Truth Decay

I recently stumbled across a video by a YouTube channel named “Queer Armorer” called “The Queer Case for Guns”, in which the creator argues in favor of queer Americans arming themselves as is their right via the second amendment. The channel itself is lead by a seemingly invested and sincere individual, but shamefully, the visuals are traced AI images, not original work.

So, what exactly is the queer case for guns? Well, in essence, it is a clear attempt of one single firearm fanatic to reverse engineer a justification for their position; one they hold not due to rationale or logical conclusion, but rather because they undoubtedly experience some level of push-back from other queer people. In fact, the idea that this has anything at all to do with queer people is in and of itself a ruse. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Let’s start with the basics, shall we? Firearms are designed to kill. That’s their entire purpose. Let’s not drift away from that as we dive into this issue. A firearm that cannot kill is a poor one, that’s just the nature of what guns are designed to do. That, perhaps, is why they do it so well.

Suicide by firearm in the United States is reportedly around 85-90% successful. That means once someone owns a gun and truly wants to kill themselves, it is incredibly difficult to stop them. . This is one of the major reasons gun regulation leads to a sharp decrease of firearm suicide, and although it depends, can even sharply decrease overall suicide rates. Suicide is more often than not an impulsive decision, which pairs poorly with such an efficient method of suicide. While not the most common form of suicide, it is by far the most lethal, as well as more commmon, and with higher rates of lethality, in countries with less (or no) gun regulation.

And that’s where we get back to the video in question. The narrator clearly takes issue with gun regulation, not just banning firearms alltogether. Whether they are willing to accept it or not, gun regulation saves more queer lives than unrestricted access to guns ever would.

In fact, the only reason queer people come up in this piece at all is because the person who created it is queer themselves. The piece argues against police brutality and racial discrimination, but then pulls those issues towards queer people in a hypothetical, “you-just-wait-it-only-gets-worse” kind of way.

While we are descriminated against, queer people are not the only people who are, and to suggest all marginalised people should arm themselves is to suggest that the majority of the population should be armed, despite their actual beliefs, political views and ideologies being radically different from one another, which is dangerous, even specifically for queer people. To suggest only queer people should be armed is to make the case for queer people being more marginalised than others in modern society, which the creator fails to do.

In other words, this has nothing to do with queer people. It doesn’t even have anything to do with partisan politics, which takes up a significant portion of the video. It’s simply an attempt to normalise the aquisition of firearms in a community that is, broadly speaking, opposed to them, because the narrator is a fan of guns. They like them. They romanticise them, and gun violence along with it.

“Firearms are just tools” they say, tools that can be used to opress us or free us. This dichotomy is false, this premise misleading. There are other, less violent, less harmful, less counterintuitive ways to respond to LGBTQIA+ oppression. We’ve been doing it for decades. Anyone who wants to throw all that out in favour of increasing the potential for lethal interractions between adversaries has no respect for the queer rights movement and should frankly be ashamed of themselves.

Yes, you can use a knife to butter toast, or stab somebody, but if people were stabbed as often as they were shot and killed people in the United States, maybe there would be stricter regulation on knives. See, legislation isn’t supposed to be dogmatic. It’s supposed to have a foundation in reason and be subject to adaptation, the way that marraige laws were changed to allow gay marriage or rape laws were (finally) extended to partners within the context of a marriage.. Should it have always been that way? Yes. Does that mean the government that hadn’t yet made it law should have been overthrown by a civilian militia? Absolutely not. Why? Because it’s foolish, small-minded, and frankly selfish; it essentially ignores every aspect of the government that isn’t explicity in place to protect queer people, which, by the creator’s own admission, is most of it.

But okay. Say we did arm all queer people, for whatever reason, and say it didn’t immediately cause the suicide hike that we would expect. The next issue we’d run into is simple; there are less queer people than non-queer people. We would be outnumbered, outgunned, not to mention outclassed by the American government and military. If the police, the state, or your local sherrif decide tomorrow to round up all the queer people, do you really think your gun will stop them?

It is not with guns that these sorts of fights are won, not anymore. We need stronger communities, de-escalation training for LEOs, a better mental health support system, underground or emergency networks, and, yes, non-violent protests. All of these things have dramatically changed how queer people are treated in the U.S in ways former generations would never have expected. But guns? Firearms? They have killed far more queers than they have saved, and given the opportunity, will continue to do so.

In truth, the reason this video exists is because it is an unpopular opinion that sounds good on the surface to people who are at their wit’s end. It is an appeal to the desperate, not by encouraging them to act in their best interest, nor by pointing them in the direction of health and support. Instead, it attempts to glorify and romanticise gun violence as the cure and solution to a world so filled with needless violence.

When I pointed this out to the creator, their response was… well, it was a response.

Where [are queer people safe]? The UK, with its acid attacks, impossibility for trans people to get medical care or legally transition in most of the country and a hate crime record that mirrors ours despite the hate coming from here? Australia where queer people disappear without investigation in many small towns? Canada whose current treatment of indigenous population is so heinous most would call it a nightmare of fascism?

No. There is no country that disarmed that you can’t also point to the horrifying side effects for people who aren’t as privileged as you are.

Just wait until they find out what sort of mistreatment queer people in the United States are experiencing, despite their access to guns. As I mentioned before, this is not a position arrived to by reason or logic. This person has clearly been hurt, time and time again, by a system that so desperately wishes they didn’t exist. I have a lot of sympathy for that, and as a queer person myself, I understand that their emotions didn’t just pop into existence out of nowhere.

Yes, marginalised people cannot rely on institutions to protect them. But armed societies are no safer for minorites, that’s for sure. Mutual armament only escalates the power struggle and encourages the government to use the upper hand we know they have, be it by increasing their own firepower or restricting the rights and freedoms of minority groups. We should instead seek to reduce the number of guns in circulation, popularise non-lethal defense education and tools like pepper spray that can defend from attackers without trading lives.

Do not be swayed. The creator of this video and other proponents of this argument seek only to justify their own posession of guns as queer indiviuals themselves. They could care less what you carry.