A gun was used to murder my friend and classmate when I was in elementary school. That death haunted not only my childhood, but my college and adult years. In some ways, entering the criminal justice field as an adult was an attempt to resolve that powerful tragedy of my youth.
I can still picture her freckles, wild hair, and unrestrained grin. I still picture her death, her brain matter splattered across a vehicle. I was not there, but I see it in my mind because the story was told so vividly and frequently by the children who survived the attack.
But I do not count myself in the anti-gun category.
The public discourse on guns lacks nuance. At the international level, there is a dismissive attitude toward the United States. Other countries see us as dangerous nuts, twirling our handguns and quoting John Wayne as though we have failed to abandon the ways of the Old West and bring ourselves into the civilized contemporary era.
Within the US, we divide ourselves into two rough camps: A militant and macho-infused pro-gun, tough on crime, self-righteous gun lobby and an opposing camp comprised of rhetoric that equates guns with homicide, violence, and tragedy. The discourse paints a picture of gun issues that looks like it was drawn by a child. There is little sophistication, little appreciation for the complications of a diverse set of gun cultures and the myriad reasons that Americans own and use guns.
I see at least five broad categories of gun culture in this country:
- Rural gun culture, in which guns have always been present primarily as a hunting tool, but, secondarily, available for self-defense.
- Law enforcement gun culture, in which guns are seen as part of the job and are used to keep employees safe, convey authority to citizens, and to protect the life and property of others.
- Casual defensive home ownership gun culture, in which middle and upper-class citizens feel that a gun is an important, if almost entirely unused, tool to safeguard the home and property.
- Urban crime and violence gun culture, in which guns are used, regularly, to both commit crimes and protect against violence from others.
- Political gun culture, in which gun owners see firearm ownership as a constitutional right and critical component of a political ideology that casts the federal government as a potential victimizer of the innocent citizen, whose right to bear arms is needed in defense of tyranny.
Guns mean very different things to all of these people, and even these five categories are drawn too widely. We are a nation of more than 300 million people. Surely, there is more to be said about our attitudes towards guns than pro- and anti-?
The ins and outs of the data on defensive gun use are complicated, and too much to include in this post. But it is important to note that defensive gun use does happen. Guns have both negative and positive cultural value, negative and positive crime value.
Even if, like me, you experience a horrifying loss to gun homicide, you can still enjoy honing your target practice skills. I do. I enjoy not only the occasional day at the range, but the knowledge that if I ever find a gun I know how to safely handle it, transport it, hunt with it, and use it if, heaven forbid, I have to protect myself or someone else.
I am not anti-gun. Neither do I currently own a firearm. My hope for the discourse on guns and gun culture is that the conversation can go further than the current argumentation that reduces the problem of guns to emotional and political positions in ways that obscure the complicated nature of gun ownership and use in America.
What’s your take?
In My Not So Humble Opinion: the Writings and Ramblings of Ben Herman
April 11, 2012
I appreciate your well-reasoned post. You articulate the issues surrounding gun ownership in a manner that very few on the “left” or the “right” seem able to. It’s very regrettable that both sides tend to fall into extreme positions, and that there is no room for intelligent discourse.
CrimeCents
April 11, 2012
Thanks, Ben. Guns are a complicated social issue, and deserve a more sophisticated discussion than we have at the moment.
doubleyooteeeff
April 11, 2012
There is no room for nuance or reason in a discussion where the tone is set by the gun industry. Weapons manufacturers, and those who lobby on their behalf, pump so much money into influencing the public and politicians that they put the fear into those of us who are less gung-ho about guns. It’s hard to ignore the all-or-nothing attitude that the gun advocates seem to have. It’s not enough to have a right to carry a firearm for protection – we gotta have the right to assault rifles, too. And we shouldn’t require waiting periods, background checks, or limitations (like banning guns from national parks or churches, where families and kids are often present and where the need to protect yourself from grievous bodily harm shouldn’t be all that much of an issue). If there were more on the pro-gun rights side who understood the idea of fair but moderate guidelines for the purchase, transport and use of guns, then maybe those of us who oppose the lax standards of modern gun culture could engage in some productive debate. As is the norm in most American policy discussion, extremism and a whole big pile o’ money win the day.
CrimeCents
April 13, 2012
You’re right about the way the gun industry distorts the issues, and it’s important to always remember that, along with everything else they say, they have a serious profit motive behind their rhetoric.
madmonq
April 11, 2012
My take is almost exactly the same as yours. Like driving a car it actually takes a lot of responsibiltiy to handle a gun. I know plenty of people who own guns, are responsible & aren’t completely crackers, I mean crazy.
My rage is with the gun lobby, the gun industry and politicians (see “gun lobby”) who poke the already paranoid into believing the gubberment is on the verge of taking their guns to boost sales. It’s sick. And of course the dummies who can only find their courage, or their end at end of a gun barrel. Unfortunately for them they tend to eliminate the problem as quickly as they cause it in another.
Good sensible article. Thanks.
CrimeCents
April 13, 2012
Thanks for stopping by, madmonq. There’s no need to turn paranoid people into paranoid people with guns, unless, of course, you are a manufacturer who profits from that. I think most gun owners are probably responsible and reasonable – but their voices are hard to hear what with all the shouting done by everyone else.
marginsofamerica
April 14, 2012
This is a nice exploration of our American gun identities. I don’t own or know how to use a gun, and find gun proponents often ridiculously hyperbolic, but you made a good point about knowing how to use a gun. A nice thought-provoking piece.
CrimeCents
April 15, 2012
Thanks, marginsofamerica! Yes, I do think there’s a lot of hyperbole in the debates.
True STORIES.
April 24, 2012
I don’t own a gun, nor do I know how to use one. I don’t like the idea of most hunting or of a gun being in the same house as children. But–I appreciate your point of view a lot more than I do the extremes on either side. The answer is always somewhere in the middle.
CrimeCents
April 25, 2012
Thanks for stopping by, TrueSTORIES. I don’t own a gun right now either. It’s possible to be sensible about firearms, but so many people have intense emotional responses to the issue that it can be hard to talk about it calmly.