Tag: weapons

Guns don’t kill people: Bullets kill people

Guest post by Charles Fruehling Springwood

Worldwide, perhaps a billion guns? Where do guns come from? Who makes them? Who sells them? What kinds of guns do Colombian drug lords buy? Marxist guerillas in the Philippines? A middle-class doctor in Finland, where some 15 million Fins own guns? A poor farmer in southern Mexico? An American situated on the U.S.-Mexican border, sporting binoculars and a Glock pistol, scanning the horizon from atop his Winnebago RV? Who gives up or gives away guns?

Source: Flickr user Ayton, creative commons licensed.
Bullets. Credit: Flickr user Ayton, creative commons.

Questions such as these have concerned me for the past year, as I have conducted ethnographic research among gun-owners in the Midwestern U.S. In particular, I have been drawn to the prevailing meanings that highlight a growing movement encouraging the public “open carry” of pistols in addition to enhancing the right to carry concealed weapons.

Why do a growing number of gun owners in the U.S. seek to naturalize the visibility of a gun on a person in a growing number of public spaces? In unpacking this ‘penchant to pack,’ I have zeroed in on the desires for guns and how this fascination turns on the significance of the relationship of embodiment a gun has with its user, especially when the user “wears” her or his weapon? As cultural things — both material and semiotic in form — do guns become less an instrument of the mind and more a part of the mind and an extension of the self?

All of these questions assumed a new kind of urgency this weekend, when Jared Loughner attempted to assassinate Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), killing six bystanders and wounding 13 other people.

Arizona boasts one of the most liberal environments for gun ownership and usage, commonly allowing citizens to openly and publically carry guns on their person. I do not know if Loughner was exercising his right to open carry as he approached the Giffords public meet and greet event at the supermarket, but the gun he used for commit this horrific act was legally his.

As an anthropologist, I am especially interested in the “conditions of possibility” that surround events such as this shooting – those discourses, images, and actions – that fall short of causing such tragedies but clearly animate them and provide cultural scripts for their unfolding.

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Our guns, our selves

Archaeologists spend a lot of time analyzing weapons of our prehistoric past. Cultural anthropologists are more likely to study bananas, cars and wedding dress style. Commodity studies in cultural anthropology rarely address weapons.

No doubt one reason is that they are hard to study — people are less likely to want to share stories about their weapons than their cars or favorite food. A few brave anthropologists have ventured into gun studies. A few others provide contextual insights into U.S. culture and links to the love of guns among so many people.

Here are some recent sources (most are not publicly accessible, with my apologies) by anthropologists:

Journal articles from my AnthroPlus search via my university library:

  • Anderson, Leon, and Jimmy D. Taylor. 2010. Standing Out while Fitting In: Serious Leisure Identities and Aligning Actions among Skydivers and Gun Collectors. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 39(1):34-59.
  • Crist, Thomas A. 2006. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Bioarchaeology and the Modern Gun Culture Debate. Historical Archaeology 40(3):109-130.
  • Davidson, James M. 2008. Identity and Violent Death: Contextualizing Lethal Gun Violence within the African American Community of Dallas, TX (1900-1907). Journal of Social Archaeology 8(3):320-354.
  • Ibhawoh, Bonny. 2002. Stronger than the Maxim Gun: Law, Human Rights and British Colonial Hegemony in Nigeria. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 72(1):55-83.
  • Johnson, Colin. 1982. Eastern India: The Plight of Ethnic Minorities – “He Who Lays Down His Gun Lays Down His Freedom”. International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs. Newsletter.no.31-32: 90-99.

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