Instant ebooks textbook Gun rights activists and the us culture war embodied fantasies of the ethica
Gun Rights Activists and the US Culture War Embodied Fantasies of the Ethical Warrior in Contemporary Gun Culture 1st Edition Joe Anderson
Visit to download the full and correct content document: https://textbookfull.com/product/gun-rights-activists-and-the-us-culture-war-embodiedfantasies-of-the-ethical-warrior-in-contemporary-gun-culture-1st-edition-joe-anderson/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant download maybe you interests ...
Lock Stock and Barrel The Origins of American Gun Culture Clayton E Cramer
Gun Rights Activists and the US Culture War is a political anthropology book which explores how firearms can become associated with processes of identity formation, as well as acting as symbols of national belonging and embodied safety.
In the years following Donald Trump’s election, an increasingly polarised population is taking up arms against each other more often than ever before. Based on 12 months of participant observation at gun ranges, activist meetings, handgun courses, and political events, as well as interviews with gun rights activists in San Diego County, this book argues that US conservative identity is saturated with concerns about ethics, gender, and who can wield violence legitimately. The book focuses on two gun rights organizations; the first a conservative, predominantly white and male, political action committee; the second a pro-LGBTQ+ firearms training group run by trans women. This book demonstrates how gun ownership gives Americans the means to enact their political will through the threat of, or actual, organized violence, and that this perceived capacity explains why guns remain objects that continue to inspire such devotion and debate.
GunRightsActivistsandtheUSCulture War will be of interest to scholars and students in anthropology, gender studies, ethnic studies, sociology, and politics, as well as a general audience of narrative non-fiction readers.
Joe Anderson received his PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh and is now a research fellow in the School of Health in Social Science at Edinburgh. His research has focused on the gun rights movement in the United States and the issue of suicide in Scotland.
Anthropology of Now
Series Editor: Jack David Eller
The Anthropology of Donald Trump Culture and the Exceptional Moment
EditedbyJackDavidEller
Love and Technology
An Ethnography of Dating App Users in Berlin
FabianBroeker
Dispossession
Anthropological Perspectives on Russia’s War Against Ukraine
EditedbyCatherineWanner
Gun Rights Activism and the US Culture War
Embodied Fantasies of the Ethical Warrior in Contemporary Gun Culture
The right of Joe Anderson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademarknotice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
ISBN: 978-1-032-56002-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-56003-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-43333-0 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003433330
ContributiontoAnthropology
SolutionstoGunViolence
FinalReflections
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is of course impossible to capture the immense gratitude I feel to everyone who has been involved in the co-creation of this book. Because I have been working on this topic in various forms for ten years, it has accompanied me through some significant life changes that are both separate from and intimately bound up with the content of this piece of work.
Thank you to Casey High for your guidance, attention, and for always making me feel like my work has value even when I struggled to see it. Thank you to Jonathan Spencer for your supervision and for asking questions that helped me to see the bigger picture. Thank you to everyone at the University of Edinburgh Social Anthropology department who read or commented on this work and for guiding me through an education that led to this research.
Thank you to Janis Jenkins and Thomas Csordas at UCSD for your support and guidance throughout my fieldwork. Thank you to Rick, Lainy, and Michael McGinty for your trust. Thank you to all of the gun owners who participated in this study for your faith, openness, and willingness to engage in challenging conversations. Your company pushed me to put my deeper principles into action in moments when it was truly hard.
Thank you to Katie for showing me kindness and loyalty during a difficult PhD experience, and thank you for helping to shape this book. Thank you to Fraser for giving me space away from my various performances to make beautiful sounds. Thank you to Emma for your presence and for taking the time to listen. Thank you to Meena for being at the frontline in San Diego, helping me to overcome anxieties with laughter and Iranian food. Thank you to Rumi and Ritti for encouraging me to see that there was life yet in an unfinished project that I was already walking away from. Thank you to Cat for taking the time to edit my manuscript and for seeing the potential in what I have to say. And gratitude goes out to Jo Bell and little Hope for reading my introduction.
Huge love and gratitude go to Jarrod (aka Hingle McCringleberry) and Rose for offering me a family in California. Thank you to Hans for reliably inviting me to see (and even enjoy the company of) the other side. Thank you to my mum Jill for giving me permission to be unconventional and go my own way; to my dad John for teaching me to question everything and for nudging me towards anthropology; and to my sister Caity for your friendship and for just getting it. Thank you to Mollie for the Balmullo hill adventures. And thank you to Skye, my monkey, who keeps me held in love and on the path every single day.
INTRODUCTION: FIRST ENCOUNTERS
Butterflies accompanied me to my first gun rights activist meeting in October of 2016. I parked my car at a Taco Bell in San Diego County so I could survey the nearby gun shop where the meeting would take place. People were already filtering in beneath a gleaming sign that displayed the phrase “Sheep dogs need sharp teeth”. Taking three deep breaths to still the fluttering in my belly, I stepped across the threshold.
Around 40 people were crowded into the gun shop. A group of men were passing around rifles next to a glass-fronted cabinet filled with guns. Patriotic posters on the wall read, “We Proudly Support Our Troops”, while another displayed the famous Second World War image of Uncle Sam pointing his index finger at the viewer and declaring, “I Want You San Diego”. Rows of t-shirts and baseball caps branded with pro-gun messaging hung on display. One showed the black outline of the controversial AR15 rifle sitting above the slogan, “Give Peace a Chance. If That Doesn’t Work I’ve Got You Covered”. The Stars and Stripes fill one blank space on the wall joined by the Gadsden flag, a symbol of the Libertarian movement, with its curled rattlesnake hissing above the words, “Don’t Tread On Me”. Rebel soldiers carried this flag during the Revolutionary Wars
and today has become a symbol of the modern gun rights movement (Shapira, 2013: 47).
I made my way to the back row of folding chairs and a young man in his early 30s sat down next to me. It was also his first time at one of these meetings. As I told him about my doctoral fieldwork, he immediately invited me shooting, his eyes lighting up at the prospect of showing me his newly purchased and self-assembled AR-15. Our conversation ended as the founder and head of the gun rights organization, David Weiss, arrived late. Rushing to the front of the room in a flurry of complaints about the traffic, he called the meeting to order and began with basic information about his organization, Gun Owners of San Diego:
We work for you, both in public and behind the scenes … we are passionate about the 2nd Amendment and believe it gives an individual the right to keep and bear arms … We are talking about tradition, about safety. We’re the good guys … Some people claim they are going to leave California, but the fight is here. This is behind enemy lines.
These statements position gun owners as participants in a literal fight for gun rights. The crowd received this metaphor gladly, having been primed by similar ideas in circulation on conservative media platforms like FoxNews, as well as by the then-candidate and future president Donald Trump.
David held his audience with the rousing tones of a preacher, expertly layering his speech with personal anecdotes that provoked laughter as well as anger from his audience. The rhythm of his speech allowed space for people to call in response, “Hell no” or “Hell yeah”, at appropriate moments. David always finished his meetings by opening to questions from the crowd and he seemed perpetually curious about how they had heard about his organization. Some said they had been looking for pro-firearm groups because of new gun laws coming into effect in California at the end of 2016 – an event that several members of the organization referred to as “Gunmaggedon”.
A moment of awkwardness trailed one man’s stirring speech about conservative values, “We have to keep taking the high road. We have truth on our side. They [liberals] have emotions”. With triumphant flair, he accidentally used Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign slogan, “We have to remember that gun owners are stronger together”. An embarrassed silence followed before he realized his mistake, “Well, that’s theirwords, but you know what I mean”. With just one month to go until the 2016 general election, I had chosen a turbulent time to attend my first gun rights activist meeting. The conservatives I had already interviewed for my research over the previous month seemed to have an air of resigned acceptance of what they (and many of us) assumed was Secretary Hilary Clinton’s inevitable victory.
Throughout the meeting I had become increasingly aware of a man sitting to my left nervously tapping his foot. Without warning he abruptly stood up and said, “I came here for some hope”. His voice broke as he looked at the ground to steady himself, “I didn’t get hope. I think California is falling on its own sword”. There were tears in his eyes as he told the room that he is thinking of moving to Arizona to escape California’s strict firearms legislation, “I’m a family man, but I don’t know how I can protect my family here without becoming a criminal. There’s no shame in a tactical retreat”.
The crowd had started muttering and some even booed this final statement, while David restored order by waving his arms up and down. After listening carefully to the man’s complaints and offering sympathetic advice, David mounted his counterargument for why gun owners in California should not retreat:
What starts in California, it’s gonna start spreading east. And so I say to people in Arizona and Nevada, if you don’t want to fight this in your own backyard, you better support us. Did George Washington or Thomas Jefferson move away from the fight? No!
An almost unified “hell no!” arose from the crowd in response. For some gun owners, the idea that California might be the future of
America was a bleak prognosis that signaled defeat but, for others, it was motivation to try harder, think bigger, and fight to reverse the trend towards stricter legislation on firearms in the Golden State.
As the meeting moved on audience members confirmed the high stakes of the fight for gun rights by referring to liberals as “weasels”, “jackasses”, and “communists”. One man worried out loud that, “We’re gonna wake up one day and no-one has guns”, as if an omnipotent government might enter his home one night to rid it of firearms against his will. A man sitting behind me in a cowboy hat leaned forward at one point and muttered to a group of us that a Hillary Clinton presidency would lead to a second Civil War. The butterflies in the pit of my stomach took anxious flight as the man who had invited me shooting whispered in response, “Hell yeah!”
1 AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL APPROACH TO US GUN CULTURE
DOI: 10.4324/9781003433330-1
On January 6th, 2021, five years after I heard whispers of civil war at my first gun rights activist meeting, thousands of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol building in Washington DC. By the end of the attempted coup, five people were dead and 138 were injured. While the images and videos from the event show a number of rioters wielding phones rather than rifles, we later learned that many were indeed carrying firearms. After nearly a decade of studying the gun rights movement in the United States, I was not surprised to learn that many of these would-be insurrectionists were members of gun rights organizations, defensive shooting clubs, and militias. The pro-Trump flags, the tactical clothing, and the values they expressed in television interviews felt familiar.
The events of January 6th serve as one example of a deadly trend in the United States. Between 2019 and 2020, rates of interpersonal gun violence increased dramatically. Unlike firearm suicides which have been increasing for decades, gun homicides spiked to 19,000 in 2020, up from 14,000 in 2019 (Gun Violence Archive, 2022). It seems that in the years following Donald Trump’s election, an increasingly polarized population is taking up arms against each other more often than ever before. These high levels of interpersonal violence suggest that a media-narrated ‘culture war’ is evolving into a cold, and sometimes hot, civil war.
The United States is in a moment of national transition and bifurcation. A recent study from the University of Chicago found that 8% of the population believe that the 2020 election was stolen and that force is justified in restoring Donald Trump to power (Pape, 2021). While some scholars have claimed that US citizens are more moderate on issues like guns, abortion, and gay marriage than the culture war debate would suggest, others have argued that there is evidence that political polarization has become more pronounced in recent years (Baldassarri & Gelman, 2008; Iyengar et al., 2019). Firearms have come to demarcate a specific kind of right-wing identity politics in the United States (Springwood, 2014). Whether or not a person owned firearms served as a more accurate indicator of whether they would vote Democrat or Republican in the 2016 general election than any other demographic marker – including race, gender, and income (Cohn & Quealy, 2017).
The number of guns owned privately outnumbers the total population of the United States (Hemenway, 2006). Not only does this pose risks during times of political instability, but it also means that a large subsection of the population—44% to be precise (Saad, 2020)—lives in a home that contains one or more firearms, demanding conversations between parents and children that enlist ethical and political frameworks for the use of such an object (Hemenway, 2006). Firearms ownership in the United States is more than just a trend: it represents a “gun culture” with strong social, political, and legal institutions that facilitate its continued existence. Abigail Kohn has defined a “gun culture” as any group that, “places enormous social, historical and political emphasis on guns (both positive and negative and every shade of grey in between)” while utilizing a “common language about guns and sharing a set of symbols pertaining to guns in everyday life” (2004: 4).
This book presents an analysis of gun culture in the United States that draws on two years of ethnographic research with defensive shooters and gun rights activist groups in San Diego County, California, between 2013 and 2018. I provide a window into the social, political, and psychological contexts in which guns become linked to a sense of existential safety and how they are enlisted to
constitute particular conceptions of the self. The defensive gun owners I spent time with form a political subjectivity in relationship with a powerful object that has become the center of debates about ethics, safety, and violence in the United States. Through the collected life histories of a diverse group of gun owners, I trace how the terms of a national debate, often framed within the false dichotomy of the “culture war”, feed into the subjective experiences that people have of their gendered and racial identities, their sense of belonging in the United States, and their understanding of ethics and safety. Guns and their associated ethical-political orientations create new ways of knowing and being in the world.
When Alexis De Tocqueville published Democracy in America, in 1835, he wrote that strong civic values and a willingness to engage a wide variety of members of society in the democratic process held the loose coalition of pioneers, soldiers, recently emigrated European urbanites, farmers, African slaves, and conquered Native Americans together. In a 1995 essay, Robert Putnam argued that these civic values were in decline due to reduced in-person gatherings between people of different backgrounds, an increase in passive and private forms of entertainment, like television, and increasing distrust of government. He also suggested that deep cultural divides were pulling these institutions and values apart – something that has only become more pronounced in the thirty years since he wrote the essay. With the advent of the internet, algorithmic echo chambers have constructed more extreme positions on culture war issues that drive wedges between people of different opinions. Bi-partisanship and polarization create new lived experiences and identities in dialogue with locally embedded experiences.
A potent intimacy develops between firearms and bodies which defies the rational tone of the media-conducted gun debate. Firearms inspire both love and horror, emotions that cement guns at the heart of the contemporary culture war. I once watched Joan, a trans woman and gun rights activist, place a gun in her holster and let out a long sigh of relief before turning to me to say:
You know liberals, they call us ammosexuals and you know what? I don’t care. I’m a proud ammosexual.
The United States, like many of the people who occupy these pages, has entered into an intimate relationship with guns. It is to the task of understanding how this bond formed and how it is shaped by contemporary events that the rest of this book turns.
The Gun Rights Movement
Whether you were born in the United States, have spent time there, or even watched its media from the other side of the world, you most likely have an imagined sense of what the nation is. You may even have an idea of what its key national values, practices, and rituals are. As early as 1835, Alexis De Tocqueville commented on the complex task of studying the United States claiming that one could not “attempt to exhibit the picture as a whole before he has explained its details” (1988 [1835]: 34). For this reason, I think of the United States of America1 as a dynamic of loosely held together ideas, practices, and beliefs that includes a set of interlocking cultures that nevertheless see themselves as having shared destinies, institutions, and customs. As Benedict Anderson (2006) observed so well, geographically separated but socially related communities have to be consciously imagined as homogenous to convince its citizenry that there is such a thing as a unitary national body.
Robert Bellah has pointed out that politics acts as a kind of “civil religion” in the United States, providing rituals and symbols that make the nation tangibly real (1967). In the absence of an established church associated with the state, but with an urgent need to capture the legitimate, God-given authority of the Leviathan, politics has provided the symbols (elephants and donkeys), ceremonies (swearing in and transfer of power), prophets (Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, etc.), scriptures (the Constitution, Declaration of Independence), and rituals (voting) that manufacture national
unity within a disparate set of cultures spread across a whole continent. However, by its very nature, democratic politics is divided, creating sub-ontologies that represent different interests and values. The most obvious division is between conservatives and liberals, but the contemporary gun rights movement is another such subontology of civil religion that has a long and winding history within the national consciousness.
Shooting a gun is a physically engaging, embodied practice that creates a powerful connection to nationally salient ancestors and events. This inspires near-religious devotion to guns, whether by collecting them, forming communities and political movements around them, or training in self-defense to meet threats from fellow citizens. Gun rights activists are participants in an unfolding cultural debate, yet their perspectives and attitudes are often more nuanced and reflective than their media representations would suggest. The practices and ideologies that spring up around guns provide fertile ground to examine the intimate relationships between material, symbolic, and embodied practices by which conservative citizens make sense and meaning out of the world (Springwood, 2007: 21).
Fundamentally the debate over gun ownership in the United States is about whether the world is friendly or dangerous, whether fellow citizens should be trusted or feared. It raises questions about criminality, free will, and how we prepare for death. It also represents a conversation about who can legitimately wield violence, where sovereignty lies (or should lie) in a republic, and what kind of people or values belong in the nation. The gun rights groups I spent time with, as well as the National Rifle Association (NRA), believe that the solution to violence, like mass shootings, includes arming “good guys” with guns. They deny sociological explanations of violent crimes and instead dehumanize those who commit them, creating monsters who can be feared and legitimately killed if necessary.
A whole ethical orientation towards the world springs up around this idea, forming the scaffolding of a cultural script and archetypical symbol of the firearm-wielding patriot that I have termed the ethical warrior. This archetype is in part related to qualities of US
hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 1995), but as an identity it can be inhabited by people of any gender who commit to the ethical task of wielding a firearm to protect themselves and others from predatory “bad guys”. This creates the subject position of the ethicalwarriorin contemporary gun culture that draws on historical representations and contemporary anxieties about gender, race, immigration, class, nation, and politics.
Gun ownership, and its associated ethical warriorhood, gives white men, as well as people of all genders and ethnicities, a sense of empowerment and the literal means to enact the sovereign choice of killing another human being. Achille Mbembe (2003) has suggested that sovereignty is constituted by the physical, ethical, and legal capacity to take another’s life. In this sense, ethical warriors are mini-sovereigns, taking on some of the state’s monopoly on violence into their bodies. As defensive shooters train to protect their lives with a gun they evoke a collective history that fuses myths of national conquest with firearms. Gun owners conceptualize their local communities and cities as spaces of conflict, their training is explicitly about being vigilant for anyone who may be trying to harm them or steal their property.
At one level, the need to carry and own firearms for self-defense could be interpreted as a collective psychological hangover from the destruction of Native American people and enslavement of Africans that is impossible to detach from the nation’s history. The contemporary cultural unease that has resulted from this racialized genocide, torture, and forced servitude has given some ethnically white citizens the feeling that they need to check over their shoulders in case they are being followed. Defensive shooters cultivate an embodied vigilance over the spaces that they move within that is inflected by gender, class, and race.
However, in the conversations I had with gun owners about safety, protection, and tyranny, I sensed something lurking beneath the rhetoric about conflict and ethical warriorhood. Some people simply love guns. They find them beautiful. They become addicted to the adrenaline rush that accompanies mastering an object designed to kill. The people they go shooting with become their best friends
because they share an intensely exciting hobby that comes with an attached set of ethical-political orientations to the world. People find not only purpose but also social connection through guns. Firearms are nationally and locally contested commodities, as well as objects of desire that impart and amplify particular human emotions.
I use the term intimacythroughout this book as a way of framing how people form emotional, subjective, and embodied relationships with firearms. Kath Weston (2017) has described the term intimacy as a loose heuristic that acts as an umbrella term for the ways in which people become entangled in and incorporated into the material world. In kinship with Donna Haraway’s (1985) image of the cyborg, which describes our “self” concept as pieced together across human and non-human materials, intimacy recognizes the socially regulated, embodied, and emotional ways that we merge with objects and ideas. Throughout my time with gun rights activists, I noticed a distinct subjective relationship emerge between human and machine, gun and wielder. The connections that form across this techno-biological collaboration show that not only can we become intimate with things and people that bring us happiness and joy, but sometimes we can love them even though they cause us and others harm.
My use of the term intimacy expands beyond the romantic dimensions that characterize its common-sense usage to suggest that emotions and bodies are embedded within extended networks of things. Humans and firearms come together in inter-subjective formations, producing intimacies that emerge in action (Weston, 2017). Gun owners demonstrate how objects can become bound up in particular identities, emotions, actions, and ethical attitudes. Culturally important objects act as talismans that carry, transmit, and transform shared meanings. Shooting a gun brings a piece of technology into the intimate inner confines of the felt body. The ripple of the weapon’s kickback triggering the release of adrenaline that sets the heart beating faster as a small metal bullet is expelled from the muzzle to pierce a target or another human.
In the aftermath of the revolutionary war the founders of the United States were split into two main philosophical camps –
federalists, such as George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison, with a vision of a strong, defensively capable government, and republicans, such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, who argued for a minimalist approach to government (Ulliver & Merkell, 2002). The Constitution, signed in 1787, did not entirely resolve differences between the two groups, so James Madison began drafting the Bill of Rights partly as an attempt to reconcile remaining tensions. The 2nd Amendment was specifically written to meet both the federalists’ demands for a standing army and the republican’s fear of one. It reads:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The philosophical and political underpinnings of the contemporary gun rights movement have their roots in early republican fears that the US federal government may amass the kind of power exerted by the colonial British monarchy. A fear that has proved well founded. It is important to emphasize that at this point, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms” relied entirely on the presence of an official and “well-regulated Militia”.
As presidents Lincoln and later Roosevelt slowly dismantled official state militia in favor of a federal standing army, the 2nd Amendment lost its claim to legal significance, yet its contemporary cultural and political relevance was just about to begin. The last century has been characterized by a transformation in the gun rights movement. New interpretations of the 2nd Amendment suggest that it guarantees an individual the right to bear arms for self-defense. The success of this cultural and legal shift is demonstrated by a landmark ruling from the Supreme Court of the United States in 2008 (District of Columbia vs Heller, 2008), which for the first time interpreted the 2nd Amendment to refer to an individual rather than a collective right to bear arms.
Whether understood to mean that private citizens should have unrestricted access to firearms or not, what matters is that the 2nd
Amendment is meaningful within groups of people who own guns or who are active politically around the issue of gun rights. I see the 2nd Amendment as both a material and discursive object that played an important role in the lives of the gun rights activists I spent time with, linking their practices to broader national histories and identities associated with gun use.
Since the founding of the United States, the right to own a gun has been associated with the benefits of full citizenship and for most of that history, whiteness (Cox, 2007; Springwood, 2007). When the 2nd Amendment was written it was illegal for slaves, freed black men, and white men who did not pledge loyalty to the revolution to own a gun (Winkler, 2011). Carol Anderson (2021) has suggested that several of the founders of the United States only agreed to ratify the amendment if states had control of militias rather than the federal government.This provides a means to raise an army for state defense and would mean that militias could be used to put down slave uprisings.
As well as resolving tensions between republicansand federalists, the 2nd Amendment could be seen as a way of ensuring white, male dominance over a population of conquered subjects whether they were women, religious minorities, the Irish, Italians, Native Americans, or enslaved Africans (Painter, 2010; Anderson, 2021). When slavery was abolished following the Civil War, the Northern victors allowed the South to re-establish white supremacy with the Jim Crow laws which included banning African and Native Americans from owning firearms. Denying newly freed black populations the right to own a gun was one way of ensuring they would not take revenge.
More recently, though, African-American and Native American protest movements have played a central role in defining the nation’s modern relationship with firearms (Winkler, 2011; Spencer, 2016; Goodluck, 2019). The history of the gun rights movement is often told through a decidedly white, conservative lens, yet the emergence of gun culture as a self-aware phenomenon cannot be separated from the Civil Rights era and opposition to some of the first national gun laws in the 1960s (Kohn, 2004; Melzer, 2009). Following the
assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and President John F. Kennedy, Congress passed laws to prevent the interstate shipment of guns through unlicensed dealers. This caused a revolt within the National Rifle Association’s ranks as hard-line members argued that the organization should oppose all new gun laws to prevent legislators from engaging in what they perceived as a slippery slope to firearm bans. In 1976 a small group of upstarts led by Harlon Carter gained enough momentum to take over the NRA’s directorial board at the 1976 annual meeting (Melzer, 2009). It was in the next decade of their leadership that the organization transformed from focusing on teaching young citizens hunting, fishing, and target shooting skills to the political lobby group that dominates the debate about gun ownership today.
Over the last few decades, the NRA has attempted to cultivate a more intentional identity around gun ownership in the United States. One tactic has been to create political enemies out of Democratic politicians and gun control groups so that gun owners see a need to defend their rights and practices. Gun rights organizations have succeeded in turning firearms ownership into a conservative identity politics movement and self-aware culture that connects citizens to the highly profitable firearms industry, lobbyists, media organizations, and politicians. The NRA’s support is now a key victory for hopeful Republican nominees for president as well as many other local and state-level elections.
Following the feminist and civil rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s, the debate about gun ownership emerged as a cornerstone of conservative identity politics. However, there is a long and less well-known history of people using firearms to resist white supremacy. The American Indian Movement (AIM) raised awareness of state oppression of Native Americans in high profile acts of armed resistance (Smith & Warrior, 1996). During the Occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973, a group of AIM activists and local Lakota people armed with rifles fought back against an illegal three-month siege by the US military. Eventually the government-backed forces outgunned them, disbanded supporters, and arrested the leaders (Camp, 2020). These events serve as a warning that the US
government is willing to ignore constitutional restraints on using the military against its own people.
Founders of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale also recognized the importance of guns as tools for black Americans to resist violence that is used to police African-American communities. The party organized armed counterpolice patrols to ensure that interactions between officers and black people remained peaceful. Huey P. Newton famously said that guns were “the basic tool of liberation” for people of color. Well versed in the law, Newton drew his justifications for carrying guns from the 2nd Amendment, even managing to stop police officers trying to disarm him by quoting his constitutional rights (Bloom & Waldo, 2016: 47). By referencing the Constitution, Newton positioned black people as acting within the social contract of the United States as full citizens, even when they armed against the police (Bloom & Waldo, 2016).
When members of the Black Panther Party stormed into the California state capitol building in Sacramento in 1967, they argued that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had done very little for black people in America and that armed resistance and revolution were key to freedom from a federal government that consistently dominated and disrespected black lives (Winkler, 2011). Soon after storming the capitol building, Rep. Don Mulford, a Republican member of the state assembly, proposed a gun control law that would restrict the right to bear arms in Californian cities, thus effectively ending and criminalizing Black Panther patrols. Then California Governor Ronald Reagan backed the Mulford Bill stating emphatically that “guns are a ridiculous way to solve problems” (quoted in Winkler, 2011).
Most surprising is the striking similarities between how the Black Panther Party and modern conservative organizations conceptualize gun rights. Both suggest that firearms are the first tool of defense for individuals against tyrannical governments and random attacks on the street from dangerous strangers, whether they be police or other citizens. The Panthers formed militia-like units to “police the police”, drawing their justification from the 2nd Amendment, while the gun rights activists I knew trained together with the aim of
resisting powerful state actors and taking part in revolutions if necessary. Both the founding members of the Panthers and the gun rights activists I met had an informed knowledge of the law that they used to argue for the legitimacy of carrying firearms if confronted by a representative of the state.
However, the difference in government response to white gun rights activists and the Black Panthers suggests that race is indeed an important factor in determining how and when citizens can exercise their 2nd Amendment rights. White racial identity could be defined as a kind of positive residence in space and historical position of domination that in some extreme cases can afford people a legal right to kill others (Frankenberg, 1993; Brodkin, 1998; Hage, 1998; Ahmed, 2007). As the violence visited upon Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, and Michael Brown has shown, even appearing to reach for a firearm can make a person of color the target of deadly violence by the state or other armed citizens (Carlson, 2014b; Fernando, 2018). The Black Panther Party took up arms to resist this violence with a legal capacity to oppress, mistreat, and kill people of color and other minority groups. Despite framing their arguments within the language of the 2nd Amendment, it provoked legislation from Republican politicians to remove this right.
When Ronald Reagan became the first presidential candidate to take campaign donations from the National Rifle Association (NRA) in 1980, the gun rights movement in the United States firmly allied itself with the Republican Party (Kohn, 2004; King, 2007; Springwood, 2007; Doukas, 2012). Yet gun ownership also receives bi-partisan support. Democratic President Barack Obama published photos of himself skeet shooting to allay criticism that he was anti2nd Amendment. While there is a rich history of gun use among revolutionary, left-wing movements in the United States – the Redneck Revolt, the Socialist Rifle Association, and Black Guns Matter – contemporary gun politics is dominated by conservative rhetoric about protection, security, and self-defense.
Golden State Gun Culture
Another random document with no related content on Scribd:
Vous n’en aurez pas le temps ; je pars dans cinq minutes !
RENÉ
Ce n’est pas possible. Il vous faudrait un prétexte valable, sinon Lise aurait des soupçons !
GERMAINE
Le prétexte ? Il ne m’embarrasse pas !
RENÉ
Vous avez annoncé que vous resteriez quelques jours ? Il faut rester, bon gré, mal gré. Et alors…
GERMAINE
Tenez !… Il vient, le prétexte… Lise me l’apporte elle-même !
RENÉ (3)
Que voulez-vous dire ?
Vous allez voir !
GERMAINE
LISE, entrant (2)
Ma chérie, une dépêche pour toi.
RENÉ, surpris
Hein ?
GERMAINE (2)
Qu’est-ce que c’est ? (Lisant.) Oh !
LISE
Une mauvaise nouvelle ?…
GERMAINE
« Tante Amélie assez souffrante. Venez sans retard. »
LISE
Tu vas partir ?
GERMAINE (3)
Il le faut !
LISE
Ma pauvre chérie ! Comme je suis peinée !
RENÉ, remontant 2
Vous partirez demain matin.
GERMAINE
Impossible ! Ma tante est susceptible ; il faut que je sois auprès d’elle ce soir… Lise, l’auto est encore là ?
LISE, remontant
Je vais voir.
(Elle va près de la fenêtre.)
RENÉ, à Germaine
Je suis navré de ce si triste contre-temps.
GERMAINE, bas
Ne vous frappez pas ! C’est moi qui me suis envoyé le télégramme !
RENÉ
Quoi ? C’est vous !…
GERMAINE
Oui, comme je ne savais pas si je ne serais pas importune, je m’étais à tout hasard préparé une sortie, et j’ai écrit ce télégramme à la gare, avant de monter dans le train.
RENÉ
Vous êtes rudement forte !
GERMAINE, ironique
N’est-ce pas ?
LISE, redescendant
Le chauffeur et l’auto sont là !
GERMAINE, qui met son chapeau, passe 2
Je n’ai que le temps pour le train de cinq heures… Enfin, je suis bien contente de ma courte visite ; j’ai vu ce que c’était que des gens heureux.
LISE (1)
Mais tu reviendras dès que tu sera rassurée ?
GERMAINE
Ça dépendra !… On se retrouvera toujours à Paris… Allons, pas d’effusions !… Au revoir, Monsieur.
RENÉ (3)
Au revoir, chère Madame !
GERMAINE
Ne me reconduisez pas : il commence à pleuvoir… Adieu, ma grande chérie ! (Elle l’embrasse.) Soyez heureux !
SCÈNE X
LES MÊMES, moins GERMAINE
LISE, à la fenêtre
Elle monte dans l’auto ! (Agitant la main.) Au revoir !… Elle part, elle est partie !…
RENÉ, maussade
Bon voyage !…
LISE
Eh bien, comment la trouves-tu, mon amie Germaine ?
RENÉ
Très gentille. Mais, si tu veux mon avis, je crois que nous ne verrons pas souvent cette petite femme-là !
RIDEAU
ANGERS. IMPRIMERIE CENTRALE
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK L'ESSAYEUSE
Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed.
Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.
START: FULL LICENSE
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at www.gutenberg.org/license.
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any country other than the United States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works provided that:
• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”
• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ works.
• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work.
• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for damages, costs and
expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™
Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.
The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no
prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
Most people start at our website which has the main PG search facility: www.gutenberg.org.
This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
