Garry Wills was being only slightly ironic when he wrote (in the wake of the ghastly Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando) that it is “theologically inconceivable” to implement real gun control in the United States:
God gave us guns to show us who we are. Giving up the gun would be surrender to evil, taking us abruptly into eschatological time…
The Gun is patriotic.
The Gun is America.
The Gun is God.
In her highly readable and timely new book, Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz deftly traces the historical and religious roots attaching to the sanctity of the Second Amendment in the minds of millions of Americans who are not gun owners or NRA members. Her point of departure:
The lobbying efforts of the NRA and advertising by US gun manufacturers are the designated culprits in most arguments for gun regulations and bans of some weapons, but the NRA and gun manufacturers’ success is due to a larger ideological hegemony that they did not create, but rather have exploited.
