It is difficult to limit its spread

America's personal firearm has become a symbol of masculinity

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The United States is experiencing a wave of armed violence, sometimes as if civil war has returned within America itself.

In 2021, shootings increased 52% compared to 2020, according to the FBI.

This weekend, mass killings in Pennsylvania and South Carolina caused a growing number of victims in Buffalo, New York;

Uvald, Texas;

Tulsa, and Oklahoma.

The American warrior, James Strickenland, who fought for his country for 10 years with his automatic rifle still hanging from his shoulder, believes that firearms are not the cause of mass killings. Firearms only obey the thoughts of the bearer.

And in the decade following the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, this perspective helped push the gun debate toward an almost religious tone, seen by some as a battle between good and evil that transcends good or bad politics.

This small group of Americans and religious leaders believes that as access to firearms becomes a moral issue, so will their defense of a national cause to defend America's virtues.

As for advocates of gun control, including religious leaders as well, the more guns become almost sacred, the more complicated it becomes to pass legislation that the vast majority of Americans support in the form of laws.

Sociologist at Wake Forest University and author of “The Hidden Weapon Revolution,” David Yaman, says: “People don’t actually think the gun is sacred, but what the gun represents is sacred.” He adds, “When they look at their guns they see freedom, independence, and the virtue May God make America what it is.”

In less than a decade, researchers have noticed a new depth to the concept of "faith and guns."

More and more gunslingers are linking their guns to a symbolic force related to a narrow, but powerful view of conservative Christian identity.

They display their views of the gun on social media as veneration.

Such ideas are proudly marketed to children.

“Weapons have become more than just a tool,” says Eastern Kentucky University philosopher Michael Austin, author of God, Guns and Guns in America.

Since January, for example, more than 100 political ads have shown Republican candidates carrying firearms as a sign of their conservative credentials.

freedom and independence

For many firearm owners, gun ownership goes beyond self-protection, sports, and governmental tyranny, to the US Constitutional Charter that guarantees independence and personal liberty.

As Florida gun owners, Miguel Gonzalez, wrote in an email, "Guns remained part of the future nation's DNA."

The number of individual gun owners is relatively small, about 16 million Americans, says Robert Spitzer, professor emeritus of political science at State University of New York College in Cortland.

But nearly all of these are ardent supporters of gun rights, he says, and nearly all of them would oppose any laws to limit the carrying of firearms.

Growing distrust of American institutions, including the church, has led to the creation of a different faith belief system and a different societal system. Such personal beliefs are often associated with symbols such as flags, masks, and weapons, and are often associated with a particular political goal.

This position highlights what Professor Yaman calls "a strange inequality ... in a nation so violent and at the same time extraordinarily peaceful."

The emergence of Venice as a symbol of Christian and conservative identity comes at the intersection of secular and religious tectonic trends.

no to church

2020 was the first year that a majority of Americans confirmed they no longer belong to the church, according to Gallup.

This affiliation decreased 47% from about 70% in previous decades.

Meanwhile, 81.4 million Americans own firearms, according to the 2021 National Firearms Survey, with a record 22.8 million guns sold in 2020.

low frequency of fishing

While hunting has long since declined, shooting and self-defense have grown, reinforced by Supreme Court decisions since 2008, and owning a private gun has become a constitutional right.

Such a huge arsenal of personal weapons makes the country a mine of dangers.

In recent years, militants have participated in large protests, altering the dynamics of freedom of expression.

For the first time in US history, more children die each year from firearms than from any other cause.

Meanwhile, many gun owners see the rising crime as the result of the liberal policies around bail and imprisonment, exemplified this week by the call for the removal of the progressive attorney general in San Francisco.

On the other hand, Archbishop Daniel Flores of the Archdiocese of Brownsville in Texas recently wrote on Twitter that Americans "revere the tools of death, and then they are surprised that death uses the same weapons."

"When we raise an individual's right to a higher level than is appropriate, whatever that individual considers sacred is beyond any discussion," Bishop Flores told the Catholic Web site The Beller.

Some observers on the right see a threat, not from arms control advocates, but from the gun community itself.

"The cult of guns is fundamentally aggressive, highly irresponsible, and potentially destabilizing for American democracy," David French, a veteran veteran, attorney and committed Christian, wrote in Dispatch.

negative effect

And social researchers believe there is some negative effect.

As Americans are discriminated against along political, racial, and religious lines, faith in Venice grows.

Since the end of the ban on assault rifles in 2004, the number of AR-15 rifles in the hands of American citizens has risen to 20 million, and marketers have been able to strike a chord.

Daniel Defense, Black Creek, Georgia, the company that sold the rifle used on May 24 to kill 19 students and teachers in Ovaldi, Texas, earlier in May, posted a photo of a young boy holding an R-15 on his lap.

The National Rifle Association has long recognized the power of this weapon's religious messages, and the association's executive vice president, Warren Cassidy, once said, "You'll get a much better understanding of us if you approach us as you approach one of the world's great religions."

"They created some kind of monster," says Professor Spitzer.

“What our data shows is that there are groups of people who feel very attached to their guns,” says Texas sociologist Paul Froese, director of the Bayler Religious Surveys.

Thus the gun becomes a symbol of masculinity.

In this way, it acquires a kind of mystical and almost sacred character.”

In 2015, such attitudes began to merge with what scholars call Christian nationalism, which was fueled by President Donald Trump's candidacy and later presidency, who used evangelical symbols, although he did attend church occasionally.

• Since January, more than 100 political ads have shown Republican candidates carrying firearms as a sign of their conservative credentials.


• 81.4 million Americans own firearms, according to the 2021 National Firearms Survey, with a record 22.8 million guns sold in 2020.

Defending the bearing of arms

Many gun owners believe that the concept of "gun cult" promoted by gun control proponents is a misconception designed to delegitimize the Second Amendment, demonizing gun owners ahead of attempts to regulate guns.

Gunslinger Gonzalez, of Florida, notes that his association with firearms goes back to his family's experiences in the Spanish Civil War, the Cuban Revolution, and gun restrictions in his native Venezuela.

"We don't pray or light candles for any kind of gun the same as bikers who don't kneel in front of a bike, Harley Davidson, or car enthusiasts who don't kneel in front of their Shelby Cobra cars," wrote Gonzalez, founder of the Gun Free Zone Blog.

As such, many gun owners believe, the fear of gun sanctification is exaggerated.

The vast majority of people who own guns, who have a constitutional concealed carry permit, or live in one of the 25 states with "constitutional bearing arms" protection, do not walk around armed.

With the lifting of gun restrictions over the past two decades, the wild west community that everyone so fears has yet to emerge, they said.

"Most people don't walk into a gun store thinking: This is how I'm going to express myself, how I'm going to have my freedom, and how I'm going to support certain candidates I love," says Dan Zimmerman, Texas gun owner and owner of the Firearms Truth blog. It diminishes the original intent of the Second Amendment, which was a protection against tyranny...and many people still look at guns that way.”

Efforts to control personal weapons

Within Congress, a bipartisan working group is working on drafting a package of gun control legislation focused on red flag laws.

They use emergency orders, linked to strong legal procedures, to allow authorities to focus on individuals who may pose a threat to themselves or others, rather than trying to control larger groups of people.

Thousands of guns were handed over, often returned under these laws, including in gun-friendly Florida.

The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decisive ruling on the issue of New York's gun licensing by the end of this month.

But this is unlikely to leave gun ownership and bearing unregulated.

"Yes, the right to keep and bear arms is undisputed in the constitution, but the constitution has left the government free as to how far the government can go in placing restrictions on this right," said Nelson Lund, professor of constitutional law at George Mason University School of Law.

However, he says, what observers might call absolutism is not really absolute.

“When there are these serious policy disagreements, people naturally come to different conclusions about how to fill in the blanks left by the ambiguity of the Second Amendment,” he says.

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