That’s awesome to hear (the part about looking into SRA and not the Google tracking)! The left needs to break away from letting the false left (libs/centrists that are too often called “the left”) choose to remove our ability to arm and defend ourselves. They just default to the defeatist attitude of “you really think you can just take on the military?!? lol, I think not!”. Which is what they mockingly say about the right’s fetishization of guns. Which I tend to respond with more practical examples that they can more easily understand. Unfortunately 2020 and the overall rise in hate based attacks from the right and their avid supporters with badges is one such example. More of my open-minded liberal friends do see how self-defense might be a real need with all that. The mass-shooting stuff is really what keeps them more in the “anti-gun” crowd. Which is understandable, but just banning guns isn’t the actual fix to the majority of the reasons such actions happen. It just makes it easier to ignore them and act like nothing is wrong.

I do sometimes like to point out that armed leftists have actually taken on our military and won (wasn’t easy and did cost many lives of course), like Vietnam is still one of the best. Many firm libs are under the misunderstanding that the only “valid” form of change is non-violent and just voting “blue no matter who”. Which the non-violent part is very important to always try first, but violence is very much valid if the non-violent attempts are ignored or only paid lip-service without actions. The right has been allowed to claim guns as their thing, and libs want to be on whatever the opposite side of them. So if the right wants guns to be legal and easy to get, the libs want to see them banned and hard as hell to get. They can fuck right off with banning some guns because they are “scary” and therefore “not needed for anything other than killing”. I don’t make my life about pushing for a shooting war, as the point isn’t to win by those means. We will only truly win by ending the money over people system, and that means education and winning over people in ways that actually help. But I am damn sure not gonna allow my ability to fight back if shit does happen be taken away.

I hope that if you do join the SRA that your local chapter is as supportive and amazing as mine has been. And they might just be a great place to learn about other groups/orgs near you. I only really learned about and got motivated to volunteer with clinic escorting because we had a couple of people already doing it. And while my insomnia makes it frustratingly hard to go out as much as I feel that I should. It is such and amazing boost of joy to know that by just doing such a simple task I am helping part of my community. The leftists (us and some random others) that show up are known for being ready to help and not afraid to stand firm if fucked with. lol