journey from liberal to “other” was actually posted. Given the implications of elections I refuse to vote based on personality. In truth, I find each option obnoxious in their own unique ways, but it’s not a beauty contest. My vote is for me, not for them.

    A child of the 50s & 60s, I was liberal, registered unaffiliated. First voted in 1972. I was around and shot guns as a child/teen, became a gun owner and am a veteran familiar with many weapon systems. I have been in academia in clinical psychology for 36 years, where that ownership makes me fairly unique. I voted for Obama twice and actually convinced wavering colleagues that he merited election. During his second run, I even told my pro-gun friends who asked how I could possibly vote for him that I could not be a single issue voter. But before his second term was over, I came to regret it. I found in the shifting politics of his presidency that I was actually a middle-ground independent as liberals’/democrats’ gun control policies came to the forefront – largely beginning with Sandy Hook.

    In time, and given the rhetoric since then, I found that my position had become a conservative lean, although sometimes because of leftward shifts in the landscape. Today’s left is not what it was in my younger days, but neither is the world and that’s a treatise for another day. I am a single issue voter now. In essence, I feel I was asked to choose – support others’ rights or my own. The liberal/democrat attitude toward gun rights and gun owners, which has only intensified, kicked the altruism right out of me. Perhaps I am too old to be that flexible any longer, have come too far to be dictated to now. None of this means a loss of friends from my perspective – and would hope my own perspective would not lead to that end, either. I respect your approach and opinion and hope that you can understand mine – and also hope that you can help bridge the divide when it comes to gun rights and the “normalcy” of gun owners and gun ownership.

    All that being said, you are right; there is little hope of convincing someone like me that voting for Harris is not “insane” – for many reasons. And I would equally accept that I could not convince you that it was – for many reasons. If we can accept that – something I find most academics will not do – then it is a step in the right direction of light over heat.

    I have found over time that my votes have become votes against as much as votes for and often the line between is thin. Sadly, we only know after the fact when we have to live with our decisions.

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    • Eloquent articulation, Jack. I’m younger than you (born in the 70s), but I too voted for Obama—both with the knowledge that he was “anti-gun” and also with the belief that he was a rational and thoughtful person that could see the middle ground and that wouldn’t pander to extremes on either side. Much of my disenfranchisement with the Democratic Party of late came from Obama’s second term and what I perceived to be their strong shift to the left—in some ways, very antithetical to what the party was a decade ago (and certainly two decades ago), when it felt much more like a party that represented working class interests.

      I’ve never been entirely at ease with the Republican Party, and its wholesale sellout to Donald Trump has only increased my discomfort. I don’t see Donald Trump as being any more pro-gun than Harris or Biden or Obama; the only thing I’d credit Trump (or his handlers) for is understanding the importance of courting the gun vote.

      I was born and raised in Canada where there has historically been three active political parties, and one or two more on the wings. It wasn’t uncommon for a party to form a “minority” government, where intra-party alliances were necessary to get anything done. As long as we’re locked in a two party system here, I don’t see that sort of bridge building happening. Canada is far from perfect and I’m very glad to not be living there now, but the three-dimensionality of the politics there is something that I miss.

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      • Thanks Michael: You do a good job of describing my own reservations about the democrats. It is likely a worn out observation to say that the democrats of my youth would likely not recognize the party of today.

        I am with you there on Obama – and I feel that, after my disappointment with him, the sense of “bait and switch” and “That’s not what I voted for” – his continued influence on the party is part of my own disenfranchisement. My continued “unaffiliated” status is a reflection of my discomfort with identifying with either party.

        It certainly seems that the binary nature of our elections – at best, third parties have been spoilers, not competitors – lends itself to the present day free-for-all, demonizing of the “others.” And bringing it back somewhat to the gun issue, until that changes, I suspect I will find myself voting for those I perceive to be the lesser of two “evils,” who are less threatening to my rights, as someone who holds no animosity toward others, but wants to be left alone to enjoy his rights.

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    • Your post reminds me of that old expression, ““When you are waist-deep in alligators, it’s hard to remember your primary job is to drain the swamp”. When I read what Gavin Newsom, Kathy Hochul, or most of the Dems in the 2020 Primary said about gun policy, it is hard to remember there are other issues because that one hits me in the keister. The D platform seems to be a mirror image of what the Right did with abortion: chip away at it until it falls apart of its own accord.

      To me, neither political party respects individual rights writ large, i.e., when it is not part of their ideology and indeed, the left is not what it used to be. It seems to be up to folks like Greg Lukianoff and Nadine Strossen to fight off attacks on the 1A from both the left and right, for example. The Right has lost referendum after referendum in the wake of Dobbs. We are still seeing Bruen unfold.

      I think the best one can do is vote for the lesser of two bad choices, while looking out for #1. There are a myriad of issues out there. Up to each to decide which are important. Keep government divided, I say. If Harris wins, I hope the GOP holds the Senate. And vice versa.

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      • I think back to Beto O’Rourke’s, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47” comment. Obviously, it did not bring him success and it is usually followed by someone suggesting it is all rhetoric and will never happen. I am of little faith in that regard and prefer to be vigilant. I have no doubt that, given the opportunity, someone will try. In the modern day environment, laws of all kinds are passed without concern for the enumerated rights in the 1A and 2A and, thus, often lead to periods of restriction of rights while the legal process creeps long.

        You describe where I see myself at this point – no more altruistic voting, but voting my own self-interest, even if it means holding my nose. And the checks and balances inherent to our separate branches of government seem important, although I also see a lot of recent administrative overreach.

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  6. If I had to comment, I think the response to Bruen, the attempt to effectively destroy the right to carry for the citizens of some of the largest states by Democrat leaders is more important that the farcical “taking our guns” or “AWB” concerns. Both of the latter are logistical impossibilities. Sideshows for both “sides”.

    But the unmitigated, patronizing, and infantilizing gall for those leaders to continue to refuse to simply allow their citizens, who by any definition of equality or equity are the same in intelligence and responsibility as every other citizen of this nation, to safely and responsibly exercise the right to carry effective weapons in places normally open to the public, as has been done with effectively no negative outcome in 40+ other states for decades now, simply as an act of juvenile petulance?

    That should not be abided, and none who support such should remain unpunished, much less rewarded by being allowed to remain in any position of authority.

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    • Matthew, any practical application of an AWB would essentially have the same effect on those weapons that the Hughes Amendment did for select fire machine guns. People would still have them, but supply would stop (or slow down substantially) and prices would go up as demand inevitably rises. Look at the prices of pre-ban AR15 lowers (from companies like Essential Arms) in states like Connecticut … one can easily drop a grand on that lonely hunk of metal.

      I think the hard left knows that an all-out confiscation wouldn’t work. Australians and Canadians, bless their hearts, are much more obedient than their American friends and don’t have as much experience dealing with well-funded corporate gun banning lobbies. Here, the death of the second amendment will be much more incremental: overly-burdensome bureaucratic hoops (aka “enhanced background checks”), pseudo-taxation schemes (like the much-dreamed-about mandatory liability insurance for gun owners), registration schemes, etc. Given their druthers, buying a gun will be akin to buying a house, where one will need capable legal representation to navigate an impossibly complex system.

      And … I think that the all-out assaults that we see committed by the likes of Newsom, Hochul, and their ilk, are designed precisely to push this into the Supreme Court. When they get the judicial bitchslapping that they deserve, they’ll use that to campaign for “reform,” in whatever goalpost-moving manifestation that means.

      People worry (rightly, probably) about Trump. I don’t see many of the current crop of Democratic “leaders” as any better than Trump; they’re just smart enough to not talk about it as flagrantly as he does.

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      • I disagree there is any chance of an AWB in any practical sense. There are too many of them out there, and absolutely no way to enforce it given the numbers of potential enforcers involved, even assuming most of them would follow orders. Hughes only worked because FA’s were rare at the time, and there were few ideologically or principled non-owners to complain. To a degree, there may have even been a bit of “I got mine, and Hughes will maintain or increase its value” self-interest involved in not fighting it too hard.

        In any event, I doubt we will see a supermajority in the Senate to push something like that past a filibuster any time soon, given that the number in possession in even unfriendly states continues to grow.

        Carry is the real issue, and the leadership of the anti-carry states know it. Get regular people inoculated against anti-gun propaganda by normalization, and gun control of any kind will wither on the vine over time as a relevant political issue. They can’t let the Bruen nose into the tent.

        And I disagree about the reasonability of concerns about Trump, based on his past actual acts in office (and the same tight split on the legislative branch), but we will see in a week or two after election day 😉 if it is even an issue.

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      • I agree on your perspective on any AWB. It will not involve confiscation or mandated “buy backs” – they well know that knocking on doors will not work and that compliance will be low, as it has been in states that have banned sales and mandated registration. Several states provide models of this.

        What it will involve will be prohibition of manufacture or import, banning of sales, limiting supply of ammunition, along with ammunition being taxed at exorbitant rates. Of course, such unconstitutional bans will be the tip of the spear of lawfare, with the government bans being defended in the courts using our own tax dollars to fund them, while the plaintiffs will be pro-gun groups of more limited resources.

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  7. Dr. Yamane:

    I respect your right to your opinion and to vote based on your beliefs and would not let that affect our friendship if we had one. But I respectfully disagree with your decision to vote for Ms. Harris.

    But that’s okay. Adults can have differing opinions and still be friends, or at least, be civil to each other. (Except apparently on social media, where it is all “Us” vs. “Them,” which is why I don’t do politics on Facebook).

    I also disagree that a 2nd Trump presidency would be fatal to our republican democracy. While Trump was not my first choice in 2016, I think one must look at what he did, and not what he said. (Deeds, nor words).

    I am therefore disquieted that much of the fear mongering against Trump is based on misquotes or partial quotes and has been debunked, but is nonetheless being parroted in the media. For instance, the claim that Trump called white supremacists and Neo-Nazis “very fine people,” has been debunked by Snopes (NOT a right wing site), but is still being used by the Democrats. (If taken in context, Trump was denouncing the violent extremists of both sides in Charlottesville). (https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-very-fine-people/).

    But I am also disquieted by unfair attacks against Ms. Harris or Mr. Walz. I firmly believe that one should attack a candidate’s policies, but leave their personal life (and family) out of it, unless it is germane to the issues. Hell, when Mr. Obama ran for president the first time, I often found myself on the same day defending both him and the outgoing president, George W. Bush.

    But I find myself rambling. The thing is, I hope that both sides (if we accept the Left/Right nomenclature that hails back to the French Revolution) need to tone down the rhetoric and stem the tide of polarization that is tearing us apart. I just pray that this hope is not in vain.

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  8. If I may, I would love to reblog your post. Speaking with an outside perspective (I’m a Brit, looking on at the US election with awe that it can be such a tight race), and I love the points you raise.

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  10. The Democratic Party wants to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). This is their backdoor way to try and destroy gun ownership by bankrupting the so-called “gun industry.” The big bonus for them is that they get a big payday for their trial lawyer partners. 

    Otherwise, Harris is an empty vessel. She’s like Obama, but without his intelligence or his (limited) accomplishments before being elected. Most Democrats are not voting for her – they are voting for the party, or for abortion.

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