April is Autism Awareness Month. Since 2008, various personalities and organizations have used the month to bring awareness and education to the general population about being "on the spectrum". Even this past April 2nd, the ever-unpredictable President Donald Trump paused to make the date "official", declaring it Autism Awareness Day here in the USA. Prior to that, there's been a growing wave of not only support for people on the autism spectrum, but acceptance as well. Many are recognizing that being on the autism spectrum isn't necessarily a handicap, but instead is just a different way of processing reality and life.
You're probably asking, "What does this have to do with the Second Amendment and guns?"
To be fair, a lot, probably...
The Tism & Guns: A Brief Primer
The crossover between the firearms scene and "the 'tism" has been usually framed with a sense of humor, sprinkled with a few grains of truth. If you've delved into the depths of conversations on X about anything gun related, the conversations do tend to get very hyperfocused and specialized. If you ever engage in person with a dedicated Second Amendment Radical, you'll experience much of the same. Much beyond mere gun-nuttery, the topic of the Second Amendment and guns is usually never far from the mind of a "firearms sperg".
And little wonder. If you think about what's involved with guns, it's a natural attractant to those who tend to have a touch of the 'tism and a tendency to hyperfocus on those special interests. A firearm represents an intricate dance of engineering, physics, chemistry, and (on the user end) biology. A given result happens when you load your handy H&K VP9 sidearm with Winchester White Box 115 Grain 9mm FMJ and press the trigger. Change that to a 124 grain 9mm NATO load, and a differing result happens. Not apparently obvious to the casual owner or user, the difference can be profound in many ways, and it tends to take a sense of hyperfocus, something rather autistic, to discern exactly what's going on and why.
Or, at the next level, when you're engaging in the pursuit of long-range shooting, the inherent deep-focus nature of the concept plays out. Do you select .308 in 168 grain or 180? A match projectile or basic full metal jacket? What are the barrel harmonics? Does your suppressor cause point of impact shift? What's the wind doing here? What's the wind doing 1000 meters downrange? A successful shot happens, and a dedicated long range shooter will want to tell you all about it, down to the last detail. Those "normies" will get lost about two minutes in, ha ha. But in the community? That conversation will go on for hours, or even longer.
Special interests, indeed.
Along those lines, the legal and the political come into play at an almost autistic level as well. The details of the insane and arcane gun control laws get those deep dives, and it truly takes a hyperfocused mind to dig out the nuances, the fallacies, and immorality of those laws. The "neurotypicals" might see background checks as "OK" since they themselves did nothing wrong, but to the hyperfocused mind, it becomes readily apparent that the whole idea is contradictory to centuries of legal jurisprudence, and would you like to hear each and every factor starting from the Magna Carta on down as evidence?
It stands to reason that firearms and the Second Amendment attract a certain way of thinking, a way of viewing the world. The brutal honesty of some of those on the spectrum is an asset in this case. A lot of people don't speak up about 2A because they're afraid of losing their "social standing". Someone on the spectrum who is comfortable with that (as it should be), has nothing to lose in this regard and will gladly tell you why an assault weapons ban is fundamentally flawed and retarded, in those exact words. It's disruptive to the routine, after all.
A fringe benefit of course is that seeing some of this actually helps shed light on the nuances of autism. Most people think autists are akin to Raymond Babbit Rain Man, when in fact for the most part, the autists are independent and able to conduct the usual round of life activities, and not be a burden on others. It may sound hokey and New-Agey, but rephrasing autism as a spectrum of behaviors has helped. The firearms scene can help as well - what is more independent than owning some firearms and securing yourself and your loved ones against all threats, foreign and domestic?
Thankfully some in the community have stepped up to acknowledge this, and promote the fact that autism should not be vilified or demonized...
2A Influencers Go To Bat For Team Tism
To be transparent, as people on the spectrum often are, the inspiration for this bit did come from Brandon Herrera. Throughout his videos and material, there's often sly references to "the spectrum" or the 'tism outright. So it's pretty appropriate that he has led the charge of Second Amendment content producers and influencers raising money for autism research, and more importantly, autism acceptance.
Sidebar - Acceptance Is Important
The right to keep and bear arms is an inherent right for all moral and just people, regardless of race, gender, religion, sexuality, financial standing, and so forth. Unfortunately, as you know if you've been reading this blog for more than 5 minutes, there's always people out there trying to ruin a good time. One of the angles of attack is the yardstick of mental health. In a sense, it does exist already as codified in law. If a court declares you mentally unsound, you are pretty much guaranteed to find your personally identifiable information placed into the NICS index, alongside real criminals such as murderers and rapists. Unless the rapist is on the public payroll of course. But anyways, it's entirely possible for an autistic person to be railroaded by the system, and have their rights forcibly suppressed, while in reality they harmed no one. All because many still consider autism to be a mental defect, a mental illness. For reference, the "Bible" of the mental health profession, the The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, aka the DSM, has been revised many times over the years, with some disorders being dropped, and others being added. Yesterday's disorder is today's norm, and vice versa.
With this in mind, it can be said that using the "mental health" yardstick for an excuse to deprive someone of their rights is rather immoral. Using the shifting sands and fads of just what constitutes a disorder isn't about safety, it's about control. To be fair, some people have mental conditions which would render them unfit to own a weapon, but that's a decision best left to their caretakers, since in reality it's a private matter. Plus, the government has proven time and time again to weaponize mental disorders in their mad quest for control. One could easily argue that the mad quest for control is the real mental disorder? Maybe we should disarm government employees...
Autism acceptance demonstrates the nature of this, in that people traditionally regarded as "limited" can and do lead highly independent and amazing lives, and have every right to keep and bear arms to defend their existence and property.
The Tism And Guns - Keep Talking About It
As more and more people go public with their diagnosis of being "on the spectrum", the more the public as a whole will realize that for the most part, autistic traits are just another way of doing things and looking at things. And with the not-so-surprising addition of Second Amendment Radicals pushing this line of thought, the whole concept of tism-as-just-another-approach will gain momentum and some very real teeth.
Autists are armed - keep talking about it.
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