This article reports on efforts by residents of Lincoln Heights, a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, to defend themselves against provocations by neo-Nazi thugs and Ku Klux Klansmen by organizing counter-mobilizations and an armed watch. Nearly 83% of the town’s approximately 3,000 residents are African American. Lincoln Heights was the first self-governing Black community to be founded north of the Mason-Dixon line, which divided the Union from the Confederate South during the U.S. civil war.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/27808013

February 28, 2025

"On February 7, about a dozen masked men, some of them carrying AR-15 semi-automatic rifles, drove a U-Haul truck to a freeway overpass at Lincoln Heights’ edge. The men, dressed in black, shouted racist slurs and waived black flags with red swastikas on them. Enraged Lincoln Heights residents soon approached to counter protest. Local police who converged on the scene from the nearby town of #Evandale, across the highway, appeared cordial toward some of the white supremacists. As the crowd of Lincoln Heights residents swelled, the ultra rightists got back on their truck and drove off. Counter protesters burned the Nazi flags left behind. "

  • 𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍@midwest.social
    24·
    4 days ago

    In glad you mentioned training. Just owning a gun doesn’t make you safer; just the opposite.

    For people who are considering their first firearm purchase, I have some advice:

    1. Take a firearm safety course. In many states, these are required before you can get a concealed carry permit, and whether you want one or not, it’s nice to have that requirement out of the way. Bonus: you’re far less likely to shoot yourself or a friend or family member by accident.
    2. Go have fun at the range! Like, actually go at least a few weeks in a row, until you are familiar with your weapon. You don’t want you be figuring it out the first time you use it, and practice really makes a big difference in how effective you are with it.
    3. When you’re at the range, ask someone to help you sight it. Gun sights are factory defaults, and probably won’t be right for you. You can be a natural perfect shot with tight grouping, and still not hit exactly where you’re aiming simply because your sights are off.
    4. Buy a trauma kit, and take a rudimentary first aid class. The place you take your safety course might offer them. It’s worth the hour or two.
    5. Have a plan for securing your weapon. Maybe you have kids. Maybe you have parties. Maybe someone breaks in, finds your gun, and either steals it or uses it against you. Just… think about it.

    Finally, consider your use case:

    • If you’re looking at home defense, look at shotguns. Rifle bullets will go through drywall like it isn’t there, and shooting one in your house, you will hit stuff in other rooms that you don’t mean to. Even handgun bullets will go through drywall. Shotguns are the best home defense weapon, and a coach gun is both wieldy and enough.
    • If you’re looking at a militia-sort of thing, look at rifles, and unless you already have a preference, at an AR in 5.56. They’re common as dirt, can be inexpensive, can be upgraded over time, and ammo is plentiful and relatively inexpensive.
    • Handguns are what everyone thinks they want, but consider this common saying: a handgun is what you have while you’re getting to your long gun. They’re really only the best option for one purpose, and that’s carrying around with you. They have less range than rifles, are less powerful, and are less accurate. They’re less good for home defense than a shotgun, and less good for fighting fascists than a rifle. They’re also far more statistically likely to be involved in an unintentional shooting than a long gun. If you’re going to own a gun, get a shotgun or rifle first. No successful insurrection is carried out with handguns - they don’t even issue them to common infantry in the Army.
    • Azal@pawb.social
      6·
      4 days ago

      All this is good advice, but adding a bit of clarification and $.02

      If you’re looking at home defense, look at shotguns. Rifle bullets will go through drywall like it isn’t there, and shooting one in your house, you will hit stuff in other rooms that you don’t mean to. Even handgun bullets will go through drywall. Shotguns are the best home defense weapon, and a coach gun is both wieldy and enough.

      Personally I’m of the opinion if you’re the type to only have one gun, a shotgun is the gun to have. Birdshot won’t go through drywall but there’s a reason Cheney shooting a guy during the Bush era was much of nothing as he was “peppered”, birdshot doesn’t have a lot of power and while it can be lethal, it has more chance to not. Buckshot can and will go through drywall, what it does different than all of the others is it doesn’t go through your neighbors wall as well, buckshot will stay relatively contained within your home.

      The good of a shotgun is it can be a multi-use gun. Dad talked about where he grew up and hunting was a regular thing, a shotgun was all that was owned due to being poor. But that shotgun was used for birds and they didn’t use buck for deer hunting but slug so they had distance. The downside of shotguns is range, you’re not as accurate at a long range away. That said, it’s not like video games where you have to be on top of whatever you’re shooting at to do damage, what I mean is slug is pretty inaccurate at a pretty long distance whereas rifles are shot with the maximum range in mind. I’ve read about Taliban when fighting the US would use larger caliber rifles and shoot outside of the AR-15’s range where the smaller bullet starts getting affected by wind resistance and take potshots. So… unless you’re planning on that level of guerilla warfare and are really good shot, this will not be to your advantage. I know a few with rifles will complain about this, but y’all are already practicing. I’m not talking to you, but the newbie who may not know. Another big downside with a shotgun is finding a range that’ll let you practice with them, it’s a real bitch to find.

      Rifles, in why they make good militia style defense in the modern era is again the range capabilities, they’re the easiest to hand someone and they’ll be marginally lethal (if you’re not ready for the kick of a 12 gauge shotgun slug it’ll be a fun time for a newbie) and the number one factor of why they are the go to for shootings, ammo capacity. Your standard AR-15 civilian chambered .223 (military is the 5.56, you can still get them in civilian but buying off the shelf .223 is default) is 30 rounds. That’s 30 bullets you can have in the air as fast as you can pull the trigger. Shotguns are much slower than this and a far far less capacity with a high capacity being 12 shells (there are others higher, but you’re specifically looking for them.)

      Now… all of this said, the BEST gun you can get is if you have a buddy who shoots on the regular and recommends. All the paper research in the world means shit if you’re trying to figure out from the ground up when you have someone who can go “Let me show you.” Same token, take to range as said above and don’t be afraid of asking questions of the people running the range. It’s easy to find someone who thinks they know what they’re doing and teach you something dangerous.

      And since this conversation is on the people who are looking at their first gun, I’ll tell you the first rule. Don’t point it at anything you don’t want destroyed, ever. The gun is a tool and like any tool it has no morality. But as a tool it is good at only one job, destruction at a range. As such there’s a constant history of people thinking they’re unloaded right until they find out through injury or death. If you treat the tool with the respect for its job, you’ll be fine. When I’m sighting at a store, I aim up away from people, when I’m at a house it’s always aimed at the ground. All these are after making sure it’s unloaded, and if I’m at home I have a device that goes into the chamber to make sure it’s not loaded. But even still, if I need to bring it up to check something, after all this I still aim at the direction where no one lives. All that can be excessive, but all it takes is one fuckup. And this attitude of respect is the same I pay to a machine press or tablesaw, or any other tool that has a label on it “Warning, this will kill you.”

      • 𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍@midwest.social
        4·
        3 days ago

        100% agree. Getting shot with rock salt is no fun, though, and the main objections of home defense is to make people want to leave. Birdshot or not, it’s the firing of the shotgun - in an enclosed space - that’s likely to dissuade home invaders.

        You’re again right about buckshot, and slugs are definitely lethal and will penetrate like a rifle. Again, you’re right about the range - although, you can get rifled shotguns which help with range, but then you don’t want to be using plain shot with them, and sabot isn’t cheap.

        We’re saying the same thing about shotguns: good for home defense, not so good for insurgency because of the range thing. OTOH, if you live in a city, and it’s all urban warfare… a shotgun is still a versatile choice.

        To add a point to your safety comment: most people who shoot themselves or their friends or family don’t mean to. Excepting suicides attempts, of course, and every one of those accidental discharges thought that knew what they were doing with the gun.

        • Azal@pawb.social
          1·
          2 hours ago

          Oh yea, it was mostly an agreement and add on.\

          Getting shot with rock salt is no fun, though

          I’ve not had to do it, but personally IMO, if you have to fire a gun due to self defense, I’m not a fan of less than lethal rounds. If things have gotten to “I need to fire a gun” it’s buckshot where I’m at. But you say firing a shotgun in enclosed space will dissuade home invaders…

          I think just the racking of a shotgun will do that. There are few sounds in the US that I think are as distinctive as a pump action shotgun being racked. Nor one that instills brownpants syndrome.