Of Guns and Groomers

About a year ago, I had a brief Twitter/X exchange with John Lovell of the Warrior Poet Society. Lovell is a fairly well-respected figure in the firearms training community, and from the videos I had seen, he appeared to be a pretty thoughtful guy. So I was surprised to find out he was one of those people who got mad at Anheuser-Busch for doing a Bud Light promotion with transgender “influencer” Dylan Mulvaney, and I asked him what that was all about.

Unfortunately, the actual exchange wasn’t very helpful, and there’s no point in to reviewing it here.^[1]If you really want to know, see https://twitter.com/windypundit/status/1648536711532539904. It’s enough to say that the word “grooming” came up, at which point I realized I had better ways to spend my time.

But something about that still puzzles me…

In normal times, the term “grooming” refers to a set of social tactics used by pedophiles to prepare a child to participate in sexual acts to which they cannot possibly consent. In blunter terms, grooming is how child rapists discourage their intended victims from resisting rape.

Child abusers start by being friendly, and getting the child used to their presence. They make themselves interesting. They join in the child’s activities, and invite the child to join in theirs. Then they start pushing the boundaries of physical contact, and testing the child’s willingness to keep secrets from parents… and it only gets uglier from there.

But since grooming almost always starts with establishing familiarity, that allows anti-trans activists to smear transgender people as “groomers” for doing literally anything where children are involved. Lately, they’ve been complaining about Drag Queen Story Hour, in which performers in drag read stories to children. The implication was that this was a way for transgender pedophiles to insinuate themselves into children’s lives as a prelude to sexual exploitation.

The big lie here is that all transgender people want to hurt children. While there almost certainly must be some transgender people who have harmed a child,^[2]Personally, I’m not aware of any specific examples of transgender people abusing children, but given any sufficiently large group, a few of them will turn out to be dirtbags. it’s pretty clear that the vast majority of trans folks present no danger to children.

Granted, to those not involved in the culture, transgender people can seem a bit strange, perhaps even upsetting, but that’s no excuse for using the crimes of a few to smear the entire community.

Now here’s the thing that’s been puzzling me: Shouldn’t that be an easy concept for gun owners to understand?

I mean, let’s just replace a few words in that last paragraph: “Granted, to those not involved in the culture, gun owners can seem a bit strange, perhaps even upsetting, but that’s no excuse for using the crimes of a few to smear the entire community.

The vast majority of peaceful, law-abiding gun owners have been taking shit for the crimes of the few for as long as I can remember. And the things they say about gun owners are just as stupid as the things people are saying about trans people. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve heard BS like “You’re more likely to kill a family member with that gun than an intruder,” or that civilians shouldn’t have “weapons of war.”

The stupid things they say wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t also pass stupid laws. For example, you can have a gun with a long barrel and a shoulder stock, and you can have a gun with a short barrel and no shoulder stock, but if you have a gun with a short barrel and a shoulder stock, you’re a criminal.^[3]I’m over-simplifying my descriptions of gun laws to avoid getting bogged down in the details. Please don’t take any of this as legal advice.

And depending on which state, county, or city you’re in, you can be a criminal for having funny parts on your gun. I’ve already mentioned that having a rifle stock on a pistol can make you a criminal. But what about putting a pistol grip on a rifle? Also a criminal. Add an extra grip to the front of the gun? Criminal. A folding or removable shoulder stock? Criminal. A flash suppressor on the front of the barrel. Criminal. Merely thread the front of the barrel? Criminal. How about a barrel shroud that makes it safer to hold the barrel without getting burned? Yup, still a criminal.

Eighty million gun owners have to obey stupid laws like this because of a handful of criminals. So you’d think gun owners, of all people, would understand the stupidity that comes from scapegoating an entire community because of the crimes of a small number of evil people. You’d think they’d have some sympathy for transgender people.

And yet here we are.