Speaker 1: Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, the podcast about
Speaker 1: things happening that are bad and occasionally good, but all
Speaker 1: have to do with the fact that we're living in
Speaker 1: a society whose norms are crumbling as the environment also crumbles,
Speaker 1: and political violence and a bunch of other horrible things
Speaker 1: become more normalized, trying to figure out how to not
Speaker 1: die ideally UM and occasionally how to thrive. And to
Speaker 1: that end, I have a guest today who has been
Speaker 1: kind of working with the working lately on the how
Speaker 1: not to die in the face of things getting increasingly
Speaker 1: violent and aggressive out there. I want to welcome Jessica
Speaker 1: Keckler to the program. Jessica, how are you doing today?
Speaker 1: Doing great? So, Jessica. Um. You know, we are, as
Speaker 1: listeners to the show and observers of just basic reality
Speaker 1: in the outside, are aware we're kind of going under
Speaker 1: a or living through a period of like panic and
Speaker 1: concerted aggressive attack on the rights and ability to exist
Speaker 1: of transgender people. That's um hasn't like, has never not
Speaker 1: been a problem as long as there's been you know,
Speaker 1: Western civilization, but has increasingly been a problem the last
Speaker 1: year or so. Yeah, it's it's really um it's really
Speaker 1: wild because, um, when you take estrogen, you're When I
Speaker 1: start taking estrogen, it took like ten years off of
Speaker 1: my face as far as age goes. But then in
Speaker 1: this past year, I think it's put back on it now.
Speaker 1: UM yeah, I mean that makes sense, Like it's it's
Speaker 1: it's stressful as hell out there. Um. There has been
Speaker 1: a surge in violence. UM, not just against trands people
Speaker 1: obviously we've talked about in other episodes. UM, there's been
Speaker 1: a surgeon violence against Asian Americans, UM, against LGBT Americans,
Speaker 1: but transgender people are much more likely than almost any
Speaker 1: other group in the United States to be attacked. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that has been increasingly reality for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: And you are one of a number of folks in
Speaker 1: that position who have been increasingly talking or who have
Speaker 1: found yourself thinking about the necessity and value of being
Speaker 1: armed in order to defend yourself from that. And I
Speaker 1: want to talk a little bit about your background there
Speaker 1: and kind of what, um, how you kind of came
Speaker 1: to deciding that that was something that you wanted to
Speaker 1: not just do personally, but advocate for other people to do. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I went through well, calling libertarian spaces, it was. It
Speaker 1: was many years, but you know, and I collected a
Speaker 1: bunch of guns, and you know, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's you know cool. But then, UM, after I sort
Speaker 1: of worked through my childhood trauma and stuff, I you know,
Speaker 1: I sort of feel a lot less threatened about about things,
Speaker 1: and I just sort of, you know, it just sort
Speaker 1: of laws interest in them for a while. But then, UM,
Speaker 1: a friend of mine, Kendall Stevens, was telling me about
Speaker 1: a time when she was attacked in her home by
Speaker 1: a group of transfer of and just beaten almost to death.
Speaker 1: And that next morning, I, um, I I have reapplied
Speaker 1: for my Harry permit. Yeah, and this is I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a story I was not aware of. I
Speaker 1: was aware. Broadly speaking, there have been a number of attacks,
Speaker 1: including a number of fatal attacks, in the last couple
Speaker 1: of years, on particularly trans women. There was um the
Speaker 1: murder of West Philadelphia woman Alicia Simmons um in November
Speaker 1: of um Chante Tucker in Hunting Park in the fall
Speaker 1: of two thousand eighteen, UH and May two thousand nineteen,
Speaker 1: Michelle Tamika Washington was shot to death in North Philly.
Speaker 1: And this is all like local to you, um, and
Speaker 1: also Dominique Remay Fells was was murder in June if
Speaker 1: I think, um, and yeah, if people want to look
Speaker 1: this up, there's a couple of different articles. I'm looking
Speaker 1: at one on Billy Pin with the title after surviving
Speaker 1: a brutal attack, Kendall Stevens wants to help trans people
Speaker 1: citywide And yeah, it's a it's a fucking harrowing story,
Speaker 1: you know, after surviving a number of different attacks from
Speaker 1: from like people just kind of targeting her because she's trained.
Speaker 1: She was attacked in her home by six of her
Speaker 1: neighbors while her god daughter, who was twelve years old.
Speaker 1: Watch it's a fucking horrifying story. So you like, did
Speaker 1: you find out about what had happened, like directly from her?
Speaker 1: Like how does this kind of information? I was, I
Speaker 1: was at UM there's a local trans group where we
Speaker 1: just you know, get on zoom and talk and ye.
Speaker 1: It was one of my first meetings, and actually I
Speaker 1: think it was the very first, and she just told
Speaker 1: this whole story and I was just you know, it's
Speaker 1: like I always had the feeling of safety, but then
Speaker 1: it's just I realized, like, oh, that's you know, like
Speaker 1: being white, I'm a little safer. But it's just like
Speaker 1: it's we're all you know, it's really yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: a it's a matter of like a small number of degrees.
Speaker 1: It's not. Um. So you're you're you're trying to deal
Speaker 1: with this and you're you're communicating. You've got this group
Speaker 1: where you're all sort of like chatting about I'm guessing
Speaker 1: just kind of like safety stuff, like hey, here, you know,
Speaker 1: we we should all be kind of keeping each other
Speaker 1: informed and trying to talk about what's going on for Philly.
Speaker 1: Right Yeah, I mean we mostly just shoot the ship
Speaker 1: and just you know, talk things over and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But she was, um, yeah, something had come up, and
Speaker 1: she recounted this whole story and it was just it
Speaker 1: just really made me go like, oh my god. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So you kind of are in this position where you
Speaker 1: own firearms, you're you're comfortable with them, you've been using
Speaker 1: them for a while, and number one, you get your permit, right,
Speaker 1: Like that's kind of the first thing you do. And
Speaker 1: then I'm guessing you start to think like, well, there's
Speaker 1: not a lot of other people that are in this
Speaker 1: kind of group I'm in that have this experience that
Speaker 1: kind of like where the yeah right, because um, you know,
Speaker 1: because when I would talk to people before that, they
Speaker 1: would just to sort of say like, yeah, I can
Speaker 1: see where you're coming with that. And but once the
Speaker 1: attack started, I'm I heard a lot I've heard a
Speaker 1: lot more people going like, yes, I need to do
Speaker 1: that too, you know. Yeah, So I kind of want
Speaker 1: to know because I mean, what we're kind of building
Speaker 1: to is you've been you've been putting together a class
Speaker 1: for trans folks in Philly to go to to learn
Speaker 1: about how firearms function, the legality and legal concerns about
Speaker 1: being armed, and like the steps they might need to
Speaker 1: go to if they decide to do that themselves. Um,
Speaker 1: how does that idea kind of come together for you
Speaker 1: to actually like put this this class together? Okay? Well, um,
Speaker 1: I remember of the U s R. Right, the Socialist
Speaker 1: Rifle Association, and they have classes they call Gundamentals And
Speaker 1: it's just sort of an uproad a review. Um, just
Speaker 1: sort of sort of every if you've never picked up
Speaker 1: a gun before, it's it will tell you, um, you know,
Speaker 1: it'll give you just information on you know, everything you
Speaker 1: need to to before you use it. And UM, I
Speaker 1: thought it would be a good idea to just have
Speaker 1: a trans just a class with just my trans friends
Speaker 1: and they of course open tail and it went really well,
Speaker 1: and I planted more in the future. Yeah, um, so
Speaker 1: you kind of you're going through both sort of the
Speaker 1: basics of here's and this is kind of a thing
Speaker 1: I think about a lot. I recently carried out a
Speaker 1: class for I don't want to be too specific, but
Speaker 1: at risk individuals in my local area. That was a
Speaker 1: mix of and I was not the one doing to
Speaker 1: stop the bleed portion. Primarily we have people who were
Speaker 1: medical professionals. But it was a mix of a stop
Speaker 1: the bleed class and like a firearms familiarization class. And
Speaker 1: it was not from the perspective of like, hey, people
Speaker 1: need to be strapping up, so here's how to get
Speaker 1: a gun. But it was from the perspective of, hey,
Speaker 1: there's four million firearms in the United States, whether regardless
Speaker 1: of what you think about the legality, should have a
Speaker 1: basic understanding of how they function and how to since
Speaker 1: you're all adults, render a weapon safe, right, So we did.
Speaker 1: We have these fake bullets snap caps, so I would
Speaker 1: explain how an a are and a handgunna works, and
Speaker 1: then we would have everyone take turns, kind of like
Speaker 1: we had with the stop the bleed portion. You know,
Speaker 1: you teach people to use a tourniquet, would everyone take
Speaker 1: turns arriving to the weapon, putting the weapon in their
Speaker 1: hands without like flagging everybody or putting their finger on
Speaker 1: the trigger and then dropping the magazine and clearing it.
Speaker 1: And a lot of folks the thing they expressed was
Speaker 1: like as people who didn't necessarily want to be armed
Speaker 1: themselves felt like I was, I had never got I
Speaker 1: never knew how to like asked to have this experience
Speaker 1: because normally, when you're in the room with a firearm,
Speaker 1: it's because like maybe you're gonna go shooting with somebody
Speaker 1: or something. So if you're not seeking out that experience
Speaker 1: to actually go to a range, it's kind of hard
Speaker 1: to sit with a gun and just understand the basics
Speaker 1: of how this thing functions and how to render it safe.
Speaker 1: And so there were a lot of folks who particularly
Speaker 1: were like it seemed to be grateful for just that
Speaker 1: experience to kind of like reduce the mystery around it
Speaker 1: and gain kind of a functional understanding of just the mechanics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. Yeah, the class was really good. I hadn't
Speaker 1: taken it before, but it's, um, you know, it shows
Speaker 1: like they went through like the anatomy of a ball,
Speaker 1: at the anatomy of a gun, how it works, how to,
Speaker 1: how to do it safely, how to you know, like
Speaker 1: the four rules of gun safety, um, legal things, and
Speaker 1: it was just it was really good course. Now, so
Speaker 1: you take this course, you know, you're you're in communication
Speaker 1: with these friends, you're dealing with like this constant drumbeat
Speaker 1: of attacks. Um, you decide it's time to put together
Speaker 1: a course for people. How do you kind of work
Speaker 1: out what the syllabus is going to be for this? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: if they're all they have the whole class set up already.
Speaker 1: I just sort of yeah, I had just had a
Speaker 1: version just for my transfriends. Yeah, so what what in
Speaker 1: terms like what did you kind of add to that
Speaker 1: or alter to that in order to like prepare it
Speaker 1: for this Oh? Um, not much. I just it was
Speaker 1: just I just thought they would be more comfortable in
Speaker 1: a class with just us. Yeah, I mean that makes sense.
Speaker 1: And it also do you think it helped that like
Speaker 1: this isn't because you know the Socialist Rifle Association, you're
Speaker 1: attending that class you're kind of like attending a class
Speaker 1: put on by an organization that has being both armed
Speaker 1: and political kind of in its name, which it maybe
Speaker 1: infers a little bit more commitment to something than the
Speaker 1: class kind of you put together on like a political level. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's not as hardcore as as you might think
Speaker 1: from the name. It's just it's mostly sure. They have
Speaker 1: the gundamental class. They have stoppable courses kind of you know,
Speaker 1: those kind of things, and I think they there's theiry
Speaker 1: discussions too. I haven't done selling them. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: so you've you put this thing together. And the thing
Speaker 1: that you mentioned earlier when we were talking about this
Speaker 1: is kind of a discussion on like, um, like the
Speaker 1: the particularly legal concerns that trans people seeking to arm
Speaker 1: themselves might have in your area. And I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to you a little bit about that because obviously,
Speaker 1: when we talk about gun legalities, it varies wildly from
Speaker 1: state to state. UM, So nothing that either of us
Speaker 1: say and this should be construed as legal advice for
Speaker 1: what you should do in your own area. You're gonna
Speaker 1: have to check that out yourself. But yeah, I'm interested
Speaker 1: in what you saw is kind of worth putting in
Speaker 1: that UM. Well, the I mean, the big addition to
Speaker 1: bring up is that if you're not UM, if you
Speaker 1: if you don't present as your assigned gender at birth,
Speaker 1: they could the person who's running the check could say that, Hey,
Speaker 1: this person is coming to me in a disguise you know, UM,
Speaker 1: and you could UM in future if you try to
Speaker 1: get a gun in the future, that could be on
Speaker 1: your record and people could use that it's not you. Really,
Speaker 1: I know, I had never heard about that, So that's
Speaker 1: like an actual I mean obviously, like when you file
Speaker 1: the form four four seven to three. One of the
Speaker 1: problems I know from just talking differends that you encounter
Speaker 1: is that, like if you're if your your gender does
Speaker 1: not match like what's on your legal documents and stuff,
Speaker 1: you have to write what's on your legal documents on
Speaker 1: the form because it's a government form. UM. Although the
Speaker 1: four four seven three, which is the background check form,
Speaker 1: does now allow you to put in non binary if
Speaker 1: that is, like, but you still have to have it
Speaker 1: on your legal documents. UM. And we're we're mostly used
Speaker 1: to that for everything else. But it's just the fact
Speaker 1: that they could specifically target you. Yeah, I was actually
Speaker 1: unaware of that as a specific problem, like that you
Speaker 1: could be accused of like showing up in disguise to
Speaker 1: do what's called a straw purchase, you know, which is
Speaker 1: when you illegally buy a gun for somebody else. I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that was a Yeah, so we're there kind
Speaker 1: of other things to like keep in mind there, like
Speaker 1: because I'm particularly I'm sure we have a lot of
Speaker 1: folks listening who are in this same headspace right now. Um,
Speaker 1: because again, things aren't getting a lot less scary out there. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can say just within the last couple
Speaker 1: of years, probably around half of the people that I
Speaker 1: shoot with on a regular basis are trans just because
Speaker 1: like it's the the you're the folks who are being
Speaker 1: kind of most directly targeted and have the least institutional
Speaker 1: support obviously. Yeah, and we have like people in Congress
Speaker 1: openly calling for our executions, and it's just, yes, that's
Speaker 1: a feeling, you know, It's like, yeah, that's something I've
Speaker 1: ever experienced before. But it's like, yeah, you have like
Speaker 1: naturally famous politicians just saying like, yes, we need to
Speaker 1: kill every one of them, and it's like, good lord. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's the thing. Like, you know, I think we
Speaker 1: talk a lot on the show when we do talk
Speaker 1: about being armed, and I've just talked a lot my
Speaker 1: personal life about like sort of where what the left
Speaker 1: should be doing in terms of like a gun culture
Speaker 1: and like the kind of pitfalls that need to be avoided,
Speaker 1: because obviously the solution to like the discrepancy of arms
Speaker 1: in the left and the right in this country is
Speaker 1: not to recreate what the right wing has, because what
Speaker 1: the right wing has is like vicious and insane. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's bad. We don't we you don't want that. Um,
Speaker 1: but uh and and and so obviously, like one of
Speaker 1: the things that I tend to think of as as
Speaker 1: silly is like the the folks who are and I
Speaker 1: don't think this is a particularly large jump, but you
Speaker 1: do get people who are kind of look at being
Speaker 1: armed from like and then we're you know, um, this
Speaker 1: is so that we can you know, be a new
Speaker 1: red army insurgent type thing, which I think is a
Speaker 1: less realistic use case of firearms on the left than
Speaker 1: the police are not going to protect our community. Um,
Speaker 1: there are a shipload of people with guns who hate us,
Speaker 1: and you know, honestly, like one of the when I
Speaker 1: think about, like, what are the threats that are realistic
Speaker 1: and what are the threats when we talk obviously this
Speaker 1: show that we're on the way, they're the wather, they're
Speaker 1: doing the you know, you have um like Tucker Carlson
Speaker 1: saying like, oh another week in buy mar and you know,
Speaker 1: making all these things, and they they're sort of like
Speaker 1: all these trans people. It's like someone should do something
Speaker 1: wink wink, Yeah exactly. And that's the what we're on
Speaker 1: a show right now that started out as me talking about, Hey,
Speaker 1: I think people who are I think the threat of
Speaker 1: massive civil conflict in the United States is higher than
Speaker 1: people guess, and that broadly speaking is mainstream. Now there
Speaker 1: is a strong mainstream understand like standing that some sort
Speaker 1: of civil conflict this possible. It's still when people talk
Speaker 1: about it primarily in the terms of like this big
Speaker 1: civil war type thing, which I think is broadly speaking,
Speaker 1: probably pretty silly. What's not silly is the breakdown of
Speaker 1: expectations of social mores and things like you can't show
Speaker 1: up in a big armed group and start killing people
Speaker 1: that you have on a list, who are are folks
Speaker 1: that you have decided because their trans because whatever are
Speaker 1: are your enemy. And like, one of the things that
Speaker 1: I'm kind of concerned we're going to see at some
Speaker 1: point in the future is a fucking mob gets spun
Speaker 1: up and go and take out some people on their list.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure what that list is going to be,
Speaker 1: but you know, there's a couple of people who pay attention,
Speaker 1: there's a couple of broad possibilities as to who would
Speaker 1: be targeted. And then local law enforcements say, we're not
Speaker 1: going to choose to do anything about this, We're not
Speaker 1: going to invent and again this hat I'm not coming
Speaker 1: up with this because this is like a bleak. I
Speaker 1: know you are well aware of this, but like, we
Speaker 1: had an abortion clinic burn down earlier this year and
Speaker 1: I think it was Kentucky. Uh, and the police refused
Speaker 1: to investigate it, right, Like this kind of ship already happens,
Speaker 1: you know, Um, yeah, it was for a while I
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, well they're not really going to thing,
Speaker 1: and then it's like then they started coming after our
Speaker 1: kids and just like I almost didn't survive my adolescents,
Speaker 1: so I know just how much pain those kids are in.
Speaker 1: And yeah, and then it's like Okay, then they got
Speaker 1: rid of rivers and way and it's like, okay, they're
Speaker 1: not They're not just posturing anymore. No, they're stochastic. Final
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, hey, someone should do something, was
Speaker 1: bad enough, But then it's like, okay, they're really they're
Speaker 1: on a tear hand. So you're you're put together this
Speaker 1: class for folks who I'm going to guess most of
Speaker 1: them had not number one, didn't have much experience with
Speaker 1: weapons firearms prior to this, and probably also had not
Speaker 1: prior to you know, the last year or two, I
Speaker 1: thought that they would ever be some one considering purchasing armaments.
Speaker 1: I mean some of them said that, you know, they
Speaker 1: grew up, you know, in rural places and grew up
Speaker 1: with guns and stuff. But to them, since they were kids,
Speaker 1: so right, you were there any kind of like specific
Speaker 1: questions that you got that you you found were interesting
Speaker 1: or kind of like surprising, Like I'm kind of interested
Speaker 1: in sort of what sort of things people had to ask,
Speaker 1: Not in particular, I think everyone was just sort of
Speaker 1: just trying to learn everything and just like that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: where there is there kind of a has there been
Speaker 1: sort of like um, any further discussions about like, well
Speaker 1: what comes next, right like, after the sort of basic
Speaker 1: class of people decided to start purchasing like firearms, step
Speaker 1: two is like train in order to use them like functionally, right, Like,
Speaker 1: it's not a kind of thing you can just have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the next step, the next step from the group of
Speaker 1: friends that I have, Um, I'm planning to you know,
Speaker 1: go to a range with them, and I mean we
Speaker 1: have to sort of find what ranges are most friendly.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so we're probably gonna do that and just
Speaker 1: see how it goes with everyone. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: that where I am. One thing that people will do
Speaker 1: is you know, you'll you'll have folks who will kind
Speaker 1: of go out and be uh kind of a little
Speaker 1: guinea pigs for like, is this gun's store a friendly place? Like? Right, like,
Speaker 1: is this a place we can go and buy weapons
Speaker 1: and not and and have people like respond, well, is
Speaker 1: this range of friendly place? And then kind of will
Speaker 1: spread that to the rest of the community that like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is a safe place to shoot too, this is
Speaker 1: a safe place to buy Do you have you guys
Speaker 1: been kind of like setting stuff up like that or
Speaker 1: what No, not yet, but that's that has the next
Speaker 1: step to figure it out. Yeah, and when it when
Speaker 1: it comes to like just organizing for the increasing hostility
Speaker 1: that that people are facing. Um. Has it has it
Speaker 1: kind of pushed you to do anything more formal with
Speaker 1: like the communications groups you have in terms of like,
Speaker 1: you know, I need I might need I'm going on
Speaker 1: a walk at night, I need somebody to be able
Speaker 1: to like call or something like that. I'm worried I'm
Speaker 1: being followed, Like is there Has this been the kind
Speaker 1: of thing that you've been like setting up more in
Speaker 1: the way of precautions around so much because most of
Speaker 1: us just live in the city and we're we're usually
Speaker 1: pretty okay with that. Um or we'll have you know,
Speaker 1: friends nearby, you know, well nothing so um formal? Yeah, UM,
Speaker 1: I mean which is yeah, I think how most people
Speaker 1: kind of do it? Um. What do you sort of
Speaker 1: like watching out right now? Um? What is kind of
Speaker 1: I don't know the thing you're you like, like, do
Speaker 1: you have anything sort of on the horizon that you're
Speaker 1: sort of looking at as you know, if this happens,
Speaker 1: then I'm going to expect this to happen, And like,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe we need to do this time for
Speaker 1: some kind of more formal plans. It's hard to say.
Speaker 1: I'm I've just been sort of just watching all of
Speaker 1: this horrible stuff unfold. Everything happens so fast. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, I didn't think they're going
Speaker 1: to get rid of Rows, so it was just I
Speaker 1: just I don't know what's coming next. Um, I'm just
Speaker 1: realizing it's like it's so serious. It's actually getting to
Speaker 1: the point where I'm just sort of seeing myself just
Speaker 1: trying to make amends with people in my past, and
Speaker 1: it's like you just look, you just take a step
Speaker 1: back and look at yourself, like, oh wow, it really
Speaker 1: is getting bad that it's just subconsciously I'm just thinking
Speaker 1: I should make peace with some of these people. That's
Speaker 1: pretty bleak. Um. I I'm struggling for like something more
Speaker 1: positive to say, um, which I'm not sure is the
Speaker 1: is the kind of the right impulse, but it is
Speaker 1: sort of like we're all kind of like grappling for
Speaker 1: because one of the problems is that the scale of
Speaker 1: the threat I think is or the reality of the
Speaker 1: threat is very clear to people, right, whether you're kind
Speaker 1: of a centrist dim and you just see like oh ship,
Speaker 1: there's actually like a lot of like militia type folks
Speaker 1: with guns talking about a civil war and they almost
Speaker 1: took over Congress. This is a real threat. Or whether
Speaker 1: you're you know, a transperson or um, you know, an
Speaker 1: indigenous person or a migrant or something somebody who's you know,
Speaker 1: here in the country in a less than legal fashion
Speaker 1: and you're stay seeing like, oh, they're specific threats against
Speaker 1: groups people like me, and they're being more organized and
Speaker 1: more at actually being carried out. Um, the reality of
Speaker 1: the threat is I think clear in differing degrees to everybody.
Speaker 1: What's not clear is the the scope in the shape
Speaker 1: of it. Right, So we know there's a lot of
Speaker 1: like armed right wing assholes talking about violent ship. We
Speaker 1: don't know is are they ever going to get their
Speaker 1: ship together right, like enough to do something like unto
Speaker 1: what extent and in what areas right on that is?
Speaker 1: I think that you know, it's like the enemy is
Speaker 1: strong and weak at the same time, of course, but
Speaker 1: I think with us, they're really they really don't expect
Speaker 1: any resistance. And I think that if you know, if
Speaker 1: they start meeting resistance or seeing us with that like, hey,
Speaker 1: we have same rightful to you do you know? Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: and I think that my you know, hold them off
Speaker 1: a little bit at least. I think that's generally like
Speaker 1: a if you're kind of like, I don't know, uh,
Speaker 1: thinking about it from that, from the perspective of like
Speaker 1: and kind of a soulless, like, uh, top down view
Speaker 1: of this is just a strategic thing, like what are
Speaker 1: the what are the best ways to oppose this kind
Speaker 1: of like right wing and surgeent force. Well, like, obviously
Speaker 1: one of them is not to like hand them ground, right,
Speaker 1: like don't don't don't don't do the thing that you
Speaker 1: see a lot of people in the left doing, which is, oh,
Speaker 1: they're coming for you know, trans people. Well that's not
Speaker 1: you know, you there's been a lot of like very
Speaker 1: ugly talk on certain chunks of liberals and left of
Speaker 1: like well, you know, if we defend these people, that's
Speaker 1: going to be bad for us in an electoral sense,
Speaker 1: you know, and like this is something that gets you
Speaker 1: votes in small exact exactly, Hillary Clinton just fucking came
Speaker 1: out and said this, right, and it's um, I I
Speaker 1: finel like I think historically as a bad strategy, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're just looking at what happened in history, obviously,
Speaker 1: I think it's immoral. Um. And I also yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that you are right in that the only reason
Speaker 1: that they're this scary right now is because for the
Speaker 1: better part of twenty years a little less than that,
Speaker 1: but this really started to accelerate after Obama got elected.
Speaker 1: Every time the far right has like pushed for something
Speaker 1: and like made a stink or started making threats, people
Speaker 1: have backed off right and even outside of you know,
Speaker 1: threats specific communities, they were ship like the Mayac report,
Speaker 1: which is in like the mid of Obama's term, the
Speaker 1: Homeland Security put out a report warning about the growth
Speaker 1: of the domestic militia movement, and they like made a
Speaker 1: big they flipped out about it, and we're like, look,
Speaker 1: they're saying that if you have a Gadsden flag, you're
Speaker 1: a domestic terrorist and all this stuff, and the Obama
Speaker 1: backed off and fired all of the people in in
Speaker 1: the federal government who were like watching this ship Um.
Speaker 1: Which we can talk about the degree to which it's
Speaker 1: ever reasonable to hope that the Feds are going to
Speaker 1: do anything about this, but it's it's an example of this.
Speaker 1: You get scared that opposing these people is going to
Speaker 1: be bad for you. Politically, and so you make a
Speaker 1: craven political decision to seed ground to them and then
Speaker 1: they get more dangerous, right the Democrats have just been
Speaker 1: doing lately, I mean least several decades. Really, it's such
Speaker 1: like a mine field to talk about being armed and
Speaker 1: being responsibly in the context of twenty one century United States,
Speaker 1: because there's so much to juggle, including the fact that
Speaker 1: we have basically nearly weekly massacres and stuff being committed
Speaker 1: by people who go and pick up a gun from
Speaker 1: you know, a sporting good store or whatever. Um. But fascists, yeah,
Speaker 1: and are almost all fascists with the history of violence
Speaker 1: towards women. Um but it it It is like I
Speaker 1: think when we are talking about what it is, the
Speaker 1: actual importance on both an individual level of being the
Speaker 1: importance on an individual level of people who are in
Speaker 1: threatened communities being armed is that they cannot trust the
Speaker 1: police or the state to take any actions to protect them.
Speaker 1: And we see that because they get thrown under the
Speaker 1: fucking bus every time somebody comes after her attack that
Speaker 1: the place just sort of dismissed her. They just sort
Speaker 1: of like, oh, you know, it was just you know,
Speaker 1: they like the stonder to her just like just complete
Speaker 1: you know, dis interest, and yeah, and obviously like this
Speaker 1: is this is the thing you don't have to There's
Speaker 1: a bunch of numerous other stories of that. Um. And
Speaker 1: then on the other end of things, you have, like
Speaker 1: most of these people, one of the things we have
Speaker 1: in our corner is like scary as the urgent, right
Speaker 1: is as most of them are fucking cowards, and when
Speaker 1: they get opposed, when somebody shows up and throws down
Speaker 1: usually they fucking It's one thing if it's like a
Speaker 1: street fight, right, because people don't tend to get killed
Speaker 1: in street fights, and you can make a lot of
Speaker 1: money filming videos of it. When fucking when when people
Speaker 1: start pulling straps, you know, like it gets really different,
Speaker 1: really fucking quickly. Um. And in general, we've seen in
Speaker 1: Portland there have been a couple of these folks shot
Speaker 1: in defensive shootings and it's part of why that's kind
Speaker 1: of stuff doesn't happen as much as it was in
Speaker 1: two thou eighteen. Um, you saw that ship happen in
Speaker 1: Denver and it had an effect on the intensity of
Speaker 1: of rallies there. When these people are it would be
Speaker 1: irresponsible to say that it's like good when this happens,
Speaker 1: but when they suffer consequences for trying to hurt people,
Speaker 1: it scares some of them classically. Yeah, if you stand
Speaker 1: up to them, they'll really Yeah. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I this is just kind of turned into us sort
Speaker 1: of talking about the ethics of community self defense. But
Speaker 1: I think it's something I think it's important to talk about.
Speaker 1: And I think it's also important to kind of reclaim
Speaker 1: from this kind of masturbatory fantasy of becoming a minuteman
Speaker 1: or whatever. And also this masturbatory fantasy of like this
Speaker 1: is something this is a thing I do as like
Speaker 1: part of my identity um as opposed to like this
Speaker 1: is a thing that I do in order to defend
Speaker 1: my ability to continue to be who I am. Right,
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm not a radical. I just want to
Speaker 1: be alive, you know, And if i'm not, if I
Speaker 1: have to de transition, I will not want to be alive.
Speaker 1: And that's that. Yeah. Yeah, and yeah, Well, did you
Speaker 1: have anything else you wanted to get into where we're
Speaker 1: talking to digestic of all? Right, Well, do you have
Speaker 1: anything you wanted to plug any place you wanted to
Speaker 1: kind of direct people rum because uh, if someone wanted
Speaker 1: to at home, wanted to uh to do their own thing,
Speaker 1: the s R would probably be very receptive. I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's other organizations. Um yeah, there's John Brown, gun clubs
Speaker 1: and stuff and other organizations that don't have names. And
Speaker 1: on a personal level, I well, I I make bondage
Speaker 1: collars and paddles. It's called bondage robot. It's any store.
Speaker 1: It's a bondage hype and robot dot com. Excellent do
Speaker 1: do Yeah, um so bondage robot dot com. Um check
Speaker 1: that out. You're also on Twitter. Do you want to
Speaker 1: direct people? It's that's where I Yeah, Jessica Lashnikoff just
Speaker 1: figured out you'll say it all right. That is gonna
Speaker 1: be our episode for the day. Everybody, Uh, stay safe
Speaker 1: and um, you know, think about the ethics of community
Speaker 1: self defense. It's important, Okay for Offen years production of
Speaker 1: school Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
Speaker 1: visit our website cool zone Media dot com, or check
Speaker 1: us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources
Speaker 1: for It could happen here, updated monthly at cool Zone
Speaker 1: Media dot com. Slash sources. Thanks for listening,