Just finished reading ARMS, the culture and credo of the gun
by A.J. Somerset.
Somerset is a Canadian and a former Canadian Marine as well as an active hunter and shooting enthusiast. He has a pretty balanced outlook on the topic and has done a LOT of homework in the writing of this book, looking a law history back to feudal Europe to modern Stand Your Ground Laws and weapon's development as far back as well.
He believes there is no one gun culture but many, each predicated on it's own form of nuttery (Somerset only addressed the fringes of both guns and the opposition, so don't take offence over such terms and gun nuts.)
Among these are hunters (Cammo Nation), paranoids (Nation of Fear), and survivalists (Zombie hunters). Each fringe group has it's opposition which reinforces the root nuttery. Hunters have PETA, paranoids The Other and survivalists the US Government. However there is a one-for-all camaraderie that binds them into a single entity.
The one group I didn't mention is the Come and Take It crowd. For me they're a separate and particularly scary group. This is where Tim McVeigh and the Oath Keepers came from. Though there are only a few thousand Oath Keepers far too many of them are way too close to Tim McVeigh for my peace of mind.
Anyway, it's a good read that's written with humor wit and a sense of purpose; to explain the fringes to the great moderate majority.
Sadly, he sees not change from the current norm of two monkey tribes screeching at each other from the tops of their trees and flinging monkey poo at each other.
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