By Rachel Bernstein November 6, 2020

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark.– Maia Mitchell opens the trunk of her dusty maroon jeep and reveals two large gun-shaped bags. She unzips one and pulls out a long rifle with the words, “klan killer” scratched into the faded wood. Judging by the penmanship, this is an aftermarket upgrade.

“This one is really only good for taking care of vermin,” she says. Her tone is flat, making it difficult to know whether her phrasing was intentional poetic comedy or just a happy accident.

She removes a second, more severe-looking gun from its bag – the Soviet-era precursor to the AK-47; an SKS semi-automatic carbine. This one is stark black and free of any softening wooden accents to act as a cushion for gun-shy eyes. It’s the kind of weapon that wouldn’t look at all out of place slung over a solid camo-clad shoulder.

But Mitchell isn’t wearing camo. Her black t-shirt broadcasting the phrase, “protect trans kids” is loosely tucked into cornflower trousers. Fair-skinned, with bright blue eyes and cheeks rosy in the way dead writers describe of their muses’; her faded pink curls bounce lightly as she ducks into the rifle’s khaki strap.

At 21, Mitchell discusses complex social issues with the sophistication of a veteran political operative. She’s what the media would refer to as a “radical-leftist.” She’s also a gun owner, which, considering the left’s post-Civil-Rights-era-history of anti-firearm-activism, is a bit of an awkward position.

Guns belong to the right – especially in the South. Right-wing homes are made from Bibles and act primarily as armories that will one day be inherited by children with names like Gunner and Gage, while leftists spend most of their time petitioning to have the iPhone’s gun emoji replaced with a rainbow. But lately firearms are experiencing a boost in popularity and a change in patronage.

Gun sales are up in 2020 – about 66 percent since September of 2019, according to a report by the firearms research firm, Small Arms Analytics. And although gun culture is still dominated by conservatives, the growing divide between the two parties has inspired some previously gun-shy lefties to challenge that narrative by taking up arms.

There are few left-wing, pro-gun groups in the U.S., but the first LGBTQ+ inclusive group, a Washington-based group known as the Pink Pistols, has seen an increase in new members lately.

Like the Pink Pistols and other left-wing, pro-gun organizations, Mitchell is committed to helping members of marginalized communities become more familiar with firearms in a safe environment, in the hopes that both teaching them to see guns as tools for self-defense and making the public aware that they’re capable of defending themselves, will discourage hate crime.

For the past few years, her efforts toward this cause have been very literally hands-on; she regularly takes inexperienced friends out to learn how to handle and shoot guns. But between working toward her history degree and holding down a job, she doesn’t have time to be everyone’s personal mentor, so as part of her crusade to arm the vulnerable and destigmatize guns for leftists, she’s started a new project: A self-published, informational, pro-gun, mini magazine, specifically designed for the LGBTQ+ community.

This pro-gun zine isn’t the opus of a fanatic, however. Mitchell isn’t interested in glamorizing deadly weapons. Rather, she says her zine was conceived as a response to the the rising political temperature, the increase in violent threats against left-wing minorities, and the lack of queer-friendly firearm resources.

“It’s not that I love guns- I don’t,” she said. “But we all know that we’re descending into fascism, and as long as there are heavily armed people who have the explicit desire to kill people like us, we need to be able to defend ourselves.”

Mitchell is a trans woman; that’s what she means by “people like us.”  And though this kind of doom-speak about the threat of fascism is often subject to being shrugged off as the melodramatic mutterings of a zealot, her belief that marginalized communities are in danger isn’t entirely baseless.

According to reports by the Trans Equality Organization and the Human Rights Campaign, two groups campaigning for LGBTQ+ rights, the U.S. has seen a rise in hate crime and violence against LGBTQ+ communities over the past 10 years.  And within those communities, trans women living in the South are particularly vulnerable to hate crimes. *

Mitchell believes that while the divide between the left and the right has always existed, tensions have been intensified recently – that profound ideological lines are being drawn and it seems as though public discourse is being driven into dangerous territory by a president whose often offensive rhetoric emboldens or makes it more acceptable for others to vocalize disparaging beliefs.

On top of the current administration’s history of transgressions against the LGBTQ+ community, such as the implementation of a February 2017 executive order withdrawing the federal protections that allowed transgender students to use restrooms according to their gender identity, and the removal of anti-discrimination protections for transgender people within healthcare; this October, President Donald Trump passed an executive order banning anti-bias training within government institutions.

Those venerated historical documents (the Constitution, the Bill of Rights) under which practices like conversion therapy and discrimination based on sexual orientation/gender remain legal, have been failing minorities since the country was founded.

Homosexuals weren’t even allowed to serve in the military until 2010. And as the current administration continues to rollback civil rights protections, (more here) and spew dangerous rhetoric that serves to bolster racist and homophobic sentiments, Mitchell fears that marginalized communities are being forced into an increasingly dangerous position.

Zines are a worthy medium for Mitchell’s endeavor, given their history as vehicles for anarchist ideas and their close relationship with Punk music. Mitchell said growing up playing music and going to punk shows in Little Rock drastically affected the way she interpreted politics.

She considers herself an Anarcho-Syndicalist; a political philosophy rooted in Anarchism which seeks to abolish Capitalist wage systems and establish a cooperative society.

“It’s basically like a form of Anarcho-Socialism that believes the only way to reach socialism is through labor movements,” she said.

Like most Anarcho-Syndicalists, she sees the state as an oppressive force whose purpose is to protect capital, property, and privilege. She believes in a system based on direct democracy, in which people make decisions without having to go through political representatives.

People are often fearful of political movements that echo Anarchism; especially southerners – but it was Mitchell’s Arkansan upbringing that formed the basis for her radical (by Southern standards) political identity.

 

“I WAS RAISED ON NAS AND RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE SO I UNDERSTOOD HATING THE COPS.”

Four weeks earlier, at her Fayetteville home, Mitchell’s, freshly-inked, homemade “A.C.A.B.” tattoo is partially veiled by a cloud of steam as she peers into a pot of ramen she’s been babysitting.

She dumps a package of savory, neon-yellow dust into the water and stirs with one hand while the other is busy doom-scrolling through Twitter commentary on the two protestors who were murdered today at a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. It’s mostly muscle memory at this point. “Ughhhh, we’re so fucked,” she says, and sighs.

Mitchell’s dog, Bella, follows as she carries her soup into the cluttered living room. She pulls an album pressed on colored vinyl from a cardboard cover on which a grim reaper holding a pocket watch looms over a shadowy landscape of sludgy, smoke shrouded factories. The text is intentionally illegible, so it must be a metal album.

“This album just dropped, and it slaps,” she says as she delicately positions the needle over track eight. “They’re called Terminal Nation – They’re one of my favorite powerviolence bands from Little Rock.”

Powerviolence is a sub-sub-genre of metal; like if hardcore metal was punk, or like someone sped up metal music and added politically-charged punk lyrics.

“They just yell about hating fascists and Capitalism a lot,” she says between sips of broth, her pink shorts nearly disappearing against the matching velvet couch as the music blares: “Death to all fucking bootlickers.”

Growing up in Little Rock cemented Mitchell’s political identity. As the home of the first desegregated school in the U.S., Little Rock has deep connections to the Civil Rights Movement. But the city’s reputation in textbook chapters on civil rights as a pioneer in the fight for racial equality only represents a brief moment in the city’s history.

In reality, Little Rock still struggles with race relations- The Arkansas Democrat Gazette even created a series, called Deadly Force, where they report on police brutality in the Little Rock area.

As a middle-class white kid in the South, Mitchell didn’t have much personal experience with law enforcement in her childhood, but as she grew older, she began to see the cracks in the system.

“I was raised on Nas and Rage Against the Machine, so I understood hating cops in a way. But then I went from just hearing about it in music to seeing how terrible people who wore badges were to other kids at my school, and I think that has a lot to do with how I feel about everything now,” she said. “I knew a lot of people who were actually affected by police brutality.”

Attending public school in a city with a historically turbulent relationship with racism, she saw first-hand the way BIPOC students and their families were treated by law enforcement and the judicial system.

Guns were never really foreign to Mitchell; her parents weren’t ultra-conservative gun-nuts or anything, but like many kids in the South, casually shooting at homemade targets with friends was a normal activity for her.

Once at North Little Rock High School, her relationship with guns changed. While her childhood interactions with firearms had been purely recreational or hunting-related, she came to see them as necessary for some.

“I knew people who brought guns to school. Of course, I don’t think kids should have handguns but it wasn’t a safety concern for me because they weren’t planning on shooting up the school or anything. They brought them because they didn’t know what was going to happen before and after school,” she said.

 

 “THEY HAVE GUNS SO THEY DON’T GET MURDERED VERSUS THE RIGHT HAVING GUNS IN CASE THEY NEED TO MURDER.”

Being a white teenager in the city offered her a unique perspective on right wing vs. left wing gun culture as well. 

“Gun culture on the right is more dangerous. It’s an offensive culture whereas within minority or low-income communities it’s defensive. They have guns so they don’t get murdered versus the right having guns in case they need to murder,” she said. “The right doesn’t need weapons the way minorities do because law enforcement works as their personal militia, but black communities especially don’t have that. They only have themselves because the state will always protect fascists.”

Mitchell said she sees the state as an oppressive and violent force.

“Part of protecting yourself is protecting yourself from the cops. I mean, Arkansas is Nazi headquarters, and a lot of cops are involved with that stuff,” she said.

The Little Rock Police Department has had issues with misconduct and corruption. They once attempted to cover-up an applicant’s affiliations with the K.K.K., and then hired him even though he explicitly stated on his application that he’d attended a Klan meeting.

They received numerous misconduct reports against him and eventually chose to fire him after he shot and killed an unarmed, Black, 15-year-old in 2012.

According to an in-depth investigative report on the Little Rock Police Department by columnist Radley Balko for the Washington Post, that incident was just one example of the department’s habit of employing many officers with histories of domestic abuse and use of excessive force.

In August, a police officer in the area resigned after a recording of him using racist slurs was published.

Arkansas is home to several prominent white supremacist groups, so it makes sense that racism is thriving within the state’s institutions.

Northwest Arkansas, where Mitchell lives, regularly makes national and sometimes even international news for its association with the K.K.K., whose leader lives in Harrison and runs the Christian Revival Center where he and his family broadcast daily sermons preaching antisemitism and warning of the dangers of race-mixing.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there were at least nine white supremacist groups, including the Proud Boys, the Patriot Front, and the Shieldwall Network, operating in Arkansas in 2019.

 

“LIBERAL TEARS.”

On the hour-long drive from Mitchell’s home in Fayetteville to the Ozark National Forest, where we’re headed for a shooting lesson, we pass countless stock-photo-red barns, overgrown fields dotted with patinated skeletons of decomposing trucks, and shallow cow-ponds reflecting screen-saver skies. This part of Arkansas is a high school photography class fantasy-scape. We pull into a rural Walmart parking lot where we stop to pick up some ear plugs for Mitchell’s friend Flores, and her lavender “protect trans kids” bumper sticker – a miniature version of her t-shirt, stands out amongst the countless sun-bleached NRA and pro-police force “Back the Blue” decals.

She opts to stay in the vehicle while Flores shops. This Walmart doesn’t have groceries like most of the ones in Fayetteville do, but it does have a gun section.

Flores finds the packages of earplugs located behind the gun sales counter, next to a display of bullets and novelty shot glasses labeled, “liberal tears.”

Flores has lived in Arkansas long enough for rural marketing strategies to lose most of their humor, but as Mitchell steers us back to the highway, they both laugh and take turns repeating some of the more absurd phrases they see stuck on the bumpers of the vehicles on our way out of the Walmart-parking-lot-conservative-bumper-sticker-gallery.

The two met a few years ago when they were both working at Bordino’s Restaurant in Fayetteville. Though they aren’t close, when Mitchell offered to take friends out to learn to shoot, Flores took her up on it.

When we arrive at our destination, a remote corner of the Ozark National Forest, Mitchell secures a Glock into the leather holster on her hip as she leads Flores from the dirt road to a grassy clearing, where she sets her Twitter-slang aside and dons an instructor’s tone, pointing out which buttons not to press and when not to press them.

“One of the most important things to remember is that you should never put your finger on the trigger until you’re absolutely ready to squeeze it.” she explains.

It’s a sticky September afternoon and the two are ankle-deep in weeds half-wilted by lingering summer humidity, adjusting their gummy orange earplugs in anticipation.

Mitchell spends a few minutes going over preliminary firearm basics, pausing to answer Flores’ questions thoroughly. He interjects with reassuring nods and, “ah’s” while jumbling shiny gold bullets around in his hand like Chinese meditation balls, looking overwhelmed with the arsenal of new information.

She demonstrates how to hold the guns, where to aim them, and where to stand when someone else is shooting, before handing the weapons over to Flores. The direction and speed at which the shells are expelled is unique to each weapon, so we do a lot of shuffling.

Flores doesn’t own a gun, nor does he have much experience with them.

“It was like a professional lesson. I mean it wasn’t uncomfortable and strict, but it didn’t feel like a, ‘yeah, we’re badass because we’re shooting guns’ kind of thing,” he said.

Flores describes himself as a leftist and though he says he isn’t anti-gun; he also isn’t a big fan of firearms. He isn’t actively afraid of being targeted because of his race, but he said that due to the increase in racially motivated violence being reported across the country, recently, he has been feeling more uneasy.

“I’m still not ready to buy a gun, but I do feel a bit more comfortable around them.” he said.

 

“THEY DON’T LIVE LIVES THAT REALLY REQUIRE GUNS, SO THEY DON’T THINK ANYONE NEEDS THEM.”

“There’s a lot of disinformation about guns, especially on the left – a lot of liberals hate guns and I think that’s partly because they don’t live lives that really require guns, so they don’t think anyone needs them,” Mitchell said.

The lack of firearm information and resources for marginalized communities is another reason she became interested in starting this zine.

For people within marginalized communities, seeking to gain firearm experience in an arena domineered by conservative values, can be both dangerous and difficult.

“A lot of the issue with gun culture is that to find information on the stuff you need to know, you really have to grow up in it,” Mitchell said. “Most of the outlets with good info and resources are just super ‘fasch’ (fascist) and homophobic and it’s not healthy to consume things like that. I’m pretty good at ignoring all of that and it still taxes the fuck out of me, but I don’t want anyone to have to wade through what is essentially Nazi propaganda just to learn how to load a gun or whatever; so, I’m trying to breach that gate of knowledge and repurpose that information so it’s accessible and friendly to queer people.”

 

“WE LIVE IN THE GODDAMN SOUTH WHERE EVERYONE IS TOTING.”

Twenty-four-year-old Brianna Cole, Mitchell’s friend who she’s asked to design the zine, had one of her first real experiences with guns when Mitchell took her out to the National Forest for a lesson.

“A lot of people have invited me out to shoot since I moved here, but I hopped on with her because I knew that as a queer trans woman she’d understand why I wanted to learn and it wouldn’t be a power kick,” she said. “She knew why I was there and the weight of the decision that it is for me to deal with firearms, that I don’t want it, but need it.”

Cole is a reformed anti-firearm lefty and said that moving to Arkansas had a lot to do with that. “I used to be so anti-gun… But that’s because I was just taking in what I thought would help the world and not myself,” she said. “I’m a woman of color and I’m queer. I constantly feel unsafe – and yeah, we live in the Goddamn South where everyone is toting. Every LGBTQ+ person and Person Of Color is under threat but there’s more of an emphasis in the South.”

Mitchell and Cole sit side by side on the political spectrum – each what Cole considers painfully left-wing.

“I dabble in communism and leftist theory – and I say dabble because I don’t want that misinterpreted. A lot of white communists forget how black folks of POC may feel in that spectrum. We need to create our own definition,” she said.

Cole believes in the cause and fully supports Mitchell’s endeavor. She feels that it’s important work that Mitchell is absolutely the right person for.

“I feel that where she is and who she is as a trans woman, living in Arkansas, this zine is more beneficial to us as a region than it would be in a lot of bigger cities outside of the South,” she said. “But it’s not just geography or how she identifies. She is wise beyond her years and doing more work than grown adults. When I was her age, I was not having the conversations she’s having. Even if I wanted to, I just wouldn’t have been able to present them or articulate them like she can.”

In addition to buyers guides and general information, Mitchell said she’d like for her zine to include illustrated instructions on how to do things like clean and load a gun, as well as how to troubleshoot and solve common issues.

The goal is to produce something informational and useful that doesn’t just look like doctor’s office pamphlets- “a synopsis of what you need to know before you get your gun to be able to confidently walk out of the store w one knowing how to use it,” Mitchell said.

Once Mitchell is finished with research and gathering information, all of that will primarily be Cole’s territory, and she’s excited to get started.

 

“CAPITALISM IS A DEATH CULT.”

Creating literature about deadly weapons can be dangerous, and Mitchell wants to make sure she isn’t distributing anything that could be interpreted as encouraging violence.

She’s been consulting an independent anti-cult activist and researcher named Sarah Hightower, whom she met through Twitter– “I started following her because her Twitter handle was Tom Cotton Is A Waco Ass Bitch and I thought it was funny,” she said. “Most of her experience is with the Japanese death cult Aum Shinrikyo, but she’s refocused to Qanon; America’s newest death cult.”

Hightower often works with journalists and appears on podcasts as a consultant. She was recently featured on the podcast, Worst Year Ever, produced by Robert Evans, a conflict journalist who covers right-wing-extremism and who Mitchell has a lot of respect for.

“I guess they’re friends, so she offered to give him my contact info once things are further along. He’s pro-gun, but pro-sensible gun, and he has a lot of experience so it would be nice to talk to him as well about how to ensure that everything is coming out safely,” she said.

Mitchell’s commitment to precaution makes sense considering her academic background. She’s currently working on her history degree at the University of Arkansas, and once she gets her pre-recs out of the way, she hopes to focus her studies and efforts on countering violent extremism.

“I think that’s the most important work out there right now, outside of mitigating climate change – lowering the temperature and trying to make violence less mainstream and acceptable. Capitalism is a death cult and I think it’s extremely important for society to move away from being comfy with death and committing violence for no reason,” she said.

Though she generally tends to steer clear of cliches, one she fully embraces is: Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it .

“One of the things that people who study extremism often say is that it’s easier to get people out when you know how they got in,” she said.

Back at Mitchell’s home this August, her dog Bella alerts us that the day’s mail has arrived by barking incessantly for several minutes – Mitchell grabs a package from the front porch and squeals when she realizes what it is.

“It’s the combat helmet I ordered,” she laughs, half-mocking herself.

She’s been waiting for it for weeks and though she’s not necessarily expecting a physical battle, she wants to be prepared for anything (funds allowing).

Mitchell and other radical leftists take the recent amplification of denigrating voices seriously and consider fascism a real threat. At this point, with little history to consult on the matter, it’s difficult to gauge how successful arming the left will be. And although many progressives hold fast to their anti-gun stances and feel that some leftists are over-romanticizing the situation, more of the left of center crowd are arming themselves than they have in a very long time.

* It’s important to note that it’s hard to accurately report on violence against transgender people due to limitations of data and data collection methods – be it definitional limitations that can contribute to misrepresentation of the size of the transgender population, issues with crime data collection within an institution that typically refuses to recognize a person’s gender as anything other than what is stated on their original birth certificate, as well as the frequent failure to report victims as transgender by law enforcement, the media, and victims’ families.  These factors increase the likelihood of violence toward transgender people being under-reported.