One advantage of being active on a pro-gun internet forum is that you get an up close and personal view of the gun fanatics who represent a strident faction of American society. They are in the thrall of an ideology known as “gun culture”. Like any ideology, it consists of a set of tenets and maxims that explain the world to the believers.

One of the primary tenets is that gun ownership is a safeguard against state tyranny. Gun culture is obsessed with paranoid delusions about overthrowing the government by force. Even among the more mainstream gun owners, it is a widely accepted belief that violence against the government is legitimate and even necessary. Here are some examples:

Presumably these gun owners imagine a day when they too will be called to shoot police officers in the name of freedom. The problem with this idea is made very clear by what happened in Dallas. Who gets to decide where and when it is legitimate to use violence against the government? No doubt this question will be lost on the mostly white pro-gun crowd. They have a clear vision of how it will all go down. Think of a Hollywood movie in which freedom loving white people are the good guys.

But by the logic of the pro-gun argument, the cop killer in Dallas was simply exercising his right to use guns to fight against government tyranny. This, we are told, is what the second amendment is all about.