By Dave Workman
While recent reports say Democrats seem to wonder why they’re not attracting more male voters—especially younger ones—a national gun rights organization has offered an explanation the party either hasn’t considered or may be too stubborn to acknowledge.
Stop attacking the Second Amendment.
The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms did not pull any punches when it noted that a large number of male voters are gun owners who are fed up with having their rights trampled.
CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb put it bluntly: “They are tired of being penalized for crimes they didn’t commit, and being threatened with even more restrictions simply because they choose to exercise their Second Amendment rights.”
Reuters reported recently that the Democratic Party “has made no secret of the need to reconnect with young male voters, a demographic that drifted toward Republican Donald Trump in the last U.S. presidential election and will be key in the 2026 midterms.”
While Reuters portrayed the party struggling to “land on a central strategy” to appeal to those male voters, who shifted their preferences to Trump and Republicans, CCRKBA’s Gottlieb shakes his head and points to one strategy the increasingly-left-leaning Democrats seem unwilling to embrace.
“Male voters are not going to give up their rights just to make Democrats feel good about themselves,” Gottlieb stated. “They are not going to make friends with a party whose agenda includes trampling on their personal liberty, and that includes owning firearms.”
Writing at MS.Now, political writer Michael Cohen pointed to polling data from the past four presidential elections which he labeled as “straightforward.”
“Support for Democrats among male voters dropped most dramatically when the party’s presidential candidate was a woman — and rebounded when the party nominated a man,” Cohen noted.
Perhaps amplifying that observation, Gottlieb stated, “Male voters will not support a political party which does not wholeheartedly support their rights, and that especially applies to their Second Amendment rights. If Democrats want to make male voters feel welcome, stop making them feel like criminals.”
While the New York Times digs into an analysis of the Democrats’ problem, revealing how researcher Anat Shenker-Osorio approached the problem by looking at “around 250 focus groups,” asking them to
“compare America’s two major parties to animals,” she reportedly saw some patterns emerge.
“Republicans are seen as ‘apex predators,’ like lions, tigers and sharks — beasts that take what they want when they want it,” she reportedly determined.
Whether it is productive to liken political parties—and by default, male voters—to predatory animals, the CCRKBA explanation is simpler and may be more on point.
“Young male voters don’t respond well to complaints about their so-called ‘toxic masculinity,’ either,” Gottlieb said. “They won’t support a party which treats them and their rights with contempt and hostility, and let’s face it, in its shift farther to the political left, the Democrat party has been doing all of these things with a degree of arrogance and disrespect that seems deliberately designed to alienate, rather than invite, the very people the party wants to attract.”
Gottlieb has watched as Democrats—and only Democrats—have pushed legislation forcing gun owners and would-be gun buyers, to take training courses in order to get permits-to-purchase from the government, such as state police agencies. But, he explained, rights do not work that way,
“Democrats seem to forget that exercising the right to own a gun does not require getting permission from the government,” he observed. “Rights are not subject to expensive training requirements, waiting periods or other nonsensical restrictions, including limits on the number of guns someone may purchase during a single month. These are restrictions which turn a right into a government-regulated privilege, and if you want to attract men back to the party, stop treating them like second-class citizens.”
Cohen might also have a point when he observes, “As uncomfortable as it might be to acknowledge, the Democrats’ problem with male voters might be solved with the simplest, albeit most reactionary of solutions. Nominate a man for president in 2028.”
Or maybe find a suitable female candidate who isn’t keen on erasing the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights.
As Gottlieb summed it up, “Male voters will not support a political party which does not wholeheartedly support their rights, and that especially applies to their Second Amendment rights. If Democrats want to make male voters feel welcome, stop making them feel like criminals.”
Workman is editor-in-chief at TheGunMag.com
