Letters: Why Carry a Gun?

What Critics Don't Understand About Gun Culture

In an essay last week on TheAtlantic.com, the writer and Iraq War veteran David French explained why he carries a gun.

David French’s article about the mentality of gun owners is meant, I think, to make gun owners seem sympathetic, but instead it encapsulates everything damaging about gun culture. First, fear and paranoia are the motives for gun ownership here, not hunting or recreation. French is up-front and thinks this fear-motive is a good thing. He offers no acknowledgement that fear and paranoia impair your judgment, and are likely biased in various ways (such as racially). I had plenty of contact with guns growing up, and in my experience guns also make people more jumpy and aggressive, not less. You become more afraid, because you are always looking for threats. I’ve seen others (like a former Marine recently in the New York Times), say the same.

Also, in the only example French gives, the guns were no help. He states that his wife was outside and the guns inside. This is the problem with carrying: You