Obert says, came to have larger cultural significance as guns also represented control of the “frontier” communities (whether that was New England in the early days of the colonies and country or out West) from indigenous people or controlling slaves in the antebellum South. In Obert’s research, the idea of shooting guns as a civic activity really begins to emerge in the post-Civil War era, as reform groups like the National Rifle Association (NRA) in its nascent form began promoting the idea that being able to shoot a gun is something every American should be able to do. But it wasn’t until the 1950s and ’60s that the political case for guns solidified in America’s conscious. “When people start to think of guns not just as something you can buy as a tool, but also as something that has a political significance that something like American gun culture really starts to emerge,” Obert says. It’s at this point that “this thing that we connect to our citizenship starts to transform into something that needs to be used for selfdefense,” he says. As society starts grappling with the concept of civil rights, the NRA begins to shift from its focus on shooting guns as a sport to the right to bear arms as a constitutional right. “The NRA was able to promote this idea of it’s not just that [gun control advocates] are wanting safety or that they’re against your guns. It’s that they’re against you as a person,” Obert says, referring to Barnard College professor Matthew LaCombe’s book Firepower: How the NRA Turned Gun Owners into a Political Force. Despite its waning influence in recent years amid scandal, bankruptcy and threats from regulators, the NRA has been instrumental in shaping this narrative, as this aspect of gun culture has gone into “hyperdrive” over the last 20 years, according to Rachel Friend, Boulder City Councilperson, who has been involved with gun violence prevention activism for years. For her, it’s this purposeful emphasis on guns as a right and part of a person’s identity that focuses on the individual over the collective that helps create the policy impasse. “Some people are focused on the greater good and some people are focused on the individual good, and often those two don’t match up on guns or masks or many other things,” she says. “And when I think of what that culture produces, it’s an unwillingness to pass laws or legislation that
limit [this cultural perspective] in any way.” The other side of the conversation, Friend adds, is the culture created by prolific gun violence and mass shootings, where active shooter drills are normalized and it is expected a public place could, at any moment, turn into “a war zone.” “I think we owe it to our kids to change the culture because it’s not a fair culture that they’re growing up in,” she says. It’s not just this concept of individual or collective, or even all the talk
BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE
about the rural-urban divide, regulations threatening the rural lifestyle under the guise of protecting people living in cities. For Rhodes, it’s deeper than that. “There’s a divide, not only rural versus urban, but between people who believe that the government will protect them and people who believe they’re responsible for their own personal safety and their own protection,” he says. He says it’s akin to using seatbelts, wearing helmets on bicycles and motorcycles, even voluntarily, and
smoke detectors. In this case, “The gun just happens to be the safety rescue tool,” he says. “Guns are not violent and they’re not peaceful. They are inanimate objects. They’re metal, plastic, wood, in some cases,” Rice continues. “That’s why we don’t blame the gun. We blame the person who’s abusing the gun.” In his estimation, after 30 years as a firearms instructor, the majority of gun owners purchase guns to protect themselves, not trusting the governsee GUNS Page 10
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APRIL 29, 2021
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