The Growth of the Left-Wing ‘Gunstagram’

By artappraiser on Fri, 12/03/2021 - 5:15am |

found retweeted by JJMacNab

An emerging community in the US consisting of armed left-wing activists and antifascists has grown on Instagram since 2020. We explore the dynamics of this community in today's Digital Dispatches: https://t.co/Nt45vYQP40
— Institute for Strategic Dialogue (@ISDglobal) December 2, 2021

URL:

https://www.isdglobal.org/digital_dispatches/the-growth-of-the-left-wing-gunstagram/

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The vast majority of armed mobilisation and violence in the US is conducted by far-right groups. There have been a very small number of firearms-related incidents involving left-wing activists, and none of these have a known direct link to the left-wing Gunstagram community.
— Institute for Strategic Dialogue (@ISDglobal) December 2, 2021

A central justification for learning to use firearms was the need for self-defence against the far-right. Users stressed the need to train together in anticipation of facing far-right violence, referencing rising hate crimes against transgender people and people of colour. pic.twitter.com/XTny00B78r
— Institute for Strategic Dialogue (@ISDglobal) December 2, 2021

This left-wing Gunstagram argument for the need for community defence is coupled with a lack of faith in the police to provide protection. pic.twitter.com/hO2dmORiyy
— Institute for Strategic Dialogue (@ISDglobal) December 2, 2021

Another core theme is the need for establishing safe and inclusive environments for people of colour, women, members of the LGBTQ+ community and those with left-wing views to train within a gun culture that is often dominated by right-wing politics.
— Institute for Strategic Dialogue (@ISDglobal) December 2, 2021

Groups offering training promise “open, accepting, and safe spaces” for beginners, while others discuss being cognisant of how they behave or express politics in firearm-related spaces, recommending followers keep a low profile to avoid confrontations and loss of access to ranges
— Institute for Strategic Dialogue (@ISDglobal) December 2, 2021

Correct firearm selection is important, with those who choose Soviet-era weapons b/c of their association with communism labelled ‘Red Fudd’s’. Instead, more practical modern and customisable weapons are recommended. Training in gear is encouraged. pic.twitter.com/GKWTQmGPji
— Institute for Strategic Dialogue (@ISDglobal) December 2, 2021

Much of the content is aesthetics-focused with the visual culture of the community playing an important role in cohesion. Users share images of their tactical equipment seeking feedback, or write reviews. Some model their tactical gear and firearms in sets of edited photoshoots. pic.twitter.com/BYE4jvR4KG
— Institute for Strategic Dialogue (@ISDglobal) December 2, 2021

Morale patches are nearly always displayed on plate carriers or pouches, with some prominent Left-wing Gunstagram accounts selling custom patches featuring logos and slogans such as: “Under No Pretext”, “All Cops Are Derek Chauvin” or “Make Racists Afraid Again”. pic.twitter.com/0Lz1W69OkN
— Institute for Strategic Dialogue (@ISDglobal) December 2, 2021

While armed left-wing activists are not a new phenomenon, the rapid growth of Left-wing Gunstagram shows a small but thriving left-wing gun culture is emerging and reflects a response to growing far-right violence as well as a distrust in the state.
— Institute for Strategic Dialogue (@ISDglobal) December 2, 2021

by artappraiser on Fri, 12/03/2021 - 5:25am

Movements like this aren't as illogical or counterintuitive as it might initially seem.

There are guns all over the world, but it's only in the United States that they are a consumer item. They are distributed through various networks throughout the world towards militaries, militia/terror groups, businesses, etc.You have to know someone. This may explain why you usually hear about guns being used in acts of war throughout most the world and not for anti-social purposes like here in the USA.

Leftist gun groups are basically advertising the same concept and honestly, there is a strong potential for their ideas to go far, with all this talk of "intentional spaces," etc. A lot of people would be at a loss for how to get a firearm if they had to actually know a person and they couldn't just buy it at their local shop.

by Orion on Fri, 12/03/2021 - 8:20pm

Ida B Wells

A Winchester Rifle should have a place of honor in every black home.

https://quote.org/quote/a-winchester-rifle-should-have-a-place-584067

The Deacons for Defense

In 1964 a small group of African American men in Jonesboro, Louisiana, defied the nonviolence policy of the mainstream civil rights movement and formed an armed self-defense organization--the Deacons for Defense and Justice--to protect movement workers from vigilante and police violence. With their largest and most famous chapter at the center of a bloody campaign in the Ku Klux Klan stronghold of Bogalusa, Louisiana, the Deacons became a popular symbol of the growing frustration with Martin Luther King Jr.'s nonviolent strategy and a rallying point for a militant working-class movement in the South.

https://uncpress.org/book/9780807857021/the-deacons-for-defense/

Negres wth Guns

First published in 1962, Negroes with Guns is the story of a southern black community's struggle to arm itself in self-defense against the Ku Klux Klan and other racist groups. Frustrated and angered by violence condoned or abetted by the local authorities against blacks, the small community of Monroe, North Carolina, brought the issue of armed self-defense to the forefront of the civil rights movement. The single most important intellectual influence on Huey P. Newton, the founder of the Black Panther Party, Negroes with Guns is a classic story of a man who risked his life for democracy and freedom.

https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/negroes-guns

This Nonviolent Stuff′ll Get You Killed

Visiting Martin Luther King Jr. during the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott, journalist William Worthy almost sat on a loaded pistol. "Just for self-defense," King assured him. It was not the only weapon King kept for such a purpose; one of his advisors remembered the reverend’s Montgomery, Alabama, home as "an arsenal." Like King, many ostensibly "nonviolent" civil rights activists embraced their constitutional right to self-protection—yet this crucial dimension of the Afro-American freedom struggle has been long ignored by history. In This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed, Charles E. Cobb Jr. recovers this history, describing the vital role that armed self-defense has played in the survival and liberation of black communities. Drawing on his experiences in the civil rights movement and giving voice to its participants, Cobb lays bare the paradoxical relationship between the nonviolent civil rights struggle and the long history and importance of African Americans taking up arms to defend themselves against white supremacist violence.

https://www.dukeupress.edu/this-nonviolent-stuffll-get-you-killed

Force and Freedom Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence

"Force and Freedom provides a compelling intervention in studies of slavery, abolitionism, and allyship. Though many Americans envision abolitionism as a movement led by pacifistic white ministers, Carter Jackson's work overturns this limited conception of antislavery resistance. By centering black voices in this antebellum campaign, the author unveils the philosophical complexities that permeated the abolitionist movement."—The Journal of African American History

https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15965.html

by rmrd0000 on Sat, 12/04/2021 - 12:40am

When two countries at war agree to a long standing truce, they don't necessarily give up all their arms.

But they do agree on non-proliferation.

by Orion on Sat, 12/04/2021 - 1:13am

There is no sign that white supremacists believe in nonproliferation

Members of Congress are threatening women of color.

McCarthy stands mute.

Congress and the Presidency may soon be in the hands of white supremacists

Supposed allies are snipe hunting for the Woke.

Help is not on the way

In the words of Claude McCay

If We Must Die

BY CLAUDE MCKAY

If we must die, let it not be like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,

Making their mock at our accursèd lot.

If we must die, O let us nobly die,

So that our precious blood may not be shed

In vain; then even the monsters we defy

Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!

Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,

And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!

What though before us lies the open grave?

Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44694/if-we-must-die

If the white supremacists see Rittenhouse as a sign that it is open season, there is no reason not to be armed.

Self-defense is a long tradition. Blacks were there with John Brown.

Five for Freedom

The African American Soldiers in John Brown's Army

https://www.chicagoreviewpress.com/five-for-freedom-products-9781613735718.php

Rosa Parks

When Rosa Parks was a little girl in rural Alabama, she would stay up at night, keeping watch with her grandfather as he stood guard with a shotgun against marauding members of the Ku Klux Klan.

Klansmen often terrorized black communities in the early 1900s, and Parks’s grandfather, Sylvester Edwards, the son of a white plantation owner, had their house boarded up for protection.

But Parks longed for a showdown.

“I wanted to see him kill a Ku-Kluxer,” the renowned civil rights leader wrote in a brief biographical sketch years later. “He declared that the first to invade our home would surely die.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/artifacts-show-a-rosa-parks-steeped-in-freedom-struggle-from-childhood/2015/02/02/90ee01f4-a7de-11e4-a7c2-03d37af98440_story.html

If they are coming to kill you, at least get off a shot.

by rmrd0000 on Sat, 12/04/2021 - 6:34pm

Gun sales rise among Black people as they look for firearm training and education.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/23/us/black-gun-owners-sales-rising/index.html

by rmrd0000 on Sat, 12/04/2021 - 10:54pm

if the purpose is protection of people with black skin, something's just not working out right with that phenomenon:

In Chicago (and NYC and many other cities), >95% of shooting and murder victims are Black or Hispanic. It's unlikely we're going to lessen the harm if we're unaware of the data and Then lack the language to even talk it. https://t.co/GQeaiWQthg
— Peter Moskos (@PeterMoskos) November 27, 2021

⁦@RWPUSA⁩ ⁦@thereidout⁩ ⁦@ltgrusselhonore⁩ ⁦@GlennLoury⁩ ⁦@JohnHMcWhorter⁩ ⁦@sullydish⁩ ⁦@DrJasonJohnson⁩ ⁦@wkamaubell⁩ ⁦@JoyceWhiteVance⁩ ⁦@jasonrileywsj⁩

What most Black folks know.

https://t.co/x60qHfQ4T5
— Darkblue714 (@darkblue714) November 27, 2021

Above is an op-ed by WaPo columist Colbert I. King

“Black people made up 81 percent of homicide victims and Latinos made up nearly 15 percent, the medical examiner’s office said.” https://t.co/xnvtgWWInW
— Super Black™️ (@vanerbee) December 1, 2021

More than 85 percent of the 2020 homicide rise occurred in black/Hispanic neighborhoods, where homicide rates were already higher than in white neighborhoods.

The victims of de-policing and soaring crime are not equally distributed across racial groups:https://t.co/aA1EzyMHyE
— Rav Arora (@Ravarora1) December 3, 2021

Two D.C. pastors who serve communities devastated by gun violence were sitting in the sunshine, speaking about their work to stop the shooting. Then shots could be heard — twice. https://t.co/aK2pnRUbmc
— NBC4 Washington (@nbcwashington) November 11, 2021

My city really goin through it y’all..we are over 500 murders for the year..a girl I know from the neighborhood od’d and passed away. My homegirl’s 12 year old son stole her car and got in a shootout right in front of her house
— CURE (@CureHipHop) November 29, 2021

(see whole thread above)

#55: Prosecutors say Detrevion Williams participated in a mass shooting that left 2 teens dead and 3 others injured. He was free while awaiting trial for carjacking at the time.https://t.co/XKmuPHDGrO
— CWBChicago (@CWBChicago) November 29, 2021

by artappraiser on Sun, 12/05/2021 - 1:25am

You view all Blacks as a tribe. Most murders occur in concentrated, poor areas, Government investment in those areas is the only way to decrease the homicides. When the riots happened in response to the Freddie Gray murder, The late Congressman, Elijah Cummings, walked to and from his Baltimore house to help calm residents in Sandtown, a poor section of Baltimore.

Hidiya Pendleton, who was murdered mistakenly by a gangbanger, she lived only a few blocks away from the Obamas in Chicago. The Pendletons lived in a poor section of Chicago. The Obama kids weren't dodging bullets. Your tribal focus makes it easy for you to miss the fact that Guns purchases by law-abiding Black citizens surged after the murder of George Floyd by police.

People see white supremacy openly practiced by members of Congress. They note the gracious treatment Arbery's murders received. It took going through multiple prosecutors to get to trial. Rittenhouse walks. A white kid with obvious issues that would get a Black kid sent home is instead sent back to class. Terrorists attack the Capitol and one political party pretends nothing happened.

The gun purchasing surge happened because most Blacks see government actors choking a guy to death and calling a terrorist attack on the Capitol a tourist event. You are trapped in a tribal bubble. Maybe BLM attacked the Capitol and attacked George Floyd.

I don't take you seriously.

by rmrd0000 on Sun, 12/05/2021 - 2:31am

RE: You view all Blacks as a tribe

Truly laughable unbelievable PROJECTION of your own traits and beliefs on another!!! Like in a cartoon! (Donald Trump is that you?)

Everything you posted on this very thread is tribal! All you care about and have interest in is people with black skin as if they are inextricably and tribally bound with each other no matter what class. Anyone that has any intelligence can see exactly that. You took a thread that wasn't about people with black skin and you tried to make it that.

Those who haven't read your comments for any length of time should know, though, that you have actively and for a long time supported tribalism and tribes and identity politics based on race to be a good thing, not a bad thing. You actually have said people are tribal and will never change in response to my threads on the problems caused by tribal and racial identity politics as opposed to the common good.

I am the one on this site who has argued that our main problems are economic class, not racism. You are the one who have argued it's all about race, not class, FOR YEARS. So much so that many others here have called you a racist before cutting their participation here. That's because sometimes you sound like Jim Crow with the "separate but equal" thing using the label "the black community" as if people with black skin are all alike

You argue racial tribalism all the time, you are Mr. Tribal on Dagblog. Even to the point of agreeing with all complaints about "cultural appropriation", you don't want black people and white people culture to mingle. You have zero interest in any other tribe except "people with black skin" and you constantly argue that despite their income level and class, they all experience the same racism.

Everyone knows that, rmrd!

You've got a lot of work to do to switch personalities and arguments of ten years after you've changed your mind. Just because I seem to have convinced you of my way of thinking doesn't mean you can turn me into you.

by artappraiser on Sun, 12/05/2021 - 3:09am

But I doubt this Gunstagram group is majority black. It appears to be mostly antifa types learning the ways of the Proud Boys etc., to have equal force to supposedly deter.

They obviously have sympathy with the anti-police BLM rhetoric but it seems more focused on radical white lefties.

The article mentions protection of Portland antifa (majority white with lots of anarchists and anti-Democratic party) against attacks by right wing groups. And even attacks on right wing protesters, such as the shooting of Tiny Toesie in the foot by an antifa protester.

Also I looked at the Instagram feed and I noticed that there seems to be a LGBTQ emphasis as well.

If you like the idea of protests on the streets with all parties armed, because of the belief that police are no good for protection of protestors, then you'd be supportive of this group.

It just would nice if they informed the rest of us who don't relish that scenario so we can stay out of the area when they have one of their potential shootup meetups.

by artappraiser on Sun, 12/05/2021 - 1:49am

So are Nikole Hannah-Jones and rmrd for police doing this or not?

Yesterday, during a family dispute in Brooklyn, gun violence was threatened … and sure enough, responding @NYPD71Pct cops found this assortment guns.

Outstanding job — taking more illegally possessed firearms off the streets of NYC before anyone was hurt.#Finest pic.twitter.com/CiAk0YAwqL
— Commissioner Shea (@NYPDShea) December 7, 2021

Or is it more like only take guns away from right wingers? And let left wingers have them?

by artappraiser on Tue, 12/07/2021 - 2:11pm

Your post makes no sense.

After George Floyd, some Blacks sought to legally obtain guns.

You remain in a bubble

by rmrd0000 on Tue, 12/07/2021 - 2:43pm

She's posting news from all over every day. Can you give it up with your inane "bubble" shit? You just sound like a moron with a personal grudge.

by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 12/07/2021 - 2:49pm

well, he did basically answer the question - he is not for gun control, as he relishes the idea of Afro-Americans having guns.

yes, the bubble stuff makes him look like an idiot because over many years he shows zero interest in anything but news related to blacks, 12% of the American population. if that's not seeing the world from a racist bubble, I don't know what is. why he continues to do that on a site with a few white people using it is the real mystery.

by artappraiser on Tue, 12/07/2021 - 3:06pm

Her post was about Guns that were not purchased legally

I posted an article about law-abiding Black citizens who were obtaining licenses and purchasing guns legally.

Given that she specifically mentioned me in her post about illegal guns, I appreciate the humor of your statement about personal grudges.

by rmrd0000 on Tue, 12/07/2021 - 7:12pm

You're on her like white on rice most of the time. Go ahead, try to finesse it.

by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 12/07/2021 - 7:23pm

AA's post included:

So are Nikole Hannah-Jones and rmrd for police doing this or not?

I responded

AA suggests that I am not for gun control

I have no problem with Blacks legally purchasing guns.

Do you want to confiscate all guns?

Do you want to ban hunting?

I support registration of guns purchased legally.

Edit to add:

AA is free to continue to post her pics.

I will point out that it is not clear on how to lower the number of homicides

I will also point out that law-abiding Black citizens have reasons to question the actions of police.

Derek Chauvin was convicted, but there is no evidence that officers of the Minneapolis police department have learned a lesson

Here is the current Minneapolis police department in action:

The video begins as a Minneapolis police officer whose name tag says C. Lange grabs the man – who identifies himself as Troy Lee Billups – by the collar and throws him into a counter. The two then struggle for about a minute and a half on the ground during which time Billups tells the officer multiple times not to touch him as he resists arrest.

When a bystander asks Lange why Billups is being arrested, Lange responds: “because he’s obstructing.”

The incident took place Wednesday evening around 6 p.m., at the Aldi on East Franklin. The video was posted that night, and as of Saturday morning has been seen over 100,000 times.

In the video, the officer claims that Billups was fighting with another person, but Billups disagrees. “We weren’t fighting, we was talking,” he tells the officer. Earlier, a voice off-camera says to the officer that “it’s two people having a conversation and you escalated the situation by shoving him.”

https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2021/12/04/calls-for-mpd-officer-to-be-disciplined-after-video-of-arrest-goes-viral/

Note that the police officer continues his attack on the Black man despite onlookers begging the officer to break off the attack.

Just like Derek Chauvin.

2nd Edit to add

Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, whose tenure included George Floyd's murder, will retire in January

https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/06/us/minneapolis-police-chief-retiring/index.html

by rmrd0000 on Tue, 12/07/2021 - 7:53pm

On second thought I guess I must be in a bubble cause I haven't seen a single report of a white supremacist or Proud Boy being shot by a black person in self-defense, I missed all of those, every single one. But following news of violent crime across the country for months now I have seen ample evidence of this, of black people having mass quantities of firearms, mostly handguns, legal and illegal, and using them to kill and maim other black people

In Chicago (and NYC and many other cities), >95% of shooting and murder victims are Black or Hispanic. It's unlikely we're going to lessen the harm if we're unaware of the data and Then lack the language to even talk it. https://t.co/GQeaiWQthg
— Peter Moskos (@PeterMoskos) November 27, 2021

⁦@RWPUSA⁩ ⁦@thereidout⁩ ⁦@ltgrusselhonore⁩ ⁦@GlennLoury⁩ ⁦@JohnHMcWhorter⁩ ⁦@sullydish⁩ ⁦@DrJasonJohnson⁩ ⁦@wkamaubell⁩ ⁦@JoyceWhiteVance⁩ ⁦@jasonrileywsj⁩

What most Black folks know.

https://t.co/x60qHfQ4T5
— Darkblue714 (@darkblue714) November 27, 2021

(Above is an op-ed by WaPo columist Colbert I. King)

Must be a plot between local media and police allover the country.

(And a reminder: Left Wing Gunstagram is not about a group of blacks, it is about group of lefties. There are black militia groups, but this is not one. You brought up blacks, YOU, not me.)

by artappraiser on Tue, 12/07/2021 - 11:03pm

America's gun culture in charts, BBC News, Published 8 April

by artappraiser on Tue, 12/07/2021 - 5:18pm

Over half of all annual gun deaths are suicides, what you’re saying is made up https://t.co/nLbuGP7Rup
— sotonye (@cybersygh) December 7, 2021

I don't honestly know if his stat is accurate but I feel that his accusation about making bullshit stuff up certainly is.

by artappraiser on Tue, 12/07/2021 - 5:46pm

The Growth of the Left-Wing ‘Gunstagram’

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