Gun Politics in The United States - Gun Culture

Gun Culture

In his article, "America as a Gun Culture," historian Richard Hofstadter popularized the phrase gun culture to describe the long-held affections for firearms within America, many citizens embracing and celebrating the association of guns and America's heritage. The right to own a gun and defend oneself is considered by some, especially those in the West and South, as a central tenet of the American identity. This stems in part from the nation's frontier history, where guns were integral to westward expansion, enabling settlers to guard themselves from Native Americans, animals and foreign armies, frontier citizens often assuming responsibility for self-protection. The importance of guns also derives from the role of hunting in American culture, which remains popular as a sport in the country today.

The viewpoint that firearms were an integral part of the settling of the United States has the least level of support in urban and industrialized regions, where a cultural tradition of conflating violence and associating gun ownership with the "redneck" stereotype has played a part in promoting the support of gun regulation.

In 1995, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, whose employees routinely carry such weapons in the line of duty, estimated that the number of firearms available in the US was 223 million. About 25% of the adults in the United States personally own a gun, the vast majority of them men. About half of the adult U.S. population lived in households with guns.

Guns are prominent in contemporary U.S. popular culture as well, appearing frequently in movies, television, music, books, and magazines.