Interesting article on gun culture

cathouse01

NES Member
Joined
May 10, 2018
Messages
2,430
Likes
4,643
Feedback: 2 / 0 / 0
I was trying to understand why certain folks (see the Newton Gun Shop thread) have the view that gun ownership is some sort of deviant behavior and should be eliminated, much like child abuse. I came across the following article by David Yamane, a Professor of Sociology at Wake Forest University. I think it’s worth a read and gives you some ways of presenting gun ownership in a more favorable light.

The sociology of U.S. gun culture
 
Sociologists are just another progressive, academic, gun-hating group that explain the deficiencies of gun owners in sociology terms.

"The socio‐economic “age of decline” Carlson identifies has affected men in particular and their role as breadwinners, so male gun carriers reassert their relevance as men by identifying themselves as “citizen‐protectors” (her term, not theirs)."

"...male respondents drew on ideal images of masculinity in emphasizing the need to protect their families and to compensate for lost strength due to age as motivations for concealed carry."

"Carlson situates gun carrying in the context of social insecurities created by postindustrial economic decline and neoliberal policy ascendance.... white male gun carriers in the suburbs are motivated by emasculation (due to economic marginalization."

To these people, gun owners must be studied to better understand how to control such simple-minded citizens that might yet have a useful purpose as lower class members of society.
 
Sociologists are just another progressive, academic, gun-hating group that explain the deficiencies of gun owners in sociology terms.

"The socio‐economic “age of decline” Carlson identifies has affected men in particular and their role as breadwinners, so male gun carriers reassert their relevance as men by identifying themselves as “citizen‐protectors” (her term, not theirs)."

"...male respondents drew on ideal images of masculinity in emphasizing the need to protect their families and to compensate for lost strength due to age as motivations for concealed carry."

"Carlson situates gun carrying in the context of social insecurities created by postindustrial economic decline and neoliberal policy ascendance.... white male gun carriers in the suburbs are motivated by emasculation (due to economic marginalization."

To these people, gun owners must be studied to better understand how to control such simple-minded citizens that might yet have a useful purpose as lower class members of society.

I didn't read the article but did he mention anything about the rampant violent crime rate in most major cities......beyond the view from his ivory tower?
 
Sociologists are just another progressive, academic, gun-hating group that explain the deficiencies of gun owners in sociology terms.

"The socio‐economic “age of decline” Carlson identifies has affected men in particular and their role as breadwinners, so male gun carriers reassert their relevance as men by identifying themselves as “citizen‐protectors” (her term, not theirs)."

"...male respondents drew on ideal images of masculinity in emphasizing the need to protect their families and to compensate for lost strength due to age as motivations for concealed carry."

"Carlson situates gun carrying in the context of social insecurities created by postindustrial economic decline and neoliberal policy ascendance.... white male gun carriers in the suburbs are motivated by emasculation (due to economic marginalization."

To these people, gun owners must be studied to better understand how to control such simple-minded citizens that might yet have a useful purpose as lower class members of society.
Did you read the article?

David Yamane is a very strong pro 2nd amendment supporter, CCWs and is trying to get the anti gun folks to understand those of us who are gun enthusiasts. He is the one insisting that gun ownership is the norm in the US and not some aberrant behavior. He is complaining about the very people you quote, saying that sociologists are just studying the behavior of criminals and their guns and not the vast majority of law abiding gun owners..
 
I didn't read the article but did he mention anything about the rampant violent crime rate in most major cities......beyond the view from his ivory tower?
Yes in fact he does, don’t come to conclusions without reading the article. He is far from you typical ivory tower type. He CCWs and is a frequent speaker in support of the RKBA.
 
I was trying to understand why certain folks (see the Newton Gun Shop thread) have the view that gun ownership is some sort of deviant behavior and should be eliminated, much like child abuse. I came across the following article by David Yamane, a Professor of Sociology at Wake Forest University. I think it’s worth a read and gives you some ways of presenting gun ownership in a more favorable light.

The sociology of U.S. gun culture

Lol that's cute, considering that I think that antis are basically almost on par with child molesters.
 
I think alot of liberal/progs have lived charmed lives and have never been in sketchy situations so they're ignorant to how quick bad shit can happen to someone just going about normal everyday activities. These are same people that don't know the first thing about tools and being somewhat handy to actually take care and watch out for themselves. To them there are people to hire for that stuff
 
Bottom line: Anti's are afraid. The message of fear is near constant. But the nature of their fear is the fear of being responsible for your own survival. Much easier for them to tear down your ability, than stepping up and learning how to defend themselves.
 
Doesn't mention Lott's book..."More guns, less crime", instead comes up with his own theory based on more left opinions
Not in this article, but he does talk about research supporting Lott’s conclusions in other writings:

An implication of Papachristos’s research accords with Whittle’s ultimate conclusion: “Maybe it’s not the guns. Maybe it’s the people holding the guns.” Maybe more guns in the hands of the wrong people leads to more crime, and more guns in the hands of the right people leads to less crime? I wrote previously about a promising study I saw presented at the American Society of Criminology which looked at homicide in New Orleans. The authors set out to move the guns and crime debate forward by distinguishing between the effect of legal and illegal guns on homicide. They hypothesized that presence of legal and illegal guns affect homicide rates, but in different ways. Legal guns reduce gun homicide rates (supporting Lott’s more guns, less crime argument), while illegal guns increase gun homicide rates (supporting Cook’s more guns, more crime argument).
 
Because whenever there are gang shootings, carjackings, violent home invasions, drug crime, and drive-by's, they're always committed by background-checked, LTC-carrying, curved visor Patriots hat wearing, bearded middle-aged white guys driving registered and insured late model crew cab pickup trucks with Gadsden flag bumper stickers.

Damn you NRA and your "gun culture!"
 
Because whenever there are gang shootings, carjackings, violent home invasions, drug crime, and drive-by's, they're always committed by background-checked, LTC-carrying, curved visor Patriots hat wearing, bearded middle-aged white guys driving registered and insured late model crew cab pickup trucks with Gadsden flag bumper stickers.

Damn you NRA and your "gun culture!"
Nailed it!!
 
Did you read the article?

David Yamane is a very strong pro 2nd amendment supporter, CCWs and is trying to get the anti gun folks to understand those of us who are gun enthusiasts. He is the one insisting that gun ownership is the norm in the US and not some aberrant behavior. He is complaining about the very people you quote, saying that sociologists are just studying the behavior of criminals and their guns and not the vast majority of law abiding gun owners..

I did. Hence, the quotations. My diatribe was about progressive, academic, gun-hating sociologists - Yamane’s quotes of other sociologists simply display the absolute disdain the field has for gun owners.

I’ve been a reviewer of academic gun articles for over a decade - the medical profession and sociologists are far left of economists on guns, with criminologists closer to economists but less supportive of gun rights. John Lott, an economist, surveyed all of these groups to confirm leanings.

I consider sociologists as hopeless causes. Yamane is wasting his time talking to his peers. If you check his cites, it’s mostly those indicting gun owners and gun culture. To have an impact, he need to escape the academic world and talk to the public.

He got a few cites in WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/outl...ddb51e-9243-11eb-9668-89be11273c09_story.html. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...5e8616-55a9-11eb-a931-5b162d0d033d_story.html and a few lesser news organs https://www.thetrace.org/2020/08/do-gun-owners-vote-republican/ https://www.deseret.com/indepth/202...gun-violence-evangelical-christian-gun-policy

But he need to find the pen to write to the public directly. Screw sociologists.
 
I did. Hence, the quotations. My diatribe was about progressive, academic, gun-hating sociologists - Yamane’s quotes of other sociologists simply display the absolute disdain the field has for gun owners.

I’ve been a reviewer of academic gun articles for over a decade - the medical profession and sociologists are far left of economists on guns, with criminologists closer to economists but less supportive of gun rights. John Lott, an economist, surveyed all of these groups to confirm leanings.

I consider sociologists as hopeless causes. Yamane is wasting his time talking to his peers. If you check his cites, it’s mostly those indicting gun owners and gun culture. To have an impact, he need to escape the academic world and talk to the public.

He got a few cites in WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/outl...ddb51e-9243-11eb-9668-89be11273c09_story.html. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...5e8616-55a9-11eb-a931-5b162d0d033d_story.html and a few lesser news organs https://www.thetrace.org/2020/08/do-gun-owners-vote-republican/ https://www.deseret.com/indepth/202...gun-violence-evangelical-christian-gun-policy

But he need to find the pen to write to the public directly. Screw sociologists.
So is it your position that, since most sociologists are gun hating progressive, we should not bother to try and support one of the few that are trying to advance the RKBA? If you look at his class offerings at Wake Forest and his Gun Culture 2.0 blog you’ll see he is doing much more outreach than most of us here on NES, at least much more than I am.
 
So is it your position that, since most sociologists are gun hating progressive, we should not bother to try and support one of the few that are trying to advance the RKBA? If you look at his class offerings at Wake Forest and his Gun Culture 2.0 blog you’ll see he is doing much more outreach than most of us here on NES, at least much more than I am.
You’re trying awful hard to put words in my mouth. I’m simply saying his impact will be minimal within academics. I’m not saying I could do better within my professional field, I’m just saying he could do better. Wake Forest does minimal media outreach on his work, as the media have no interest in anything but anti-gun academics. At best, they ask for short quotes to appear "balanced". Getting published in his field gets him funded but MSM is where it’s at for impact.

The overwhelming problem with academics is they feel their particular field has something to contribute to whatever topic tops the media interest charts. Some Sociologists are literally whining that their peers just don’t see how much Sociology can do for gun control policy. Why Research on Guns Needs Sociologists. And Vice-Versa

When I went to University, they had just moved Social Sciences out of the College of Science and Engineering and back to the College of Liberal Arts. As explained by the Dean, the problem of Sociology wasn’t to say something true, but to say something important. Since then, the revised field of Social Behavioral Science has been devastated by the Replication Crisis. A huge amount of their research can not be repeated. They gave us all this BS about diverse and inclusive teams and companies being higher in performance. They gave us Power Posing - women in business with hands on hips or arms crossed. That research has all been retracted by the authors as unrepeatable, but every company has their women headshots in a Power Pose.

That said, more power to Yamane. Every little bit helps. I’ll follow his stuff. He treads very dangerous ground in the Cancel Culture of liberal academics - I wish him luck.

 
Last edited:
I do indeed find Yamane’s work quite interesting


I even bought his book at $11.95 for 100 pages - what I used to think was a high price for 100rd FMJ 😁

 
I think alot of liberal/progs have lived charmed lives and have never been in sketchy situations so they're ignorant to how quick bad shit can happen to someone just going about normal everyday activities. These are same people that don't know the first thing about tools and being somewhat handy to actually take care and watch out for themselves. To them there are people to hire for that stuff

I was 17, working in a trashy motel near Pimlico Race Track in Baltimore. I needed money, so I was working in a factory M-F and working in the motel as a deskclerk from 8AM to midnight Saturday and Sunday. 72 hour weeks plus the occasional overtime.

I made a mistake. We locked the doors at night, and did business through a window with a slot. I let a woman into the lobby to buy cigarettes. She was followed in by two men with guns screaming at me. With conflicting directions - get on the floor - don't move - open the register. Yeah.

I lived, obviously; they got the cash that was in the register, but not the cash I'd dropped into the "drop". Called police and night manager - cash was inventoried, reports were written.

A week later, the FBI showed up at my house so that I could look at mugshots. Yeah, it was a long time ago - they actually had 3 ring binders of booking shots. I identified the two men. They told me that the identified parties had been jumping off the highway in a couple of states and holding up motels. They'd shot a couple of people.

There's more to this, but that's enough for a public forum. Suffice it to say that my perspective on people was very changed by that night. As my brother asked at dinner a couple of nights later, "what happened to my bleeding heart liberal brother?".
 
I was 17, working in a trashy motel near Pimlico Race Track in Baltimore. I needed money, so I was working in a factory M-F and working in the motel as a deskclerk from 8AM to midnight Saturday and Sunday. 72 hour weeks plus the occasional overtime.

I made a mistake. We locked the doors at night, and did business through a window with a slot. I let a woman into the lobby to buy cigarettes. She was followed in by two men with guns screaming at me. With conflicting directions - get on the floor - don't move - open the register. Yeah.

I lived, obviously; they got the cash that was in the register, but not the cash I'd dropped into the "drop". Called police and night manager - cash was inventoried, reports were written.

A week later, the FBI showed up at my house so that I could look at mugshots. Yeah, it was a long time ago - they actually had 3 ring binders of booking shots. I identified the two men. They told me that the identified parties had been jumping off the highway in a couple of states and holding up motels. They'd shot a couple of people.

There's more to this, but that's enough for a public forum. Suffice it to say that my perspective on people was very changed by that night. As my brother asked at dinner a couple of nights later, "what happened to my bleeding heart liberal brother?".

Late ‘80s, I briefly lived in a house the was just left of the Pimlico track entrance. Yes, a sh*thole neighborhood. I drove in/out - and never went anywhere in the neighborhood otherwise. I took a “shortcut” home once through a Black neighborhood and some Brothers came out and sat on my car hood at a red light. An old man shooed them away and told me to go - don’t stop for no red light or no stop signs, and not come back - don’t neeed no police looking for some dead white boy.
 
You’re trying awful hard to put words in my mouth. I’m simply saying his impact will be minimal within academics. I’m not saying I could do better within my professional field, I’m just saying he could do better. Wake Forest does minimal media outreach on his work, as the media have no interest in anything but anti-gun academics. At best, they ask for short quotes to appear "balanced". Getting published in his field gets him funded but MSM is where it’s at for impact.

The overwhelming problem with academics is they feel their particular field has something to contribute to whatever topic tops the media interest charts. Some Sociologists are literally whining that their peers just don’t see how much Sociology can do for gun control policy. Why Research on Guns Needs Sociologists. And Vice-Versa

When I went to University, they had just moved Social Sciences out of the College of Science and Engineering and back to the College of Liberal Arts. As explained by the Dean, the problem of Sociology wasn’t to say something true, but to say something important. Since then, the revised field of Social Behavioral Science has been devastated by the Replication Crisis. A huge amount of their research can not be repeated. They gave us all this BS about diverse and inclusive teams and companies being higher in performance. They gave us Power Posing - women in business with hands on hips or arms crossed. That research has all been retracted by the authors as unrepeatable, but every company has their women headshots in a Power Pose.

That said, more power to Yamane. Every little bit helps. I’ll follow his stuff. He treads very dangerous ground in the Cancel Culture of liberal academics - I wish him luck.

Sorry, I put some of my own biases into interpreting your post. I can certainly agree with you that by far the majority of academics, particularly those in the “Social Sciences” attempt to manipulate their “data” to push their own (mostly progressive) agenda. That’s why I find it somewhat refreshing that Yamane started out as a typical anti-gun liberal professor and was able to reason himself to being an atypical pro-gun liberal professor. I find some of his writing to be useful in discussing gun control with those few who are anti-gun but still open to reason (not many, but they do exists).
 
Sorry, I put some of my own biases into interpreting your post. I can certainly agree with you that by far the majority of academics, particularly those in the “Social Sciences” attempt to manipulate their “data” to push their own (mostly progressive) agenda. That’s why I find it somewhat refreshing that Yamane started out as a typical anti-gun liberal professor and was able to reason himself to being an atypical pro-gun liberal professor. I find some of his writing to be useful in discussing gun control with those few who are anti-gun but still open to reason (not many, but they do exists).
i do not think it is about guns as much as about the whole concept of active self-defence in the society. what is called 'progressive' now is as progressive as the right of the first night.
over millennia those who needed a herd to be controllable were enforcing careful selection and removal of any aggressive species who would dare to fight back the oppressor`s force. church was brainwashing from its side about 'turn the cheek'. it is all a same old neverending story, of how the less aggressive society is better, as it is a less problem for a herdmaster to deal with.

what happens to the sheep in the herd no one would care less, as sheep are sheep, if one is gone, 2 others will be born. who cares. a sheep`s personal point of view here is irrelevant, of course, as it is not important - what is the best for society is important.
 
i do not think it is about guns as much as about the whole concept of active self-defence in the society. what is called 'progressive' now is as progressive as the right of the first night.
over millennia those who needed a herd to be controllable were enforcing careful selection and removal of any aggressive species who would dare to fight back the oppressor`s force. church was brainwashing from its side about 'turn the cheek'. it is all a same old neverending story, of how the less aggressive society is better, as it is a less problem for a herdmaster to deal with.

what happens to the sheep in the herd no one would care less, as sheep are sheep, if one is gone, 2 others will be born. who cares. a sheep`s personal point of view here is irrelevant, of course, as it is not important - what is the best for society is important.
I do think there are two classes of antis. The most dangerous is the one you describe, those who are anti-gun because they know guns can level the playing field. They also know that those who are willing to take responsibility to defend themselves are much harder to control than those who have abrogated that responsibly to a third party (.gov). The other group are in some part the enablers of the first, in that they are willing to turn their self defense completely over to a third party. Many of these people are afraid of guns as if guns themselves had an intrinsic evil property rather than that being an extrinsic property imposed on them by the people who use them for evil. It is the ant-gun enablers that we can try to “convert”. I think that Yamane’s Gun Culture 2.0 is an attempt to understand why people are afraid of guns and how to get them to understand their many useful aspects.

The whole Newton gun shop fiasco is an example of the second type of anti-gun person. The actual town government (the folks in power) were going to approve the gun shop without a second thought. It was only when the hoplophobics starting raising Cain that they decided to block the shop.

When I retired my wife and I moved full time to our 33 acre farm where, among other things, we raise Shetland sheep. The thing about sheep is that only the ewes are truly submissive. The rams, who are equipped with horns, will butt the hell out of you if you threaten their flock (ask me how I know). The reason most folks think of sheep as docile is that flocks are made up almost exclusively of ewes, since rams will fight continuously for control of the flock. It’s much simpler to have one ram and a few wethers. The ewes on the other hand have almost no self defense capabilities, so they have an extremely high flight component to their fight or flight reflex. Since they have almost no fight instinct, they will happily follow the ram or the shepherd or even the wether. (Interesting aside, a wether is a fixed ram, a bell wether is a wether that has a bell affixed to it so that the other sheep will follow him, thus the term “bellwether” as a leading indicator or predictor. Though the actual bell wether is a leader, not just a predictor.) Not getting into the gender/sex thing, my goal is to convert as many ewes into rams by giving them the means to fight. This involves getting them over their irrational fear of firearms.
 
I was trying to understand why certain folks (see the Newton Gun Shop thread) have the view that gun ownership is some sort of deviant behavior and should be eliminated, much like child abuse. I came across the following article by David Yamane, a Professor of Sociology at Wake Forest University. I think it’s worth a read and gives you some ways of presenting gun ownership in a more favorable light.

The sociology of U.S. gun culture
Some folks feel the same way towards those of us who have an interest in edged weaponry; outlaw the private possession of firearms and then go after the blades. Just like the knuckleheads in the UK did.
 
Some folks feel the same way towards those of us who have an interest in edged weaponry; outlaw the private possession of firearms and then go after the blades. Just like the knuckleheads in the UK did.
Yes, the term “hoplophobia” coined by Col. Jeff Cooper, from the Greek "hoplites,” weapon, is really meant to cover the irrational fear of any weapon, but is usually used in regards to the irrational fear of guns. The problem with these people is they give weapons “moral agency”, the ability to do right or wrong on their own when, in fact, weapons have no intrinsic moral prosperities. It is the people who use them who give them extrinsic moral properties. If I use a gun to stop someone from killing another that would normally be considered a “moral" use of the gun and it would imbue it with an extrinsic moral property. If I use the gun to murder someone that would normally be considered an “immoral” act and that would imbue it with an extrinsic immoral property. However a gun (or any weapon) just laying there has no intrinsic moral properties, it is neither moral or immoral. It has weight, dimensions, etc. as intrinsic properties, but as far as morality, it has none. That is, until a person picks it up.
 
Yes, the term “hoplophobia” coined by Col. Jeff Cooper, from the Greek "hoplites,” weapon, is really meant to cover the irrational fear of any weapon, but is usually used in regards to the irrational fear of guns. The problem with these people is they give weapons “moral agency”, the ability to do right or wrong on their own when, in fact, weapons have no intrinsic moral prosperities. It is the people who use them who give them extrinsic moral properties. If I use a gun to stop someone from killing another that would normally be considered a “moral" use of the gun and it would imbue it with an extrinsic moral property. If I use the gun to murder someone that would normally be considered an “immoral” act and that would imbue it with an extrinsic immoral property. However a gun (or any weapon) just laying there has no intrinsic moral properties, it is neither moral or immoral. It has weight, dimensions, etc. as intrinsic properties, but as far as morality, it has none. That is, until a person picks it up.
I agree entirely. But it is perfectly OK, according to the liberals who want to remove the last Daisy BB gun from private possession, for local police to have infantry company equivalent firepower. I got arrested on a felony charge for carrying a "switchblade" in liberal utopia California. Spent 3 days in jail before arraignment. Holiday weekend. Lucky me! My off the rack Gerber FSII was a standard lockblade folding knife, not a switchblade, and my defense attorney got the charge dismissed. Still have a felony weapons arrest record on my FBI rap sheet that will remain long after my death.
 
Back
Top Bottom