America has a free-for-all gun culture, which, unsurprisingly, means that America also has a problem with children getting accidentally killed by guns. Specifically, America has a problem with boys in particular getting into accidents with guns, as reported by the New York Times. In its review of the data, the Times found that male shooters fired nearly all guns that were accidentally fired and killed a child. Boys made up 80% of the victims of accidental gun deaths of children. Reporters Michael Luo and Mike McIntire described boys as having a "magnetic attraction of firearms", and added this:

Time and again, boys could not resist handling a gun, disregarding repeated warnings by adults and, sometimes, their own sense that they were doing something wrong.

So, what is it with boys and guns? Presumably, the same thing that defines the relationship of grown men and guns.

Gun-owning is a largely male phenomenon in the US. Forty-five percent of American men own guns while only 15% of women do. Sixty percent of adults with guns in America are white men, even though white men are just one third of the US population. Despite some attempts by gun lobbyists and marketers to try to sell more guns to women, the fact of the matter is that gun-owning isn't really about "safety" and "crime", so much as it's a very costly form of identity politics.

Gun ownership, in America, is a way for white men to assert their power in an era when they're increasingly being forced to share it with women and racial minorities.

The situation is likely only getting more gendered. The total number of gun owners is actually declining, but people who own guns are more likely than ever to be enthusiasts who own four or more guns. The gun enthusiasts contingent is even more likely to see gun ownership as an expression of their identity. While gun marketers periodically try to highlight female gun owners, in an attempt to get away from the identification of gun ownership with aggrieved white men raging against the gradual decline of white male privilege, the fact of the matter is that association is only getting stronger over time.

That's because firearm fanatics themselves can't help but wield the guns like talismans, deadly steel reminders of their resentments of a whole host of 21st-century trends – from increasing cosmopolitanism, to racial diversity, to women's growing power. Angry white dudes wielding guns showed up in droves for "Starbucks Appreciation Day", making a fuss out of how they, with their guns, could dominate the coffee chain that, in reality, represents a turn in American culture towards the urbane.

Just to show how much their display of dominance will not be restrained by the niceties of good taste and basic human decency, the Starbucks in Newtown, Connecticut – the town that recently saw the horrific gun massacre of 26 elementary school children and teachers – was singled out by the guys-and-guns parade. This display actually caused the store to shut down early, rather than be party to the nastiness of it all. Newtown has had its fair share of problems like this, with gun shows defiantly being conducted despite the pain that they cause.

Another group, the Armed Citizen Project, decided to start giving away guns to residents of an Orlando, Florida community that just so happened to be a mere 20 miles away from where neighborhood watcher George Zimmerman shot an unarmed black teenager named Trayvon Martin. This pattern of tasteless and defiant behavior goes all the way back to 1999, when the NRA decided to hold its convention in Denver, Colorado – a mere 11 days after the Columbine shooting. Attendees then borrowed the civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome".

Guns have become the go-to symbol for a certain kind of white male fantasy of victimization. Guns return power in the minds of those who make a false equivalence between the perceived loss of their unearned privileges over everyone else and the actual loss of rights that women, gays, and people of color have historically endured.

White men roaming around with guns, hopped up on fantasies that they are a million Dirty Harrys, ready to reassert the white man's rightful place as the master of America … they are definitely annoying. Unfortunately, they are also dangerous, and not just because some of them tip over into actually pulling the trigger. As the New York Times story powerfully illustrates, the male power fantasy that guns represent intoxicates the very young, as well as adult men.

If grown men are using guns to make themselves feel big and manly, how are young boys – who generally want nothing more than to experience that feeling of being big and manly – supposed to resist? You can scold them all day, but even well-behaved young boys are going to want a taste of that power.

Guns turn grown men into childish idiots who want to believe their expensive and deadly toys give them power. Actual children don't stand a chance.