Here’s a reminder that the Black Panthers got started because cops kept violently busting peaceful unarmed protests. People realized that the cops would send in the jackboots to bust unarmed protests… But they would politely watch heavily armed protests from across the street. So they began arming protestors.

Turns out, firing into an unarmed crowd is super easy, but it’s not so easy when the entire crowd also has weapons. Maybe you take out a few with your initial attack, but you definitely didn’t get all of them and now they can return fire.

It’s also why republicans started modern gun control with the Mulford Act. It was (at least at the time) the most restrictive gun control law the country had ever seen. When politicians saw armed protestors on their front porch, and saw cops entirely unwilling to stop it? They got really fucking sweaty really fucking fast. Ronald Reagan (yes, the same Reagan that conservatives love to put on a pedestal as the paragon of conservative policy) enacted the gun control law to disarm protestors and give cops justification to bust armed protests. Now, instead of busting the protest directly when it’s happening, cops could wait and quietly follow the protestors home, then kick in their front doors while they were eating dinner… Sound familiar?

This pushed the armed protestors underground, and formed the Black Panthers.

Some people choose to have guns. They're not cheap, and not everyone over here is willing to kill someone else.

I don't think you are wrong, sadly :(