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Jan. 6 And Uvalde Massacre Highlight How Violent Gun Culture Undermines Democracy
The January 6 hearings, designed to shed light for Americans on an orchestrated armed and violent attempt to overthrow the U.S. government, coming on the heels of the Uvalde massacre, draws into relief a cultural and political dynamic in America we need to recognize: the relationship between a violent and even obsessive gun culture in America and a penchant for an authoritarian politics that is seemingly hacking away at our democracy and democratic culture day by the day, even as I write.
While gun rights advocates — well, corporate lobbyists and Republican pawns — distort the Second Amendment and argue for people’s ability to buy and own assault rifles in the name of “freedom,” it should be becoming increasingly clear to Americans that a proliferation of guns, particularly military assault weapons, does not represent a realization of freedom for Americans but rather a destruction of freedom and democracy — not to mention American lives themselves!! — that is already underway.
The gun, in many ways these days, has become the symbol and means of tyranny, a tool for taking down democracy.
When our founders carefully theorized and arduously worked to implement our constitutional democracy, they premised it on Enlightenment principles of reason. They needed to…
