t_polkow
Rookie
- Mar 3, 2013
- 1,190
- 230
You won't find anyone willing to dare say it much in the media, but a good percentage of the white men who oppose gun control of any sort and who back measures that would even allow alleged terrorists and straw purchases for drug dealers to buy guns are just afraid that without their guns, their phallic power will be reduced to size.
You can feel at least temporarily reassured when a long-barreled assault weapon compensates for just another average manhood; it's an irresistable testosterone high to the beleaguered white male.
Call this Freudian psychobabble analysis, but when you add it into the mix of just angry white males who want their guns to show that they are still top dog on the political, social and marital hierarchy, you got a good percentage of the psychologically need gun owners. A gun, particularly assault weapons and lethal militarized handguns, are at least two things: a prosthetic dick and a sign that even unemployed white guys still rule the Western World and sit at the head of the kitchen table.
We're talking about a dying patriarchy making a last stand with the ownership and brandishing of weapons that provide the semblance of ultimate power over life and death.
Sure, there is the rapidly decreasing tradition and understandable ritual of hunting in rural areas, particularly for those who actually need the meat because of near poverty. And there are handgun target shooters who truly regard handguns as a sport -- which they are in some cases. But these white men are a minority in a culture war that causes even elected Democrats to tremble in fear at voting on a gun control measure, even a law that might aid police in apprehending criminals, but the gun lobby opposes it for some obscure reason to rally their supporters around.
Let's face it, the more white guys feel besieged by a multi-cultural society in which women and minorities have chewed away at their perch until it is about to crash to the ground and leave them equals among other humans, the more fierce and maniacal the opposition to regulating guns as dangerous instruments of death becomes.
That is to say that a gun, or multiple numbers of them (which is the trend per gun owner over the past few years), provides a sense of potency, a shot of dominance that allows one in some states -- to walk around "open carry" with a handgun. "You see who I am," the handgun symbolizes, "I am of the white guy lineage that conquered the world from the heathens, that wears a 'white hat,' that has anchored civilization since the launch of European empires. This gun tells you one thing; don't mess with me."
Add this to the militia conspiratorialists, the gun profiteers (manufacturers and the whole chain of distribution including gun stores and gun shows), and the guys like NRA honcho Wayne LaPierre who are pulling in hefty salaries running high-octane incendiary and fanciful Alamo campaigns to incite virulent fear and you got the beginnings of understanding why gun control never gets much past "go." In fact, except with the brief early Bill Clinton passage of the Assault Weapons Ban (flawed as it was and which sunset after 10 years), the nation has been moving incrementally backwards on gun policy.
Memories of gun massacres last a few months and fade away, but the psychological need of the white man for feeling sexually and politically powerful continues like a raging tsunami as progressives forget about the last mass shooting, the issue receding as a priority among the majority of the nation who support gun control.
On March 29 in the Washington Post, Charlotte Childress and Harriet Childress discussed the culpability of white male gun worshippers in regards to mass shootings (and that is only the most visible edge of the some 10,000 gun homicides each year in the US, in addition to countless gun injuries):
Many American White Men Worship Guns Because of Sexual Insecurity, Entitlement, and Profit
You can feel at least temporarily reassured when a long-barreled assault weapon compensates for just another average manhood; it's an irresistable testosterone high to the beleaguered white male.
Call this Freudian psychobabble analysis, but when you add it into the mix of just angry white males who want their guns to show that they are still top dog on the political, social and marital hierarchy, you got a good percentage of the psychologically need gun owners. A gun, particularly assault weapons and lethal militarized handguns, are at least two things: a prosthetic dick and a sign that even unemployed white guys still rule the Western World and sit at the head of the kitchen table.
We're talking about a dying patriarchy making a last stand with the ownership and brandishing of weapons that provide the semblance of ultimate power over life and death.
Sure, there is the rapidly decreasing tradition and understandable ritual of hunting in rural areas, particularly for those who actually need the meat because of near poverty. And there are handgun target shooters who truly regard handguns as a sport -- which they are in some cases. But these white men are a minority in a culture war that causes even elected Democrats to tremble in fear at voting on a gun control measure, even a law that might aid police in apprehending criminals, but the gun lobby opposes it for some obscure reason to rally their supporters around.
Let's face it, the more white guys feel besieged by a multi-cultural society in which women and minorities have chewed away at their perch until it is about to crash to the ground and leave them equals among other humans, the more fierce and maniacal the opposition to regulating guns as dangerous instruments of death becomes.
That is to say that a gun, or multiple numbers of them (which is the trend per gun owner over the past few years), provides a sense of potency, a shot of dominance that allows one in some states -- to walk around "open carry" with a handgun. "You see who I am," the handgun symbolizes, "I am of the white guy lineage that conquered the world from the heathens, that wears a 'white hat,' that has anchored civilization since the launch of European empires. This gun tells you one thing; don't mess with me."
Add this to the militia conspiratorialists, the gun profiteers (manufacturers and the whole chain of distribution including gun stores and gun shows), and the guys like NRA honcho Wayne LaPierre who are pulling in hefty salaries running high-octane incendiary and fanciful Alamo campaigns to incite virulent fear and you got the beginnings of understanding why gun control never gets much past "go." In fact, except with the brief early Bill Clinton passage of the Assault Weapons Ban (flawed as it was and which sunset after 10 years), the nation has been moving incrementally backwards on gun policy.
Memories of gun massacres last a few months and fade away, but the psychological need of the white man for feeling sexually and politically powerful continues like a raging tsunami as progressives forget about the last mass shooting, the issue receding as a priority among the majority of the nation who support gun control.
On March 29 in the Washington Post, Charlotte Childress and Harriet Childress discussed the culpability of white male gun worshippers in regards to mass shootings (and that is only the most visible edge of the some 10,000 gun homicides each year in the US, in addition to countless gun injuries):
Many American White Men Worship Guns Because of Sexual Insecurity, Entitlement, and Profit
