The rumors and conspiracy theories in Hurricane Helene’s wake came armed and dangerous: Government relief was a green light for property confiscation; funds had immediately run dry; the storm itself had been engineered by the government for the benefit of Kamala Harris’ campaign. Meterologists suffered death threats. In North Carolina, FEMA workers stopped knocking on doors out of fear that militia members were after them. In Tennessee, a church-group volunteer stood between federal helpers and angry open-carry gun-toting locals. And at least one arrest, of a man armed with a rifle and a handgun, took place in North Carolina.
The paranoia in hurricane country, with its undercurrent of violence, is just the latest sign of a new wrinkle in American gun ownership, something scholars have started describing as gun culture 3.0. The 1.0 version is firearm ownership based on hunting, often animated by a mythologized Western frontier. Gun culture 2.0 is self-defense-oriented, motivated by overwhelming concerns about violent crime that emerged in the 1960s. For years, gun-owning Americans have told pollsters that the No. 1 reason they own guns is to protect themselves in dangerous situations.
But that broad motivation conceals a shift in what many — though not all — gun owners feel they now need protection against. Borrowing from the militia movement, which identifies government tyranny as a key reason for firearms ownership, Gun culture 3.0 is all about perceived political threats unleashed by those no longer invested in normal guardrails — whether rogue government agents or rogue private individuals.
Of course, gun culture 3.0 raises the question of what will happen after Nov. 5. Regardless of what the American electorate does on election day, it’s hard to imagine a scenario that doesn’t enable violence.
In fact, it has already begun. …
Although gun owners are modestly more likely to believe that political violence is justified than their non-gun-owning counterparts, they are not more likely to express willingness to engage in such violence. Nevertheless, there is evidence that certain subgroups of gun owners may be. According to a recent study, 42% of assault-style-weapon owners say political violence could be justified, as did 56% of gun owners who carry all or most of the time.
Such attitudes betray right-wing distrust of government and a hard-line embrace of the 2nd Amendment. And yet, the same study reported that 44% of a different but potentially overlapping subgroup — new gun owners — also agreed that political violence could be justified. Disproportionately, new gun owners are women and people of color, and they tend to lean liberal as compared with existing gun owners. They too are part of an emergent gun culture 3.0.
— Jennifer Carlson in There’s a New Reason Your Neighbors Bought a Weapon — Gun Culture 3.0
Disproportionately, new gun owners are women and people of color, and they tend to lean liberal as compared with existing gun owners.
Plot twist! The gun nut threat is coming from women and nonwhite liberals haha! The LA Times told me so.
I wish I could edit comments (hint, hint).
The leftist antis have nobody to blame but themselves.
What effect did they think decades of dead planet promises, end stage capitalism taunts and labeling their opponents an existential threat to civilization that seeks to exterminate them all would have on people?
If Trump wins next week I expect we’ll see a period of violent mutant leftism in America that surpasses anything we’ve seen either from the turbulent 60’s or the idiotic 10’s. Hopefully it ends the same way it did for those leftists in Jonestown.