Study: Poor White Men Most Likely to Cling to Guns

Brandon Oathout of Johnstown, N.Y., attends a Second Amendment rally at the Capitol on Tuesday, May 21, 2013, in Albany, N.Y. A few hundred people gathered for the rally pressing for repeal of the state's new tough laws that were enacted a month after the Newtown, Ct., school massacre. (AP …
AP/Mike Groll

A study by two Baylor University sociologists claims that poor white men are most likely to cling to guns, viewing them as a means of “empowerment.”

The sociologists, Carson Mencken and Paul Froese, claim that “white, male gun owners who have lost, or fear losing, their economic footing tend to feel morally and emotionally attached to their guns.”

According to the Sacramento Bee, the study also suggests that poor whites take gun control personally and are, therefore, impassioned in their fight against it. Froese claimed, “Gun control for these owners has come to represent an attack on their masculinity, independence and moral identity.”

The sociologists claimed another reason for clinging to guns is the conviction that we own them to repel a tyranny. Those who cling to guns for this reason are not necessarily poor whites; rather, they are individuals who believe “that it is justifiable to take up arms against the government.”

In other words, gun owners who think like Founding Father James Madison tend to cling to their guns. Writing in Federalist 46, Madison explained that one of the advantages of being armed was the ability to repel tyranny.

On July 6, 2014, Breitbart News reported:

Madison showed that the armed citizenry, together with “the existence of subordinate governments to which the people are attached,” provided the framework in which the people could rally to defend their lives and liberty. The people wound band together in “militias”–officers being “appointed” by those local, “subordinate governments”–and their banding together would be meaningful because the people were armed.

The Baylor sociologists said that “nonwhites, females, and older and better educated gun owners” do not tend to cling to guns like poor whites.



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