Why I’m Voting: A Gun Store Owner Faces a Difficult Choice

I mean, there’s a part of me that believes it would be business suicide to admit that I am liberal and I just happen to really love the Second Amendment. I’m an Army vet. I lived in New Hampshire my whole life. I grew up hunting and using firearms. And the conversation wasn’t about overthrowing the government or defending your home. It was, you know, shooting cans with my dad. I have a lot of liberal friends, and I sometimes don’t want to tell them that I own a gun store. The most important issues for me right now are women’s rights, reproductive rights and the economy. And I don’t think I’m the only one. I think that there are people out there who respect and believe in the Second Amendment and respect and believe in women’s rights, but we’re just drowned out by the people on the extreme ends of the spectrum, unfortunately. As of right now, I am, again, begrudgingly participating in the primary. On the conservative side, I’m seeing a lot of people who can’t even at the most basic level, denounce a person like Trump as unfit for the presidency. And on the opposite side, when I see an entire Democratic Party, and they want to back the same old candidate, that doesn’t make me feel very good about them either. I love the Second Amendment. I think it’s a necessity. But unfortunately, it’s become a very polarized issue where either you’re all in or you’re all out. And I don’t like the lack of nuance there. I’m voting because I believe that it is an American responsibility to be part of this system. The thing that gives me the biggest hope for America in general is that we get to do this every four years. My hope is that we get a new crop of people — younger, more diverse, and we get to see what America really looks like instead of the caricatures we kind of have right now. I am so excited for 2028.