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+++ title = "gun culture in america" summary = "a reactionary gun culture that perceives any attempt to curb it as an assault on their very identity" date = "2018-02-18T01:48:00-00:00" source = "https://mastodon.social/@trwnh/99543874314017409" +++
[...] although in fact, having a permanent standing army is less legally supported than gun ownership. constitutionally, the longest that congress can raise/fund an army is 2 years...
the larger problem is that the culture around violence in america is absolutely toxic. the war of 1812 eroded the resistance to standing armies, the fugitive slave act of 1850 let the army act as a police force (only on the president's orders post-1878), in 1904 then-sec of war decided to station foreign troops, and in 1947 the dept of defense was formed to integrate the army into the govt. so militias aren't really a modern application of civilian defense, since the govt "took over" it.
the biggest strain was actually when the black panthers decided to arm themselves for community self-defense; white supremacists were scared and started to push for gun control. not really the first gun-scare about black people; one of the arguments used during the dred scott case was that freed slaves couldn't be citizens because then they would legally be allowed to have guns.
anyway, the NRA got taken over in the 1970s and converted from a marksmanship club to a political advocacy group. most of the people involved in this takeover decided to try another approach: take a hardline stance against any gun licensing (to better form white militias), and to strip the black community of its guns by criminalizing them, usually in conjunction with something else...that thing was the introduction of drugs and crack into black communities, which was criminalized once people got addicted to it. furthermore, gun possession drastically increased sentencing if convicted for drug offenses.
the end result of all that is a reactionary gun culture that perceives any attempt to curb it as an assault on their very identity. and when you call them out on this, they deflect to something else like "mental illness" instead. in other words, the whole of american gun culture revolves around a false sense of freedom and safety, directly descended from white supremacy and toxic masculinity. people commit shootings out of a desire for fame or notoriety, or out of some perceived slight or grievance, largely based on ideological assumptions or entitlement.