I think it is important to acknowledge that the national Rifle Association did not create this country’s gun culture. It began when white Europeans waded out of the Atlantic Ocean and settled on Indian land. The indigenous people reacted violently to this invasion. This influx of white people wasn’t the result of sophisticated real estate deals and miniature Louisiana Purchases. The white settlers illegally grabbed or were sold the land they coveted by rich land speculators and they farmed it with a loaded flintlock leaning within reach arm’s reach.
You might say the pope began our gun culture. He certainly gets an assist, to use a sports term. In “Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment,” author Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz explains how a mid-15th century papal bull, the Doctrine of Discovery, gave Portugal permission to attack West Africa for the enslavement of its people and their resources. To other European monarchs, this legitimized slavery. Slaves were needed to keep the crops in the colonies flourishing, but once the slave ships began to unload on the banks of the New World, the colonists opened a war with two fronts. The genocide of the Indian tribes met fierce resistance and slave rebellions were added to the colonial security concerns.
The settlers quickly demanded safety and soon, adult men were not allowed in public places without firearms. Church was no exception. Taxes were levied on farmers who did not have the proper amounts of guns and powder. Slave patrols brutally kept the slaves in line and working while the government pushed the tribes across the Mississippi River.
As manifest destiny wormed its way across the continent, organizations like the Klu Klux Klan and Texas Rangers were spawned. Former Confederate guerrillas who fought with Quantrill, a known Confederate homegrown terrorist,
