GUNS ON THE LEFT?

Wow.

A black lawmaker came to Michigan’s capitol with an escort of armed black citizens on Wednesday, days after white protesters with guns staged a volatile protest inside the state house, comparing the Democratic governor’s public health orders to “tyranny”.

The state representative Sarah Anthony, 36, said she wanted to highlight what she saw as the failure of the Michigan capitol police to provide legislators with adequate security during the protest, which saw demonstrators with rifles standing in the legislative chamber above lawmakers....

One of Anthony’s constituents, a black firefighter, organized Wednesday’s capitol escort.... there were six participants, including two women, and some of them were armed with handguns.... Five of the participants are black and one is Hispanic....

Anthony opposes the law permitting open carry of firearms at the state capitol. One of her escorts seems much more enamored of the Second Amendment.

Michael Lynn Jr, a Lansing resident, said he was frustrated to see his legislator being violently intimidated in her workplace. He said the escort was the first time he had ever chosen to openly carry his AR-15 rifle....

Lynn, 38, is a gun rights advocate who has a permit to carry a concealed handgun in public, but he called the armed white protesters’ behavior “ridiculous” and “barbaric”....

Lynn said he was frustrated after last week’s protests when he saw black Americans sharing comments that they would never be allowed to carry guns in the capitol and scream into the faces of police officers....

“We can’t normalize that narrative to where it seems as if we’re supposed to be scared to exercise our second amendment rights as everyone else does,” he said.

This was extremely risky, although the escorts say they were treated well. (They apparently did not try to shout in the faces of security officers.) I don't expect this experiment to be repeated.

But what if it were repeated? What if left-leaning non-white and white groups began regularly arming themselves the way right-wing groups do?

It seems likely that the authorities would apply the obvious double standard. But it's possible that, at least at first, the hypocrisy would be too obvious and, as in this case, the people carrying the firearms would be treated with respect.

I'm not a fan of guns and I've never carried one, but I recognize the advantage the right has as a result of the fact that some of its members are ready to intimidate their critics. Will progressives eventually decide that they no longer wish to cede that advantage to the right? Will we someday have a new generation of left-leaning activists who carry and brandish firearms? And is it possible that decades of pro-gun rhetoric will make it at least somewhat difficult for right-leaning governments to deny lefties this right?