A Liberal Sociologist Offers Thoughts on Gun Culture and It’s Not What You’d Expect

Yes, there are liberal gun owners. There are liberal gun rights advocates, even.

However, we all know they’re the exception, not the norm.

Further, when we hear about a sociologist, we kind of have to brace a bit. The social sciences are heavily anti-gun, so when someone who is a sociologist offers up thoughts about gun culture, we–or, at least, I–tend to have certain expectations about what I’m going to read.

This was not any of that, though.

An Asian American and lifelong liberal from the San Francisco Bay Area, I became a first-time gun owner as a 42-year-old in 2011. I began a now 14-year journey into an unfamiliar and complex world of firearms. In my work, I draw on both my personal experiences and sociological observations to understand the long-standing presence of a robust legal gun culture in America.

In contrast to the dominant scholarly approaches, which focus on gun deviance and harm, I find there is more to firearms than criminal violence, injury and death; more to gun owners than straight white men; and more to gun culture than democracy-destroying right-wing politics.

Let me share five observations essential to understanding guns in America:

1. Guns are normal

About 86 million American adults – 1 in 3 – own at least one of the estimated 400 million firearms in the U.S. today.

Imagine if everyone who uses TikTok in the U.S. owned a gun – and then add the population of New York City. That is enough gun owners to fill over 1,000 NFL stadiums.

Humans have used projectile weapons like rocks and spears from the beginning. This unbroken history continues in every society, with firearms as the weapon of choice in all but the most isolated communities. People who could legally own guns in colonial America commonly did so. Even today, civilian firearms ownership remains exceptionally high in the U.S. compared with other industrialized nations.

The right of everyday Americans to own guns is a deep part of American culture, enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and many state constitutions.

And honestly, the rest is very solid as well.

I can’t find real disagreement with anything the author, David Yamane, has to say here.

Of course, Yamane has been an outspoken sociologist in defense of gun rights in the past, so this isn’t super surprising, even if I forget that he’s out there from time to time until his name pops up.

He correctly notes that while guns are common, accidents are rare, and that most guns will never be used to take a human life.

Here’s where people like Yamane are important, though.

First, he’s got all the credentials one might expect to be taken seriously by Democrats in state legislatures and on Capitol Hill. He’s an expert in the kind of fields that are usually anti-gun and will provide mountains of data, so when he tells them the data is wrong or is being misreported, he’s not just some guy saying it.

Second, as a self-described liberal, they’re not going to see him as nearly as hostile toward their entire being as a conservative or libertarian activist might be perceived.

And since he can bring facts to the table on top of that, people like him are a fantastic asset to the gun rights movement.

Gun ownership isn’t a white thing, a high-income thing, a conservative thing, or a male thing. It’s perceived as much, though, by far too many people, and it shouldn’t be.

I was at the NRA Annual Meeting this year and had the chance to meet many of you. I, a confirmed introvert, found myself chatting with people of all ethnic backgrounds and even socioeconomic groups. I talked to men and women. I saw the diversity that Yamane actually brings up in his piece, and this was just with the NRA bunch. At gun ranges in some places, this is even more pronounced.

I love the gun culture. I love talking with people who don’t look at you weird because you actually value your rights.

But more than that, I love talking to people who share this one commonality, but often don’t share a whole lot beyond that. I see that in the gun community.

It’s yet another reason why I’m never giving up my guns.