TDC

Armed Defense of Our Movement and Ourselves:

Why I decided to take a TDC Class

By Claudia of Kent ABCF

"It is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks. It is legal and lawful to own a shotgun or a rifle. We believe in obeying the law." - Malcolm X, March 12, 1964

"The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He, who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself, and what he possesses; else he lives precariously, and at discretion." - Andrew Fletcher, 1655.

As a queer woman and a revolutionary the idea of armed self-defense had been floating around in my mind for some time now. At the same time a strong fear of guns had also been shoving that idea down into the far reaches of my mind. However, as I heard more and mores stories of activists being attacked and framed by the police, friends of mine being raped, unarmed black men being murdered by those who are supposed to "protect us", the idea started to resurface. Finally, with the help of many friends who encouraged me to learn armed self-defense, I decided to overcome my fears and learn how to use a gun.

Nonetheless, this decision only sparked more questions, rather than providing me with an easy answer. I began contemplating all the reasons why I would need to learn how to use a gun. First of all, as a woman in this society, I know I am very susceptible to attack and I wanted to learn how to better defend myself. Secondly, I am even more vulnerable because I am a queer woman with many queer friends. These reasons were most certainly enough to prompt me to learn how to use a gun.

However, through this thought process I began to realize that I am not just vulnerable to attack because I am a queer woman, I am also vulnerable to attack because I am a revolutionary. Of course I had heard the stories of the attacks on revolutionaries, from the FBI COINTELPRO programs against the Black Panther Party, The American Indian Movement, Students for a Democratic Society and many others, to the two Anti-Racist Action activists who were murdered in the desert by skinheads a couple years back. But I hadn't considered that these things could happen to me until I started to seriously think about self-defense and learning how to use a gun. Unfortunately, I came to the conclusion that anyone (including myself and my friends and comrades) who calls her/himself a revolutionary, who fights fascism, white supremacy, patriarchy and the whole system of capitalism, is very vulnerable to attack from those who want to stop us.

This all scared me very much, but rather than paralyze me, this fear drove me to sign up for my first self-defense gun class. I decided to take Jacksonville Tactical Defense Caucus's Heavy Duty Pistol class. Signing up was easy, but actually building up the courage to go was much harder. But the fear of my sisters, my brothers, my comrades and myself possibly being attacked helped me build up the courage to go to the class.

During the first ten minutes of the class I realized two things that made me very uneasy. One, I was the only woman in the class. Two, I was the only person in the class that had never used a gun. As the class began, the instructors might as well have been speaking French for all I understood them. This only increased my unease. They began talking about magazines (which, up until that point, I had thought were things you read in doctor's offices) and slide releases and all kinds of things that I had never heard of before. And as I was listening to them, I was amazed at how much more complicated guns were than I had thought.

Then we began to learn about how to actually use a gun. For example, we had to learn how to properly hold the gun, how to stand, and how to pull the trigger. I was surprised at how much went into shooting a gun; it was much more intricate than cop shows on television made it look.

What most impressed me was that throughout the classroom session, even though we were learning various gun skills and techniques, what was stressed above all else was safety. After all, what was the use in learning to defend yourself if you are endangering yourself or others by not following the four main safety rules?

As the classroom session ended, it was time to go out to the range and test out what we had learned. Having never shot a gun before, this terrified me. Every step I walked towards the range sent panic through me. What if I shot off my foot, what if I dropped the gun, what if I accidentally squeezed the trigger and shot someone… These thoughts raced through my mind as I realized the power a gun had, the power of life and death.

By the time we had reached the range and it was my turn to shoot, I felt as if I was no longer made of bone and blood but pure jelly. Luckily, everyone was sensitive to my fear and my unique position as the only woman there and the only one who had never shot a gun. Realizing this, one of the instructors pulled me aside and worked with me individually and coached me on what to do. This helped build my courage, and finally I worked up the guts to shoot the gun. I held it up, set my sights on the targets, squeezed the trigger and anticipated the explosion that would proceed with great fear. However, when the gun actually fired, I was surprised and thought to myself that was it? After that first shot, I still had some anxiety, but it greatly diminished with each shot I took. Luckily, one of the instructors stayed with me the whole time and helped me work on my stance, my grip on the gun, my sight alignment, everything! I couldn't believe this was actually me! I was firing a gun and actually hitting the target! Before I knew it the day had flown by and it was close to dusk. The class was almost over, but there was one last exercise left to truly test our skills. However, you'll have to take the class to find out what it was, if I told you I would ruin the surprise.

With the day now over, I walked away from the class with a greater sense of confidence and security. A much different feeling than I had entered the class with.

That was six months ago and I have now completed my second Jax Tactical Defense Caucus Heavy Duty Pistol class. The second time around was very different than the first time for many reasons. First of all, this time half of the class was comprised of women. Secondly, many of the people in this class had little to no experience with guns. Thirdly, this class was much more crowded and actually overbooked. This helped me feel much more confident in myself and much less intimidated. It also made me realize just how important these classes are.

The overcrowded TDC class demonstrated to me that there is a real void in the revolutionary Anarchist movement that these classes are filling. It seems that many revolutionaries have asked themselves the same questions I did and have come to the same conclusion: it is time that we learn how to defend our movement and ourselves! Unfortunately, some anarchists' strict devotion to pacifism has allowed this void to develop in the anarchist movement, and the Jax TDC gun class is only beginning to fill this void. However, Jax TDC is only comprised of two people and they cannot give nearly enough classes to satisfy our growing movement. That is why we as revolutionaries need to learn how to use firearms, how to be safe and responsible with them and then we need to share our skills with other revolutionaries. Unless we are prepared to defend ourselves and defend this movement it will crumble and fall when it is attacked, and trust me it is being and will continue to be attacked! We must learn to defend ourselves and defend the struggle for liberty and justice so that someday we will have a world free from oppression, tyranny and capitalism!