Guns don’t kill people…: good guys and the legitimization of gun violence

The paper situates recent surges in U.S. gun violence alongside the visible rise of heavily armed civilians at public protests, exemplified by the ~22,000-person rally in Richmond, Virginia (January 2020) opposing proposed gun controls. It poses the central problem: why and how do gun proponents rationalize firearm proliferation as the solution to gun violence despite public health evidence to the contrary? Using Weber’s concept of legitimate violence, the study seeks to understand discourses through which pro-gun advocates construe more guns (and armed “good guys”) as the remedy, highlighting the political stakes and contemporary salience of these meanings.

The review discusses the “insurrectionist” ideology (Hovey and Anderson, 2009), which frames gun control as a threat to liberty and imagines the Second Amendment as sanctioning armed resistance to government—an interpretation at odds with historical intent and not foreclosing regulation even under Heller (2008). It notes that insurrectionism alone cannot explain the predominance of white men in pro-gun mobilization or the paradoxical reliance on constitutional legality. Scholarship linking guns, masculinity, and white male authority (Carlson, 2015; Stroud, 2016; Casilla & Bessen-Cassino, 2020) shows guns as identity resources—constructing “good guys” who protect women/children and defend against racialized others—amid perceived declines in white male sovereignty (Anker). Weber’s state “monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force” is racialized in the U.S.; the state licenses private access to violence (e.g., concealed carry, Stand Your Ground), symbolically empowering select citizens. Police leadership perceptions (Carlson, 2019) often align “criminals of color with guns” versus “white good guys,” extending legitimacy to armed white civilians while endangering people of color (e.g., Stephon Clark, Philando Castile, E.J. Bradford). The paper extends this by examining how charismatic (heroic), legal-rational (procedural), and traditional/patriarchal authority frames are mobilized by private citizens to justify widespread gun access and domination.

Qualitative discourse analysis of an online concealed carry forum used previously in a 2015 project and revisited periodically to track evolving pro-gun discourse, especially post-Parkland. The forum is publicly accessible but anonymized to protect users. The analysis applies Weber’s three legitimating structures (charismatic, legal-rational, traditional/patriarchal) to threads addressing three cases: (1) Parkland school shooting (and Deputy Scot Peterson’s response), (2) the police killing of legally armed Philando Castile during a traffic stop, and (3) incidents where children accessed unsecured guns and shot themselves/others. Data points include thread volumes and view counts (e.g., an initial Parkland thread with 304 replies and >20,000 views, a dozen+ threads on Parkland; recurring threads on child-access shootings approximately several times per year since 2016). The focus is on the discursive performance of political identity online rather than verifying offline enactment; demographic characteristics of posters are not assumed.

- Charismatic/heroic masculinity: In Parkland-related threads, members rapidly framed solutions as “more armed protection” (teachers/security). Scot Peterson was condemned as a failed “good guy,” a “coward,” and “not a real man,” reinforcing a narrative that heroism and armed intervention—not regulation—prevent tragedies. One initial thread amassed 304 replies and over 20,000 views, with at least a dozen separate Parkland threads overall. This focus deflected attention from policy failures (e.g., rifle access, background checks, red flag mechanisms) to individual bravery. - Legal-rational proceduralism: In Philando Castile discussions, members emphasized compliance scripts for armed citizens during traffic stops (e.g., hand placement, scripted disclosures) and often attributed the killing to procedural missteps by Castile rather than to racial bias or policing practices. Some posts introduced racialized explanations (e.g., blaming affirmative action for police incompetence), reframing concerns about racial injustice into process/credential critiques. The procedural focus legitimized the shooting as an unfortunate outcome of miscommunication, obscuring structural racism and the disparate risks faced by Black gun owners. - Traditional/patriarchal authority: In threads about children accessing guns, many posters valorized “gun-proofing” children through discipline (e.g., corporal punishment, compulsory shooting exercises) and nostalgia for paternal authority, while opposing safe storage that might hinder immediate defensive access. Unsafe storage was rationalized as acceptable given proper patriarchal control, shifting blame from adults’ storage practices to children’s supposed lack of respect. Recurring discussions on such incidents appeared multiple times annually since 2016. Overall, across cases, pro-gun discourse legitimizes private access to the means of violence by invoking heroic masculinity, legalist proceduralism, and patriarchal tradition, racializing innocence and threat, and aligning private armed citizenship with state-sanctioned power despite insurrectionist rhetoric.

The findings address the research question by showing how pro-gun forum participants deploy Weberian legitimacy frames to rationalize firearm proliferation: (1) charismatic authority constructs the armed savior who compensates for perceived state failure; (2) legal-rational authority reframes lethal outcomes as procedural failures of individuals (often victims), legitimizing outcomes within accepted rules while sidelining racial injustice; and (3) traditional/patriarchal authority normalizes male dominance in families and communities as the mechanism of safety, justifying unsecured access. These discourses reconcile anti-state and pro-state positions by celebrating state licensing and equalized power in interactions with police while insisting on minimal regulation. The result is a cultural logic that sustains racialized and gendered hierarchies, legitimates private “good guys” as extensions of state power, and deflects structural remedies that could reduce harm.

The study contributes a racialized and gendered reading of Weber’s legitimate violence to explain how pro-gun discourse online normalizes widespread private access to lethal force. By tracing charismatic heroism, procedural legalism, and patriarchal tradition across Parkland, Philando Castile, and child-access shootings, it shows how firearm proliferation is rationalized and how domination is reproduced. The paper argues it is possible to reduce gun violence without negating gun-owner identities through evidence-based policies—harder access to firearms, stringent training for public carry, universal safe storage laws, and legal tools (e.g., red flag laws) to remove guns from those posing risks. A broader civic shift—greater investment in democracy and justice equal to attachment to firearms as symbols of freedom—is necessary to recognize that guns can protect but also tyrannize. Future work could extend multi-site forum analyses, link online discourse to offline practices, and evaluate how policy changes reshape legitimizing narratives.

- Data source is a single online forum; findings may not generalize across all gun communities. - Posters’ race, class, and gender are largely unknown; demographic inferences are not possible. - Online discourse may not reflect offline behaviors; the analysis prioritizes performative discourse over verification of embodiment. - Case-focused, qualitative design limits causal claims; thread counts/views are illustrative rather than representative. - The forum is anonymized, constraining replicability and direct audit of the dataset.