Gun culture is killing America. Stop being manipulated by 'greedy' gun manufacturers.
We are at a familiar setting in America’s unique gun culture. Our fellow citizens recently experienced two mass shootings within days of each other — one at a school in Nashville followed by one at a bank in Louisville. Impassioned calls are made for commonsensical restrictions on the availability of guns, particularly assault rifles — the weapon of choice for shooters planning a mass shooting, but such calls fall on the deaf ears of legislators.
In these settings, it has become reflexive for opponents of proposed gun restrictions to retort: “guns don’t kill people, people do.” With all respect, this is an absurd objection to prospective restrictions on possession of guns, especially assault rifles. Yes, it takes a person to pull the trigger, but this truism does not alter the fact that a person can kill many more people with an assault rifle than a person can without one.
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That critical fact underlines the need for severe restrictions on the availability of such weapons to the public. The difference in killing capacity between a semi-automatic AR-15 and a fully automatic weapon is insignificant in a civilian setting, but fully automatic firearms have been banned from civilian possession since 1986 and were regulated since 1934. Still, Congress has refused to reinstate the ban on assault rifles. Why?
The gun mystique. A powerful gun culture has grown in the U.S. unlike that of any other nation. This culture was initiated in the late 1800s by Samuel Colt, an astute businessman, who tirelessly promoted the six-shot revolver manufactured by his company. Former President Teddy Roosevelt later popularized the image of the tough, self-sufficient cowboy. This mythical culture got a gigantic boost in the 1950s with the advent of TV westerns and the 1955 movie “The Gun That Won the West.” The mystique surrounding guns has grown on steroids since then and pop culture today — movies and computer games — is awash with gun-related violence.
Boys and their toys. It appears well-documented that U.S. gun manufacturers have continued down the path plowed by Samuel Colt. In the latter decades of the 20th century, the gun industry turned the once staid NRA into its advertising arm through contributions of tens of millions of dollars. And the gun industry appears to have turned its own advertising expertise toward boys and young men. In a 2012 ad, one gun manufacturer published an ad showing an assault rifle with the slogan “Consider your Man Card Reissued.” The gaming industry has jumped on the bandwagon as well, with a multitude of violent shooter games like “Call to Action.”
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This cultural mystique, fueled by the gun industry, feeds the current frenzy for owning assault rifles. Political contributions to state and federal legislatures from the NRA and the gun industry assure that no serious constraints on gun ownership — particularly of assault rifles — are adopted.
I urgently suggest that it is well past time for:
American men to really “man up” by refusing to be manipulated by a greedy gun industry that puts protecting guns (and their profits) above protecting children; and
Politicians to “man up” (and “woman up”) and refuse to accept blood money from the NRA and the gun industry and instead adopt laws that will protect the public from military grade weapons.
Larry Kane is a retired environmental attorney residing in the Indianapolis area.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: When will we tire of gun culture, mass shootings and take action?
