I partially agree with this. I think what you're doing is recognizing a community bonding experience happening live and in front of you, and using that to consider the gun community and its culture outside the scope of the current political collision. I know that community exists. I grew up surrounded by it, and I think it is often very supportive and warm to fellow members. All of the men I would describe as role models growing up were gun owners.washing machine wrote:I think the key here is family. It helps me understand the "fetishism" in context, and by proxy, the average dues paying NRA member. The evil that is the NRA is an abstract to these people, I think. The community is the thing for them. This is something that is literally passed down from generations, like a tradition understood and cherished. And it all comes back to family.
But romanticization can become condescension very quickly, when it requires you to narrow how much of a person you're willing to see. And you are talking about NRA members at an NRA convention. It isn't abstract to them. That's impossible. The organization is too loud, effortful, and singular in its fixations. The real world ramifications of the status quo it protects are too present and horrific. It would be an insult to their intelligence to divorce NRA members that completely from the context of their own lives.
The other thing is: the firearms community exists outside the scope of the NRA. You can engage one without belonging to the other.
End of the day, it's not a Jimmy Buffett concert. There are two scenarios that put you in an NRA convention in 2022: one where you support the NRA's attitudes and efforts....and one where you do not, but are willing to buy in anyways if it gets you more of that community. It's not demonizing these folks to admit that. People are three dimensional. They can be kind, caring, champions of their community and also be willing to look the other way on a community leader who steals dues money, or policies they know cause harm, in order to maintain the comfort of that community. Both these things can be true.
Mental health care in the United States should be free, destigmatized, and readily accessible to all. Nothing less than that is going to make it a partial solution to this trend of violence. I'm all for it.I understand the mental health/broken home factor republicans talk about when something like this happens.
