Guns, teddy bears, tiaras and the American male

Brian Cox, Legal News

Here’s where we’re at: A whole lot of American men love guns. They love the feel of them, the look of them, the power of them. They love the threat of violence and the aura of virility guns convey. And as long as so many American men have a love affair with guns, the country’s all-too-close and tragic relationship with gun violence is unlikely to change in any significant way.

At the end of his address to the nation following the attack at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, a frustrated and demoralized President Barack Obama called on God to “give us the strength to come together and find the courage to change.”

Three years prior, after the horrific massacre of 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School, a tearful Obama used similar language, saying, “And we’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.”

There was no “coming together” then and there is no reason to believe it will happen this time, either.

Mass shootings such as the most recent one in Oregon will continue to occur in part because American men’s deep emotional connection with firearms is too strong to allow for any rational discussion of gun reform. American men’s vehement resistance to firearms regulation, it turns out, stems more from how guns make them feel as a man than any reasonable rationale.

For there to be movement away from the type of recurring mass violence that distinguishes the United States from other industrialized nations, one of the first steps must be to recognize that American men have an hysterical attachment to guns and then find ways to separate men’s emotions from the issue of sensible gun reform.

American men are loathe to admit to having an emotional attachment to guns, of course, because then they would be forced to acknowledge the irrational and childish nature of their fixation;  so they disguise their preteen infatuation with guns in a form of Orwellian doublespeak, describing their “gun crush” in often pseudo-militaristic language that connotes reason, responsibility, practicality, and patriotism.

For example, they like to claim they own a gun strictly for self-defense. The truth, of course, is that a very tiny percentage of gun-toting American men have ever drawn their weapon to defend themselves. Owning a gun does not, in reality, make an American man or his family any safer; it does, however, make the man feel safer. So in that sense, an American man’s relationship with his gun is no different from a child’s relationship with a teddy bear.

Or proponents of open carry laws like to claim that the obvious presence of a firearm serves as a deterrent to crime. What they won’t admit is how carrying a gun is like a fabulous fashion accessory that makes the American man feel confident and capable and in control, none of which may be true in reality, of course. But a gun on the hip can make a man feel like the good guy with a gun who is going to stop a bad guy with a gun, although, again, it is in reality a tiny percentage of American men with guns who are ever presented with the opportunity to be the good guy. Guns can make the American man feel like a hero in waiting the way a tiara can make a young girl feel like a princess.

Another popular excuse American men like to use to cloak their infatuation with guns is one that asserts that as patriots they must be prepared  — and adequately equipped — to rise up against a tyrannical government. Once again, at least since the 20th Century, an almost insignificant percentage of American men with guns have ever used them in acts of rebellion against the U.S. government, and all those who have tried to revolt resoundingly lost. So the reality is that guns can make a man feel like a rebel in the same way eye black can make a peewee football player feel tough.

Among the hundreds of people who packed the Connecticut State Capitol in January 2013 for a hearing on gun violence, at which parents of children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary testified, were American men wearing yellow stickers that read: “Another Responsible Gun Owner.”  It is a typical ploy. Men infatuated with guns want to sell the illogical equation that being a law-abiding gun owner presupposes competency and responsibility. And yet everyday in America there are headlines about responsible gun owners accidentally shooting friends, family, even themselves; children finding legally owned guns and shooting playmates; or responsible gun owners murdering their wives or coworkers; or even a responsible gun instructor shot and killed by a 9-year-old girl he was showing how to fire an Uzi on full automatic. The truth is that every gun owner can feel responsible, until the one time he isn’t.

American men have an emotional attachment to their guns similar to one a toddler may have with his pacifier: they like the comfort it brings them and if you take it away they can throw a tantrum. In order for the country to achieve a drawdown in gun violence, advocates for gun reform must first find effective ways to alter the American man’s emotional and irrational bond with guns. Otherwise, their pounding of fists and kicking of feet will continue to disrupt and impede any efforts to make America safer from men who are swept up in the mythos of gun violence and decide to carry firearms into a school intent on killing as many people as possible.

—————

Brian Cox is editor of the Detroit Legal News.