This Is Not Gun Culture

We here at Bearing Arms, as well as the other gun-related sites, are part of the gun culture of the United States, along with our readers. We value the Second Amendment and the freedoms that come from having the right to keep and bear arms and a nation that more or less respects that right.

We are the gun culture.

Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t seem to understand what is and what isn’t “gun culture.”

This was made painfully obvious in a recent story out of Chicago.

 Cherie Animashaun, 20, says her first memory of the danger of guns was when her mother wouldn’t let her go to her favorite park anymore.

“I remember in kindergarten, I used to go to the park behind my house in Evanston, and, one day, my mom told me we couldn’t go to the park anymore. She said it wasn’t safe,” says Animashaun.

The Cornell University student and Evanston Township High School graduate didn’t even know what a gun was, but she remembers being afraid.

“In first grade, you don’t know the depth of the issue, but you can feel it,” Animashaun tells WBBM. “ I remember being terrified. For the most people I know, seeing guns growing up is almost a prerequisite to this generation.”

For her and her peers, guns and gun violence have become the norm, something Nina Vinik soon realized.

“I’ve been working to reduce gun violence for the last 20 years,” Vinik says. “I was a young housing lawyer in the 90s, and a lot of my clients lived on the West and South Sides of the city. Gun violence was at its peak in the city, and West and South Side neighborhoods are the hardest hit by gun violence. I was tired of reading about violence happening on the blocks where my clients lived. It led me to see the ability to feel safe in our homes and communities as just a threshold issue for the ability for kids and families to thrive.”

Project Unloaded, a 501(c)(3) organization, was born in 2022 after the rise of school shootings.  One in particular sparked Vinik’s activism.

…

“That can make a difference in connecting with their peers in sending the message that gun violence is preventable, guns do not make us safer, and that little by little, by sharing those messages far and wide, we can chip away at the gun culture that is driving so much violence.”

Honey, that ain’t “gun culture” that drives this.

Chicago violence, for example, is the result of people who have illegal guns and are engaged in other illegal acts. They’re not consuming gun-related media, associating with gun rights groups or even non-political shooting groups, they’re not going to gun stores or shows, they’re not doing any of that.

They’re associated with a completely different culture, one that really needs to be chipped away at, but if you’re focusing on guns, you’re ignoring the underlying issues. Instead, maybe look at the culture in place in Chicago that defies criminals and criminality, holding up gangsters as legends and belief that all insults need to be responded to with gunshots. 

The same is true with school shootings. That likely stems from an intense form of rage many of our young people feel, but often aren’t really allowed to express because maybe it’s focused on someone who is part of some group that can’t be talked negatively about.

The gun culture in this country opposes all of this. In fact, much of the gun culture actually gets into the culture because they’re distressed by these events.

Look around some time at these gun control meccas. You know, like Chicago which has long had extensive gun control laws in play and still had ridiculous levels of violence. Baltimore, New York, San Francisco, and numerous other cities report massive amounts of violent crime and are covered by extensive gun control laws.

Meanwhile, the regions of this country where the right to keep and bear arms is truly respected? Where the gun culture is common? They don’t have these issues, generally speaking.

You can try to chip away at gun culture all you want, random White Knight lady, but the gun culture isn’t the culture you should be worried about.