Liberal gun owners face dilemma in 2020 field

https://news.yahoo.com/liberal-gun-owners-face-dilemma-193255043.html

LISA MARIE PANE
,Associated Press•February 28, 2020

•••••

“You’re alienating a huge part of your constituency,” Smith says of the Democratic field’s gun proposals. “You have a huge constituency that is looking for something different and when you are talking about restricting a right which is so different than everything else you talk about, you are being anti-liberal.”

Gun owners have long been seen as a solidly Republican voting bloc, but there are millions of Democrats who own firearms, too.

Many of them are feeling increasingly disillusioned by their party as it lurches toward the left on the Second Amendment, but they're also wary of President Donald Trump for a variety of reasons

•••••

An estimated 23 percent of Democrats nationally lived in households with guns in 2018, according to the General Social Survey, which is conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. And roughly 20 percent of gun owners — about 12 million people — identify as liberal, according to results from survey between 2014 and 2018. More than a third describe themselves as moderates while just under 45 percent call themselves conservatives.

•••••

When it comes to black voters, Kevin Dixie sees guns in a different light. An African American, Dixie grew up in St. Louis and experienced firsthand the toll of gun violence.

He believes that gun rights are about empowering communities of color and ensuring freedom is available to every American, regardless of race, ethnicity or gender. He runs a firearms training business called No Other Choice.

One of his aims is to turn around the perception of firearms, especially within minority and urban communities, as being something that is only for criminals or police.

“This is much deeper than guns,” Dixie said. “It’s not just about owning a gun, it’s about maintaining your freedom, and we shouldn’t be politicizing it."

•••••