Mark Sumner writes for the ultra-Left wing site, Daily Kos. He thought he, as a gun owner, would enlighten the internet how any gun owner with a gun made since the 1970s is a bloodthirsty wannabe-killer who as drunk the NRA’s Kool-aid.
First of all, two pistols, two rifles, and three shotguns is not a lot of guns to own. That’s not even a busy day at the range.
From the fact that he mentions all of his guns are at least 40 years old and that he’s a hunter, you know exactly what sort of Fudd he is.
The thesis of his thread is that gun ownership was some sort of pastoral, outdoorsy, sportsman-related venture, where guys who liked to bag a deer or a couple of ducks every year would guy a new gun every now and again.
Then, suddenly, in 2008 something happened that made all these people decide to start buying murder weapons for “hunting people.”
He’s wrong. Several things happened that he failed to take into account.
The first big awakening of the modern gun community was the 1992 LA riots. There had been riots in the past, but this was the first time they were covered on a 24-hour news cycle, live in color, on people’s TVs.
Americans watched as the police totally failed to contain the violence. They watched as stores were looted and a trucker was nearly beat to death as a news helicopter circled above broadcasting that into people’s homes.
They watched as Korean shopkeepers defended their property as the police fell back and were nowhere to be seen.
Then, two years later, the Brady Bill and Clinton Assault Weapon Ban were passed into law. This was the next big awakening. For the first time, many gun owners discovered that yes, the government really could take guns away from people. It took 10 years for that ban to sunset, and when it did people start to stock up.
The demand for AR-15 style rifles, as much as by people who wanted to get ahead of any future bans as actual performance, drove the economy of scale to do what it does. In 1994, if you wanted an AR-15 your choice was Colt, and maybe Colt, and if you looked really hard, you might find a Bushmaster, but probably Colt.
By the late 2000s, every gun guy with a machine shop capable of holding tolerance in billet aluminum was making AR-15s. The price on an AR came down so much that it being the most popular rifle in America was driven as much by cost and the availability of accessories. There are only so many ways to build a Remington 700 or Savage 110. There are infinite ways to deck out an AR-15.
By the late 2000s, if you wanted a casual rifle, buying a 30-30 lever gun was going to cost you a lot more than a DMPS or Double Star AR. Same for ammo (boy those were the days, $5 boxes of 223).
Near the end of the ABW sunset, another thing happened, 9/11. On the heels of that were several other high-profile terrorist mass shootings.
The 24-hour news cycle made it crystal clear that when the shit hit the fan, the police were nowhere to be seen and only showed up after it was all over to draw chalk around the bodies.
In 2005, Americans witnessed the first large natural disaster that caused civil unrest with Hurricane Katrina. Looting, violence, total failure of the police to maintain order, and then the gun confiscations.
Then there were the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lots of veterans came home, having never shot before or maybe having come from hunting families, and they liked the rifles they were issued. As they left the service or simply were rotated home, they wanted AR-15s for personal use. This, with a large dose of patriotism, kicked off the tacticool culture that helped make the AR-15 even more popular.
As for handguns, the mid-1990s through to the early 2000s saw an explosion in concealed carry. Before 1987, shall issue was limited to mostly rural states, Alabama, Indiana, Maine, the Dakotas. When Florida went shall issue in 1987, that started the ball rolling on most states going shall issue, and quite a number going Constitutional carry.
Concealed carry did more for handgun sales than anything else. An entire market for more compact firearms for personal protection exploded during that period of the early 1990s to the late 2000s.
This went along with the suburbanization of American society. Suburban Americans weren’t as interested in hunting, especially younger Americans. The dramatic rise in gun ownership was driven by a desire for personal protection in a world of Islamic terrorism, riots, mass looting, and the utter failures of law enforcement in a face of a crisis.
All of these individual trends coalesced into Gun Culture 2.0.
We own guns for personal defense and for sport. We own lots of guns because we want to have a lifetime supply in case of another AWB. We also like to accessorize, so we have different models in different calibers with different barrel lengths and optics for different reasons. Gun Culture 2.0 owns AR-15s like a golfer owns clubs. One for long-range, one for short-range, one in a subsonic caliber for a can, one in 9mm for USPSA PCC, one just because you had an extra scope lying around after a late night on eBay and a few too many beers and you just can’t have a homeless scope dammit, you need a rifle to mount it on.
Where there is fear, it’s not unjustified.
In just the last couple of years, there have been attacks on Synagogues and churches. Right now there is a spike in anti-Asian violence. People getting slashed and shoved in front of trains left-and-right in NYC.
Don’t forget about the 2020 summer of violence, a year’s worth of Antifa violence, billions of dollars in looting damage, and a crime wave facilitated by Progressive anti-Policing anti-Bail, COVID-get-out-of-jail-free, and prosecutorial discretion that has brought us back to the worst days of the 1990s.
We are on our own. The cops have either abandoned us, have sided with the criminals, or have been hamstrung by the politicians who side with the criminals. Of course, we want to defend ourselves.
This is not unreasonable.
Except in the mind of an extremist Fudd who thinks a “new gun” is one that was made before my grandfather was born and has nothing but seething condescension and contempt for a gun culture he thinks he’s better than.
Fuck this guy.
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