Thoughts on Guns, Cultural Identity, and Political Mobilization

In this piece in the Newark Star-Ledger, I argue that it's time for a good old-fashioning reckoning about the place of firearms in our society.

Gun rights forces have spent nearly four decades crafting a compelling, values-based narrative in which gun owners are all that's standing between us and tyranny. The "pistol packing patriot" ideal is central to many gun owners' civic identity and an incredibly effective mobilizing tool. By contrast, the gun-control side has only fitfully waded into the terrain of political culture and national values.

Ironically, by finding last June that D.C. residents have a Constitutional right to own a handgun for self-protection -- a ruling the Court is poised to extend nationwide this month -- the Supreme Court has opened the way to the values debate.

With openly armed protesters now assembling in legislators' offices, at the base of airport runways, even in Starbucks and Whole Foods, it's about time to have a reasonable debate about the place of guns in our democracy.

The gun rights narrative is succinctly captured in National Rifle Association leader Wayne LaPierre's speech to the group's annual meeting last month.

In a compelling deconstruction of the gun rights narrative, gun control advocates Joshua Horwitz and Casey Anderson, of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, have published Guns, Democracy, and the Insurrectionist Idea (University of Michigan Press, 2009).

For an excellent piece rebutting common misconceptions about gun regulation, see my colleague Philip Cook's op-ed, with Jens Ludwig, in this week's Washington Post Outlook section.