The left isn’t who made him a cause célèbre. That was the right wing media. He wasn’t interviewed by fucking Jacobin or whatever. He was interviewed on Fox News. And he didn’t “defend” himself unless you ignore everything that happened leading up to the killings. He got driven across state lines with a AR-style rifle “to protect businesses” like a dumbass.
I want medical reforms as much as you, believe me, but I also want a dumbass exception to self-defense laws. If you arm yourself and appoint yourself a vigilante, you are no longer acting in self defense. You are an untrained dumbass creating the conditions for violence. It’s like showing up to an Alabama - LSU game and going into the LSU student section in a Bama jersey. If you get a beer thrown at you and it ends in a brawl, nothing you do is self defense. It’s your own dumbass fault.