#4: In the Crosshairs: Community Self-Defense
August 2025
Short film by Carol Zou, featuring Tom Nguyen from L.A. Progressive Shooters.
About this Episode
It used to be that if you were a good liberal, you hated guns.
In fact, I attended elementary school an hour away from Columbine, Colorado, when the first heavily-televised mass school shooting in U.S. history happened. I had as many reasons to dislike guns as the next person.
Over the years, I began to complicate my stance. I learned how gun control gained traction in opposition to the Black Panthers openly carrying arms for community self-defense.
And as MAGA ideology grew in the United States and January 6 right wing protestors brandished assault rifles on the U.S. capitol, I observed my progressive community asking themselves what it might mean to need to defend our lives.
Even as I softened my stance on guns, it was still challenging for me to seek out firearms training. I am a queer femme with a propensity for wearing social justice-themed tees — I’m in the minority at a gun range.
Enter Tom Nguyen from L.A. Progressive Shooters. A Vietnamese immigrant with his own complex history relating to guns, Tom pivoted at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic from working as an arts and culture promoter to working as a firearms instructor.
As January 6 right wing protestors brandished assault rifles on the U.S. capitol, I observed my progressive community asking themselves what it might mean to need to defend our lives.
Under Tom’s tutelage, I learned to shoot a gun from someone who shares my views on immigration, police violence, and Palestinian liberation. The conversation we had at the gun range—captured on film—is our latest Vital Conversation episode. I hope that this short film complicates gun culture in the United States.
Is a progressive culture shift around guns possible? Is a progressive culture shift around guns necessary? Twenty five years ago, reeling from the aftermath of the Columbine school shooting, I would not have asked myself these questions. But I am compelled to ask them now.