The Michigan Socialist Rifle Association promotes and advocates for the poor and working class, people of color, trans and queer people, Indigenous peoples, disabled peoples, and non-men’s rights to self and community defense. We seek to provide a safe and positive nonreactionary intersectional anti-capitalist space for the discussion of firearms and other means of self-defense. See below the Preamble to the Bylaws of the Michigan Socialist Rifle Association along with definitions for some of the important terms found in the Preamble.
- Working class: people who own no capital (factories, businesses, commercial real estate, commercial assets, etc.) who work for a wage or for subsistence
- Surplus Class: people who would be part of the working class but are unemployed due to disability, lack of available jobs, or employment discrimination
- Multi-Tendency: consisting of many revolutionary political philosophies
- Sectarianism: advocating the supremacy of one revolutionary political philosophy or method of organizing and discrediting, disregarding or disrespecting all others
- Oppression: controlling people with violence and normalizing discrimination against them
- Violence: any actions or communications intended to dehumanize people, prevent them from accessing resources or services necessary for their survival, or cause them bodily harm or mental distress
- Exploitation: taking advantage of another living being or resource for personal gain
- Intersectional: considering the impacts of political-economic policies and systems, and social norms, upon various social identities (gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality, spirituality, etc.) that are currently socially acceptable to devalue, oppress, and/or exploit
- Anti-Capitalist: political philosophies in opposition to capitalism which is an economic system that promotes the exploitation and oppression of working class people and natural resources to increase the wealth of people who own capital (factories, businesses, commercial real estate, commercial assets, etc.)
- Marginalized: people that are oppressed, exploited, or devalued by society