What makes embracing “gun owner” as an identity difficult for me? For one, in certain quarters — notably on university campuses and among sociologists in particular — gun owner is a stigmatized identity.
In addition, certain strains of the gun control movement have also sought to do to gun owners what was done to smokers or drunk drivers previously: make them public health pariahs.
At the same time, some of the people who most embrace the gun owner identity are not people with whom I want to identify. Examples abound from the recent “re-open” rallies in various states.
Last, some “gun owners” are simply assholes and some are idiots. This explains the existence, for example, of a 30,000 person Facebook group called “Gun People Who Hate Gun People.”
– Wake Forest Sociologist David Yamane in Golfers, Gun Owners, and Social Identity