And it’s also true that the NRA is a malign force in American politics. It’s true that gun-rights advocates rely on a surely mistaken reading of the constitution to justify arming themselves to the teeth. But neither of these things really get to the root of the pathology. Critics of the sickness which is America’s obsession with guns often focus their fire on the second amendment, or the perverse political influence of the National Rifle Association. What cultural value, what material interest, could be worth this? It must be something that its defenders consider supremely important.
When a gunman murdered dozens of elementary-age schoolchildren, leaving their bodies in such a state that parents had to give up DNA samples for them to be identified, it was one such day. S ome days it feels like guns are such a foundational part of American identity that the country would have to cease to be itself before it would give them up.
