Buying a Gun Won't Save You

Within 48 hours of the collective realization that Donald Trump will, in fact, be president again, a talking point began to emerge that gave me a pit in my stomach. 

It goes something like this: Are you a woman or a queer person or a person of color, or anything other than a straight white man worried about your safety under Trump 2.0? Buy a gun. One meme I saw said, “Men, get a vasectomy. Women, buy a gun.” Dear friends of mine said in a group chat they were thinking of getting guns, and were only kind of joking.

I am here to beg you—as I did them—to not do that. Do not buy a gun. The odds that it will keep you safe are extremely low; the odds that it will hurt you or someone you love are much, much higher. 

“Having a gun in the home increases the risk that someone in your home will die from a gunshot wound, [whether] that's suicide or homicide,” April Zeoli, a University of Michigan professor whose work focuses on gun injury prevention, told me earlier this week.

Zeoli has studied the intersection of domestic violence and guns for over two decades, and throughout her years of research, she said, “We're not seeing mass break-ins and successful, self-defensive gun use. What we are seeing are people killing themselves, [or] we're seeing intimate partner homicides.” 

The statistics don’t lie. Nearly 47,000 people—the population of a reasonably sized town—died from guns in 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (That's not to mention the roughly 115,000 people who survive shootings every year and will live with the effects of gunshot wounds for the rest of their lives.) Fifty-eight percent of those deaths (27,300 people) were suicides. Gun suicide rates are rising for women of color. Homicides decreased a bit last year, but guns remain the leading cause of death for American children and teens. 

"There are few intentionally self-inflicted firearm-related injuries seen in hospital emergency departments," the CDC says. Because "most people who use a firearm in a suicide attempt die from their injury."

Why? It’s simple. “Guns are extremely lethal. They are the most lethal type of weapon that everyday citizens can possess,” Zeoli said. “So if you are shot, there is a large chance you will die.” This seems obvious, but with so many people suddenly feeling like a firearm will keep them safe, it seems worth stating plainly—and repeatedly.

If you buy a firearm, it is also much more likely that a romantic partner will use it to harm you, whether physically or via intimidation. “Abused women are five times more likely to die if their abuser has access to a gun,” according to The Trace, a news outlet that covers gun violence and gun policy (where I worked from 2015 to 2016). 

Then there are unintentional shootings. You could accidentally shoot yourself or a loved one, especially if you have little familiarity with guns and are buying one out of fear. If you ever interact with children—let alone if you live with one—you should know the figures for how often children accidentally shoot themselves or others: Last year, 157 people (overwhelmingly kids) died from these types of shootings. 

The gun industry does not want you to know these statistics. It wants you to see a gun as a tool for protection, as a means to keep you safe. But if you think it will actually defend you against your enemies, you’re buying into the same propaganda that Newsmax-watching Capitol stormers have been mainlining for years.

Smith & Wesson and Glock and all the other gun manufacturers have premised their messaging on a commercialized version of the racist "great replacement theory" convincing mostly conservative, mostly white Americans that “illegals” are crossing the border to ruin their way of life. A 2022 report from the House Oversight Committee examining gun makers’ advertising tactics following the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, concluded, “The firearm industry has been marketing directly and indirectly to white supremacist and extremist organizations for years, playing on fears of government repression against gun owners and fomenting racial tensions.” 

You buying a gun because you’re scared that hoards of Trump voters will ruin the way you live your life? That’s the exact same argument, just with different specifics. 

Plus, if you buy a gun, and ammo, and start going to the shooting range for target practice, all the money you’re spending (likely into the thousands of dollars, all told) fills the coffers of the NRA and even more rightwing lobbying organizations like Gun Owners of America. (And if you're thinking, I can watch some YouTube videos, I wouldn't need to go to the shooting range, you are fooling yourself; if you ever were to attempt to use your gun in self-defense without practice, you would absolutely fail. Though statistically, you’d also fail even with a lot of practice.) Those organizations then funnel your money right back to the very political organization that’s made you afraid for your safety in the first place: In 2024, the NRA spent $11 million getting Trump and Republicans elected; in 2016, it spent over $52 million on putting Trump in the White House for the first time.

There are countless other reasons why you shouldn’t buy a gun. (For one, law enforcement recovers thousands of stolen guns at violent crime scenes every year, and firearms that once belonged to first-time gun buyers are more likely to be lost or stolen and then used in crimes, according to The Trace. If you bought a gun and it was stolen, you’d never know if it was used in a crime, and if that crime left someone else severely injured or dead.) But I have to stop somewhere. So I’ll leave you with Zeoli’s overarching takeaway from her years of research, which, she said, sounds “extremely simplistic, but it is true: If there isn't a gun, no one can be shot.”

I know I am laying it on thick. I know I just sound like some anti-gun lefty. And fair enough, that’s what I am! But it’s what I am because I value human life, and because I hate the monsters whose pockets are lined with every gun sale, who literally profit off the death and injury of tens of thousands of people each year. It makes me fucking sick; I don’t want you to be a pawn in their game. And I really, really want you to live.