It would be toilsome to compose a list of all the plagues that are hastening the ruin of the United States of America, though many come instantly to mind: the plutocracy of oligarchs, gullible materialism of the many, deterioration of public education, blatant and effective demagoguery, the welfare-state, the world’s largest prison system, intractable racism, aggressively resistant patriarchy, entrenched misogyny and homophobia.     

A recent event, however, demands a focus on a vice almost peculiar to the American empire, the cult of the firearm. The slaughter of 22 students and teachers at Uvalde TX by one heavily-armed late adolescent has evoked, in addition to fright, fatigue, and disgust, the usual “thoughts and prayers,” vague calls for firearm reform, and ensuing warnings from panderers on the right that we should not be carried away by some passing horror and grief to enact legislation that might endanger our “gun rights.”     

“Gun rights”?!? No, not gun rights, but GUN CULT. The ownership and abuse of firearms in the United States are so widespread that the United States can scarcely be considered s a civilized country. Gun manufacturers, demagogic politicians, judicial ideologues, fear-mongers of all sorts have combined to turn these ill-defined “gun rights” into a cult founded on the American male’s Peter Pan syndrome and profound sexual insecurity. This cult serves its exponents in many ways: keeps the factories of “merchants of death” humming, rallies gun-crazed one-issue voters, invigorates racism and xenophobia, and perpetuates a fantasy America of individualists so primitive that they need weapons to defend themselves against one another.