Liberals With Guns And Stockpiles Are "Ready To Rumble"

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A month before the 2016 US presidential election, Colin Waugh and his wife bought their first firearm.

Donald Trump’s campaign was taking an unprecedented turn, with the candidate baiting gun-rights supporters to exert their influence and suggesting that a loss in November would be evidence of a rigged system. The gun, as Waugh frames it, was a form of insurance in case American democracy dissolved into a quasi-Mad Max society, and liberals became the hunted.

When Trump won, Waugh felt “numb.” His wife was “catatonic.” They both feared for their lives. The couple, liberal Mississippians and stalwart Obama supporters, were not the primary targets of the right-wing vitriol directed primarily at Latino immigrants and Muslims during Trump’s campaign. But from Waugh’s liberal perch, seeing the new president’s supporters on the news screaming “We’ll take back our country!” and hearing similar sentiments from conservatives in his home state, even from friends, felt like a genuine threat.

“For the first time in my life, I realized my own freedom was my own responsibility,” says Waugh. “I could no longer trust Trump, or Congress, to reassure my rights and liberties would remain in place.”

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