Understanding and Misunderstanding American Gun Culture and Violence

As I discussed recently, I had the opportunity to share my views on American gun culture and gun violence at the 31st annual gathering of the Lutheran Ethicists’ Network (LEN) in January.

A written version of my talk will be published in the Journal of Lutheran Ethics later this year. For the time-being, I have put a preprint of the paper online as a free download at SocArxiv.

Following the break, I will summarize the paper.

My session at the LEN gathering was allocated 90 minutes. I planned to present for about 45 minutes and take questions for about 45 minutes. Shortly after I started, however, some of the 20 or so attendees began asking questions. This turned out to be an even better format than dividing the session in two.

As I worked my way through my outline, I could clarify the ideas I was presenting, comment on things I left out, or elaborate on points of particular concern to the attendees. For example, I did not discuss either the National Rifle Association (NRA) or police violence, but these were on the minds of some at the gathering.

In the end, the 90 minutes flew by and there was plenty more to talk about at the social times and meals. Everyone was respectful of and receptive to my thoughts, even if there wasn’t a uniform agreement at the end of the day.

After I returned home, I elaborated my presentation outline into a written text that runs to 6,000 words over 14 pages (plus 41 end notes). It consists of three parts:

• Gun Culture Properly Understood
• Gun Violence Properly Understood
• Addressing Negative Outcomes

Over the first two parts, I address four common misunderstandings, two of gun culture and two of gun violence. My approach to addressing negative outcomes with firearms is based on properly understanding gun culture and violence.

You can read the paper for the details, but following are the four common misunderstandings and my understanding of those phenomena.

Misunderstanding #1: The gun industry created gun culture
Understanding: Guns have been a common and normal part of American life from the beginning

Misunderstanding #2: Gun owners are mostly politically conservative, middle-aged, married white men from the rural South
Understanding: Gun Culture 2.0 is diverse and has potential to be even more inclusive

Misunderstanding #3: There is an epidemic of gun violence in the United States
Understanding: Gun injury and death are socially organized and endemic

Misunderstanding #4: Criminal homicides are the most common gun deaths in America
Understanding: The majority of gun deaths are suicides

Most of these points are familiar to those who have followed my work closely over the years, but it was great to have the opportunity to put these thoughts together into a single document.

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