White Men And Their Guns
BY Herschel Smith
11 years ago
Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions in our national gun control debate. The issue is not whether we should have gun control laws in this country — or what they should be.
The issue, really, is why so many white middle-American men view any effort to regulate firearms as an assault on their very identity — and thus fight sane and rational laws as if their lives and liberties were at stake.
And the answer may have less to do with guns themselves than with the diminishing status of white men in America over the last few decades.
According to data from both the Pew Research Center and the General Social Survey, while the percentage of Americans who own guns has declined in recent years, our nation remains awash in firearms, and the reason is that middle-aged white men are buying more and more guns, and gun ownership has become increasingly concentrated among them.
A study published in 2007 by The Injury Prevention Journal found that 13 percent of Americans — mostly men — own four or more guns, and the 20 percent of gun owners with the most guns possess about two-thirds of our nation’s stockpile.
The likelihood that these men will own a gun increases the farther they live from a city, yet it’s not because they are hunting more. When the General Social Survey asked men if they hunted in 2012, only a quarter said yes, compared to about 40 percent in 1977.
So guns are no longer merely functional hardware for the enjoyment of outdoor sports and hunting. Increasingly they have become something else: totems of manhood and symbols of identity for a cohort of white, middle-American, rural and exurban men.
Says the effete urbanite. Seriously, it’s always humorous to watch self proclaimed “smarter than thou” analysts try to assess us. The first thing that occurs to me is that he may have given away the farm in this analysis. The narrative is that there is an uncontrolled river of guns in America, leading to the epidemic of violence we face. What the man is saying is that the guns are being horded by men who aren’t committing the crimes. Oh, this won’t do for the progressives. He may have to backtrack his assessment.
Second, it’s always interesting to see the breadth of the sweep in the assessment. It’s white, male ownership of guns that’s the problem, with men trying to be significant again. But notice that he fortuitously leaves out the police from the assessment. They couldn’t possibly be affected by such a malady. Otherwise, perhaps they shouldn’t have guns either. Or something makes them different – he doesn’t say.
Then there is the issue of why most crime is being committed by blacks rather than the white males he lampoons. He doesn’t go there presumably because it is taboo.
In all it’s a silly and trivial article, but it does go to show what fake scholarship looks like and what they think of us. What he doesn’t know is that there is a reason for ownership of these weapons being concentrated. Will he figure out what it is?
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On December 17, 2013 at 11:22 am, DDS said:
“Will he figure out what it is?”
I suspect someone will eventually take the time to explain it to him. ;-)
On December 17, 2013 at 1:26 pm, Archer said:
@DDS:
I suspect you’re right, but the real question then becomes, “What happens then?”
Will he understand it (as a world view that differs from his own)? More importantly, will he accept it (as a world view that differs from his own but is valid nonetheless) or will he simply dismiss it as “right-wing (extremist) propaganda”?
On December 17, 2013 at 4:06 pm, bubba said:
His insight is uncanny. It’s almost as if the writer has been living among us.
On December 17, 2013 at 6:45 pm, scott s. said:
It’s just the “bitter, clinger” meme that the left seems so taken with.
On December 18, 2013 at 4:14 pm, Roger J said:
The quoted article ignores the explosion of gun ownership among women. Doesn’t fit the prof’s hypothesis so the data has to be thrown out…that’s what I loathe about the social “sciences.”
On December 19, 2013 at 3:46 pm, Scott Wilson said:
Wow. A coward doesn’t understand the Second Amendment.
How original.
On December 23, 2013 at 5:53 pm, Warmongerel said:
“The issue, really, is why so many white middle-American men view any effort to regulate firearms as an assault on their very identity — and thus fight sane and rational laws as if their lives and liberties were at stake.”
And why do feminists, blacks, gays, hispanics and every other Leftist group view any effort to regulate ANYTHING that they want as an assault on THEIR very identity?
Why is the first one frightening to this fool, but the others are perfectly understandable? Guns in the hands of white middle-American men have caused FAR less havoc in this society than the others.