I am a liberal. - powderedonuts
How do you know? What does it mean to you? Who are your friends? Does it bother you that many deserving the liberal label don't approve of your interest in guns?
My understanding of "liberal" in a modern context is liberal interpretation of the Constitution, whatever best serves the group rather than the individual. That might be federal versus state or the people versus the person. It's a position that minorities find very appealing and depends upon taking money away from one group and giving it to another.
To suppose that only "liberals" can do "the right thing" is not objective. It would seem that advocates of no one philosophical position have a monopoly on integrity or sanctimony. One that can readily be defended IMO is advocating adherence to the Constitution and its original intent, while allowing that it can be legally but not easily altered. To me that would mean that it cannot be independently legislated that individuals must have anything in common except a dedication to their Constitution as it reads and to the preservation of what it represents. Diversity under that constitutional framework is to be celebrated.
I am not aware of a viable group that proposes that and only that. If there were and that group had any influence, extra constitutional issues such as what the religious right proposes would not be on the front political burner. So called liberals oppose them, but they have their own list of constitutional offenses to advance in exchange.
I would then have an issue with legislators and courts that dishonor that Constitution. I would also find dissenting opinions of US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas very comforting and worth highlighting.
The only thing that keeps a gun in my possession as a law abiding citizen is the Second Amendment and legislators' fear of directly challenging it. It does actually help that some of them personally enjoy hunting and will only go so far. It also helps that they need my vote and those of many like minded people.
What I fear is a high court that fails to defend that amendment and related rights, or challenge other branches of government attempting to work around constitutional constraints to their power. It's a house of cards that the Supreme Court refuses to knock down, because they would have to declare prior decisions of the Court to be in error, heaven forbid. It would seem that everyone but the Court knows it was wrong in some cases and that it is wrong to allow those precedents to have supremacy over what the Constitution actually says.
When it all turns to a hopeless mess, gun ownership is simply the last line of defense for freedom. It is not merely a cool privilege, here today and gone tomorrow, that doesn't reconcile with our other political philosophies.
I actually used to consider myself libertarian but a lot of soul searching cured me of that. I am a liberal, not a democrat. Democrats are a bunch of confused puppies. 
