New from Drew McKevitt: How Magical Thinking Gave Guns Their Power (Time Magazine). He begins:
It’s hard for Americans in the 21st century to think about their guns as ordinary objects. When nightmarish events like the recent mass shooting in Maine occur, we retreat to reassuring positions in the culture wars.
Gun “culture”is our collective, contentious effort to apply meaning to these inanimate things made of wood, plastic, and steel. For some, guns “may be the biggest force for evil in America,” as Seattle Times columnist David Horsey wrote last year of the firearms industry. For others, like the National Rifle Association, guns are in fact the best defense against malevolent supernatural forces. In the aftermath of the horrific 2012 mass slaughter of children in Newton, Connecticut, NRA executive vice-president Wayne LaPierre explained that “genuine monsters” walk among us, “people so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons that no sane person can possibly ever comprehend them.” We ought to expect similar platitudes from the gun lobby in response to Maine in the days ahead.
Read more here.
Dr. McKevitt is the author of Gun Country (UNC Press, 2023).
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