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A Former Gun Nut Responds to David Yamane
While reading David Yamane’s reflection on his journey into the “serious leisure” of gun ownership and recreational firearms in Contexts’ summer issue, I was struck by a feeling that took me a moment to process. The sensation was similar to driving on what you believe is a one-way road, only to suddenly be faced with headlights coming directly at you: at first, you panic slightly, wondering if the driver in the rapidly approaching car is paying any attention at all. Then you panic even more, wondering if perhaps you’re the one driving in the wrong direction. Finally, you realize you simply misconstrued the road itself; it was never one-way, and neither party is moving in the wrong direction.
I’m the driver in this metaphorical scenario, and Yamane’s commentary is the oncoming car. The journey he described—of being exposed to and invited into gun culture later in life, surrounded by casual yet responsible participants—is almost directly opposite my own journey. And yet, I’ve come to see that both are valid, and both warrant consideration.
Whereas Yamane entered gun culture guided by the healthy skepticism and discernment of an outsider, I’ve spent my adult years trying to escape it, with only limited success. As Yamane correctly points out, “Guns are ubiquitous in some social circles and nearly absent in others.” But social circles aside, gun culture and its impact are omnipresent in the United States. It is a hegemonic force that affects our everyday reality. There are obvious examples, of course, such as the NRA successfully lobbying to prevent funding for gun violence research. But gun culture also subtly shapes our collective imaginations—think of the casual acceptance of the symbolic violence of a priest using a squirt gun to administer holy water during the COVID-19 pandemic. For someone like myself, a White male who grew up in a conservative working-class family in Texas, and millions of others with similar backgrounds, it’s this more subtle shaping of reality that informs our perspective—for better or worse—on guns.My childhood and adolescence were gun-obsessed. Among my friends, it was unquestionable that the best cartoons, toys, and made-up games had to feature guns in some way. This predilection was reinforced by family and cultural values that brought a religious fervor to guns: hunting trips where powerful rifles offered up sacrifices of game animals, the ritualistic packing and loading of dad’s Colt Patterson to fire off during 4th of July celebrations, and, of course, sacralizing the violence of military might in our church with patriotic sermons and prayers for victory. Serving in the military magnified all of this for me, etching a tactile familiarity with guns into my brain that lingers today. Even now, 20 years later, I can still feel the weight and texture of the M-16 and the M-249 SAW in my hands, just as easily as one might imagine the grip of their car’s steering wheel or the handlebars of their bicycle.
In my 20s, for complex reasons, I began to try to disentangle my sense of self from guns and the culture surrounding them. This proved harder than I anticipated—and, I suspect, harder than anyone from outside this environment could imagine. It was nearly impossible to escape the social pull of gun-related activities. Shooting ranges with friends and hunting trips with my own and my now-wife’s family were still regular occurrences despite my growing discomfort. These activities had taken on a new tone for me, one that was increasingly critical of the way guns were so uncritically accepted as a casual pastime.
Whereas Yamane describes shooting events reminiscent of 19th-century aristocratic diversions, communal shoots in my world were—and continue to be—the kind of uncoordinated, unstructured, nearly chaotic and exceedingly dangerous spectacles that Yamane feared encountering: strangers waving pistols in one hand and a beer in the other, ad-hoc firing lines and impromptu targets. A range safety officer? Why would anyone need one of those?!In trying to distance myself from this culture, I found that not only were my preferences being challenged, but also my identity. Gun culture is not just a hobby—it is a status marker. The events of one Thanksgiving get-together with my family were especially telling in this regard. In prepping for the big meal, gendered expectations divided the men and women into their respective roles. Women in the kitchen, men with the guns. At one point, an uncle brought out his latest acquisition: a .223 caliber assault rifle, replete with accessories and modifications that made it a truly pristine killing device. The uncles and male cousins were invited to collectively fawn over the gun. When my turn came, I hesitated, then simply waved my hand dismissively and wandered away to the kitchen. The audible gasp from one of the men as I turned my back on them captured the shock they felt at my violation of gendered norms. For those of us who were socialized in this environment, guns and enthusiasm for them are indelible signifiers of our place in the world as men, of our acceptance of the proper order of things.
As my dad’s health began to fail several years ago, we went through the torturous process of establishing his new living situation, which included selling or disbursing his personal belongings. The question of how—not whether—I wanted to get his guns was presented to me. When I said I didn’t want them at all, my sisters expressed the same shock as the men at that Thanksgiving gathering years before. They looked at me like I was rejecting our father himself. But as much as I wished my dad could be well, I refused to fill that need by ascribing meaning to his material legacy—especially his guns. This kind of toxic emotional investment is part of what gives gun culture such power in the United States, where tools of death and killing are so intricately and powerfully intertwined with identity, worldview, and legacy.This is a perspective that I have formed through years of contact with the issue, just as Yamane has formed his perspective in the same way, albeit from a different direction. As I expressed at the start of this essay, I truly feel that both perspectives are valid and worth sharing. In his reflection, Yamane calls attention to the need for sociologists to consider guns in a more holistic context than solely in relation to epidemiology or deviance. I wholeheartedly agree. To this call, I would add a critical emphasis on the complex ways that socialization into gun culture affects both insiders and outsiders—often in ways that are difficult to discern. “Serious leisure” is, indeed, part of the social reality of guns, but so too is the casual violence that is all too often condoned and encouraged. Sociologists ought to be curious about both, but wary of romanticization that decontextualizes gun culture’s psychological appeal from its sociological effects.
Andrew McNeely is in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas. He studies race, religion, and food insecurity.
