Barack Obama Was Right About the Gun Clingers

By David Corn  June 7, 2022

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden place flowers at a memorial to the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016. Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

Barack Obama was right: Too many Americans cling to their guns.

In April 2008, Obama, then a senator, was in a fierce battle against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. Speaking at a fundraiser in San Francisco, Obama discussed why the Democratic Party was losing—or had lost—working-class votes:

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate, and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, and they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Immediately, Clinton slammed Obama for these comments, calling him a snobby elitist for daring to suggest some Americans were clinging to guns, religion, and resentments. Pundits and Republicans piled on, as well. To exploit the moment, Clinton reminisced about her father teaching her how to shoot when she was a girl and said, “Americans who believe in the Second Amendment believe it’s a constitutional right; Americans who believe in God believe it’s a matter of personal faith.” Obama, multiple times, stated he had not chosen his words with sufficient care.

Yet his description of the relationship between many Americans and their guns was accurate. He was violating a taboo by saying it openly.

As an example of gun clinging, did you see Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) proudly brandishing his guns during a House committee hearing on gun safety measures last week?

His lack of regard and respect for the victims of gun violence was astounding, as he displayed his gun fetishism. It was reminiscent of those GOP members of Congress sending out holiday cards showing them and their families bearing arms. (Yeah, Jesus collected killing machines, right?) Since I was a kid, I have enjoyed shooting. Skeet shooting, firing-range shooting, plinking cans with a .22. I don’t do it often; I have never owned a gun. I do, though, recognize the kick that can come from riflery. Yet the obsession some Americans develop for guns is bizarre and frightening. Photojournalist Gabriele Galimberti has chronicled the nuttiest of gun nuts (that’s my description, not his) for his book The Ameriguns. (Charlie Warzel did an interesting interview with Galimberti a few days ago.)

These cases are extreme, and, as The Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last notes in a recent newsletter, “Fetishes are neither normal nor healthy. They warp your perceptions. They are toxic.” Perhaps the biggest obstacle to gun sanity in the United States is that for a lot of Americans, guns are not only a hobby—fetish or not—but a crucial piece of their identity, as I discussed in a recent newsletter. If a big part of who you are is a gun owner, you’re not going to be willing to give that up. Consequently, you’re unlikely to view guns as a subject of a legitimate policy debate that could yield compromises, reforms, and restrictions. Fighting for guns is fighting for your sense of self. Ever wonder why Republicans constantly claim Democrats and the libs are coming to take away all your guns? It's a cynical lie. But they know that for many voters the prospect of losing their guns is a deep-set fear and a potential assault on their identity. There is clinging going on. (A recent CBS News poll found that 28 percent of Americans believe that mass shootings are something we "unfortunately have to accept as part of a free society.”)

This is what makes it so tough to enact reasonable gun restrictions. On Sunday, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a passionate champion of gun safety measures, reported that a bipartisan group of senators is close to crafting a gun control package. But he has also been saying that whatever emerges from these post-Uvalde negotiations won’t be perfect. He notes that he’s willing to accept half a loaf to demonstrate that gun safety legislation is still possible. That makes sense. It is important to show that something can be done to address America’s perverse gun sickness—that the fetishists and the clingers do not define this nation and hold the rest of us hostage. He, of course, will have to make a judgment about any compromise that emerges: Does it implement truly worthwhile reform or merely provide political cover for Republicans worried about suburban-mom voters in the midterm elections?

Hillary Clinton was wrong to jump on Obama for his accurate diagnosis, 14 years ago, but that’s politics. She experienced a similar tribulation eight years later, when she said that half of Donald Trump’s supporters were “deplorable.” Her math might have been off. But she was right to point out that Trump was attracting bigots, alt-rightists, white nationalists, and other miscreants and that his voters had been actively cheering on his racism and hatred. Yet, once again, Republicans and political journalists shrieked that her straight talk was more Democratic elitism.

The sad truth is that we share our country with millions of racists and gun-first Americans. We shouldn’t hide that fact. Certainly, Democrats might reach some of these voters with an agenda that addresses the economic, health care, and education challenges faced by middle- and low-income Americans. But let’s not sugarcoat it. This nation is endangered by a portion of its own citizenry. This past weekend, there were seven mass shootings, in which at least 54 people were injured and 11 killed. Gun violence has been increasing, and as these deadly episodes keep occurring, gun lubbers like Steube, representing gun extremists, thwart sensible remedies. He and his compatriots tend to win the political battles over gun safety measures because they care fervently about this fight, which, for them, is a fight for a way of life. They do cling to guns, and they do so as a fundamental article of faith. Guns are a holy cause for these people. To defeat them, this must be recognized.

By the way, for a delightfully simple and short refutation of the legal argument for unrestrained gun ownership, see this piece by Penny Rosenberg, the editor of the Albany Democrat-Herald and the Corvallis Gazette-Times. She compares gun rights to the right to travel, which is not in the Constitution but which the Supreme Court has recognized as a fundamental right. Still, the freedom of movement is highly regulated. (Try speeding past a cop or getting on an airplane without going through security.) It’s a smart take.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com.

Special Emergency Dumbass Comment of the Week

So sayeth Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.): “If you're a Republican, you can't even lie to Congress or lie to an FBI agent, or they're coming after you.”

Our Land in Photos

I’m not anti-disco, but this struck me as odd.

The Watch, Read, and Listen List

Better Call Saul. Sometimes it is hard to write about a book, show, film, or piece of music that is superb and essentially perfect. For years, I have been telling people that Better Call Saul is the best series on television. Better than Succession, Game of Thrones, and Breaking Bad, the show from which it was spun off. And these are wonderful artistic endeavors. The writing on BCS is tops, the characters effectively and intriguingly drawn. There’s action—drug deals, murders, shoot-outs—but the drama is driven by the often-routine dilemmas and desires confronted by the characters. The pacing is luxurious, the attention to detail extreme and a delight. Early in the series, Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), a retired cop who ends up working security for OCD-ish drug kingpin and fast-food entrepreneur Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), must take apart a car to find a tracking device. The scene lingers far longer than it would in other shows, as Mike disassembles various portions of the auto. Sounds dull? The suspense builds, and this drawn-out set-piece reflects Mike’s awareness that life—and survival—depends on the small stuff. The producers of the show share this belief, and this scene reveals the series’ secret sauce.

Better Call Saul is a prequel to Breaking Bad, which follows the descent (or ascent?) of Walter White, an Albuquerque high school chemistry teacher diagnosed with cancer who becomes a crystal meth impresario. At a certain point, he needs a lawyer—a sleazy lawyer—and he finds Saul Goodman, who would be chasing ambulances if he could clear his calendar of court dates defending druggies and other lowlifes. In Breaking Bad, the fast-talking, angle-playing Goodman (Bob Odenkirk in a masterful performance) provides a touch of comic relief with his tricks and cons. For BCS, series creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould rewind the tape several years before White went bad to show us that Goodman was once a struggling attorney named Jimmy McGill, whose brother, Chuck McGill, was the chief partner in a corporate law firm and a local legal legend against whom Jimmy could not measure up. The series tracks Jimmy’s years-long transformation to Saul Goodman. Along the way, he hooks up—transactionally and romantically—with fellow attorney Kim Wexler, who has her own demons wrestling deep (very deep) inside her. She’s succeeding on the corporate track, but she’s drawn to Jimmy and his conniving. A viewer can’t help wondering if this will turn out to be a fatal attraction. In many ways, Kim is the soul of the series, and actor Rhea Seehorn has turned her into one of the most hard-to-figure and engaging characters on television.

The show has reached its sixth and final season. (It’s not necessary to watch Breaking Bad to relish BCS.) The first half of the season was recently aired by AMC. The second half will begin next month. (The network does this so the show can qualify for awards over two years.) I don’t want to say too much about the plot, for the series generates the unexpected every episode. I don’t mean soap-opera-like reveals (he’s not your brother!) or overwrought cliffhangers (will the guy with the gun open the closet door?). Better Call Saul surprises are ingenious twists that often pivot on the littlest of things. How does a slide ruler lead Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton), a vicious narco, to discover a competitor is building a meth lab? Well, it does, and I won’t tell you how. In the final season, Saul and Kim are running an elaborate con against a former colleague that could bring them a large payout in a class-action case worth millions, while Mike is trying to protect Fring from Salamanca, who is believed dead (but not really), and Nacho Varga, a drug cartel lieutenant (Michael Mando), is caught between Salamanca and Fring and attempting to break free. With six episodes left in the Saul Goodman saga, I have no idea how his story will end. And, as of now, Jimmy/Saul is still years away from connecting with Walter White. Early in the series, the hint was dropped that Saul eventually winds up a Cinnabon manager in an Omaha, Nebraska, mall. How the hell does that happen? The witness protection program? I want to know, but I don’t want the series to end. Each episode is a well-crafted short story, and together they form the closest thing there can be to TV-show literature.

Cruel Country, Wilco. I have a theory about Wilco. It makes great music—rock, Americana, alt-country, and eclectic tunes that fall into no obvious categories—but I believe its popularity is enhanced by fans’ perception of bandleader Jeff Tweedy as an Everyman. His vocal range is narrow, and his songs often have a deceptive simplicity to them. It’s not too hard to listen to Wilco and say, “I could do that.” Of course, you couldn’t. But this accessibility fuels a strong bond between artist and listener. On Wilco’s new release, Cruel Country, its twelfth studio album, Tweedy demonstrates why he’s really not like you and me. The album contains 21 songs, and most are true winners. There’s much mashing up of country twang, folk, and basic rock on tunes that offer meditations on love and life in a time of trouble and worry. The title is a bit of wordplay, a commentary on the present and on the band’s love-hate relationship with the music genre it has often pushed against. The title track has a true Neil Young feel, as Tweedy sings, “I love my country like a little boy / Red, white and blue,” and adds, “I love my country, stupid and cruel.” This could apply to both the nation and the music culture Wilco has drawn from and rebelled against.

In the New York Times, Jon Pareles hails this album as Wilco’s “understated magnum opus.” That’s a fair assessment. Tweedy’s compositions on Cruel Country don’t overflow with energy, but they pull you into his quiet but complicated world of contemplation and observation. With spare and subtle arrangements, the band serves these songs well. The melancholic “Story to Tell” is a confessional tale in which Tweedy notes, “I only thought of myself / So I had a story to tell.” In “Please Be Wrong,” a song that merges inspiration and sorrow, he pushes the boundaries of the typical I’ve-done-you-wrong country tune and sings, “Please, be wrong / About me / Being the one / Causing all of your pain / I can change.” On “Hints,” Tweedy offers this hard-edged notion over a softly strummed guitar and a delicate melody: “There is no middle when the other side / Would rather kill than compromise.” This is a collection of songs that are both lovely and gritty—and it takes quite the artist to concoct that combination.

Read Recent Issues of Our Land

June 4, 2022: Are Democats pathetic?; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Ken Buck); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

May 28, 2022: What to hope for after the Uvalde massacre; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Candace Owens); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

May 25, 2022: The anti-ness of the Trumpified right; Our Land in photos; Tokyo Vice vs. Miami Vice; Sarah Shook and what makes a song cool; and more.

May 21, 2022: Why a threat to Pennsylvania is a threat to us all; Dumbass Comment of the Week (saying goodbye to Madison Cawthorn); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

May 17, 2022: Special Book Excerpt: How John Lennon’s murder led to preventing mass shootings; and more.

May 14, 2022: The January 6 committee gets ready for prime time; Dumbass (and Disappointing) Comment of the Week; the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more

May 10, 2022: Can Joe Biden convince America the GOP is a threat?; Slow Horses gallop; an old new Brian Eno-John Cale tune; and more.

May 7, 2022: Imagine if elections were boring (guest column by James West); and more.

Got suggestions, comments, complaints, tips related to any of the above, or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com.