Male Fragility

This is a fascinating examination of the role that male fragility has in creating the modern gun culture.  Basically, as the idea of the male "breadwinner" dies away, especially among working class men, men have to redefine what it means to "be a man."  Meanwhile, they are simultaneously dealing with their declining fortunes and status.  Women might be earning more than them.  They are no longer the patriarch of their community.

They channel this sense of cultural decline - which is really just their own personal status being eclipsed by others - into a need to "protect" themselves and their communities. This was a deliberate strategy of the NRA to sell more guns.

Think about the role that fear played in Trump's campaign.  The hordes of Mexican rapists and MS13 and "urban people" coming to take away what's yours.  American carnage.  The blasted lives in urban hellholes.

What do you think Make America Great Again actually means?

Trump's entire persona is tha angry backlash against declining white male privilege.  The Access Hollywood tape didn't sink him, because there were millions of Americans who wanted to go back to the idea that a little grab-ass was just clean fun and not sexual assault.  There are a group of men who want to go back to when they felt like women were theirs, prosperity was theirs, power was theirs.

The NRA feeds on this sense of declining white power, but as the piece notes, in places like Detroit, black men can often feel that sense of helplessness that prompts one to carry a gun.  Of course, black men are most often the victims of the fear that leads to an over-armed citizenry.  Marry the racial fears that whites have of black men with an abundance of weaponry, and you have the formula that leads policemen to shoot first and ask questions later.

When I was down in Georgia, I looked through the magazine rack in the local CVS.  There were TWO "Prepper" magazines, devoted to those who want to create a rural fortress against the collapse of civilization.  Two!  I feel reasonably certain our local magazine rack has no issues of "Prepper" lit, but given how relatively conservative our corner of the state is, I can't be sure.

This sense of siege has economic undertones, as White Working Class men are seeing their economic status decline relative to Hipster Men and College Educated Women and Those People.  (Although Those People continue to be poorer than the WWC.) It also has flavors of racism and sexism.

And it has a body count.  At Parkland, Austin, Las Vegas, Orlando...It's not women who are shooting up schools or concerts.  It's not women who are mailing bombs to people.

There is something terribly wrong with men - young and old - in America today.  Fear has replaced optimism, and fear is a terribly emotion to base your decision making on.

This extraordinary student movement against gun violence has its roots, at least in part, in the Millenial generations acceptance of things like non-binary gender and racial diversity.  But that doesn't mean that Nikolas Cruz or Mark Anthony Condit aren't affected by this new form of toxic masculinity.

The idea that I need a gun to protect my family is a perversion of so many different tenets of a functioning society that I scarcely know how to respond.