The Gun Debate and the Iconic Real American

The majority of Americans don't own guns. And the vast majority of Americans don't go hunting. But the national image that Real Americans do both hog-ties any sort of debate over gun control. It's like not wanting to clear those old tennis rackets from the garage because, well, while it's been decades since you actually played tennis, you kind of enjoyed it then, and, well, um, you might want to play again in the future …

Note that these minority status don't cause any sort of automatic "win" for any given argument. The debate over the Constitution, questions over other reasons for owning guns, what constitutes reasonable measures to make sure that dangerous criminals and potentially insane mass shooters don't get their hands on firearms — those are all legitimate things to discuss.

But it's hard to do so while a self-righteous image of Real Americans lurks in the background, coloring every argument and forcing social and political caveats to every conversation.

Reshared post from +George Wiman

"Real Americans" hunt and drive pickups, right?