The Next Apocalypse by Chris Begley

Author:Chris Begley [Begley, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2021-10-07T00:00:00+00:00

Guns are very much part of prepper culture. This plays into the Old West ethos and Second Amendment/right-wing gun rights advocacy. In some circles, the possession of firearms is as basic to preparedness as food or water. The arguments about guns and preparedness are difficult to untangle from the rest of the gun-culture debates, and this comes out in prepper culture. In prepper magazines, for instance, articles and ads that are “pro Second Amendment” or that extol the virtues of an armed populace are as prevalent as less political topics such as hunting rifles. For small scale, short-term protection, the arguments for arming yourself can make sense. However, an armed populace as a means to decrease violent crime on a societal level is not convincing. Most studies that have withstood scrutiny suggest that arming the citizenry does not decrease violent crime.18

Arguments focused on opposing government overstep, or tyrannical governments, are not telling the whole story, since what it purports to thwart is very specific. Invasive laws that impact women’s choices about their own bodies are never targeted as “overstepping,” for instance, nor are indefinite detentions of suspected (but not convicted) terrorists. In fact, some of the arguments seem to be after-the-fact rationalizations for unspoken desires. Maybe it is the desire to be armed against perceived threats beyond a tyrannical government. Maybe it is the visceral excitement of firearms, or maybe they become a tangible emblem of group identity: something to cling to and fight for in a system in which much of the right-wing base feels under attack. In some cases, they have been marginalized, dismissed as uneducated and uncouth, having little value even to the right-wing elite beyond the votes they provide. In other cases, the perceived marginalization is not real. As the popular saying goes, to those accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.

Firearms may be for protection, for defense, but they are also for offense. Some prepper fantasies seem similar to the response of the right-wing “militia” members to recent protests. Both seem to reflect a desire to find a situation in which violence is an option. They go to protests, ostensibly to protect property, but few outside observers believe that their concern is really for that gas station or drugstore. They go to find purpose, perhaps, as protectors.19 Others see the confrontation with protesters, the enemy, as the real goal.20 They go with the hope of finding the opportunity to use the violence for which they’ve prepared and about which they’ve fantasized. In that same way, fantasies about violence that accompany visions of a postapocalyptic world are as much about the freedom and opportunity to use violence as it is defending yourself from it. The actions of the militias at the protests in 2020—traveling long distances to “protect property”—can be read as people traveling to confront the enemy. Liberals, Democrats, and people of color were vilified as un-American in the right-wing press. This is the type of delegitimization that accompanies political polarization and provides a glimpse of what we could see in an apocalyptic emergency.

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