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Onward Christian Soldiers
I thought I understood gun culture. But I didn’t
Oh, I understand now. It’s taken a few years, and I feel a little naive. But I get it. It’s not about liberty or personal protection. It’s certainly not about tyranny. It’s about control. Strength. Boots, smashing faces.
The current conservative project has a simple goal: keep guns in the hands of the faithful. This isn’t a cohesive ideological movement anymore. It’s a collection of tactics serving an old dream.
The Republican Party — once the party of business and law and order — now exists to fight for a future where white heterosexual Christians are firmly in charge of American society. And they will fight dirty if they have to.
This is why they are unmoved by madmen with AR-15s butchering innocent people. You watch the news. You know what’s been happening. America is a shambles. To Republicans, these mass shootings are unfortunate side-effects of the plan.
So they ignore the shootings. Shrug at the horror. Scoff at the terror. It’s a chilling, cynical calculation. Never flinch, no matter how many children are murdered by racists and lunatics with AR-15s purchased as easily as fruit.
There is nothing wrong with the country, Republicans insist. This is natural. The walls of public schools are supposed to be splattered with blood and riddled with bullets. Don’t worry about it.
By the way, they’re coming for you: the liberals, the Blacks, the Jews. The drag queens want to steal your children. Have you bought a gun today?
I get it. I do. It’s depressing, but I get it.
This personal realization has happened to me slowly as I’ve come to accept that a shrinking political minority believes the only way they can hold onto power is through either fear of violence or actual killing. And the latter requires soldiers.
This is also why the Republican Party wants to ensure young white men like Kyle Rittenhouse and Daniel Perry can get away with grabbing a gun and trying to put down Black protestors and their allies.
