ABSTRACT
Recent research has demonstrated the ways in which, for some men, guns take on a powerful meaning in a context where social changes have rendered precarious the meanings, privileges and means to achieve dominant conceptions of masculinity. Scott Melzer’s (2009) work on the National Rifle Association (NRA), for instance, suggests that in a context of threatened privilege, for some American men, guns can be seen as a possessive investment in white masculinity, expressed thru a nostalgia for frontier masculinity. Similarly, drawing from Michael Kimmel’s (2013) analysis of ‘angry white men,’ Tristan Bridges and Tara Leigh Tober (2017) argue convincingly that white men’s sense of ‘aggrieved entitlement’ is a powerful driver in recent mass shootings in schools and other public venues. Angela Stroud’s (2015) research illuminates how the rise of concealed gun carry mobilizes a dichotomous ‘good guys’ vs. ‘bad guys’ public discourse. And Jennifer Carlson’s (2015) important work reveals contemporary gun carry as, in part, a symbolic mourning of what she calls ‘the loss of Mayberry,’ driven by a rise of male precarity that includes the decline of male breadwinning and the fear of crime. In this context, Carlson argues, guns ‘protect against a gendered threat: the threat of falling down the masculine hierarchy.’
