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When I was a child growing up in Louisiana in the 80s and early 90s, guns were always around. But it was the duck-hunting shotguns, a deer-hunting rifle, maybe a few of each—our fathers keeping their childhood heirlooms and upgrading over time. If a friend’s father was a gun enthusiast, it usually meant they had a bunch of antique pistols and rifles. Nothing like what we see in today’s America. In high school, in the late ‘90s, was the first time I heard of other pistols like Glocks. People started buying them for home defense.
Playing paintball with friends was another important part of my childhood. I was good at it. Too small to play many other sports, many of us went full into our childhood passion. From the age of 13, we started having “paintball wars” so often that we’d play against other neighborhoods and kids from different schools. I remember the very day I met most of my friends I still have today—when we, the Maplewood Junior High kids, played the W.W. Lewis guys, who we met through a mutual friend. That sealed what would become a lifelong friendship and the friend group we carried through high school.
As many of us aged into the 2000s and 2010s, many of these same friends started buying AR-15s and other high-powered weapons. At first, It felt just like the paintball days. Someone would get a new toy, and we’d all want to try it. Like getting a new four-wheeler or souped-up truck. With these new, real guns, I never got into it. It felt kind of juvenile to me. I’ve shot them at people’s camps and, yeah, they can be fun to shoot—it can make one feel like a hero in one of those action movies we grew up watching.
For friends who went off to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, it made more sense. These weapons were part of their identity. I respected that. I liked to tag along and show that I was still a good shot. It wasn’t my thing, but look—I get it. Some people express themselves in different ways.
But over the last 15 years, these guns became more than just cool gear or a fun weekend activity. They became symbols. A political identity. Something along the lines of: “I’m a country conservative republican. I’m a rough and tumble man. I’ll kill people if they invade my space. I’m not like those weak liberals.” We’ve all seen the family photos of Republican politicians smiling with their spouses and kids—each person holding an AR-15 like it’s part of the family crest. Guns became a flag. Something you posted to show who you are. To show who you’re not.
As a more liberal person, I watched the culture of guns grow at the same time school shootings became more frequent. This concerned me. But every time I said something, I’d get pushback from friends. That they needed guns to protect themselves from the crime, the crazies, the world falling apart.
But to me, every time a shooting happened, and they bought more bullets and more guns, it looked like a culture doubling down. Digging in. It didn’t feel like protection—it felt like escalation. I’d express that, and I’d get dismissed, inferred as naive or soft.
When it comes to crime, I’ve still never understood why someone needs a high-powered rifle—designed for combat—to defend their home. I’ve never even heard from anyone I know that they were even broken into while at home. Could it happen? Of course, but I believe a handgun is enough. That’s what I have. And even with that, we take precautions. Especially if there are children in the house. Gun deaths are now the number one cause of death for children in America. Many with the weapons we place in the home to protect. That should matter.
Another argument started rising—that we need guns to protect ourselves from government tyranny. “Just in case.” An argument that’s hard to disagree with at first, because as Americans we’re taught not to trust too much power. No other country will ever invade us without paying for it. But the logic got twisted.
Reading deeper is something more disturbing: The tyranny they were preparing for wasn’t a foreign invasion. It was our own government. Our own military. This rhetoric rose during the Obama years, it became clear that they weren’t just talking about tyranny in the abstract—they were talking about people like him, a Black, liberal Democrat. And the government that people like me voted for. It meant that if things ever got bad enough, my friends—some of whom were veterans, who claimed to support the troops—might take up arms against fellow Americans. Against our armed forces. Against people like me. That worried me. Because I’m as American as they are. And yet the logic of their argument implied that I, too, could be seen as a tyrant one day. As the enemy.
Then Charlie Kirk was killed.
After that, a deep sense of unease came over me. I couldn’t place it what the feeling was. It just felt different. I watched as the rhetoric on the right escalated—how quickly the blame shifted to Democrats. I saw Facebook posts with mentions of war. I saw some of these same friends either saying it outright or liking the comments that did. The mourning of Kirk started to take a strange tone. Suddenly, there were “non-partisan”, carefully worded posts that felt like a kind of virtue signal—as if people were trying to say, “Look, this is getting out of control, but it’s not coming from the right” implying that Democrats are crossing the line. That using words like “fascism’ was inspiring violence. Ignoring the fact that actually it’s right-wing-inspired violence that statistics clearly show is the biggest problem. A report by ADL found that 75% of extremist‑related murders over the last ten years were committed by right‑wing extremists. And in 2023 alone, every extremist‑related murder reported was linked to right‑wing extremism. Trump’s own appointed FBI Director, Christopher Wray said “The greatest threat we face from domestic violent extremists is from those we identify as racially motivated violent extremists... and the biggest chunk of that is from white supremacists.”
That night, I thought of one of my best childhood friends. A combat veteran. Someone I respect deeply. Someone I also worry about. He’s seen things in war I can’t imagine. He is unstable sometimes and drinks heavily. Over the years, his arsenal has grown—well over ten guns, probably more. We were great friends but that seemed to vanish after I became a statewide Democratic candidate. My calls and texts to meet up, hang out and grab a beer were ignored the last few years. Was he mad at me?
I went to bed with that on my mind. The feeling in my chest hadn’t left. Something felt wrong.
Then that thought turned into a nightmare.
In the middle of the night, I woke up to buzzing. My phone was ringing over and over. I keep it on Do Not Disturb while I sleep—but emergency calls still get through if someone calls more than once. It was him. Over and over again.
Then the texts came in. “Soros.” “You are a Democrat.” “Answer me.” “Condemn the killing.” “You either condemn or you justify him.” “You are a Democrat. That doesn’t make you wrong, but it makes you.”
I was in shock. Terrified. Was he outside? Was someone coming for me? I pulled up the security cameras. I watched the street. I checked the doors. Was my wife safe? Were my daughters? The texts kept coming for three hours.
I never responded. I just sat there, watching the cameras, wondering if my life—or my family’s—was about to change.
Nothing happened, thankfully. The next day I woke up. And I wondered—what was he thinking now? Was he ashamed? Did he regret it? Am I still being targeted or threatened? Is this over, or was that just a preview of something worse? Am I who all the guns were for all along?
I scrolled through social media. It was full of tributes to Charlie Kirk. People writing eulogies. People who I didn’t even know were Charlie Kirk fans. From the videos I saw of Kirk over the years, he constantly disparaged the rights of women and disparaged Black people as not-smart and criminals by their nature. Invoking all of this in the name of Jesus. His organization, Turning Point, was not grassroots. It is heavily funded by right-wing billionnaires who want to persuade young people to vote Republican. The shows and demonstrations at college campuses were a place for his young supporters to stand beside him and jeer and belittle more liberal students, usually with misleading or outright false statistics.
As more and more comes out about the murderer we’re seeing that actually he wasn’t a Democrat, he wasn’t a trans person, despite what Trump and other right-wing voices immediately claimed and horrifically, are still claiming. The shooter came from the same dark corners, right-wing extremist corners, of the internet that have radicalized others—including the one who fired at Donald Trump in Butler, PA. But instead of grappling with that reality, they continue to whitewash the violent rhetoric that has steadily increased since Trump arrived on the scene in 2015. They ignored the statistics that show right-wing extremism and domestic political violence are among the biggest threats facing America and are attempting to gaslight America into believing the opposite.
And while people continue to stockpile weapons to guard against this imagined left-wing tyranny, we’re watching an actual tyrannical government begin to form—right in front of us. Donald Trump has attacked the Constitution and the rule of law at every turn. The judiciary, our GOP-led Congress, even entire state legislatures have begun relinquishing power under his name. He is tunring ICE into a paramilitary force loyal to him. He attempted a coup. Where are y’all now, when faced with the very thing you claimed to fear? Instead of standing up to it, these forces within the Trump admin and right-wing media are persuading you to turn on us—your neighbors, your fellow citizens. The ones who’ve been warning for years about Trumps tendencies.
Yes, the left has its radicals. But what’s happening inside this internet sub-culture of violence and extremism is something far bigger. More dangerous. Young lonely men are being targeted for radicalization. They’re taught the world is full of enemies. That they are heroes. That many Americans are threats that need to be killed.
So yes—I truly believe it’s ok to like Charlie Kirk. You can be right-wing. You can grieve. But don’t try to put the shame on us. Don’t pretend we’re the ones who created this culture. People like me have been warning this was coming. Now, we have to do something to save our young men and boys from what they are being exposed to. We have to do something about this epidemic of lonliness that many young men and women feel. Much has to do with social media destroying our social fabric.
It’s not too late to come together. The division is an illusion—created by people who profit off our fear. If I’ve ever said something that crossed the line, I ask for forgiveness. But I won’t change my values. All I ask is that you remember yours.
- Dustin Granger
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