F Caron Mencken and Paul Froese of Baylor University
courtesy Baylor University

“…Americans’ attachment to guns is not explained entirely by regional, religious, or political cultures. Instead, we demonstrate that white men in economic distress find comfort in guns as a means to reestablish a sense of individual power and moral certitude. Gun empowerment, in turn, affects opinions about gun action and policy.” – F. Carson Mencken and Paul Froese in Gun Addiction: White Men Emotionally Attached To Firearms, Study Says [via ibtimes.com]

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69 COMMENTS

      • I read the poll report with all its’ analysis. The poll asked specific questions relating strictly to status of the individual, monetary concerns, political ideology and more. All skewed to reach the final results that was headlined. What they DID NOT cover was the use of firearms to put food on the table, defend their lives, families and homes from violent criminals or marauding predators, sport hunting, competition shooting in all forms including the US Olympic teams, college and high school teams, military and police use, and more. It was undoubtedly written and conducted by an all liberal and democratic group to reach a predetermined conclusion! I am a Navy vet. Guns to me are tools. Not necessarily empowerment with regard to social position. I have had to use them to put food on the table, used them to defend my life and my family and home, competed with them, carried them in defense of our country, built them and collect them. From the poorest white in the mountains of the Appalachian, Smokies and other poverty stricken areas that either hunt for food or starve, to the WH, firearms DO NOT give their owners those BS powers or attitudes! Even poor blacks to those more well off have used them for the same reasons! Does that stupid asinine statement apply to them also? The poll did not interview any blacks!

        • I second that. The questions are rigged to look only in one direction, and fail to address circumstances or reasons.

          As an example, “A gun makes me feel safe”. I could answer that positively, because there are places I go when armed that I would avoid otherwise — for example, doing conservation work in any area where wild felines have recently attacked people, or camping in such an area.

          The thing is, the same answers could be given for having a deadbolt on one’s entrance door, or having smoke alarms in one’s kitchen, or new brakes on one’s car. Does that make those things “empowering”?

    • Gun Addiction: White Men Emotionally Attached To Firearms, Study Says

      They should have titled the article:
      Gun Phobia: Liberals Emotionally Insecure About Taking Personal Responsibility For Their Safety, Study Says.

    • Sorry but the British were the first in this country to implement gun control on the colonists. That was also followed by the attempt of a Dutch governor to confiscate all the guns in his settlement in order to maintain control. That was followed rapidly by his hanging! The KKK did not implement gun control. BUT, the democrats that comprised them did later by challenging the right of all Americans to carry and bear arms according to the 2A in court without limits. And to no surprise, a democratic judge ruled in their favor and started this asinine trip down the judicial road to strip away all gun rights and guns from all citizens but the select few in power and their hired thugs!

  4. Ah, we the bitter clingers. Keep it up, lefties. Derision and projection only serve to deepen our resolve. You don’t win friends through mockery.

  5. “Gun empowerment, in turn, affects opinions about gun action and policy.”

    Empowered people, self owners, responsible for themselves and their families, have definite opinions about gun (and every other) policy. As it must be. And no, we’re not in the least interested in becoming powerless over our own lives because other people want to disarm us and control us to their own satisfaction.

    The desire/compulsion to control other people is the ROOT of all evil. The controllers can’t see or understand anything but their own desires and compulsions, of course.

  6. Shooting is an expensive hobby, with three kids and a mortgage, I didn’t get into guns at all until my income and my wife’s income got to a level that there was a comfortable disposable income to support it. So I’m calling BS. This is just playing on stereotypes.

    • You got that right.
      Try competitive shooting. Practice, practice, practice. Then compete.
      Lather, rinse, repeat.
      But it’s a whole lot of fun though.

      • Oh I know. I shoot bullseye pistol competitively, but only in .22lr. Even with that some of more dedicated target pistols, Pardini’s, Hammerli’s and Walter’s can get pretty salty.

  7. I just completed a study that told that 4 out of 5 gun control advocates are just as worthless as the other one.

  8. [CITATION NEEDED.]

    Also, #NotAnArgument

    See also: gun control is racist, as are F. Carson Mencken and Paul Froese merely by dint of supporting it.

    • Correct. As if wanting “to reestablish a sense of individual power and moral certitude” is a bad thing. Unless of course you are a liberal politician trying to maintain control of an inner city population. Can’t have those folks establishing a sense of individual power now can you?

      • If that’s the case, then you most certainly cannot. I mean, it’s precisely why the Gun Control Act of 1986 was passed, right after the MLK, Jr. assassination. It’s also why The Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Ownership To Prevent “Gun Violence” (formerly Handgun Control, Inc.) constantly pushed, and still pushes, for the half of all sales of “saturday night specials,” i.e. cheap handguns that the not-so-affluent inner city folks could actually afford.

  9. It’s ok to be a white man. I apologize to no one for being a white man or a gun owner. I give or take absolutely zero consideration to others based upon their race or gender. I have only enough time to consider the actions and contributions a person makes to society. If I subsequently develop an interest in someone’s background based upon their merit, I will do so. If that offends lefty communists, so be it.

  11. Obviously these two have no hobbies and have no clue what it takes to support any hobby these days…. Guns, cars, model railroads, etc. prices are nuts! For example to get a new Lionel ready to run set (like what you put around a Christmas tree or start your model railroad table with) you *pay more than the price of the following guns:
    1. Heritage Rough Rider
    2. Savage Rascal
    3. Ruger 10/22
    4. Ruger American Rifle (centerfire)
    5. Mossberg 500

    * NOTE: PRICE USED WAS $389-465 FOR A NICE PLUG IN SET. BATTERY SETS DO COST LESS BUT IF YOU ARE A MODEL RAILROADER BATTERIES JUST DON’T CUT IT.

    • Diving as a hobby goes in your group of expensive hobbies too.

      I was a very active recreational diver for 10 years. Good gear costs!

      Underwater Camera housings and strobes are crazy expensive.

      • There really aren’t any cheap hobbies anymore. Any hobby you can come up with probably costs a lil more than the price of a good 22 rifle to get established with.

        • Motorcycle riding is not cheap either. But the bright side is that the older and more decrepit I get, the less i ride and therefore spend on my bike. Wait, …never mind.

          I have taken reloading as my hobby to support my shooting hobby about 5 years ago. Now I sometimes feel like I should hit the range to get some more brass. I’m also sure I’m going to start saving money any day now.

      • Just getting decent silicon gear for snorkeling gets really expensive. Most of my gear is over 20 years old, but it works well.

        Weekend track-day cars can get very expensive. More than I could ever afford.

        I’m up for a new PC as my current one is 6 years old. The new one I’ve specced should last about 10 years.

        I’m glad I don’t pay golf (word used deliberately).

        While shooting isn’t as expensive, it does have costs of about $400 per year for memberships, plus range fees, consumables (ammunition, cleaning supplies, etc), and new purchases. I also enjoy spending the time with friends and the inevitable discussions on guns, law, military history, aviation, movies and TV shows, previous experiences, etc.

  12. Not sure what you think you’re going to learn from a study that encompasses all of 500 gun owners, I’m guessing ~350 of them white males. Did the 3 black women gun owners in economic distress not ‘find comfort in guns as a means to reestablish a sense of individual power and moral certitude’? Does possessing the power to fend off a criminal attack instead of cowering and waiting 10 or 20 minutes for the state to respond to your pleas for help not establish a sense of individual power in all people regardless of race or gender? Or did was this study just an excuse to stereotype and demean white males who own guns?

  13. Another statistic sold as research. Statistics has several tricks to make small groups appear to be representative, while in reality, they are not.

    1,500 people were asked. No, that is not representative at all. That is a very small number.

    The pseudo-science is strong in this one.

    • I’m not as concerned about the sample size as the distribution of the samples, I think 1500 is actually a pretty good sample size compared to most of these studies. What really annoys me is the inherent bias that was likely built into the questions to get the answer they want.

  14. Empowerment is a term used by lily-livered liberals to feel better about themselves. A real man has never uttered the word. These conclusions are an attempt by the weak minded to understand a simple concept which is totally alien to them. Self Reliance and Responsibility.

  15. so what they are really trying to say is, a white guy is powerless without arms? if that’s the case, step up one by one, I’d rather beat them with my bare hand anyway. my guns are to protect my wife and kids, I’d just assume actually being violent and make puddles of faces with brute force, and keep hoping I never have to use my weapon.

    • No, what they are trying to say is us small dick white guys need guns to feel masculine while other races with big dicks have no such need.

      • One does wonder why it’s always a dick thing with them. They started out just saying gun owners had small dicks now it seems they gotta say it fancier. The arguement is the same now as it always was, gun owners are less masculine and less desirible mates due to genital size while gun control advocates are all hung like mules and thus more desirable and masculine. You know they’re on the ropes when they start trottin this show pony out as an arguement. Then again they only have maybe 3.
        1. Think of the children!!!1!
        2. Racist!!
        3. Your dick is tiny!!

  16. As retirees, my wife and I are very much the opposite of “economically distressed”. We have a guaranteed income more than enough to cover our necessary expenses and as much again, from 30 years of saving and investing, to pay for hobbies, vacations, etc. With the exception of something cheap for home defense, our guns fall into the latter category.

    Because of our age, stature and declining strength, you might say we are “physically distressed.” Guns give us the power to defend ourselves against thugs who are younger, bigger and stronger.

    I wish people would get off this racial pride nonsense. It’s just genetic accident, not something they accomplished. It makes no more sense than being proud because it’s sunny today or ashamed because it was cloudy yesterday.

  17. As a black guy, I gotta tell you I feel entirely left out of all these studies and surveys decrying white male gun owners and their clinginess to guns. What about me and my clinginess. I can cling with the best of ’em! *Scurries off to go hug his LWRCs*

    • They won’t say sh*t because you’re black… But if they did they’d call you an Uncle Tom like liberal blacks do to conservative blacks and mutter something about selling your race out to their oppressors.

      • As a female gun owner, especially one who goes above and beyond merely owning just an anemic pink revolver, I feel like neo-feminists think of me as an uncle Tom, because the patriarchy has brainwashed me into liking guns or something. Obviously no one who disagrees with them is capable of individual thought.

        • How dare you own the tools of the evil patriarchy!!! Don’t you know that’s how we enslave y’all into becoming housewives and fixing us sammiches!?!?!? How could you do such a thing to your sisters!? By owning those evil phallic symbols of patriarchal oppression you are oppressing and abusing every other woman you know and for every bullet you fire Hillary Clinton eats 4 kittens, kills 3 nuns, and abuses 8 orphans!!!!111!!! Get rid of your guns now and free those orphans, save the kittens, and give those nuns a new lease on life!

          /SARC/

    • Here are the categories used for determination. So, in a non binary category like race, they ONLY wanted to look at white folk. Others need not apply.

      White, Female, Age, Education, Income, Rural community, Children in HH, , Never Married, Divorced , Widowed, Economic precarity, Alienation index, Liberal political views, Trust, Worship attendance, How religious, Threatened w/gun, How happy

  18. Emotional distress? Yep. Which firearms(s)should I take to the range next? Economic distress? Check. Which credit card has a low enough balance to make my next purchase. Emotional attatchment? Guilty as charged. No one may touch my guns without my permission! Not a white male, by the way.

  19. This is a 3 year old “study.” At the bottom of the original article on the Oxford Academic “Social Problems” web site, it says, “This article was presented at the 2014 annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Indianapolis, Indiana.” However, it was not published until Nov 20, 2017.

    In their conclusion, they say, “Previous research on the symbolic empowerment guns provide has focused on two scenarios. One, is closely linked to the model of the “hero.” Weakened or inept social institutions require individuals to accept personal responsibility for the protection of themselves and their communities. A second explanation emerges from the “insurrectionists” argument. Guns empower people to confront a tyrannical government (Berlet and Lyons 2000; Celinska 2007; Horwitz and Anderson 2009; Jiobou and Curry 2001). We find a third explanation—guns provide moral purpose to white males who have lost, or fear losing, their economic footing.”
    They blame “Weakened or inept social institutions” for people’s acceptance of personal responsibility for the protection of themselves and their communities, and in their citations for the conclusion regarding a tyrannical government, they fail to cite the US Constitution.

  21. One also might reflect that the personal empowerment one derives from a gun also leads to personal responsibility. E.G. a gun owner is saying I take primary responsibility for my safety (and my families) vs I will rely solely on the government agencies.

  23. I was more economically secure before I “got into guns” some 7 years ago. I’ve had plenty of moral rectitude before and since then too…My identity as an OFWG has literally nothing to do with firearms😆😆😆

  25. “White Men Derive Power and Moral Certitude From Guns: Quote of the Day”

    Oh, and what do blacks “derive”, or any other race for that mater???

    Just another d-bag racist liberal…

  27. There may be some white men pushed out of their middle class lifestyle who are forced economically to live in an area that is perceived to be not as safe an area who have taken a new look at firearms for protection, but just as many minority men living in the same area should also look to firearms as protection. I would think that criminals derive power from their firearms and might like it, so we good guys should be able to protect ourselves from them.

    There is a big responsibility to owning firearms and we all hope and pray that new owners study and practice firearm safety. I inquired about gun safety classes at our local police station, and they will not offer any classes, so I asked at the local range and was given about 15 minutes of hands-on instruction about 10 years ago.

    I did not derive power or moral certitude from guns – the responsibility is the only reason I can see for not having firearms, but that comes with owning a car, a house, a pool, land, etc.

  29. This just in: Governments derive power, moral certitude from firearms. Except it’s totally cool for them to do so, because reasons.

  33. If the ruling class had not corrupted the courts, lower and middle class people would not feel a need to have firearms as a method of last resort.

    And for anyone who dismisses the idea that the ruling class has corrupted the courts, please explain why my wishes (written in my own hand writing, witnessed, and notarized) are not 1,000% iron-clad in the courts.

  35. No! White men derive power and moral certitude from abusing women. These same men are disdainful of men that own or possess firearms. The bitter and very sweet irony.

    How’s that compute?

  36. “White Men Derive Power and Moral Certitude From Guns.” So where does that leave me, an Asian male who happens to own several guns? Am I free from persecution? What if I ccw every day? Do I get a pass? Questions, questions, questions. These libtards are ruining this country.

  37. All I can say is this black gun owner and NRA member has taken great pleasure in introducing guns to my daughter. I look forward to showing her how to zero my new AR15, and explaining how a good guy with a gun can save innocent people.

  38. Do a Youtube search for “Jordan Peterson Explains Postmodernism”. Explains the entire current leftist-SJW movement.

  39. These guys are sociology professors. They teach for a utterly useless degree where graduates tend to end up flipping burgers.

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