Read this lengthy, fair piece in Esquire about the Open Carry movement in Texas. I don't think Richardson does anything but give a fair portrait of the guy at the center of this movement.
Reading it, it's pretty clear that the obsession with guns is tied to a greater insecurity that Americans feel about...everything really. CJ Grisham is a decorated combat veteran, but he's also got a raging case of short-guy-complex and PTSD. His guns give him a sense of security that nothing else can.
My question, having read it, is whether Grisham and his friends are part of a larger pathology of fear in the United States or whether this is some unique pathology to a smaller sliver of our quaking nation. Fear makes you stupid. And we are a very fearful people. And we are very fearful despite living in a time of tremendous peace and prosperity.
The idea that you need guns to protect yourself from some combination of a Mad Max dystopia and encroaching government tyranny is inherently contradictory. The idea that there are criminals out there waiting to pounce - which is why Grisham keeps his fucking arsenal loaded with a baby in the house - is paranoid.
Ammosexuality is nothing more than cowardice masked with heavy armaments.
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