Hi guys;
I'm reading a new book from the Oxford University Press with the above title from a woman anthropologist names Abigail Kohn. She spent a year or so in the San Fran area researching the "gun culture" from an anthropological perspective, a la Margaret Meade among the Samoans. She hung out at gun stores and ranges, took self-defense courses, went to matches and became an enthusiastic cowboy shooter.
I went into this book predisposed to dislike it--after all, Margaret Meade screwed up spectacularly in her observations of those randy, raunchy Samoans. SHOOTERS is, however, a damned perceptive piece of work and definitely worth reading. You won't agree with everything, of course, but it will force your brain to do some work. Here's a passge that struck me:
"Ultimately, cowboy action shootng dramatizes a central theme of American mythic history: that American identity itself is reborn, remade, through violent conflict. This is a profoundly important aspect of pro-gun ideology and lies at the heart of what guns symbolize to gun enthusiasts, cowboy shooters in particular. Shooters ritually reenact this mythic theme not only through their cowboy shooting (and also with competitions like IPSC, complete with images of self-defense and the ubiquitous home invasion scenarios). Shooting sports like cowboy action shooting demonstrate the power and pleasure in employing controlled violence toward moral ends; ritually reenacting this basic theme is the underlying subtext of the cowboy lifestyle. In this vein, guns are righteous tools to be used for righteous ends, and shooting sports provide a venue to make this ideology into meaningful social practice, every single weekend of the year."
Interesting stuff...
Also, in all the huge amount of verbage on the gun debate--where we are alternately referred to as gun fanatics, gun nuts, gun fanciers, gun enthusiasts, blah blah--Ms. Kohn is apparently the only researcher who ever thought to ask *us* what *we* called ourselves. Hence her book title...SHOOTERS.
MB
I'm reading a new book from the Oxford University Press with the above title from a woman anthropologist names Abigail Kohn. She spent a year or so in the San Fran area researching the "gun culture" from an anthropological perspective, a la Margaret Meade among the Samoans. She hung out at gun stores and ranges, took self-defense courses, went to matches and became an enthusiastic cowboy shooter.
I went into this book predisposed to dislike it--after all, Margaret Meade screwed up spectacularly in her observations of those randy, raunchy Samoans. SHOOTERS is, however, a damned perceptive piece of work and definitely worth reading. You won't agree with everything, of course, but it will force your brain to do some work. Here's a passge that struck me:
"Ultimately, cowboy action shootng dramatizes a central theme of American mythic history: that American identity itself is reborn, remade, through violent conflict. This is a profoundly important aspect of pro-gun ideology and lies at the heart of what guns symbolize to gun enthusiasts, cowboy shooters in particular. Shooters ritually reenact this mythic theme not only through their cowboy shooting (and also with competitions like IPSC, complete with images of self-defense and the ubiquitous home invasion scenarios). Shooting sports like cowboy action shooting demonstrate the power and pleasure in employing controlled violence toward moral ends; ritually reenacting this basic theme is the underlying subtext of the cowboy lifestyle. In this vein, guns are righteous tools to be used for righteous ends, and shooting sports provide a venue to make this ideology into meaningful social practice, every single weekend of the year."
Interesting stuff...
Also, in all the huge amount of verbage on the gun debate--where we are alternately referred to as gun fanatics, gun nuts, gun fanciers, gun enthusiasts, blah blah--Ms. Kohn is apparently the only researcher who ever thought to ask *us* what *we* called ourselves. Hence her book title...SHOOTERS.
MB
