Tyranny and Peril.

Editor,

"The Freedom Group."

See?

Marketing weapons optimized to kill as many people as possible as fast as they can exploits a concept of liberty that revolves around, glorifies, and mythologizes violence.

I have posted a few comments on the NY Times lately, as many people have, because I am outraged that 80 million heavily armed "gun enthusiasts" are walking around among us.

Some of the comments posted in response to mine show clearly the framing that pervades the gun culture: freedom, peril, tyranny, laying down one's life.

I have encountered people who constantly talk about laying down their lives, and these people scare me. Laying down one's life is always in their thoughts. It is the measure of their legitimacy. It is something "tyranny" or "peril" might necessitate at any moment.

This is the mindscape gun manufacturers cultivate to sell their products. It is more dangerous than any imaginary peril with which right-wing media scares "gun enthusiasts," and it drives people infected with it to buy more lethal weaponry every day, which gun manufacturers are happy to supply.

Re: "Reaction to Newtown Shootings Spreads to Corporate America" (12/18/2012)