In a recent question of the day, TTAG’s Armed Intelligentsia refuted Moms Demand Disarmament for America’s assertion that motherhood will triumph over gun rights (as if the two were somehow mutually exclusive). This time ’round, I’d like to get your thoughts on gun culture in America. It seems to me we’ve lost ground. Many readers remember a time when firearms were “normal.” When you could take a rifle on a bus or to school. When toy gun commercials – with realistic guns! – celebrated the natural male urge to fight against bad guys . . .

Today’s schools have a zero tolerance policy for anything even vaguely firearms oriented. NERF gun ads never show a foam dart hitting home and contain the tagline “ask a parent.” Hollywood movies, TV shows and video games are still gun intensive, but are we losing the culture war?

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169 COMMENTS

    • Spot on, we are building a new culture, hopefully one where the 2nd amendment and all civil rights won’t be taken for granted.

    • Exactly what I was going to say. We lost the culture war a long time ago.

      But that doesn’t mean we’re permanently defeated. Vast areas of cultural territory are still under hostile occupation, but we’ve regained some important ground. Can we *keep* gaining? That’s the question.

    • Disagree, but it is an uphill battle with the legacy media endlessly inferring ‘gunz’ are ‘scarry’ bad and pining for every anti-gun initiative that comes along.

      ‘Course, there is always the beneficial aspect of the “Zulu king” bring attention to guns and raising awareness of guns with his rhetoric and pen and phone activities. That both helps and hurts our cause by uniting us and bringing attention to ‘gunz’, but also depicting guns as a ‘problem’.

      What will help us most to normalize guns is to achieve more wins in conservative controlled gun friendly jurisdictions and demonstrate that the antis’ – and media’s – cries of blood in the streets is untrue.

      Getting the message out is the biggest challenge.

      I do not think we have lost the culture war at all, though. It has just become more focal aspect of the fight because the antis have long recognized the need to condition Americans to be afraid of guns, and they have a head start on us by indoctrinating anti- gun attitudes from childhood on. But that indoctrination diminishes with time, especially for males, once young adults start being exposed to ‘real world’ experiences and begin to open their eyes and think for themselves.

      My young adult kids are proof of this.

      • Yup. Lots of ground to retake from 80s (or earlier) through early 2000’s. I don’t think we’ll get THAT culture back but we’re seeing a strong surge of Gun culture 2.0 – sure less visible, but with greater acceptance to non-hunting modern sporting firearms. Keep in mind that 1.0 was made-up primarily of Fudds and their inconsistent philosophies. Look back to 1993 and things are looking pretty darn good.

      • Think about how society treated guns prior to the gang busting policies (<1930s) during the great depression, then the FDR stuff and the later progressive movement.
        Even if we are moving in a positive direction, it will take decades to reverse the damage that has already been done.
        Not saying it's not worth trying to regain rights, but it will take just as much time to reverse as it did to cause damage.

  3. No. I grew up in occupied Maryland to mildly anti gun parents and I am now a bleeding edge gun rights supporter. You can’t get results like that if you’re losing a culture war.

    • Identity Thief!

      Glad to see I’m not the only one, although I supposed I’m not bleeding edge. I admit I have too many other distractions.

      • I agree. I grew up in a house hold where my mother hated anything remotely resembling a gun and my dad (who grew up hunting) not really talking or teaching us about guns to avoid confrontation. And now being the first to conceal everywhere i go and a nice little collection. I have reignited my dads interests and flipped my mom on the issue. ????????

  4. The Culture War doesn’t decide a Civil War, it just indicates which combatants you want to side with.

  5. This topic made me pine for the Lawn Darts, M-100s and butterfly knives ‘Back In The Day’.

    • I’ve got a nice vintage set of Sears Lawn Darts in the shed. Might break them out for good ol’ times sake.

    • Actually I have a nice spearpoint OTF autoknife way cooler than any balisong I had and I’m pretty sure I could get M-100s in a few days if I really put my mind to it so never mind.

      • I work at a company that makes the handles for Benchmade butterfly knives. Pretty cool knives, even if I can’t own them (I work on the opposite side of the river from where I live), but a real PITA to machine. We also make handles for their OTF knives. I finally understand why they cost so much.

        • My friend has a Benchmade Pagan, he won’t tell me how much he paid for it but its a fantastic knife. I’ve discovered Ganzo and Sanrenmu knockoffs that are pretty slick for one-sixth the price of an on-sale street-cost Benchmade. The Ganzo G704 is an amazing axis-lock copy of the old H&K 14205 and after almost 2 years still locks up tight.

  6. Have you seen this next generation? They are the *feelz over reelz* generation. Video games have been our only saving grace but I’d say the war is well lost , the courts wont protect us. Watch this election, I predict Hillary with 60% of the vote and her opponent with something like 36-38%.

    • They might … and it would only be because of the novelty factor of voting a woman to the office of President.

      Pro tip: nothing stops the Republicans from doing the exact same thing.

      Good news: if the people do vote for Hillary, the Democrats will have exhausted all of their novelty angles — electing a minority and a woman as President. After that, they got nothing.

      • There are other minorities left for them to “exploit”, and secure the presidency. Still need out first Hispanic president. 😉

        • vv ind,

          Doh!!! How could I have missed that?!?!?!? I totally forgot the whole transgender, transvestite, transwhatever category. Okay so the Dems will win the next two elections. After that, the novelty show is over and the Republicans will regain the White House … unless, of course, the Republicans can field a transwhatever candidate and take the White House sooner rather than later.

      • “nothing stops the Republicans from doing the exact same thing”

        Sarah Palin stepped into the national spot light. A strong, apologetically conservative woman, a person of accomplishment who gave the lie to everything the radical feminist movement loves to preach. And she was viciously demonized because of the threat the left recognized her to be. I can assure you that if Fiorina were posting higher poll numbers, she’d be getting the same treatment.

        • What exactly do you think made her accomplished? Mouthy housewife fed on rightwing misinformation who lucked into the Guv’ner’s position and resigned early. Did she invent penicillin or something and forgot to tell anyone?

        • @God-awful……..How about the fortitude for crewing on Alaskan fishing boats for years and helping keep her family finances afloat. How about taking the countless hours in working hard with her hands to gain the knowledge of how to thrive in an unforgiving land.

          Please compare and contrast to Hildebeast.

        • Fiorina doesn’t need to be “demonized”. Anyone who is familiar with her track record in the business knows that she has no business being anywhere even close any managerial position, much less running a country. To remind, we’re talking about a CEO that was formally kicked out by the board. The bar for how much you have to screw up to get there is so high that it doesn’t happen often, but it did happen to her.

          As for Palin, she stopped being electable the moment she opened her mouth and started talking.

    • Are you going to go off yourself, Mr. Doom-and-Gloom? Because a lot of the rest of us aren’t ready to throw in the towel yet. We’re PO’d about this stuff and want to keep fighting back. I’d rather go out like the 300 Spartans than to just say “oh well” and give in. Oh, and to the blazes with Hillary Clinton.

    • Negative. Hillary is nowhere near the unstoppable powerhouse she’s been historically protrayed as in the leftist media. The leftist are less than excited about her and I predict like with Romney many “true” liberals will stay home in 2016, upset with their choices. This idea that America has taken a “hard swing to the left” is a blatant lie. America never really takes a hard swing either way, it lightly swings back and forth. Also, the GOP has not been this strong since Reconstruction. Since Obama took office the Democratic Party has lost over 900 legislative seats nationally. They have a super majority in the house, a solid majority in the senate, and control a vast majority of state assemblies and governourships. The Democratic Party’s only strong edge is in the presidentail race, due to the electoral college.

      • It won’t let me edit but that should say: the GOP has a super majority in the house, ect….

      • The problem is, the next president will for the rest of my life decide the Supreme Court makeup.

        • @hillary-“Reconstruction”

          Is what will happen after our presidential election is used as affirmative action again. How hard is it to realize that Republicans sell us out just the same as democrats, only not as publicly.

          Gun control is using two hands, and according to the highest law of OUR land it is not supposed to be a political money making machine, which is used to control We the Sheeple exercising OUR protected from government natural rights.

  7. Maybe if fewer gun owners tethered themselves to the social conservative tyrants, the 2A community would make better progress.

    • Maybe if the Democrat Party wasn’t so virulently anti-gun, some pro 2A citizens would vote for them. The two party system sucks, my choices are between outright gun grabbers and those that think some infringement is ok. the Dems will never get my vote as long as the party platform is for more restrictions on law abiding citizens.

      • The GOP will be a lot more appealing to new voters if they weren’t considered the anti-gay-marriage party (thanks Karl Rove).

        Gun-control is unpopular. Young people don’t like it. The GOP can easily pick up the votes by dumping the puritan losers (who would never vote Democrat anyways).

          • @Yee, oh hardly big man. But even if I did, I’d be proud. No PC bullshit or Gaystapo is going to alter my opinion. Now, go back to the Offal Office and your crack cocaine choomer.

        • Soldiers of God keep fighting on (by peeking into peoples’ bedrooms to prevent behavior they don’t approve of). Stay proud, trooper. 🙂

        • Idiots like El Mac are the biggest threat to gun rights. The asinine garbage that falls out of their mouths are merely fodder for 2A opponents, lining up perfectly with their negative stereotypes about all gun owners.

        • @Andy If jerkoffs like Mac had his way we’d have to pass a background check on moral values before buying a gun.

        • @Yee…anti-gay-marriage party

          Are you referring to the party whose leader and sitting president in 2011 said “I believe marriage is only between a man and a woman”? You mean that “anti-gay-marriage” black guy at 1600 Penn Ave?

        • @Yee…Soldiers of God keep fighting on (by peeking into peoples’ bedrooms to prevent behavior they don’t approve of)

          The only REAL bedroom peeking going on in 2015 is by the typical Leftist university administration and faculty. Expanding their lengthy speech codes with brand new sex codes.

          Projection…..Leftism survives on it along with the help of the MFM.

        • @doesky2

          Gay marriage was *the* wedge issue in the 2004 election campaign. It was hardly mentioned in 2008 or 2012. Karl Rove admitted that he engineered the entire campaign to galvanize the social conservative base.

          The fact that Obama even bothered to make a token statement against gay marriage was purely superfluous, considering how >90% support from blacks. This is proven with his casual break with that stance when Biden opened his fat mouth.

          Nice try at re-writing history, though. One gold star for effort.

    • You beat me to it. On guns, the Republican party is slightly less bad than the Democratic party. But the balance of the positions taken by those Republican politicians who are highly supportive of gun rights tend also to go hand-in-hand with social policies many people find abhorrent.

      Most people aren’t one issue voters: I’m pro gun, pro legalization of drugs, anti PATRIOT, pro gay marriage, anti abortion, and anti capital punishment. And in voting I’m going to weigh which candidate is most likely to hit most of the issues that matter to me. I’m not voting for someone who is pro gun if I hate the rest of his platform, any more than I’m going to vote for a pro gay marriage politician if I hate the rest of his platform.

      • This.

        I wouldn’t vote for a candidate if he is pro-gun to a fault, but is an insane warmonger, drone assassin, drug war fascist and bloviating preacher of “family values”.

      • Mr. Smith, you’ve perfectly highlighted the strategy known as Hegelian Dialect, which has been very effectively used for decades to manipulate popular opinion into positions they would never have agreed with on their own. The entire false 2 party paradigm is built around this concept. Bravo.

        • Thank you for the kind words. Oddly, I was first introduced to the concept in an econ course on game theory, rather than in a philosophy course.

    • I’m going to make this simple. I’m not a huge fan of hard-core Bible thumpers. However, you aren’t going to convince me that two dudes pretending to be married so they can get it on and act like that’s fine, while smoking weed, is the pinnacle of society, either. And keep your hands off of my guns.

      • No one is claiming that it is the “pinnacle”. However, for those still actively shedding oppression, it might seem that way.

      • There’s no pinnacle of society. It’s just people doing what they want without harming others. Deal with it.

        Keep your hands off my weed too.

        • Go tell the bankrupt pizza maker, baker, florist, and photographer about how gay marriages causes them “no harm”.

          Next up…..suing churches for not performing gay marriages.

          Following that…..forcing the public to accept incestuous gay/straight marriages and polygamy.

          Yeah absolutely “no harm” unless you happen to offend somebody on a facebook comment and get your azz fired.

    • Absolutely. The hypocrisy of Republicans just makes them wholly unsuited to be “true” conservatives. Wrap themselves in the flag, yet security theater and and religious engineering have shown them to be the same kind of tyrants that Democrats don’t really bother hiding.

      • Grind, pretty much agree, but a step further, both parties are essentially controlled by the same power brokers, so what the public gets id the illusion of difference, ie some superficial hot button social differences….but even that has finally changed, both parties don’t even pretend to be different anymore, they don’t have to.

      • I agree….. if you have no values you’re much less likely to do something hypocritical.

    • Are the “social conservative tyrants” you talking about happen to be all the Leftist university officials and leftist politicians that are creating rules on how college students hook up? Or are they the leftist types that implement speech codes at schools so no “special snowflakes” get their tender feelings hurt?

      Face it, the hot issues dealing with sex-rules are coming from the Left.

      • The GOP spent the better part of a decade passing legislation at the state and federal level banning gay marriage, affecting the financial and family status of millions of people.

        But you’re going to pretend that a 10 year national legislative effort on your part is equivalent to the handful of cases of cake and flower shops suffering undue persecution.

        Nice one. Yep, most of the intolerance is coming from one side, indeed.

        • The “10 year effort” was due to the Left wanting to redefine the definition of marriage that was in place for thousands of years and then call the supporters of that tradition radicals.

          It a like a house or warped mirrors.
          Up is down, straight is curved, in is out.

          The Left is insane.

        • Double post. Actually, make that a 20 year losing battle, because DOMA was passed in 1996. Do you enjoy losing?

          Slavery has been around for 5000 years, them abolitionists are just contemptuous of tradition! What about cultures where polygamy is considered normal and traditional? Monogamists and their crazy notions.

          It is amusing that you actually use tradition as an argument. Considering how sex outside marriage or “unnatural sex” (as judged by the religious police) was criminal in many states for decades, and gays were brutalized or murdered in the same way as blacks without consequence, that’s quite a base to construct your moral stand.

          Oppressing other people is our expression of religious freedom! Nice attempt at a rejoinder at the end, LOL.

        • The Leftist mindset……

          Male/Female marriage is as evil as Slavery.

          The scourge of leftism is defined by “first stage thinking” like a child who can not see past the sweet feeling of immediate gratification. It was predicted that gay marriage would have major ramifications and you can ask the photographer, baker, florist, and pizza maker about those issues.

          The next issue will be the forcing of churches to perform those gay marriages and thus a major breakdown of religion in the U.S. which is exactly what the Left desires.

          The Left places zero value on freedom of religion because the left places zero value on religion itself.

        • Ah, but the Democrats got involved with the marriage issue. The Federal Defense of Marriage Act was signed into law by Bill Clinton (ironically), with wide support on both sides of the aisle in Congress. If the Democrats truly believe in “Marriage Equality” (whatever that means) that it had and still has plenty of opportunity to overturn the present Federal law by passing legislation getting rid of DOMA. But they don’t, instead they keep the current law on the books and whip up their activist base in a frenzy over it. Same thing with the Religion Freedom Act, Democrats passed that, thinking very narrowly that it was going to apply only to Native American religions that may use drugs for their ceremonies. But if Christians turned to it, that’s just backwards.

          Personally, all of this is due to the fact the Federal Government got involved with too much of our lives. Go to a flat tax or fair tax system, and most of these issues will be resolved when deductions for married couples go away and you can pass on your benefits to anyone you personally deem fit. The very fact that gay couples want to force the rest of society to validate their union (like using the government to force a bakery to bake a wedding cake) shows me we are way beyond the quaint but ultimately trite notion of “keeping the government out of our bedroom”.

  8. I don’t understand what the issue is. A group whose motto is, essentially:
    >We have used our vaginas for their intended purpose. Now do what we say!
    has any traction or pull in any topic other than child rearing.

    “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.

    “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.

    Why are you not openly, wantonly, brazenly, and relentlessly ragging the ever-living piss right out of these delusional hags? Who cares what they say or think?

    • If there was a spine among “them”, this is exactly what “they” would do. Ad revenue be damned! Bet it never will though.

      To hell with losing honorably, it’s still losing.

      “Winners go home, and f*** the prom queen.”

  9. Considering POTG have been effectively ostracized from mainstream culture, yes we are losing.

  10. “… are we losing the culture war?”

    No.

    This isn’t a battle because our rights are not decided by popular culture.

    The very question proves selection bias on our part. We are, generally speaking, not in the center of the bell-curve. We are closer to one side and see only those on the other side, the opposite from us. We focus on those that would oppose us while ignoring the rest.

    Try this….. this morning on your way to work you saw how many bad drivers? That idiot that rolled through the stop sign. Or maybe the guy who is too lazy to move a finger to hit the turn indicator. Horrible drivers! Everywhere!

    No, not really. You only remembered the bad ones. There were how many other cars on the road with you this morning?

    This ‘culture war’ is the same thing. MDA has a few thousand people. MAIG has a few thousand more. Lump ALL of them anti-gunners into one big group and you might get to a couple hundred thousand without even being too generous on defining what qualifies as a ‘member’ of that group.

    Compared to an estimated 10 million firearm owners.

    We won. Have won. Are winning. Will continue to win.

    Are they more vocal than we are? By many multiples to be sure. But they still can’t get more than a couple dozen people together to protest anything. They still don’t have more than a few talking heads distributing the talking points for the day.

    The POTG have, just in the NRA, three million people (or more) that ponied up hard earned money to be a part of the group. These people chose to join the NRA, they didn’t get lumped in simply by being in the background of some group shot somewhere or because they had on a certain color shirt on some random day.

    So, no, we are not losing the Culture War.

      • That number is way low. Way, way low. On purpose.

        That number, supposedly, represents the number of permits issued for carry from all the states that do whatever flavor of permitting to carry**. I chose to go with that number because it is a ‘better’ number because you are unlikely to go to the trouble of getting a permit if you don’t own a firearm.

        And using a low number intentionally still demonstrates how few of ‘them’ there are when compared to ‘us.’ If you used the accepted numbers of closer to 100 million owners then the anti-gunners become little more than mote floating in our sunbeam of freedom.

        I might have reached too far on that last metaphor.

        ** I’ll track down the link where I got that figure and report back later. It was an old bit of information, this might take more than minute to find.

  11. I dont think so, even some liberals think that pop tart and bubble gun expulsions from schools go too far.

    If they ever lift that ban, will the kids need permits to open carry their fingers? Will they have to submit a finger painting to be kept on file? Present a portrait drawn in crayon? Pay a fee of 2 chocolate milks? Would those permits be shall issue? Will there be a backround call home?

    Or maybe the adults on the playground could pull their heads out of their ass and just let the kids play.

  13. America is a big place. We’ve never had a single culture, and we never will.

    The large metropolitan areas are stinking, crime-infested hell holes dominated by failed liberal ideologies where firearms are shunned by good people.

    The importance and utility of firearms is still well understood by those in rural areas, gun ownership is still strong and will continue to be.

    • The large metropolitan areas are stinking, crime-infested hell holes dominated by failed liberal ideologies where firearms are shunned by good people.

      While that is certainly true in many cases — especially with regards to Cook County, Illinois — there are a surprising number of good people embracing firearms in large metropolitan areas. The Detroit metro area is a shining example where very large numbers of people have concealed carry licenses. And why wouldn’t they? Detroit Police Chief James Craig encourages city residents to get their licenses and carry.

  14. I don’t believe that we are losing the culture war. Rather, what we are seeing are the true colors of self-appointed elitists who have managed to gain a controlling stake in television/movies, print news, academia, and some elected/appointed offices. In other words the elitists at those institutions have “come out of the closet”.

    Contrary to popular belief, most of the population of the United States does not live in coastal California, Cook County Illinois, and the Boston – Washington D.C. megalopolis. When you get outside of those areas, we are soundly winning. The only reason it may not feel that way is because we don’t control the media or the local school board. Maybe it is time that we insert ourselves into those institutions — after taking all of your family, neighbors, friends, and co-workers on their first trip to a gun range of course!

    • This. People think what the main stream media says is what is the culture. So if the MSM is anti gun it’s easy for someone to think the country is anti gun.

  15. PC madness aside (because people ARE getting tired of it), just because we are not longer indoctrinating our children into becoming future fodder for a war-machine by glorifying “dying for your country”, does not mean that gun ownership, self-defense, or hunting are loosing any culture wars.

    • I don’t know what games you were playing as a kid, but we never got into pretend shoot-outs with the ultimate goal of dying gloriously. The goal was to always kill the other person. Unless, I dunno, you grew up in Imperial Japan during the 20’s or Hamas held territories more recently. Also, from ten years in the Army, I have never heard a plan that relied on us winning the battle by dying gloriously either.

  16. Yes we are. The people who now populate this country, by and large, share very few of the values held by those of the previous 240 years of our history. The United States was previously inhabited by a mainly western european majority who were influenced by the 18th century Enlightenment, and those who immigrated here had to assimilate and adopt the prevailing culture. That doesn’t exist anymore and it will never exist here again. Now, the majority culture is being replaced – by design – by one that is completely different.

    I feel like I’m being ruled over by a cabal – a mandarin class – of corrupt, cronyist, career politicians, career judges, career bureaucrats, academics, and media, who have all the levers of power in their hands and use them to their own advantage.

    • “I feel like I’m being ruled over by a cabal – a mandarin class – of corrupt, cronyist, career politicians, career judges, career bureaucrats, academics, and media, who have all the levers of power in their hands and use them to their own advantage.”

      It’s called Fascism.

    • >> share very few of the values held by those of the previous 240 years of our history.

      There’s no single set of values that can be reasonably said to have been the culture of this country for the previous 100 years of history, much less 240 years. Jefferson would have found, say, 1890s just as alien as we would.

  17. I don’t know about the culture war but it feels like masculinity is being attacked on a daily basis.

    Opening doors for women makes me “antiquated”.
    Volunteering to do the heavy lifting makes me a “male chauvinist”.
    Saying “yes mam” and “no mam” makes me “weird”,”antiquated” or somehow offends some women.

    Doing those things(among others) are the way I was taught to respect not only women but ALL others until I have reason not to but it seems to set me apart from others in my age group(30’s)….. That seems like a HUGE loss of culture to me.

  18. I’m not of the “golden days” generation. I had to grow up with orange flash hiders, and the fear of another columbine. I would say the sides are getting louder, while yes our children are facing a more sterile world in al regards there is a growing demographic of adults that own guns and have used guns. Having a gun in the truck isn’t about duck season before shop class as it “used to be” its increasingly about not being carjacked or mugged. Them image of gun ownership has changed and so the world must fight to either shun or exalt this new wave of “gun culture”

  19. There are 2 wars being fought here. The culture war. We are losing and may deserve to lose based on a lot of the hate filled comments that show up here.

    The legal war. We are winning and will likely continue to win.

    Which is more important?

    • The legal war hinges on 2A. Which can be amended given a sufficiently large majority in favor of it. Prohibition happened, after all.

  20. The iPhone generation will come to recognize the importance of the 2A when there is an app for it. But it better be understood that the 2A can’t have anything to do with those old white racist sexist homophobes who founded this country.

    • “The iPhone generation will come to recognize the importance of the 2A when there is an app for it.”
      Well there is an app for that, kinda of sorta, called FirearmSafe. password protected where you can input all pertinent information for all manner of fire arms, have a photo of each firearm associated with information, track your ammo supply, even find a gun range by zip code. Oh and also an app that has exact wording of The Bill of Rights.

  21. Here is a datapoint. Make of it what you will.

    I live in Los Angeles County. It’s a coastal county. Adjacent and to the east is San Bernardino county. It’s more rural, arid, with some parts being mountainous and some agricultural.
    Whereas I am best served not wasting ink on a CCW application in my county, those in San Bernardino do not have to weigh that consideration.

    It used to be that driving east on the 210 or I 10, one would see conservative-register sentiment accoutrements on trucks and cars – bumper stickers, Gadsden flags, NRA/pro-gun/pro-military emblems etc. once one crossed the LAC-SBC line, heading east.

    Of late I am seeing more of that TO THE WEST of the LAC-SBC line.
    Remember that libby Hancock Park in L.A. has a Tea Party as does the generally non-black South Central L.A. (www.facebook.com/SCLATP)

    As Breitbart said, we are a center-right nation and that is beginning to show more and more.

    • Thinking that Breitbart is accurate or “news” would be your first mistake. Their Texas border coverage is horribly simplistic, and Breitbart Texas used to use some dude that was a skinhead organizer for a group out of Georgia as their “expert source” for border issues in Arizona.

      • And there it is, the tactic we all see through so easily around here used as the lynch pin of a non-argument. Picking one tiny nit out of an entire statement in order to discredit not only the statement but the author.

        Good try, no dice. Even a stopped analog clock is correct twice per day. Just because someone agrees with one statement a given person makes it does NOT mean they take their every word as truth.

        DrVino,
        Thanks for sharing your observation. I formerly lived in Louisville,KY and have since moved to rural Indiana(just across a river). I’m seeing much of the same here in both areas. Normally solidified “D” areas are infiltrated by more and more pro 2a signs by the day. The typically “R” areas are also seeing a shift but it seems more towards the center than toward the other end of the political spectrum. Based on MY OWN PERSONAL observations it seems as if liberal leaning people are moving away from the Democrats because of their policy while the conservative leaning people are screaming for the old guard to be replaced within the Republican ranks.

      • I was citing a statement made by Andrew Breitbart. What that has to do with his news sites or their coverage of the border, I don’t think anyone can say.

  22. I’m not sure, because people are talking about it. I found myself in two separate conversations yesterday in two different places with strangers talking about gun laws, and the people involved, although they weren’t knowledgeable, we’re supportive of gun rights. And no, I didn’t start the conversations.

    I agree we’ve lost ground since the ’70’s but I think there was a low between then and now. We’ve just reached a period where the issue is heating up because people are taking a stand.

  23. Of course 2nd amendment supporters are losing the ‘culture war’, as is everyone who supports freedom in one regard or another is losing the same war.

  24. I don’t know….my kids both own and shoot guns and they are definitely of the next generation. Most of their friends are hunters and shooters. I guess it depends on where you live. I do believe that most of the media and the Hollywood un – intelligencia are aligned against us.

  25. The so-called “culture” war is a divided entity, mostly seen in politics, not so much in the citizens. Most American’s see our Constitution as important to protect. A few people with loud voices and backed with gobs of money try to make the population believe otherwise. Their propaganda is persuasive as the lies are so outrageous they seem to be factual and truth. Sadly some of these hold persuasive offices like president, attorney general and surgeon general.

    One thing the anti’s have been successful at is labeling guns as bad, at least as toys. Who can play good guy bad guy, cops and robbers, cowboys and indians? All were innocent child play without a sense of violence. Somehow they’ve related to the development of criminal behavior and activity, yet games and movies are far more violent than they used to be.

    The “mother” movement is ill-fated as it is hate oriented. They ooze hatred and this is slowly catching up with them. Using children to promote politics is generally frowned upon. The pro-gun/Constitution needs to capitalize on this human psychological reality.

  27. Hell no.

    I’m an engineering student at a liberal arts college in the heart of central CA. I am a gun owner, and proud of it. Anyone who is friends with me on Facebook knows that I am into guns (just the other day I posted a picture of my brand new Glock 36). And in three years of being at this school, never once has somebody told me that they hate guns, and don’t want to be friends with a gun owner. On the contrary, virtually all of my friends believe that my guns are cool, and I have taken many of them to the shooting range for their first (and second) time.

    By and large, young people aren’t liberal. Young people are becoming more and more libertarian; millennials are the most libertarian generation on record. And yes that involves cultural changes, particularly when it comes to the social issues (gays, religion, etc) that many conservatives cling to. But gun rights are one issue that young people are increasingly supporting. It goes hand in hand with our disdain for government spying and the high taxes that stop us from paying off student loans inflated by government meddling.

    In addition, go into nearly any gun store in the nation and the rifle wall will be at least a quarter full of evil black rifles. This is a recent development, and the pace is accelerating. My AR is the second gun that I have new shooters use (after the 10/22). They don’t see it as an evil or scary rifle, but rather see the advantages of having such a customizable gun. Women in particular love the low recoil, easy manual of arms, and being able to adjust the stock. So not only is the culture becoming more gun friendly, but there is less and less stigma against “non-traditional” guns.

    We are winning.

    • “By and large, young people aren’t liberal. Young people are becoming more and more libertarian; millennials are the most libertarian generation on record. ”

      Same here in Florida.

      We’re winning, the left just doesn’t know it yet.

    • Young people are becoming more and more libertarian;

      Since I got into it here with someone who thought socialism and a nanny state was “libertarian” so long as it didn’t have a bunch of pesky laws interfering with your personal life, I have to ask: is that how you are using the word too? Are these “libertarian” youngsters willing to kill the welfare state that lets so many people live at the expense of others? Or do they just wish Obama had designed Obamacare more competently?

      • I think most people who claim to be Libertarians, only do so in theory, not so much in practice.

      • Oh hell no

        Kill the welfare state
        Kill the warfare state
        End the IRS/ATF/DHS/NSA/TSA/DEA/alphabet soup
        Kill the war on drugs
        End the Fed

        Need I continue?

  28. We are not only winning, we are crushing it. Firearms are getting more popular all the time. People look at them now as sporting for fun, accessories that need to be customized, and it’s now the “cool” thing to carry daily. These things did not happen before.
    The more the left tries to demonize firearms, the more the youth want them. I work in a big office around a lot of professionals. The AR15 is the cool new toy that many of my colleauges are buying and shooting for fun. It’s growing my friends…we are winning!

    • Gabe, you might be missing the point; being trendy does not equal a population understanding the value of the 2nd amendment and what gun ownership means. Trends fade.

      • I disagree about the value of trendy. Firearms are taking a strong hold in pop culture. When a big Hollywood guy like Vince Vaughn talks about guns, it’s sign of the changes happening.
        When firearms grow as a pop culture fad, people will not be happy when lgislators try to take away their fun toys, then they will educate themselves on what the 2A is about. It’s actually backfiring on the left…they are demonizing guns and that is making people want them more!

    • Yea, people need to look at the data. Guns are very popular and plenty of young people are enthusiasts.

    • ….some folks won’t admit that in a poll

      Under-statement of the year.
      Who in their right mind would answer that question to some stranger on the phone?

    • such as fear of thieves, government, etc.

      I hate to be that guy, but you wrote “thieves, government” here. Please endeavor not to use the same word twice in a row in a sentence.

  30. I live outside of Pittsburgh. Growing up, my parents were staunch anti gun Democrats, living in the AWB days. They never hunted, never saw the need for a firearm. When I graduated High School, they asked me what I wanted as a graduation gift, and I asked for a .22 rifle. They were extremely hesitant but they bought me one. 2 years later, Katrina happened, and my parents saw what happened when society breaks down.

    Now I have mom packing a p938, finally getting dad to the gun range, and I’ve become a range officer/instructor…..I also own more black rifles than most of my town combined.

    That’s a success story.

  31. I dunno about that, but I will say business seems to be booming, at least businessmen think business is booming.

    I see more and more gun stores opening up, seeing gun stores in all sorts of places.

    It’s going down right mainstream here…and this is in California.

  32. “American Culture” varies place to place. You can’t seriously say that the culture in Lower Alabama is the same in LA?

  33. In some ways yes, in some ways no.

    Gun control is losing favor, so that’s good. But our culture seems to be moving towards hypersensitivity and distance of community. Much less self-reliance.

    Always work to be done. But we should be glad of our victories. Just not complacent.

    • Yes and yes. I was having this discussion with my girlfriend. She has a son from her ex. The little guy is only 7 but I see some signs of PC and hypersensitivity. I said “stupid” in regards to something rather inconsequential and I was accused by the child of saying a “bad word”. Now grant it, I was dropping F-bombs by 3rd grade, but still, I can remember my peer group routinely saying at least “shit” and “ass” by 7.

      And self-reliance came up, too. She’s glad I actually let her son figure things out rather than swooping in for even minor things. He learned how to serve himself breakfast out of that.

  34. The only common thread of culture America was ever supposed to have is leave me the hell alone and I’ll leave you the hell alone. That war was lost two and a quarter centuries ago.

    Anything else anyone wants to label as “culture” or “American” is just that person wanting to not leave you alone and subsequently a little seed of tyranny. All those “culture” seeds grew up into the statist forest you see around you today.

    • >> The only common thread of culture America was ever supposed to have is leave me the hell alone and I’ll leave you the hell alone. That war was lost two and a quarter centuries ago.

      When was there ever such a thing? Not for as long as slavery was a thing, that’s for sure, and that’s much older than two centuries ago.

  35. I use a simple gauge that works. It’s observing what a losing team does out of desparation. Look at global warming, no one believes in it anymore and realizes it’s a scam. So the people pushing the agenda just get louder and more aggressive out of desperation.They have started blaming crime and bad economy on warming as a desparate scare tactic.
    Same thing with the civilian disarmament complex. They are attempting ATF bans, executive orders, emotional marketing, and employ a small army of angry mommies to do their bidding.
    These are desparate actions of a losing team!

  36. Just to set the record straight, there are approx 4 MILLION children turning 18 every year. There is no evidence any significant percentage leave their mom’s basement to get a job and live o their own no less become die hard gun owners and 2A defenders. All the surveys show they lack basic civics knowledge, stem knowledge or social skills. They float in a cyber world of virtual relationships and are consumers of any and all they encounter on the web. No values, no religious beliefs or respect for life, no financial knowledge and receipients of govt drivel by the ton.

    Anecdotes of 10 or 12 commenters on a website that they spotted 3 new shooters at their club, or brought a girlfriend to shoot doesn’t change the basic facts. How many of the 12 or 16 million changlings since TTAG came online have become recruits? I suspect more people have downloaded Angry Birds today then all the new allies ee have.

  37. “…losing the culture war?” Hell no, for we have only begun to fight the left’s attempt to fundamentally change America.

  38. Ammosexuals have already lost the war but I doubt that we’ll see an outright ban during my lifetime. Of course, that’s what folks in Australia, the UK, and Connecticut said too. All it’s going to take is another Timothy McVeigh and a lot of people are going to be unpleasantly surprised.

    • Timothy McVeigh didn’t use firearms in his dastardly deed, hotshot.

      Australia never really had a firearms culture so they didn’t care. The end result was some asshole with a shotgun paralyzed a city. And caused Uber to jack up their rates 500 percent during that time.

      Connecticut tried to register and confiscate “assault weapons” – very few complied. Below 10%. No one registered their evil assault magazines either. New York has a similar dilemma – noncompliance.

      Canada had a long gun registry. No one signed up. They did away with it. Noncompliance.

      There’s a common theme there – noncompliance.

      Do you really think a future AWB would do any good, even if it passed? Since the original AWB expired in 2004, there’s tens of millions of new firearms that would be banned under a future AWB. Most are not tracked and registered. Sure, prices would go up, but people would still buy, sell, and trade them.

      Defense Distributed would be cranking out Ghost Gunner boxes by the hundreds. Generic CNC mills would become a hot commodity if the government imprisons or kills Cody. Your pals in the Democratic elite might pine for disarmament, but for them, it is nothing but political grandstanding and a pipe dream. Even Fraulein Feinstein admitted the AWB was a compromise, as she wanted full-on confiscation, but she knew politically and logistically she couldn’t get away with it. Bill Clinton admits now that the AWB was a folly, and that a future one is not recommended.

      The more ration Dems, while not embracing the Second Amendment, are admitting that the genie is out of the bottle and full-scale gun control is nothing but a misguided dream.

      The culture war is just getting started. Kids these days are conditioned in fear and paranoia. “Stupid” is a bad word in elementary school. Kids are instructed to snitch on their parents if they have guns or smoke marijuana. Our goal as their elders is to combat that mentality.

      • Due to my frailties, I don’t always know what God says, but I can always hear the Devil’s whispers.

  39. The only culture war we are losing is the culture that once valued white men. As far as the gun culture war is concerned, we are making an enormous comeback.

    Instead of moaning and rending our garments about the way things were in the 50s and early 60s, we should be crowing about the changes we’ve made since the mid-eighties. “Shall issue” concealed carry is now the norm, “Vermont Carry” now affects seven states instead of just one and the federal AWB has been consigned to the dustbin of history.

    Stop letting the concern tr0lls control the dialog.

    • Stats stats stats….

      Concealed carry is OWNED by the over 40 crowd. The states that publish the data show it is just those traditionalist white males over 40 who are CCWing. One or two decades will see the metrosexual new generation come in and gun support will fall. By that time the Eloi will happily wait in line for the dinner bell. Anything the old white males have earned or wrestled back from the statist left will easily be given back on a silver platter to them. They will bide their time.

      • That’s cute. Go to an open carry event and it will be a young crowd. The old white male of today handed power to Reagan and Bush Sr, both 2nd amendment traitors. Thanks for that.

        • Yes your comment confirms how ignorant todays iPhone crowd are.
          Dick Heller
          Otis McDonald
          Robert Levy
          Marion Hammer
          Neal Knox
          Stephen Holbrook
          Wayne LaPierre

          These are just a small slice of those older folks who bought you the right to mouth off on your “rights”.

      • One or two decades will see the metrosexual new generation come in and gun support will fall.

        That’s not what you’ll see at gun ranges all over the country. Young people are turning to guns, and the ranges are crowded with them. Older guys have more disposable income and can indulge their passion, but young guys are into it.

        As far as the metrosexual pansies are concerned, they’ll be packing, too, because without guns they are even more helpless than small women. In fact, small women can and will kick their @sses.

      • Tommy, Pick the largest big box gun retailer in your area(cabellas, gander, basspro) and watch the gun counter for an hour on a busy day. I’d be willing to bet you’ll be surprised by the demographics milling around and buying gun related gear. My local BassPro guys say it’s fascinating to watch the customers get younger after payday when they come in the store in piles.

        When I go to gun shows or LGS I see an older crowd than when I stop in the big box stores.

  40. “Those who give up freedom for safety deserve neither”.
    From the video at the end “we really have to brainwash our children” that is happening every day from kindergarten to through collage.

  41. Are we losing? Yes-and no. Yeah lots of new pro-2A folks-but going to h#ll otherwise…even so come Lord Jesus. And quit ragging on all of Cook County-it’s Chiraq that’s a lost cause. My southern Cook town is OK.

  42. I’d say it has died and is now being reborn with a vengeance. I wasn’t around in the 80s but that seems to be when the culture war was lost. The old gun culture was killed with the Brady bill and the AWB. But a new culture is starting up. This one is less hunting focused and more self defense and preservation of liberty focused. Millennials like myself who grew up with them in video games want AR-15s because they are cool. Glocks and AKs are badass. After some time passes and the cool phase goes by some of us take it to the next step and see them not as toys, but for defense of freedoms.

  43. Social change doesn’t play favorites. In “The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions”, the philosopher of science, Thomas Kuhn, argued that it is the sudden emergence of episodic “anomalies” which challenges established scientific dogma and creates “paradigm changes” in scientific thought and practice. Simply put, when new ways of thinking and doing things begin to appear people’s world-as-taken-for-granted begins to change. This happens whether they want it to or not. Kuhn described these kinds of paradigm changes as resulting in frenzied behavior as adherents to the old ways suddenly find that pulling the levers no longer causes things to happen in the expected ways. We can see this happening with gun-control ideology. For decades now, gun-controllers have commanded the moral high ground in discussions on gun use.

    With the Sandy Hook tragedy, gun-controllers thought they’d been handed just the symbolic moment they needed to once-and-for-all establish comprehensive gun-control, if not outright confiscation of firearms in America. But that didn’t happen. Instead, there was a completely unexpected grass-roots counter-movement that attacked the basic tenets of gun-control ideology and handily removed it’s customary claims of a moral imperative. In its place a new paradigm emerged, one that articulated the wisdom of the nation’s founders regarding gun ownership in ways that clearly resonated with the everyday life experiences of average Americans and which also, most importantly, exposed gun-control ideology (along with its progressive political roots) as being profoundly out of step with the traditions which keep us free. As a result gun-control ideology and the gun control movement itself is in a state of freefall. Having lost it’s moral imperative, it’s emotional demands for “sensible” gun-control no longer have the automatic support they once had. In short, they’re losing and we’re winning. Kuhn was right.

  45. Kids in the 1950s did not have toy M-16s. I was there. Maybe mid to later 1960s. Most of my toy guns were WWII type imitations.

    • Yep had the Mattel Tommy gun and my brother had the Metal 38-and the snubbie would get you killed now-we always played war and didn’t do cowboys and Indians(but I DID have the Fort Apache play set)…lots of play death-no actual death…THe world sucks now.

  46. Since about 1968, we have been losing the gun culture war very badly. We have been losing since the early 20th century. As of late, we have been doing better in red states, blue states not so much.

  48. Lots of “the sky is falling” folks here. Look at polling results and the numerous recent victories in carry laws and it is clear that the culture is doing well.

    A number of commenters here seem to equate younger folks being less socially conservative with a decline in support for gun rights. I haven’t found that to be the case. I know a number of people in their 20s who were raised by democrat parents and largely agree with them, with the exception of gun rights.

    I suspect that at some point in the next few decades, the democratic party will become either neutral or pro-gun rights to cater to these voters. As this site often reports, there are many more passionate pro-gun voters than people with strong anti-gun feelings.

  49. The gun community is winning the culture war. People forget the medium for exposing children to positive use of firearms has expanded. Video games have replaced John Wayne type films and old west TV shows.
    TV Land, Witness channel, Turner Classic Movies, Inspiration channel, and others have your favorite gun play entertainment if you want it. Millions of young people are watching these channels.

  50. It’s surprising how good we’re doing when the Left OWNS kindergarten through universities and indoctrinates kids from start to finish.

  51. Yup. If you were born and raised in certain urban areas (Oakland for me) for example, all you see guns in is video game violence, cop dramas on TV, policemen on the street, and wars/murders on the news. I’ve been lucky enough to have a father who has always enjoyed collecting, reloading, restoring, and shooting, but most of my friends here have zero contact with guns at all (besides me taking them to the range/facebook posting, etc). I mean, hell, we don’t have any gun stores in Oakland or Berkeley (plus only 1 in the city of San Francisco) due to city ordinances and taxes that target ammunition and guns specifically, not to mention neighborhood associations and the like.

    There is a very clear disconnect between urban and rural gun cultures; as soon as you hit the more rural areas, guns are suddenly much more normal and understood, whereas in urban areas they’re vilified and considered objects of fear and violence. (This is based on me living in Oakland and Brooklyn; I’ve also lived in Texas and the culture is obviously different there.) When I mention going to the gun store to a firearms uninitiated friend of mine, sometimes their thought processes assume that I’m going into some sort of cowboy lounge where everyone wears boots and a pair of revolvers, or that I’m somehow more dangerous because I might start carrying guns around (gasp!). If I explain the processes for how everything works, especially involving concealed carry and safety rules, most are very surprised and may even be swayed in future votes because they just don’t know much of anything about firearms related topics. They just hear things like “It’s crazy you can buy a fully automatic assault rifle/AK47/machine gun at any gun store” and don’t know enough to realize that most of those statements are off base and biased as hell.

    Plus, politically wise, there’s an American cultural facet that involves adhering to party lines; in the case of firearms, this means a lot of younger folks will parrot the views of one party or another and not bother thinking for themselves. Because this is such a “pick one side or the other, no in-betweens”, there seems to be a trend with younger people, including myself, of not really wanting to vote for the more conservative candidates (this can be different regionally and on a personal level but bear with me). Personally, I believe in gun rights while being fairly liberal and progressive, and I can’t in good conscience vote for more conservative candidates because I’m not a single issue voter. (That said, I live in CA, so even if I did I’d get overridden anyway…) Others who have not been exposed to guns on a personal level may stick to more liberal candidates and will assume those figures’ stances on issues, especially firearms.

    I could write more but that’s all I have for now.

  52. No. Gun culture is alive and well. Call of Duty, Wolfenstein New Order, Fallout 4 all demonstrate that gun culture is alive and well. When gamers who see the importance of firearms in games realize that guns are important in real life then you see another generation of gun owners taking up the mantle of the second amendment.

    • And yet, look at GTA5. Plenty of guns, sure, but it also does take fairly pointed jabs at the US gun culture (or at least its stereotypes… though from personal experience, a lot of these are very real). Like the Ammu-Nation ads on TV and radio, or clerk’s commentaries when in the store.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jdydHcqnqg

  54. It was lost a long time ago and we now hvae what I call the “bubble wrap” generation of idiots to deal with due to our own inaction way back when..

    That said however the pendulum is swinging back now thankfully and the fanatical morons like feinstien, cukier, bloomberg, heidi, peters etc are rapidly loosing ground (including here in canuckistan where lunacy of ‘gun control” is so pathetic it makes California look sane)

  55. I had one of those M-16s! When you “cocked it” you wound a tape recorder (or something) and pulling the trigger played the recording until the charging handle ran all the way forward. I think that was either Christmas of either 1969 or 1970.

    I loved that thing!

  56. Let me be clear, Call of Duty has done more to win the culture war for our side than any other single thing there is. Youtube is next with the gun culture channels on there essentially popularizing imitation of the operator culture and providing advertising for training schools, guns, and gear. Together the two things have combined to demystify both silencers and machine guns, and once those items were removed of black magic status we have been left in the position of being able to strongarm the republicans to start the process of building the momentum to amend the restrictions on those items. Make no mistake politics trails public opinion, not the other way around.

    But make no mistake, have a battle ready 5.56 that takes AR15 mags, a doublestack 9mm, and a plate carrier with plates. You’ll probably need them within the next ten years.

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