Ms. Kolanowski, a 28-year-old epidemiologist in Iowa, had once believed that no one needed to own a gun.
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, Ms. 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.
Meet the Newest Gun Owners
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 researchers found that among people who purchased their first gun between 2019 and 2021, 20 percent were Black, 20 percent were Hispanic and approximately half were women.
Behind the data, the stories of individual Americans who have bought guns in the past five years offer clues about how the country is changing — as the definitions of liberal and conservative evolve, and angst about our divisions runs high.
The Forces at Play
A World on Fire, a Gun at the Ready
Above all, new gun owners said, they are motivated by a need to feel prepared for anything, in a world that feels to them less stable.
The last two decades have seen rapid growth in the share of people who cite self-protection as their primary reason for buying firearms; they now comprise more than 70 percent of all gun buyers.
For some, intensified concerns about personal safety have dispelled a lifelong aversion to guns.
Anna Kolanowski
“It’s been a perspective shift for me.”
The fear that motivated Ms. Kolanowski, who describes her politics as leftist, also drives gun owners on the other side of the political spectrum.
Mr. Alvarado, 30, a service technician and political conservative in southern Maine, said he started 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.”
Mr. 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, Mr. Alvarado lost faith in the government and reconsidered his own politics.
He started attending a conservative Baptist church with his wife and reading the Bible. (His pastor faced public condemnation for defying pandemic health policies.) Mr. Alvarado, who first purchased a gun in 2020, soon began to see arming himself as a way to defend his beliefs and his family’s desire to live as they wished.
John Alvarado
“When I first made my purchase, I was a lot more left leaning.”
He now owns six guns and serves on the security team at his church, patrolling the building during worship services.
Dr. Green, Mr. Tsien and Ms. Kolanowski, all Democrats, said that Mr. Trump’s first term had factored into 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 Dr. Green, 70, a retired Navy dentist and physiologist who lives in California. He bought his first firearm, a Smith and Wesson 9-millimeter 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, Va., had raised swastikas and chanted, “Jews will not replace us.”
The specter of the Holocaust loomed over his decision to arm himself.
Dr. Ken Green
“We were virtually the only Jewish family in our neighborhood.”
“If Trump hadn’t been elected” in 2016, Dr. Green said, “I probably would not be a gun owner today.”
Mr. 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 Dr. Green, Mr. 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.
Long before Mr. Trump rose to power, Mr. Tsien said he had been taught that a safe and stable society could fall apart at any time — and that owning guns might prove necessary.
John Tsien
“What makes it necessary to own a firearm?”
Trends in gun sales have long been shaped by social and political upheaval, often soaring after mass shootings and national elections.
Even some who are driven to buy firearms simply to protect themselves against crime have felt more of a need for self-protection in the current political climate.
For Ms. Alston, a 30-year-old Black woman who works in banking in Little Rock, Ark., 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.”
Victoria Alston
“There’s so many women getting attacked.”
In 2022, she was rattled by an overnight theft on her rural property. Ms. Alston bought a Canik 9-millimeter 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.”
Navigating Risk and Criticism
On a steaming hot Sunday last summer in southern Maine, Mr. 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,” Mr. Alvarado said, he had found his here.
John Alvarado
“We’re here for a reason. I’m here for a reason.”
Some have found the evolution to be 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, Mr. Tsien had to negotiate the terms with his wife, Sarah McLean. She felt deeply uneasy about him storing his guns at home, even unloaded, in a locked safe.
“I don’t fully understand it, and I’m a little uncomfortable with it,” Ms. McLean said. “But it’s important to him, and I trust him.”
When one of their children needed mental health treatment, Mr. Tsien took extra precautions.
“Everything went in the attic,” he said of that time. “If there is any question, the guns go away.”
John Tsien
“I immediately put everything in the attic.”
In Little Rock, Ms. Alston’s mother knows she has a gun, and is supportive. But Ms. 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 Ms. 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.
She minimizes her interactions with others there, she said, and presents herself in an androgynous way, to feel safe.
With her parents — Polish immigrants, and longtime gun owners, who were not completely comfortable with her gender transition — Ms. Kolanowski’s new hobby has provided a bonding opportunity.
“It’s kind of cute, like, ‘We have something in common!’” she said.
Purpose and Pleasure in a New Pursuit
Ms. Kolanowski and the other new 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.
Several described a profound enjoyment of a pastime they never dreamed would be so satisfying.
Though he dislikes the macho energy that he sees pervading gun culture, Mr. Tsien says he has found shooting to be a deeply meditative, calming pursuit.
He likens the hobby to others he has embraced in the past, like photography and scuba diving, where part of the appeal is mastering a complicated tool and understanding how it works.
The Joy of Shooting
For Ms. Alston, the connection with other Black women at her shooting range felt energizing and empowering: “We’re finally becoming less afraid,” she said.
Likewise, Dr. Green sees his gun ownership as a way of defending his Jewish identity.
“One of the reasons the Holocaust happened is because people allowed it to happen,” he said. “Not on my watch.”
Several said they looked for opportunities to talk about their decisions, even with those who were skeptical, in hopes of promoting dialogue and understanding.
In Mr. Alvarado’s church in Maine last summer, he sat by a door in the back, keeping watch. His role on the security team is “where I fit in,” he said. “It feels purposeful, and it feels good to have a purpose.”