Guns, God, Capitalism, & Hypermasculine Identity

“The Right says the Left wants to take away your guns. Well, I don’t know about the Left, but I want to take away your guns! REPEAL THE 2ND AMENDMENT!!”

There! I uttered the unutterable, the ultimate taboo in U.S. political discourse.

I inserted my quote onto the social media sites to which I subscribe just one day following the tragic shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis, Minnesota when, on August 27, 2025, a shooter scattered bullets at a terrifyingly high velocity through the stained-glass windows killing two young students aged 8 and 10 and injured another 15 students and 3 adults before committing suicide.

Though the act of repealing the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution has since its inception been merely a pipe dream, at this inflection point in history, it seems that the pipe dream, in addition to the tens-of-thousands of residents each year have been murdered and buried deep in the Earth.

While some of the participants who responded to my plea on social media supported the idea of repeal, the vast majority not only disagreed, but more tellingly, attacked me as the messenger. I list a small representative sample of the near 200+ responses written by what appeared all to have been white cisgender males according to the picture profiles accompanying their responses:

• “Don’t call the police and leave the country if you don’t like it.”
• “Hey, Warren, just try coming and taking my guns!”
• “You pedophile communist fascist.”
• “Hey Jew. Don’t you remember what they did to 6 million of your people? You should love the second amendment.”
• “You’re totally mental, but I like your dogs [in your profile picture].”
• “Who are you to talk? You kill babies with your so-called ‘reproductive freedom’ crap.”
• “You are a treasonous Benedict Arnold, and you know what they do to traitors!”
• “God gave us the right to own guns, and you don’t have the right to take them away.”
• “You better write your will and testimony [testament] and get your affairs in order.”
• “You’re hiding behind the bodies of dead children to promote your agenda.”

Toxic forms of hypermasculinity require the promotion and use of firearms to keep at bay the intensive psychosocial compulsive fear and dread of penetration from bullets, from homosexuals, from trans people in bathrooms, from invading immigrants from our southern borders, and from the female gaze since patriarchy promises males the right to the aggressive outward intrusive gaze and the mandate to penetrate “others.”

For many members of the firearms movement – yes, it is a movement – their guns are not simply a commodity, a product, or a thing they own and use. It is something much greater. Guns are an integral and essential element of their identities. For anyone to challenge the Second Amendment, they take it as a challenge to their very being, to their lives, and yes, to their identities.

I love my life, and I love the people of my country far far far more than I value the “freedom” to bear arms. I don’t know if any “reforms” will really solve the problems of gun-related violence in the United States, though I still hold out hope.

And though impossible, in all actuality, I believe we must repeal the Second Amendment while granting some accommodation to licensed hunters and people who can document that their lives are at heightened risk of violence.

As the horse once served as a primary means of transportation in earlier times, it now grazes and prances peacefully on open pastures. Possibly during former moments in our history, we may have had reason to enact and enforce the Second Amendment of our great Constitution, but those bygone days have long since passed. Now we must put the Second Amendment out to pasture.

I believe that even our brilliant and well-meaning, but flawed founders, did not want unlimited and unrestricted rights of firearm ownership. This is why they began the Second Amendment with the phrase, “A well regulated Militia,” before they continued with, “being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

They could never have imagined the enormous leaps and heights to which the Second Amendment now menaces not only the very lives of our people, but more poignantly, how it imposes an existential threat to our nation.

Even if our early leaders had advocated for unrestricted gun ownership, these same men owned and marketed enslaved Africans, committed genocide against and expelled native peoples, withheld enfranchisement from women, engaged in and killed one another in duels, and so on.

Since those early times, legislation, judicial actions, and constitutional amendments have at least attempted to redress some of those past tragedies. Though we can never bring back the tens of thousands of victims mowed down by gun-related violence each year, by gutting the Second Amendment, we can give our residents a greater chance of life.

I often travel abroad visiting cities and people around the world. Increasingly, during my journeys, people express to me their admiration for the remarkable achievements and wonders of the United States, but because of the perennial gun-related violence, they vow never to step foot on this land.

These same people believe they have more freedom in their countries with severe firearms restrictions than we could ever have under our Second Amendment. And because of their well-founded hesitations to visit our country, they will never experience our gleaming cities, our open plains, our lush grasslands, our majestic mountains and national parks, and yes, our seemingly endless quantity of shops (and let’s not forget our peanut butter and M&Ms).

In the end, the realities of gun-related violence in the U.S. hurts everyone everywhere, with the possible exception of firearms manufacturers, their lobbyists, and the politicians they funnel in funds to stay in office. This violence also helps our enemies who desire to witness us being defeated from within.

Rather than working to reduce the supply of firearms on our streets and in our homes, gun sales and ownership steadily increase. The United States ranks number 1 of 178 countries with the highest rate of firearms: 120.5 per 100 people.

What will it take for us to cease fighting insanity with insanity? How many more of our precious people of all ages will have their lives cut short under the banner of “freedom to bear arms”? What will it take for us to reverse the unholy alliance between corporate America and powerful pressure groups controlling politicians in the service of firearms manufacturers? When is enough, enough?!

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