It’d be nice to have anarchist conversations about guns that aren’t dominated by emotional US-centered conversations about school shootings or macho glorification of armed revolution.

‘cause like, as far as I can see there’s:

1. Criminalization: Only the state has legal guns, anyone else only has guns if they’re willing to break the law.
2. Legalization: The state has guns and you can get a gun if you can get a
   license.
3. Decriminalization: Anyone can have any amount of guns they like.

Criminalization obviously works out heavily in favor of the state, but by observation, the state might also be less tempted to arm all their cops in full military gear if they know most citizens are not armed. It also means all the people with guns disrespect the state enough to break the law, which could be a really good thing?

Legalization works out heavily in favor of people who are white,
rich, without disabilities, without a criminal record, without anything else that could be stereotyped as
dangerous. So people with privilege. That’s probably not working out in our favor, right? 

Decriminalization is the least likely scenario, but it’s also difficult to say what it would mean. Would it result in widespread gun ownership and a bigger chance of armed revolution? Or would it work out mostly in favor of rich white people who are not likely to be shot by police and communities with a strong gun culture?

So which of these scenarios is actually the best for an anarchist movement that tries to take power back and knows that this is only every going to be achieved by taking power without asking for it and being willing to defend that power, but would prefer to do so without a full-on bloodbath?

Like, the answer probably depends a lot on how you think power is achieved, but it’d be nice to hear some perspectives and go beyond ‘we just gotta have a full on war’, ‘cause like, marginalized people know who is gonna be first to die and we want a revolution but we also wanna survive, ya know?