A talisman is an object, believed to have special powers. Those powers include the ability to protect from harm, or to bring good luck to the possessor of the talisman. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines talisman as “something producing apparently magical or miraculous effects”. Talismen (is that the plural?) have been hugely popular through the ages. Who wouldn't want a rock or a ring to ward off evil? With the Age of Enlightenment, and the widespread use of a scientific method that stressed observations in the real world, believe in the occult in general and talismen in particular waned.
Strangely, into this modern age of jet travel and scientific advancement, some people still believe that certain objects have magical properties. The gun is one of those objects, believed by gun enthusiasts to have special powers.
What are the special magical powers of the gun?
The gun has the special power of conferring safety and protection. Most gun owners will tell you their gun makes them safer, and protects them from harm. But while gun owners say they “feel safer” when carrying a gun, the observable reality is quite the opposite: every year, over 100,000 Americans suffer a gunshot injury, and over 30,000 of those injuries are fatal. The observed reality, carefully measured and re-measured by trained scientists is that more guns are correlated with more gunshot injuries – i.e. that more guns coincides with more gun injuries. Similar careful scientific studies have shown having a gun in the home increase the risk of homicide and suicide for all residents in the home. In one study, the scientists showed there were over 40 instances of accidental shootings, homicides and suicides for every one instance of “defensive gun use”.
While gun enthusiasts have this talismanic believe that having a gun makes them safer, in fact, having a gun puts them at greater risk for an injury or death.
To the gun enthusiasts, the gun has the magical property of bestowing liberty on those who possess a gun. Gun owners believe that guns give them liberty and freedom. The gun owners point to the Second Amendment of the US constitution, and say if they were not allowed to have their guns, they would no longer have liberty and freedom. Simple possession of the gun seems to magically confer liberty and freedom on the gun owner, and to these believers, fewer guns is equated with greater enslavement. Moreover, the gun enthusiasts tell us, the special powers of the gun give the gun owner the ability to fight off the entire military might of the US government. The objective reality is of course very different. The military power of the US government allows them to deliver lethal killing strikes from far beyond the range of even the most powerful gun, and bombs powerful enough to destroy entire cities and counties. Even Rambo firing a .50 cal machine gun from the hip would be dead meat in mere seconds if the US military wanted him so, along with any gun owners wishing to stand with Rambo.
Moreover, during the past 30 or so years, our constitutionally guaranteed civil rights have been widely cut back and restricted, even as more and more guns find their way into the hands of gun owners. The rights of citizens to be free of government intrusion into their mail, phone conversations, even which books they borrow from the library is largely gone. The rights of citizens to know the charges against them and to have a hearing in front of a judge when arrested has been restricted, and even the right to a jury trial is no longer guaranteed. And if the citizens want to gather in a public place to petition their government for a redress of grievances without first asking permission of the government to do so, they can expect to be met with handcuffs and paddy-wagons. All these freedoms and more have been constrained or taken away, even as gun availability has sky-rocketed.
It is a good thing that gun owners believe their guns give them freedom and liberty, because the actual laws and their actual enforcement give them less. Indeed, in practice, the mere presence of a gun mostly has the effect of silencing free speech and expression.
For gun enthusiasts, the talisman of the gun endows the possessor with rugged individualism. Gun enthusiasts love their guns, for what the possession of the gun says about the gun owner: an individual, able to make his/her own way in the world, without needing any help from anyone else. With the gun, the gun owner can put food on the table, and doesn't have to follow the herd or the rules. Possession of the gun mean I am my own man or woman, answerable to no one. Once again, the objective reality is quite different. Only the rich and powerful get to make their own rules, and it is their wealth and power that allows this, not the guns they own. Rare to the point of extinction is the gun owner who feeds his family solely by hunting and gathering; a trip to Kroger's is almost always required – necessitating as it does the collective effort to build roads, use gasoline, and maintain a food supply. And gun enthusiasts are dependent on a society of manufacturing to make those guns in the first place.
In speech and consumer habits, gun enthusiasts mostly follow the herd shepherded by the gun industry. Far from being the rugged individualists of their imaginations, gun enthusiasts have become the unpaid spokespersons of the gun industry. Legends in their own minds, gun enthusiasts parrot as their own the talking points used by the gun industry to boost gun industry profits. Gun enthusiasts tell us they are all about hunting, but sales of hunting rifles has recently fallen, while sales of the assault-style guns (you know, the kind of guns that provide the gun industry with the greatest profit margins) have shot ahead.
Far from being rugged individualists, gun owners are in fact slavishly devoted to the gun industry and the advertising slogans of that industry.
The talisman of the gun confers a special knowledge on the possessor of a gun, imparting a greater validity and import to the thoughts and ideas of gun owners that non-gun owners do not have. Gun enthusiasts are sure they have unique knowledge about guns by virtue of the simple possession of a gun. Along with this is the strange belief that the thoughts of non-gun owners can be simply discounted or dismissed altogether. Of course, knowledge and experience are not the sole monopoly of gun owners; many current non-gun owners have used and/or owned gun is the past: if the opinions of former gun owners were more valid then, they should be so today as well. Non-gun owners can be just as knowledgeable on any subject as gun owners. Only in a court of law are credential necessary before offering an opinion, and then only on a very narrow range of topics. Saying their own thoughts on guns are more valid than anyone else is merely the gun enthusiasts way of discounting arguments they do not want to hear.
In favoring their fact-free opinions over empiric reality, the thinking of gun enthusiasts shares much with another well-known I'll-take-my-opinions-over-the-facts-any-day group: conservative and Tea Party republicans. Conservative republicans want to ignore scientific evidence of a man-made cause of a warming climate, just as gun enthusiasts scramble to ignore the scientific evidence of the injurious nature of gun ownership. Conservative republicans repeat ad nauseum the talking points of the for-profit fossil fuel industry, while gun enthusiasts loudly and proudly repeat the talking points of the for-profit gun industry. Conservative republicans poo-poo laws and regulations as the over-reach of a tyrannical government bent on destroying freedom, ditto the gun enthusiasts. Conservative republicans tell us their thoughts on government are more valid than those of non-republicans; gun enthusiasts tell us their thoughts on guns are more valid than non-gun owners.
To the gun enthusiasts, the gun is a talisman, imbued with special powers protecting possessors of a gun from harm and evil. Even in the age of reason, magical thinking is still a popular practice. The only special powers a gun has are those purposefully designed into it: the power to injure and kill rapidly and efficiently. The gun itself does not know who owns it or who shoots it: it cannot make safe those who hold it, or ensure liberty, or endow independence and individualism.
The magic only exists in the minds of the gun enthusiasts.