Numlock Sunday: Laura Jedeed on the Second Amendment

By Dave Levinthal

Welcome to the Numlock Sunday edition.

This week, Walt’s good friend Dave Levinthal is filling in for him while he’s on vacation. Dave spoke with Laura Jedeed, a freelance journalist who publishes BannedInYourState, a Substack newsletter “documenting the American apocalypse.” Dave and Laura discuss the Second Amendment, firearm culture and gun ownership among liberal Americans.

Jedeed’s work has been published in Rolling Stone, Politico, New York Magazine and the New Republic. She is also a gun owner and Army veteran who served two tours of duty in Afghanistan.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

What does the Second Amendment mean to you personally?

There are two parts of it, which I feel like people miss. We like to concentrate on one or the other. I think the Second Amendment is important. I think that having guns is good for a variety of reasons. I think that hunting is one of the most ethical ways that you can get meat. And more importantly, I do think that self-defense is a valid thing. Society can protect us to a great deal; I’m not one of those, like, you’re the only person that can protect you kinds of things. But there are situations where you are the only person who can protect you.

And while I don’t carry and never have, I think that’s a right people should have. And I also, honestly, think this is maybe less controversial on the left than it ever has been. In case of tyranny, I do think it’s good to have weapons.

Given our political climate and the state of governance, as we speak, should more Democrats and more liberals own guns than do at present?

I think so. I don’t think everyone needs to own a gun. On the left (not the liberals, but on the left), gun ownership is much more acceptable. And I will sometimes get private messages, as somebody who’s openly supportive of the right to have guns, from people who are like, “Look, I know I should have one, but I’m nervous. I have mental health issues, or I just don’t like guns.”

Not everyone should have a gun. That’s silly. But people who are so inclined should at least check it out. Just going shooting once or twice is honestly good, just because it helps people realize that guns are tools. They’re a very dangerous tool, but they are tools. They’re not some death ray where they’re just simply going to kill people if you put it in your hand. It’s good to know basic gun safety, and it’s good to understand them, even if you never want to have one. But yeah, I do think more people should be open to it.

You served in the military. During your service, how did that experience shape your views on owning and using firearms?

So honestly, I didn’t grow up shooting. I grew up in a family that was pro-Second Amendment, but I did not grow up shooting. The first time I’d ever shot a gun was in the military. That was definitely eye-opening for me. The thing I just said about how guns aren’t what you see in Hollywood, it’s really hard to hit a target with a gun. It takes a lot of concentration. It’s almost a zen thing. It’s a very hard thing to do, and so that was something that I hadn’t realized. The familiarity was important.

And the other thing, and this is going to be a little bit edgy, but I was deployed to Afghanistan twice, and that’s a war we lost. And we lost that war with billions of dollars of equipment to people who had AK-47s and some fertilizer bombs. We lost that war hard. So, people who argue that having a couple of guns isn’t going to stop tyranny, I just don’t buy it.

I know you recently attended a Gun Owners of America conference convention. Talk a bit about what that was like and what you were hoping to get out of that experience by being there to see it with your own eyes.

I just talked about guns quite a bit. There’s the other side of this, which is that people can drive themselves slightly insane by being alert all the time and by only concentrating on that second part of the amendment, the part about “shall not be infringed.” The well-regulated militia is the first part, but Gun Owners of America doesn’t acknowledge that.

I was interested in the conference because these are people who basically, this is a conference for people who think the NRA is for pussies, if you’ll excuse my language. This is a conference for people who believe in zero restrictions. They believe they should be able to have machine guns. They believe that taxation is an infringement on their Second Amendment rights. This is radical.

And this is also a group that is far right. I interviewed them. They say that they’re open to everybody, but the speeches certainly weren’t that way. It opened with the statement that if all gun owners vote in the midterms, then Trump and the Republicans will win in a landslide. There’s no reason for that to be true, but it is true. So I wanted to explore that gun culture and the extremes, and how this isn’t the right way to approach guns either.

The gun lobby has crazy amounts of money behind it, as I need not tell you. Where does the pro-gun lobby get it wrong, particularly in terms of their interactions with lawmakers, say nothing of the general public?

There is no other dangerous tool in our society that is as unregulated as the gun. You could argue knives. You could argue chainsaws. You could argue that stuff. But these aren’t things that are used in the same way that guns are. Even cars are registered. Even cars, you have to pass a test to make sure that you can use a car without killing people. Cars are taxed. Most things are taxed. I think that treating guns like a special category is a strange thing to do.

And there are arguments. The argument against the gun registry in the gun lobby is this idea that if they get a list of all the people who have guns, they’re going to take your guns. Then they extend this to like a background check thing, which I feel is just common sense. And I understand the concern. I get it. I don’t feel the same way, but I understand where they’re coming from.

There’s got to be a way to talk about guns where people aren’t worried about that. I think one of the biggest problems is how polarized we’ve become on this subject. It’s become a left-right issue. And frankly, the gun lobby has encouraged this. It’s good for their donors, and it encourages Republicans to donate.

Now, on the other side of that coin is the anti-gun lobby. I think it’s fair to say that the nation, at least at the national level, has become desensitized to almost any mass shooting, even at schools. It’s not the same as it was perhaps 10 or certainly 20 or 30 years ago. Where has the anti-gun lobby gone wrong at this point?

Their heart is definitely in the right place. The mass shooting epidemic is horrific. It is a monstrous thing, and I think it’s a very complicated problem. And I do think that things like background checks and things like education requirements can help with that. But the fact is, we’ve had guns in this country the whole time, for better or for worse. Wherever you land on the issue, it doesn’t really matter. We are a country that has always had guns, used guns, enjoyed shooting.

And this is a recent problem. When you and I were growing up, mass shootings weren’t common. Columbine was on the front pages for weeks. And now, it would crack the news for a little while, but it wouldn’t have that reaction. Something else has gone very wrong. And I actually think that by concentrating on guns, we’re missing the real question, which is “why are kids feeling this nihilistic and this desperate?” And that’s a much harder problem to solve. There is no single law you can pass to solve that problem. But it is, I think, what we should be focusing on. And while I do understand the desire to limit guns, I understand the logic and the appeal of it, I don’t think it’s the right answer.

I live in Washington, D.C., where the police force has now been federalized. And Washington, D.C., has among the strictest gun laws of any municipality in the nation. How did that happen?

The things that led us to the federalization of police have almost nothing to do with the guns. The gun lobby would argue that it’s because there are no guns that’s why crime is rampant. I think you and I both know that crime has fallen significantly over the past year, and that the crime rate in D.C. somewhat mirrored the crime rate rise everywhere in the wake of COVID.

This is a horrific thing, and it is ironic and sad — I’m not the first person to point this out — that the people who have for decades been talking about how they need guns to oppose tyranny are silent in the face of this. And I don’t mean that I think people should be grabbing their guns and hitting the streets. That is not what I’m saying. What I am saying is that tyranny is here, and people are awful quiet.

Whether it’s in Washington, D.C., or any part of the country (be it urban, rural or in between), what would be your recommendations, your guidance, if you will, to somebody who has never owned a firearm before, but is now considering becoming a gun owner?

I think the first thing for people who are interested in getting involved in guns is to learn gun safety. Not just because it will keep people safe, but because it will make people more comfortable. And it will help them understand gun culture. The good gun culture isn’t waving a rifle around and shooting willy-nilly at bean cans. There are very strict safety rules, and you should know those for your own safety and for your own peace of mind. A good place to learn about that would be a concealed carry course. You’ll get a bunch of right-wing bullshit in there. But if you and a friend go there, you’ll learn the basics, even if you never want to carry.

Another way you can do that is to find a local range in your area. There’s going to be a gun store or a range where you can rent guns. You don’t have to buy one. A lot of them offer safety courses, and that might be a nicer way to get into it. It tends to be more friendly that way. That’s a good way to just dip your toe in the water, see how you feel about it. Even if you walk away never wanting to shoot again, you’ll at least understand what a gun is and basic gun safety. I really do think that if everybody understood gun safety, we’d have a lot fewer accidental gun deaths. We’d have a lot fewer tragedies than we do.

Anything else that you want to add or points that you want to underscore?

Yeah. I would like to say I think a lot of people don’t know the origin of gun control laws. If you look into it, regardless of whether you start in the Antebellum South or California in the ’60s when the Black Panthers were walking around with long guns, most gun control laws started to keep guns out of the hands of Black people. This did not used to be a liberal issue. This was an issue that racists pushed. And I think that in itself exemplifies why it’s a good idea to have the right to keep and bear arms.

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Dave can be found at his outstanding newsletter:

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Edited by Crystal Wang

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