Current soundtrack:
https://youtu.be/k7agiqfuQmQ
The history of the Second Amendment within the State of Arizona is quite interesting, with many of Arizona's firearm freedoms being quite new in comparison to a state like Alaska or Montana, with
Tombstone being the earliest example of gun control in the old west. The closest thing to a state receiving this much in pro-firearm legislation is probably Iowa's recent acquisition of
constitutional carry. Why do I throw in these recent and old, historic, examples? I use these examples as Arizona, for all its citizens' bragging only received constitutional carry in 2010 through the efforts of lobbyists from the Arizona Citizens Defense League(AZCDL). Constitutional carry
is not a new phenomenon, however it did start the trend toward other states adopting similar measures during the Obama administration.
Okay. Fuck my life, I need a cigarette.
Anyone who has spent a year alongside the Arizona firearms community, like many others will notice a lot of quirks and commonalities with its firearm community and many others like it. I'm not really sure how to break down its different subsections, so I'll go down the list of groups that I have personally dealt with and have heard of different types of burnt out activists dealing with.
Neo Conservatives/Fudds/Boomers/Your "Thin Blue Line"/"Back the Blue" types:
Why do I put all these in the same category? Because, most of the time(with certain exceptions) many of these folks share the same view.
"The police can do no wrong, all cops are honest, and that investigating forces will always honestly never take the side of officer."
I don't write this with any type of "ACAB" mindset at all.
There are good shootings.
There are bad shootings.
Just like good people who put on a uniform, there folks who do the Rust Cohle thing and get a discount off drugs with their badge. Many of my issues stem from law enforcement using their powers to confiscate firearms from honest, hard working people. Within this spectrum, the general shared sentiment is "If the cops are taking your guns, just go through the court system and have them take care of it!" This, coming from people who have never dealt with the nightmare of pretrial, trial, and legal proceedings as a whole.
One of my friends was investigated under a red flag protocol in California where two deputies from his county tore apart his room when he was 14(I can't seem to find the article but it should be somewhere in Truth About Guns or Ammoland), and now he's an emotional, paranoid wreck of a person that knows how to be polite, but is very wary of law enforcement. I have to talk him off a ledge every so often but he's one of the most genuine people I know. You'll probably find it easier than I will.
The same friend was called a darkie after someone asked him: "Aren't most gamers 30-something year olds that live in their parents' basements and don't go outside?"
He shot back with, "Is every black man that walks into a convenience store a felon looking to rob the place?"
That soapbox aside, many of these folks will adopt insanely authoritarian ideals with the turn of a hat if it means shredding the constitution and using it as toilet paper:
These are just a couple examples, but these people have a cognitive dissonance about them. On one hand, they want to get people into firearms, but they also manage to push them away by saying things like the above mentioned. Both of those screenshots are from the Arizona Citizens Defense League normiebook page.
The main issue with the groups that are meant to "promote freedom" is that they'll ban any real forms of dissenting opinions in favor of more conservative to semi libertarian opinions at least within the observable sphere that is the Arizona firearm community. You would think that folks in these groups would direct people to objectively good options for things such as concealed carry, carrying with a round in the chamber(but muh Israeli carry), and dressing like a normal human being, but it ends up becoming a hug box for old people who don't know shit about shit.
Within the youth sphere of this community, you'll also see many of the "back the blue" types, mainly out of ASU(I'm not sure of UofA's groups are the same way) that are more interested in trying to get themselves political points so they can run as some Republican front running candidate and will often times fuck over people who genuinely carry about the firearm community. The best example I have of this is a college age activist being shouted down after the mayor of Phoenix banned "gatherings of 12 people or more" during the height of the lockdown saying, "Welp there goes every Mexican family get together for the next few months." He made this joke despite having grown up in South Phoenix and also being Mexican.
He was essentially disowned from the conservative community, and was essentially shunned out of their functions. While that's all fine and dandy, when the message you put on consists of:
and
You have some genuinely serious image issues to fix. The community constantly pushes away people who want to increase their messaging capabilities through social media, but many of these groups only do their advertising on the counter of gun shops and gun shows, many of these patrons being older folks. If they don't fix their shit soon, there won't be any activists within their ranks to help the Arizona firearm community. Most people who stick it out with this group for longer than a year are easily burned out and have probably heard it all.
Tl;dr: Political aspirations, boomers being old and "Fuck you got mine", and treating the constitution like a piece of toilet paper when it's convenient to you is going to be the slow death of the Arizona firearm community.
Libertarians:
The libertarians are an interesting bunch. They really don't do much, but they are pretty vocal and do piggy back off the aforementioned above group. They will often times go against the pro police sentiment of the above, but in general are fairly impotent. I'm not saying that their efforts are ineffective, their networking and messaging is good. They just don't have the kind of political pull or power to really do anything meaningful. You can normally spot the libertarian types at 2A rallies wearing Hawaiian shirts and carrying around the pride flags with ARs on them. By comparison as it relates to the firearm community, their work is fairly innocuous.
Picture taken from a 2A rally in 2020.
Left Wing Gun Owners(The White Girls of the Left/"I'm not like other girls.")
As the political polarization continued, left wing groups in Arizona felt the need to begin arming up as a reaction to "right wing fascism" in Arizona. With the shadow of Charlottesville looming in the heads of many(with 1/6 not exactly being reported honestly adding fuel to the fire), Confederate monuments began to be defaced.
Arizona Confederate Monument Defaced, Circa 2019
Prior to this, many of your "John Brown Gun Club" types began to take hold in the minds of the first group. Especially after this video came out.
I don't even know what to fucking think of this outside of being plain and simply disappointed. To those on the outside looking in, they're just a massive joke. To those in the first category looking in, it's literally a bunch of terrorists out here about to commit 9/11: The Sequel. The reason I call the left wing gun owners the "white girls of the left" is because while they say things like, "I'm not like other liberals" they'd gladly trade in their shiny new Glock 19 Gen 5 if it meant the security of trans rights in Arizona. Also, I sadly cannot prove this as many of the posts related to it are basically gone and left wing gun owners in Arizona are stigmatized to the point of being pushed underground.
Now, where does Karl fit into all of this?
Karl, in my opinion is an outright reaction to the first group of people. The elderly folks in the first group tend to be toxic, push people away for the sole crime of trying to get into guns through media. Karl, while his methods may be well meaning by trying to get people into firearm ownership through "people" like TacticoolGirlfriend and Armed Equality, forgets that these people have to hold up their end of the public relations department too and not shit metaphorically shit on the floor(Armed Equality boycotted Tampax for instance for not being trans inclusive with their tampons.) Karl fits into this by being an angry reaction to the boomer conservative tide but only manages to be a "FUCK YOU DAD" reaction to them.
I will repeat, I am not defending Karl. His shit with polyamory is fucking disgusting, and most people stop being Satanists after their 14th birthday.