The stereotype of the typical gun owner has long been a middle-aged white guy. As a middle-aged white guy, well, it’s pretty accurate in my case. However, a lot of different demographics have been embracing gun ownership for quite some time, and that’s a great thing. The right to keep and bear arms is a human right, and one that I love seeing people from across the spectrum enjoy.
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But some people just can’t understand any of that.
Typically, it’s some anti-gunner who seems to perpetually labor under the delusion that most gun owners are unabashed racists who would freak at the idea of black people owning guns. That’s simply not 99 percent of the gun-owning population, based on my experience.
But that also means we need to call out that other one percent when they pop off and say absolutely moronic things.
Avi Rachlin, whose X feed is replete with misplaced victimhood and racist tropes, argued the bill, which would expand the ban to lawmaker’s offices, unfairly targets whites.
“It is racial, because the people who carry in the Capitol are primarily white people who have [concealed pistol licenses], are primarily white, and this is retaliation for the only demographic that overwhelmingly voted to support Donald Trump,” Rachlin said. “And that is why it is being taken out on us, because you don’t like us. And that’s how it is.”
Legislation aimed at gun violence should instead focus on “the people who bring guns into communities and shoot people like where I live in Detroit and where you represent Stephanie Chang, which are overwhelmingly 13-44 year old Sub-Saharan African n—–s,” Rachlin said to state Sen. Chang, who presided over the hearing as chair of the Michigan Committee on Civil Rights, Judiciary and Public Safety.
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Now, the linked piece largely jumps on the opportunity to connect Rachlin to Donald Trump, among other things, but right now, I’m still taken aback by Rachlin’s blatantly racist comments.
And the fact that he actually posted a video of it on X, meaning he sees literally nothing wrong with what he said.
While legislators from both sides of the political divide condemned the comment, Rachlin doubled down, defending it.
Richlin defended using the racial slur, telling Fox 2, “It segregates (the violent offenders) from the Black people who don’t do anything.”
Even if I decided to buy that he genuinely believes that, the truth is that you can’t throw around a racial slur–one literally everyone knows is a slur–and pretend that you’ve redefined it so that makes it OK.
It pisses me off because he was there ostensibly trying to defend gun rights–as a member of “Groypers for America,” which tells you what to expect from this guy anyway–and he used the most well-established racial slur in this country while supposedly doing it, and I’m not interested in tolerating it simply because he also says he likes gun rights.
That’s not. How. You. Defend. Rights.
Moreover, now I can’t help but wonder whose rights he’s really trying to defend here. He says the regulation is racially motivated because most people who carry are white people, but with his casual use of the n-word, one has to wonder if he’s really trying to preserve a human right or something else entirely.
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Frankly, we don’t need people like that.
He’s got a right to believe what he wants to believe, and that shouldn’t prevent him from exercising his other rights, but the rest of us need to exercise our right to free association and shun this pancake-brained jackwagon from anything we’re involved in.
