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Americas gun problem has everything to do with Americas masculinity problem
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According to a Pew survey conducted in 2014, Republicans are twice as likely as Democrats to be members of a gun-owning household. Gun owners are also geographically spread out: They’re just as likely to live in the Midwestern US (38%) as they are to live on the West Coast (35%), or the South (34%), debunking the myth that gun ownership is more prevalent in southern states. (In the Northeast, by contrast, gun ownership is lower, at around 27%.)
Above all, though, gun owners are men. It is true that gun sales are rising among women, but a substantial gender gap persists: In 2013, men were around three times as likely as women to own a gun.
Over the past few years, far more women have favored banning semi-automatic weapons. A full two-thirds of women favor a ban compared to only 48% of men, according to a 2013 Pew study. Indeed, women tend to prioritize gun restrictions over gun rights generally, unlike their male counterparts. Couple this with the fact that the vast majority of mass shooters are also men, and a pattern emerges. America’s gun problem can’t be distilled down to one single issue, of course, but it’s clear that on top of crime and fears of terrorism and insufficient mental health resources and the Second Amendment, America’s gun problem has something to do with America’s masculinity problem.
As Alankaar Sharma, a social worker and researcher, tells Quartz, “Possessing a gun is considered by many men, if not most, as a straightforward way of subscribing to dominant masculinity.” In his view, the patriarchal system, which privileges a certain set of masculine behaviors, values, and practices, provides men with “a clear and justifiable reason to own guns.” It cements their identity as masculine men.
http://qz.com/576152/americas-gun-problem-has-everything-to-do-with-americas-masculinity-problem/
According to a Pew survey conducted in 2014, Republicans are twice as likely as Democrats to be members of a gun-owning household. Gun owners are also geographically spread out: They’re just as likely to live in the Midwestern US (38%) as they are to live on the West Coast (35%), or the South (34%), debunking the myth that gun ownership is more prevalent in southern states. (In the Northeast, by contrast, gun ownership is lower, at around 27%.)
Above all, though, gun owners are men. It is true that gun sales are rising among women, but a substantial gender gap persists: In 2013, men were around three times as likely as women to own a gun.
Over the past few years, far more women have favored banning semi-automatic weapons. A full two-thirds of women favor a ban compared to only 48% of men, according to a 2013 Pew study. Indeed, women tend to prioritize gun restrictions over gun rights generally, unlike their male counterparts. Couple this with the fact that the vast majority of mass shooters are also men, and a pattern emerges. America’s gun problem can’t be distilled down to one single issue, of course, but it’s clear that on top of crime and fears of terrorism and insufficient mental health resources and the Second Amendment, America’s gun problem has something to do with America’s masculinity problem.
As Alankaar Sharma, a social worker and researcher, tells Quartz, “Possessing a gun is considered by many men, if not most, as a straightforward way of subscribing to dominant masculinity.” In his view, the patriarchal system, which privileges a certain set of masculine behaviors, values, and practices, provides men with “a clear and justifiable reason to own guns.” It cements their identity as masculine men.
http://qz.com/576152/americas-gun-problem-has-everything-to-do-with-americas-masculinity-problem/
The most "masculine" of the gun huggers bristle at the thought that someone, anyone, would dare to question their robust and rampant manhood. They tend to turn almost any argument into a "you called my penis small" diatribe rather than to actually confront the issue at hand, whether it be overall gun violence, toddler gun deaths, or our extremely high per capita gun death rate.
The "bigger is better" American take on most consumer goods is very apparent among gun owners, along with a tendency to stockpile lethal weapons purportedly in preparation for some future civil war against ______________ (fill in the blank).
As the article goes on to state: Idealizing a physical masculinity can help negate this feeling. Gun marketers know this and so they appeal to male self-image to sell their weapons. In ads that ran in 2012, for instance, Bushmaster Firearms promised that if you buy their semi-automatic weapons, you can “consider your man card reissued.”
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