The War Against Gun Owners
By Abigail Kohn

Since the 1970s, the American print media has pursued an all-out war against gun owners. Mainline media often present "gun nuts" as either sick or laughable. A columnist for a major West Coast newspaper recently described a women's organization formed to support gun-ownership rights as peopled by "bored, undereducated, bitter, terrified, badly dressed, pasty, hate-spewin' suburban white women from lost Midwestern towns."

 

Yet most of the conventional wisdom regarding guns and gun owners, I have learned, is either overly simplified or wrong. Criminologists have been pointing out for years that citizens regularly use guns effectively to thwart crime. And gun control, where implemented, has hardly turned out to be the panacea that liberals insist it is.

 

But guns obviously have tremendous meaning in American society, quite apart from their practical role in debates about crime. Why are many Americans so attached to their guns? Alas, this is almost completely unexplored territory.

 

In the fall of 1997, as a graduate student at the University of California, I set out to conduct an anthropological study of gun enthusiasm. To collect data, I used the traditional anthropological method of participant observation--basically, joining the group in question, making friends with its members, observing and participating in its events, and engaging in group activities with the community. For 14 months, I spent time at shooting ranges, gun shops, and shooting competitions. I conducted in-depth interviews with male and female gun owners. I asked what guns symbolized for them.

 

These "shooters" told me that guns symbolize core American values: freedom, independence, individualism, and equality. They believe these values embodied in gun ownership are vibrantly alive, yet deeply threatened, in the contemporary United States. Shooters view competence with firearms as a central aspect of both individual responsibility and national identity, and they see attacks on gun ownership as attacks not only on themselves, but on their way of life.

 

Individual gun ownership as a root of political freedom

 

Freedom is the most frequently discussed and strongly held value of shooters. They view the American Creed as built on liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism, and laissez-faire capitalism. Freedom, both political and social, is generally thought of as freedom from the demands of others, the ability of responsible persons to be whatever they want and act as they choose.

 

Shooters understand gun ownership to be a key aspect of citizenship under a democratic government. They make many historical references to firearms as symbols and instruments of freedom. Guns guarantee freedom in the most literal sense: They were used by everyday citizens to fight and win our initial war of independence, and they are a guarantor of individual liberty in the future.

 

Shooters note that many socialist and fascist governments did not permit firearms to be owned by the general populace, and suggest this kind of gun control exists because dispersed gun ownership can threaten tyranny through citizens' revolt. They see gun ownership as a hallmark of living in a country that is indeed governed by its citizens.

 

Shooters sometimes allude to the idea that by honing their marksmanship and arming themselves in a responsible way they are carrying on an honorable and noble tradition. They view guns as an integral part of defeating political oppression, and they consider their activities today to be a direct continuation of the ways early Americans defended themselves and their country in generations past.

 

Personal safety and respect--you never know who's packing

 

Another core American value shooters hold dear is individualism. For many shooters, private gun ownership serves as a way of underlining the primacy of the individual and his or her ability to be independent. A gun owner doesn't have to rely on any person, institution, or community to protect his fundamental equality.

 

To "pack" a gun on your person, or in your home, is to determine your own fate, ensuring not only your own safety but also preserving personal respect. At one organized shoot I heard a discussion in which someone mentioned he had learned that "midget tossing" had become a pub sport in England. Another shooter crossed his arms, shook his head, and stated definitively, "Well, if he's packing, you'd better ask his permission first." There was a murmur of agreement.

 

Many of the shooters I interviewed and interacted with spoke of not wanting to rely on the police to feel, or to actually be, protected in their home or community. Rarely do these shooters actively mistrust or lack respect for the police--far from it. They generally believe, however, that the police are rarely able to react and arrive in time to save someone from harm if an intruder

is breaking into one's home or attacking someone on the street. 

 

Shooters in general demonstrate a good deal of knowledge about typical procedures, response times, and results when police are summoned to assist someone at home against a criminal attack. They know police are not legally required to arrive in time to save lives or prevent incidents from occurring. So they choose to protect themselves.

 

Guns, class, and equality

 

Shooters' notion of equality is complex. They are principally interested in two related issues: social equality (the idea that all individuals should have equal access to societal benefits) and political equality (the idea that all individuals should have equal access to political rights and guarantees). These basic kinds of equality must remain woven into the fabric of American society, shooters believe. However, they do not feel that the principle of equality is currently being applied to gun owners.

 

Shooting enthusiasts make vehement arguments that prohibitions on gun ownership are often class-based. They view attempts to restrict gun ownership from certain segments of the population (as in the case of the banning inexpensive handguns) as examples of lower-income Americans made more vulnerable by the elite---who are insulated from violence in their wealthier neighborhoods. The poor bear the brunt of strict gun controls much more than the middle or upper classes.

 

Lewis, a white and Native American shooter who identifies himself as working class, believes that households like his have a greater need for guns for protection:

 

I come from a very poor family, and when they start passing laws like gun taxes and making it where poor people can't afford to protect themselves--and they're the ones who need to protect themselves--they act like everyone in the ghetto is a criminal.... and make it to where only the elite can afford to own guns. It goes back to what happened in Europe, where the rich were able to hunt, to own guns, but the poor were put to death if they hunted. This country's about equality. Money's not supposed to give you more rights.

 

For shooters, when a specific group is purposely disarmed for "the social good" but other populations are not, the implication is clear: The disarmed group is not equal in the eyes of the state. The state does not trust this group to own or use guns. Disarmament is symbolically infantilizing: Disarmed populations become wards of the state, with no means to protect themselves from criminal aggressors or even the aggressive state itself.

 

Only by recognizing what gun ownership really means to gun enthusiasts can we begin to have a constructive conversation about the role of guns in contemporary society. This is most effectively accomplished by considering what gun enthusiasts actually say about their enthusiasm, and by carefully looking at and understanding the kinds of social activities in which gun owners participate.

 

Much attention has been paid elsewhere to the values and principles of people who oppose gun ownership and support gun control. But the values and principles that form the bedrock of gun enthusiasm are often less appreciated. Given how closely linked they are to longstanding American traditions, that is unfortunate.

 

This is adapted from Abigail Kohn's book Shooters: Myths and Realities of America's Gun Cultures, published by Oxford University Press.