A recent spate of news (Isla Vista, Open Carry Texas idiocy) and resultant diaries on the subject of guns and the carrying of guns (open and/or concealed) has led to some rich discussion here on the subject of gun policy.
Given regional and local differences on the history of gun culture in the U.S., there are wide diversities of opinion on what constitutes reasonable controls of guns in society. What's right for Montana probably makes no sense at all for Chicago. And what's right for rural Texas may make no sense for Fort Worth.
But the decades-long push by the NRA to "liberalize" carry laws, state-by-state -- coupled with the transformation of the organization's mission from one promoting hunting, sport shooting and collection, pre-late 1970s, to primarily promoting "guns-as-self-defense" since the late `70s -- has led to a distortion and perversion of gun culture that now finds groups of armed citizens walking into restaurants in urban environments strapped with their AR15s.
Yesterday, the NRA made news by calling out the gun toters in Texas, asking them, essentially, to quit being idiots because they were embarrassing the NRA.
The NRA made clear, of course, that they stood behind the rights of these idiots to act like idiots, concluding their press release with a paragraph that opens with this:
In summary, NRA certainly does not support bans on personalized guns or on carrying firearms in public, including in restaurants.
So the message was loud and clear:
"Quit embarrassing us for doing what we have worked so diligently to allow you to do."
Now, one can surmise all sorts of motives for these gun-toting asshats to be doing what they've been doing down in Fort Worth. Some in the carry group have stated that they want the general public to become more comfortable with folks toting guns in public spaces. Open Carry Texas claims that their primary goal is to get Texas to legalize the open carry of handguns. (Open carry of long guns is already permitted.) And we have to take these folks at their word.
But this has led to a larger discussion about the act of carrying a weapon. As noted, above, in some regions of the country, guns have long been part of the culture. Open carry of guns has been common enough that people aren't shocked to see someone openly carrying a handgun.
But for most Americans -- the vast majority -- seeing someone walk around with a gun on open display is not only unusual, it is disturbing and unnerving. That is a fact that many gun toters, particularly those promoting open carry, can't quite seem to grasp, as evidenced by comments from a few posters in this diary published yesterday.
Another diary, published this morning, describes an incident where the diarist asked a man openly carrying a handgun in his restaurant to remove the gun from the establishment. The diarist notes an "uptick" in the number of people entering the establishment while openly carrying a gun.
The NRA and gun makers have been on a decades-long quest to "normalize" the carrying of weapons, not just in traditional gun culture regions, but all across the country. In the late `70s, as rural populations declined and hunting declined along with the population shift, gun makers needed to open a new, lucrative market to prop up their bottom lines. That market, as I pointed out, above, was "guns-as-self-defense."
The NRA and the gun makers have been incredibly successful in this decades-long effort, with gun maker profits now at an all-time high.
But at what cost to our society?
Certainly, there are those who carry weapons as part of long-held, local traditions. But those small numbers wouldn't satisfy the gun makers' need for profits. They need a bigger audience to swallow the propaganda spewed by the NRA and their advertising that posits that carrying a gun is necessary for self-defense.
In some cases, gun toters may be motivated by a sense of vigilantism
Among the gun-toting contingent at Daily Kos, I have read numerous reasons for carrying a weapon, most of which have to do with being ready "in case the shit hits the fan" (SHTF, in cool, macho gun toter parlance).
For the asshats in Texas toting their AR15s into restaurants, I'm not sure what it's about except that they are ignorant assholes.
Society is regressing to an "Old West" mentality at the behest of an organization (the NRA) and an industry (gun makers) that have convinced a small minority of the population (primarily white men) that they need to carry a gun to defend themselves from the "other."
As Wayne LaPierre's subtly racist, fear-mongering, paranoid screed at the recent NRA convention made clear, white guys need to carry guns because they are always under attack:
We know, in the world that surrounds us, there are terrorists and home invaders and drug cartels and car jackers and knock out gamers and rapers, haters, campus killers, airport killers, shopping mall killers, road rage killers and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids, or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse the society that sustains us all.
I ask you. Do you trust this government to protect you?
We are on our own.
I doubt that even Wayne LaPierre believes his own bullshit, but he certainly is selling guns. And white guys all across America are swallowing this bullshit, hook, line and sinker, as witnessed in the uptick of more of them feeling the need to be armed at all times.
What I've found humorous and ironic is that a number of folks here who walk around with guns strapped to their bodies have stated, quite clearly, that they don't -- and won't -- visit big cities in the U.S. because of the dangers. Yet a number of these same folks will claim that they need to carry a weapon because where they live, police are often 20 to 30 minutes away (or more) and there may be threats (meth dealers and addicts, for example) nearby.
Under those circumstances, it may make sense to have a gun in the home (and I even question the efficacy of that), but carrying while one is out doing the grocery shopping or visiting the doctor or visiting friends? Really?
As a country, we are being held hostage by an organization (the NRA) and an industry (the gun makers) that drive policies that are an anathema to living in a more civilized world. Being able to strap a gun to one's self is not a sign of "freedom" or "liberty" for most Americans. It is an imposition of an unwanted policy and a sign that we are becoming less civilized, not more civilized.