Ken Green’s tipping point came as he watched an angry mob storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

John Alvarado’s came during the COVID-19 pandemic, as he evolved from a self-described “bleeding-heart liberal” to a deeply religious conservative.

A spike in anti-Asian violence in that same period is what motivated John Tsien.

For Victoria Alston, it was living on her own again after separating from her husband.

And for Anna Kolanowski, the tipping point came as she walked to a bar one night to meet friends.

Kolanowski, a 28-year-old epidemiologist in Iowa, had once believed that no one needed to own a gun.

Kolanowski Buys Glock 43X After Coming Out

But when she came out as transgender in 2021, and began transitioning from male to female, she had a realization: “I’m a minority now, in a world that is pretty hostile to that minority.”

In 2022, Kolanowski bought a Glock 43X handgun and started learning how to use it.

In hours of conversations with New York Times journalists, these five Americans shared deeply individual reasons for their leaps into gun ownership. But there were also common threads: new fears about political violence and hate crimes, and a diminished trust in law enforcement.

Most said they had been surprised by how much they enjoyed learning to shoot, and improving their skills.

While a majority of gun owners are white, conservative, male and from rural areas, some surveys have detected an uptick in those who are not. One by Harvard University researchers found that among people who purchased their first gun between 2019 and 2021, 20% were Black, 20% were Hispanic and approximately half were women.

The fear that motivated Kolanowski, who describes her politics as leftist, also drives gun owners on the other side of the political spectrum.

Another Buys Gun Because of Perceived Threat

Alvarado, 30, a service technician and political conservative in southern Maine, said he began buying guns in part because he perceived a threat to stable society, and to his own family, from shifting social norms and practices.

“Morality is all over the place,” he said, “and because my viewpoints are more traditional, it puts a target on my back.”

Alvarado, who is Black and Latino, said he became a staunch conservative during the pandemic, after years as a liberal voter. As he watched mask and vaccine mandates multiply in 2020, and neighbors turning against those who did not comply, Alvarado lost faith in the government and reconsidered his own politics.

Green, Tsien and Kolanowski, all Democrats, said that President Donald Trump’s first term had factored in to their decisions to buy their first guns; they saw those years as destabilizing the country and normalizing intolerance.

The attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters in January 2021 was the final straw for Green, 70, a retired Navy dentist and physiologist who lives in California. He bought his first firearm, a Smith & Wesson 9-mm handgun, the next month.

His journey toward gun ownership had begun a few years earlier, in 2017, when he learned that white nationalists at a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, had raised swastikas and chanted, “Jews will not replace us.”

The specter of the Holocaust loomed over his decision to arm himself.

“If Trump hadn’t been elected” in 2016, Green said, “I probably would not be a gun owner today.”

Tsien Buys Gun After Violence Against Asians Spiked

Tsien, a father of three young children who recently moved from New Jersey to Massachusetts, bought his first gun, a Ruger .22-caliber pistol, after hate speech and violence against Asians spiked in the early weeks of the pandemic.

Like Green, Tsien, 47, was haunted by history. His Chinese parents and grandparents experienced life-altering trauma and loss during decades of war in their homeland, and their stories permeated his upbringing.

For Alston, a 30-year-old Black woman who works in banking in Little Rock, Arkansas, the desire to own a gun arose after her separation. And her race made her feel particularly vulnerable, she said: “Black women are the least protected and the least respected.”

In 2022, she was rattled by an overnight theft on her rural property. Alston bought a Canik 9-mm pistol and signed up for training at a gun range managed by another Black woman.

Her intent, like that of other women at the range, was not to “look cute,” she said. “We don’t want to always have to look for a man to protect us.”

On a steaming hot day last summer in southern Maine, Alvarado circulated a collection plate at Calvary Baptist Church.

He wore a suit and a gold tie clip that read, “I love Jesus and guns.” A PSA Dagger handgun was holstered at his waist. A small microphone tucked into his ear linked him to the rest of the church security team.

After years of seeking “a reason,” Alvarado said, he had found his here.

Others have found their evolution into gun owners has been fraught. Several said they had to work through concerns about mental health and suicide when considering whether to have guns in the house. Suicides have long accounted for a majority of gun deaths in the United States; experts say one reason is the number of firearms. The country is the only one in the world where civilian guns outnumber people.

Before buying a gun, Tsien had to negotiate the terms with his wife, Sarah McLean. She felt deeply uneasy about his storing his guns at home, even unloaded, in a locked safe.

In Little Rock, Alston’s mother knows she has a gun, and is supportive. But Alston is not sure whether her father, who talked her out of buying a gun when she was younger, is aware.

“Would he see me differently?” she said. “I had to work through that.”

For Kolanowski, the decision to take up shooting while transitioning has brought new anxieties. She worries that she may be unwelcome or harassed if people at the shooting range where she practices become aware that she is transgender.

Kolanowski and the other new gun owners said they had expected to feel more confident and self-reliant after buying guns. Less expected, they said, were the new friends they made, and the uplifting sense of having bridged a societal divide.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Jenna Russell, Emily Rhyne and Noah Throop/Christopher Lee
c. 2025 The New York Times Company