Guns Don't Kill People; Nazis Kill People

A slogan the NRA will never adopt.

Image: Paul Gosar, congressman, gun-rights advocate, white nationalist

You can find an index of all my substack posts on fascism here.

It’s now fairly clear that the Allen, Texas shooter was a neo-Nazi. His social media accounts included posts praising Nazis and denigrating Jewish people and women.  Other posts speculated that Latino people are white, as the shooter tried to reconcile his own ethnicity with his white supremacist beliefs.

For 2^nd amendment absolutists, the shooter’s extremist beliefs have been a godsend. The NRA and many conservatives have come out with statements condemning right wing extremism, and recommending a crackdown on online hate rather than on guns. “Guns don’t kill people, Nazis kill people,” says a much-circulated meme.

Ha ha. No, of course that didn’t happen. The right is absolutely not calling for more oversight of Nazis, or for the regulation of hate speech as an alternative to gun regulation. On the contrary, they are backing and filling as they try to protect both guns and Nazis. There’s been much feigned shock that a Latino could possibly be a white supremacist (as if Nick Fuentes doesn’t exist), and loose talk about false flags. The shooter was a fan of far right YouTuber Tim Pool and of transphobic hatemonger Chaya Raichik, and wagons have been obligatorily circled.

Pool and Raichik underline the problem for the right; 2^nd amendment absolutists can’t disavow Nazis, because 2^nd amendment absolutists are Nazis, in most ways that matter. The current “gun rights” movement is built on fascist ideologies and Christofascist networks. Much right wing rhetoric around guns emphasizes the need for guns to protect against “crime”—not very veiled code in right circles for “Black people.” Guns are also used as a central prop of fascist disempowerment/ empowerment fantasies, as conservatives fantasize about a Turner Diaries style resistance movement against a racialized globalist (i.e. Jewish) government coming for their guns.  

In theory, you could peel off the libertarian, militant militia aspects of the gun rights absolutism from the white supremacy. In practice…well. Paul Gosar, arguably Congress’ most open white nationalist, is also a rabid anti-gun control voice. Dana Loesch, former NRA spokesperson, is buddies with Proud Boy founder Gavin McInnes, and they would appear on each other’s programs to denigrate Black people, Muslims, and trans people.

Gun rights proponents won’t tactically distance themselves from the far right because their ideological and personal connections to the far right are too strong. For all intents and purposes, the goal of the NRA at this point is not gun rights for all—it’s gun rights specifically for fascists. And you can’t argue, “Protect gun rights for fascists by cracking down on fascists!”

I’m not saying that everyone who supports gun rights is a fascist. I am saying that the current “mainstream” gun rights movement has been entirely captured by the far right, and exists to advance far right goals, far right ideologies, and far right violence. If there were any distance at all between neo-Nazis and the gun rights movement, then pro gun forces would leap at the chance to denounce Nazi bad actors in the name of protecting guns, just as they leap at the chance to denounce the mentally ill when they can plausibly (or implausibly) connect mental illness to a mass shooting. Instead, pro-gun ideologues insist that the Nazi isn’t a Nazi—even though, if the goal is defending gun rights, the Nazi being a Nazi should be a boon.

This is hardly the pro gun movement’s only tactical failure. Opposing common sense gun restrictions and enabling horrific mass shooting after horrific mass shooting is not in general a great way to build support for gun rights. But the gun rights movement stopped caring about gun rights a long time ago. Second Amendment absolutism is an extremist ideology whose goal is building far right power. And if you want proof, just ask them to denounce gun-toting Nazis.

You can find an index of all my substack posts on fascism here.