The pro-gun case liberals don’t want to hear

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Tyler Austin Harper didn’t set out to become a culture warrior.

He trained as a scholar. His PhD was in comparative literature. He has written widely about the history of human extinction, the crisis in higher education, and, apparently, high-maintenance carbon-steel knives. For a while, he taught environmental studies at Bates College, working at the intersection of literature, science, and climate.

Now a staff writer at The Atlantic, Harper has offered some of the more unpredictable — and provocative — arguments on recent politics and culture. Although he sits on the left, he hasn’t been shy about critiquing his own side — and even embracing views typically associated with the right.

Exhibit A: his recent piece on why Minneapolis should be a “Second Amendment wake-up call,” an argument for why liberals should take gun rights seriously if they truly believe their own warnings about creeping authoritarianism. 

I invited Harper on The Gray Area to talk about the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis and why he thinks many on the left are thinking about guns in the wrong way. As always, there’s much more in the full podcast, which drops every Monday, so listen to and follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever you find podcasts. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You wrote a piece about Alex Pretti, an American citizen, who was shot and killed in the back on the street by an ICE agent. I’m not going to try to summarize your piece. But you came at it from a pretty unique angle. What was the argument you made? And why did you feel like you needed to say it?

I’d been telling friends and colleagues for a week or two before the shooting that I was worried this exact thing was going to happen. It seemed inevitable that we were going to see a killing stemming from someone legally exercising the right to carry.

I live in Maine. ICE had come to Maine. Not in the numbers we saw in Minneapolis, but they were ramping up. And what I was watching unfold in Minneapolis did not inspire confidence.

They were stopping people on the street solely based on how they looked. Detaining Native Americans because they didn’t have passports on them. Pushing people to the ground. Grabbing people. The pattern looked chaotic and amateurish. This did not look like a disciplined, well-trained law enforcement operation.

And I didn’t trust at all that they were even familiar with the gun laws in the states they were operating in — whether Minnesota or Maine — both of which have relatively permissive Second Amendment protections. 

When I said that to friends, some of them thought I was just being paranoid, like I was the resident gun guy overreacting. But then that’s essentially what happened.

So why did you feel personally compelled to speak up?

Because I conceal carry. And I don’t usually talk about that publicly. The whole point of concealed carry is that it’s concealed. You don’t make it part of your persona. You don’t perform it.

I come from a family of gun owners. I’ve owned guns since I was 12. I shoot regularly. But carrying daily is something I started doing more recently. In this case, though, it felt important to say something as someone who actually does carry. 

Pretti was legally carrying. He was disarmed, thrown to the ground, pepper-sprayed for trying to help a woman to her feet, and then shot in the back 10 times.

And one thing that gets lost in a lot of the debate is what happens after the first shots.

People fixate on the beginning. Did someone yell “gun”? Did an agent panic? Even if you grant panic for the first shots, that doesn’t explain what happens next.

If you watch the video, after he’s shot multiple times, the agents move backward. They create distance. He’s down. He’s not advancing. And then one or two of them continue firing into his motionless body. That’s not split-second panic. Ten rounds over five seconds sounds quick if you don’t shoot. But if you do shoot, you know five seconds is a long time. 

How long have you been carrying?

About 18 months. I’ve been a “gun guy” for much longer than that. I grew up around guns. I’ve always owned guns for home protection. But Maine is a safe state. I didn’t feel compelled to carry every day until I started receiving more threats.

Your piece framed this as a wake-up call for the Second Amendment. What did you mean by that?

That the Second Amendment is not just for one demographic or one political party.

Democrats, both strategically and culturally, have not taken it seriously enough. I have a lot of problems with the NRA, but I do agree with their core claim that the Second Amendment is fundamentally about preventing government tyranny.

It’s not primarily about hunting. It’s not primarily about home defense. It’s about ensuring that citizens retain some capacity to resist state overreach.

So when liberals insist we are sliding toward authoritarianism, or that democracy is blinking red, and then simultaneously advocate disarming civilians in the states they control, I find that inconsistent. And what’s revealing is the administration’s response. Suddenly they’re talking like caricature gun-control liberals. Referring to a standard Sig 320 as a “military-style pistol.” Acting as if carrying extra magazines is evidence of terrorist intent.

Many people carry a spare magazine because magazines are one of the most common failure points. That’s just prudence. That’s not extremism.

So this is a wake-up call in two directions. Liberals should reconsider their reflexive hostility to civilian gun ownership. And conservatives should notice that the current administration’s supposed pro-gun stance evaporates the moment guns are in the “wrong” hands.

The hypocrisy has been staggering. The same ecosystem that celebrated armed militia guys occupying a state capitol suddenly acts horrified at an armed protester. 

I’d draw a distinction.

The influencer class and the administration are absolutely hypocritical. But many conservative gun owners have been principled about this. I’ve seen plenty say that I disagree with Pretti politically, but he had the right to carry.

There’s also a longstanding anti-federal strain in gun culture. People who grew up hearing about Ruby Ridge, Waco, federal overreach. That predates Trump. So for many in the gun community, this isn’t just partisan hypocrisy. It’s confirmation of an old suspicion.

Why did guns become so right-coded in the first place? There’s nothing inherent in the Second Amendment that makes it conservative.

It’s demographic drift.

The Democratic Party is now more urban, more professional-class, more highly educated. Gun ownership skews more rural and more working-class.

That shift in party base affects cultural attitudes. It’s less that the Second Amendment became conservative in essence and more that gun ownership increasingly aligned with communities that felt culturally alienated from the Democratic Party.

So gun politics became a proxy for broader cultural divides.

Do you think this could shift anything on the left?

At the grassroots level, maybe.

I’ve had friends who never thought about guns ask me to take them shooting, ask what they should buy. People are scared. When you see armed federal agents acting lawlessly, abstract arguments become concrete.

That changes the conversation.

Do you buy the idea that we’re sliding toward authoritarianism?

Yes, with nuance.

There’s a difference between Trump as a person and Trumpism as a movement. There’s a difference between Trump voters and ideological true believers.

Is Trump himself a fascist? I don’t think so. I think he’s a grifter. His core motivations are money, ego, and power as spectacle. That doesn’t make him benign, but it makes him opportunistic rather than doctrinal.

But elements of MAGA are authoritarian. That’s undeniable. You see it in rhetoric, in the symbolism, in the flirtation with repression. The danger is that serious ideologues can use Trump as a vehicle because he doesn’t care as long as it serves him.

That’s what makes him so vexing. If he’s a fascist, it’s almost by accident. He’s not sitting there reading Carl Schmitt. But the Stephen Millers of the world are deadly serious.

Exactly. And that’s the tension.

So if you had to make the pro-Second Amendment case to a skeptical lefty who hates guns and gun culture, what’s your pitch?

First, we’re not starting from a blank slate. American gun culture is deeply entrenched. You’re not going to unwind centuries of it with a federal ban. That’s a fantasy.

Second, if you genuinely believe there is a meaningful risk of authoritarian drift — even 10 or 15 percent — that’s not trivial. That’s a real probability.

So under those conditions, would you rather be armed or unarmed? If the answer is armed, then at minimum you should respect the legitimacy of civilian gun ownership. I’m not saying everyone needs to buy a gun. But there’s a contradiction between insisting we’re on the brink of authoritarianism and insisting civilians must be disarmed.

And what would you say to the gun-curious liberal?

Go to a range. Take a lesson. Most gun shops are not the caricature you imagine. Gun culture skews conservative, yes. But it’s more diverse than you think. You’ll see all kinds of people there.

Even if you leave thinking, I hate this and I never want to do it again, at least your position will be informed by experience rather than abstraction. And that alone improves the quality of the debate.

Listen to the rest of the conversation and be sure to follow The Gray Area on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever you listen to podcasts.