{"id":76219,"date":"2022-01-17T16:42:11","date_gmt":"2022-01-17T22:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=76219"},"modified":"2022-01-17T16:43:26","modified_gmt":"2022-01-17T22:43:26","slug":"76219","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=76219","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

No, Gun Culture Has Not Been Radicalized<\/a><\/p>\n

I<\/span>n<\/span>\u00a0a single issue in March of 1961,\u00a0Guns & Ammo<\/em>\u00a0ran ads for a \u201cSniper Model\u201d Enfield Match rifle, a French 8mm machine gun (\u201cused in two World Wars\u201d), a Mannlicher military pistol, a U.S. .30 M1 carbine, and a police-ordnance Ingram Model 6 submachine gun chambered in .45 ACP (only $49.95!). If you\u2019re surprised that these machine guns and high-powered military rifles were marketed to hunters in the 1960s, you might have unconsciously accepted a flawed but popular narrative about American\u00a0gun culture<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to this story, gun owners have only recently become \u201cmilitarized,\u201d thanks to the machinations of the National Rifle Association and its infamous leader, Wayne LaPierre. That military-style attitude has further resulted in a recalcitrant stance toward\u00a0gun control<\/a>\u00a0and an obsession with armed self-defense.<\/p>\n

There are many examples of this fable, but the most recent comes from the\u00a0New Yorker<\/em>, in a declaratively titled piece, \u201cWhat Happened to Gun Culture<\/a>.\u201d As author Benjamin Wallace-Wells helpfully explains, gun culture has become \u201cone of the most dangerous elements of the right\u201d during LaPierre\u2019s tenure.<\/p>\n

\u201cMilitary\u201d or \u201cmilitarization\u201d appears nine times in the article, as Wallace-Wells claims that only since the 1990s have manufacturers been allowed to sell \u201cmilitary-grade weapons\u201d and \u201cmarket them as military weapons.\u201d Ultimately, Wallace-Wells writes, LaPierre\u2019s NRA \u201cbrainwashed an entire country\u201d by transforming a political base of hunters into a \u201cnew, expanded audience of gun guys\u201d who support a \u201cmaximalist defense of guns.\u201d This new gun culture has spawned characters such as\u00a0Kyle Rittenhouse<\/a>, the January 6 rioters, and, most horrifically of all,\u00a0Black Rifle Coffee Company<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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As with all stories that attempt to shoehorn the history of a community into a convenient political narrative, this myth is mostly untrue. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Even the briefest glance at any pre-1990s outdoor magazine demonstrates that gun owners were interested in \u201cmilitary-style\u201d firearms long before LaPierre took over the NRA. Hunting and fishing outlets have blasted gun control for decades, and gun owners have always valued their rifles, pistols, and shotguns for both recreation and defense.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a falsehood to think that the NRA is all that important,\u201d Tom Gresham told me. Gresham is the host of\u00a0Gun Talk<\/em>, the only syndicated radio show covering firearms and related activities. He\u2019s been an outspoken critic of LaPierre. (\u201cHe\u2019s a sad example of leadership. You can quote me on that.\u201d) In our conversation, Gresham characterized gun culture as far larger than any single organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt its height, the NRA represented maybe 5 percent of America\u2019s gun owners,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s part of the media\u2019s need to have a bogeyman, and the NRA has always served that role.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Militarization?<\/span>Among the more popular criticisms of today\u2019s gun culture is the characterization of gun owners as \u201cmilitarized.\u201d Where previous generations were content with their bolt-action rifles, today\u2019s \u201cgun guys\u201d wield AR-15s and other \u201cmilitary-grade\u201d weapons, as Wallace-Wells puts it. This line of argument has even appeared in\u00a0lawsuits<\/a>\u00a0trying to hold gunmakers responsible for the actions of mass killers.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s true that modern gun ads occasionally depict soldiers, this critique reveals an ignorance both of mid-20th-century gun culture and of what constitutes a \u201cmilitary-style\u201d firearm. In a 1958 issue of\u00a0Sports Afield<\/em>, for example, an advertisement showcased a Lee-Enfield rifle chambered in .303 British. To modern eyes, it looks like an innocuous deer rifle: wood stock, bolt action, iron sights. But the Lee-Enfield was the main firearm of British military forces from 1895 until 1957. It doesn\u2019t look like what we today consider a \u201cmilitary-style\u201d firearm, but it was exactly that.<\/p>\n

In the same vein, a 1954 issue of\u00a0Sports Afield<\/em>\u00a0informed readers about an \u201coutstanding\u201d display of American military firearms to be housed at a new museum wing of the Chickamauga-Chattanooga National Military Park.\u00a0Sports Afield<\/em>\u00a0was one of the most popular magazines among the hunters and anglers who supposedly constituted America\u2019s pre-LaPierre gun culture. And yet, the outlet\u2019s Washington reporter believed that his readers would be interested in a display of military firearms.<\/p>\n

Guns & Ammo<\/em>\u00a0has been publishing since 1958, which itself contradicts the notion that \u201cgun guys\u201d are anything new. Even in the early 1960s,\u00a0Guns & Ammo<\/em>\u00a0editors were serving up a steady diet of military weapons, military history, and insider military news. In 1961,\u00a0Guns & Ammo<\/em>\u00a0ran a cover story on the German Luger pistol, a famous military sidearm. The headline read, \u201cThe Fabulous Luger \u2014 a Gun That Won\u2019t Die!\u201d The article was titled \u201cLong Live the Luger.\u201d A 1966 issue of the same magazine featured a cover story titled \u201cHow Vietnam is Changing our Shooting Ideas!,\u201d and a 1967 story told readers about \u201cVietnam\u2019s \u2018Biggest\u2019 Little Gun.\u201d The 1966 story, as you might imagine, featured a wealth of military training photos, including many soldiers, and centers on the Army\u2019s new automatic rifle, the M-14.<\/p>\n

The machine guns and military rifles advertised in Guns & Ammo<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Sports Afield<\/em> may not look like the \u201cassault weapons\u201d villainized and valorized today, but the military and its weapons were a part of gun culture far longer than Wayne LaPierre has been around.<\/p>\n

Gun Rights?<\/span>As for gun control, hunters of yesteryear were supposedly willing to support commonsense reforms until the NRA convinced them that universal background checks were a liberal plot to disarm the country. Investigative journalist\u00a0Frank Smyth argues<\/a>\u00a0that the NRA supported gun control from the early 1920s to the early 1970s. That may be true, but as with the \u201cmilitarization\u201d narrative, a closer look at the broader gun culture reveals faults in the timeline.<\/p>\n

Sports Afield<\/em>, for example, in the 1950s and 1960s published a regular column, \u201cReport from Washington,\u201d covering conservation and environmental bills as well as gun-control legislation. Reporter Michael Hudoba sounded much like today\u2019s \u201cgun guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a 1967 issue, Hudoba warned gun owners that gun-confiscation legislation should be a \u201csober warning\u201d to all who have \u201ctaken lightly the efforts of antigun protagonists.\u201d In 1969, he called a gun-registration bill \u201cdisturbing\u201d and pointed out that recent gun-control policies had not affected violent-crime rates. In another issue from that year, he wondered \u201chow proposed gun registration harassing law-abiding citizen-sportsmen will prevent criminals from getting and owning guns.\u201d<\/p>\n

Columnists in\u00a0Guns & Ammo<\/em>\u00a0were even less willing to compromise on gun-control bills. In a 1966 column, the magazine\u2019s editors slammed three senators for proposing a bill that would place \u201csevere restrictions on interstate traffic of mailorder firearms.\u201d A year later, the editors wrote, \u201cWe don\u2019t intend to quit, falter, slow down or even slightly turn our heads if we feel that the precious right of owning and using firearms is even remotely threatened \u2014 now or any time in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the mainstream narrative about American gun culture comes from a misperception about what constitutes \u201ccompromise.\u201d Gresham told me that the NRA and other gun-rights groups have occasionally agreed to negotiate with the other side when they know that passage of a gun-control bill is inevitable. Gun-rights groups \u201ccompromised\u201d not because they supported the legislation but because they wanted to mitigate the worst of its provisions. Only later did historians misconstrue their deal-making as tacit support for the legislation.<\/p>\n

In any case, that alleged support certainly didn\u2019t extend broadly to American gun owners.<\/p>\n

Self-Defense?<\/span>American gun owners have always purchased military firearms, and they\u2019ve opposed gun control since Congress proposed the first broadly restrictive national legislation. But have they always owned firearms for self-defense?<\/p>\n

Writing in\u00a0Discourse<\/em>,\u00a0David Yamane argues<\/a>\u00a0that they haven\u2019t. In what he calls \u201cGun Culture 2.0,\u201d Americans in recent decades have shifted their focus from hunting and recreational shooting to self-defense. Of the three mainstream gun-culture narratives, this one contains the most truth.<\/p>\n

Read any handgun review published today, and you\u2019ll find a discussion of that firearm\u2019s self-defense capabilities. The outdoor magazines I\u2019ve reviewed from the 1950s and 1960s only occasionally mentioned self-defense in their coverage of handguns, and one author from a 1966 issue of\u00a0Guns & Ammo<\/em>\u00a0argued that those who purchase firearms for self-defense are in the minority. \u201cSome civilians buy guns for the sole purpose of defense, as a \u2018weapon\u2019 to use in defense of their home, place of business or while traveling,\u201d wrote J. W. Mathews Jr. \u201cThese people are relatively few in number; hardly enough to support the firearms industry we have today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gresham argued, however, that self-defense was still a primary motivation for firearm ownership. \u201cThe only change is that people will talk about it now,\u201d he said. \u201cAs far back as you can find\u00a0research<\/a>, when surveys are done asking why people own guns, self-protection has always been the No. 1 reason.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yamane himself acknowledges that Americans have maintained guns for self-defense since the first white settlers landed in Virginia. Pocket pistols have been popular since the 18th century, and Smith & Wesson\u2019s famous \u201cbicycle revolver<\/a>\u201d indicates a market for the same subcompact pistols on the market today.<\/p>\n

A survey of 20th-century outdoor magazines reveals that self-defense was a priority for many gun owners, if not an overwhelming concern. In 1966,\u00a0Outdoor Life<\/em>\u00a0magazine, for example, ran an article featuring a focus group of housewives commenting on firearms, and self-defense was among the reasons cited for firearm ownership. In\u00a0Guns & Ammo<\/em>\u00a0the same year, a piece titled \u201cHard Hitting Handful\u201d outlined \u201ca police officer\u2019s selection for personal defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last three decades have witnessed an explosion of concealed-carry and civilian handgun training, which both mark a shift in gun culture toward self-defense. But that was always in the water. Americans have been defending themselves with firearms since the\u00a0Mayflower<\/em>. It\u2019s unreasonable to imagine that self-defense concerns are a recent invention.<\/p>\n

A \u2018New\u2019 Gun Culture<\/span>The above isn\u2019t much more than a cursory glance at American gun culture in the mid 20th century. Like any community, American gun owners have not spoken with a single voice, and even today there are sharp divides between the tactically minded and the hard-core hunters.<\/p>\n

In fact, gun culture today is more diverse than it\u2019s ever been. As Gresham pointed out, minorities and women constitute the fastest-growing segments of the gun-owning population, and that trend shows no signs of slowing down.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe demographics of gun owners have changed to be very inclusive,\u201d Gresham said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just old white guys. It\u2019s women. It\u2019s minorities. It\u2019s LGTBQ people. That\u2019s gun culture now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Between January 2020 and June 2021, about 11.6 million Americans purchased a firearm for the first time, according to Mark Oliva of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. About 40 percent of those\u00a0first-time buyers were female<\/a>, and\u00a0black men and women<\/a>\u00a0saw the highest increases in sales.<\/p>\n

The mainstream-media types who tell a simple story about American \u201cgun culture\u201d should spend some time getting to know these new gun owners, and then pick up a few old copies of\u00a0Sports Afield<\/em>. An afternoon perusing America\u2019s most popular outdoor publications would demonstrate that concern about gun rights, an interest in military arms, and a desire for effective self-defense can\u2019t be blamed on the NRA\u2019s latest marketing campaign.<\/p>\n

More likely, these interests and values spring from an organic concern among gun owners to preserve their rights and use their firearms to protect themselves and their loved ones. Some might disagree with their conclusions, but it\u2019s disingenuous to make any one organization or company the scapegoat for a general dislike of American gun owners. It makes more political hay to create a bogeyman of the NRA or Springfield Armory, but it does nothing to address the root causes of gun-related violence in this country.<\/p>\n

That root cause, as any old outdoor magazine proves, isn\u2019t \u201cgun culture.\u201d Gun culture has been around for far longer than the suicide epidemic or the explosion of inner-city violence. Those issues are rooted in other factors, and it doesn\u2019t do anyone any good to pretend otherwise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No, Gun Culture Has Not Been Radicalized In\u00a0a single issue in March of 1961,\u00a0Guns & Ammo\u00a0ran ads for a \u201cSniper Model\u201d Enfield Match rifle, a French 8mm machine gun (\u201cused in two World Wars\u201d), a Mannlicher military pistol, a U.S. .30 M1 carbine, and a police-ordnance Ingram Model 6 submachine gun chambered in .45 ACP … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76219"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76220,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76219\/revisions\/76220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}