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In the war of symbols, guns reign supreme in America � meaning, owning a gun says more about your politics than how you use it.

Joan Burbick dissects the embracing of guns by the �gun rights movement� in her insightful book: �Gun Show Nation: Gun Culture and American Democracy.�

Unlike so many talking heads on the gun issue, Burbick gets it. She cuts through to the heart of the psychology of guns, and how the gun rights movement has invented a fear campaign � that someone, the government, is going to take away their guns. The symbolic meaning of owning a gun is to reclaim political power, demonize minorities, distort the issue of crime in America, express contempt for women gaining access to power, and distract Americans from the real issues of democracy.

Burbick takes on the role of an �ethnographer� as she charts her exploration of America� s gun culture. Burbick�s journey begins with Buffalo Bill, perhaps the greatest gun marketer in American history. The gun companies took advantage of Wild Bill's heroic tales of the frontier, laced with political rhetoric to sell more and more guns � and it worked. After the Civil War, American society was saturated with weapons as gun manufacturers (read monopolies) saw spiraling profits with ever more savvy marketing campaigns. Iconic frontier heroes such as Buffalo Bill were integral to selling guns through romanticizing them.

According to Burbick, purchasing a gun proved your �manhood� and invited fantasy into a gun owner�s life � the belief that you could shoot the �bad� guy and be a hero is still alive in today�s gun advertisements.

Burbick�s book also delves into how the gun lobby co-opted the language of the civil rights movement and invented a communications campaign to make individual gun ownership a �right� when historically American society never viewed it as such. It took some time and money to convince the American people, but the gun lobby eventually succeeded in re-writing history. Just take for example the slogan used by untold numbers of politicians: �I support the Second Amendment.� What does that drivel mean anyway?

In addition to securing a �gun rights ideology� the NRA used guns as political weapons to attack virtually every progressive idea, especially on issues of poverty and race.

Guns do more than just shoot � they are powerful iconic symbols in American culture and have been used to label who�s in and who�s out � who is a �real American� and who is not.

Burbick�s �road trip� through gun land is fascinating, and her in-depth research and knowledge of guns gives her all the more credibility. She scoured archives of old gun magazines such as American Rifleman, visited untold numbers of gun shows, went to NRA meetings and conferences, and asked everyday gun owners what guns meant to them. Burbick left no stone unturned in her book writing about women and guns, the global trade of firearms, and how Ronald Reagan jumped in bed with gun rights ideologues to get elected � a marriage that still unites the gun rights movement with the conservative base today.

Gun Show Nation is one heck of a ride through American culture.

She found hate literature at all the guns show that she attended, except for one. That should tell you something in itself.

By the way, Burbick target shoots and rides horses. You might call her a real Western woman.

But, as she illustrates, a �Western� lifestyle has nothing to do with the political ideology of the �gun rights� movement, because the �gun rights� movement is not about lifestyle issues or even rights. It�s about politics and who controls the power in the country.

And white males in the �gun rights� movement don�t like sharing their apple pie with any other Americans, not even a slice.

We highly recommend it.

By the end, you get a lucid, thoughtful understanding of why the "gun rights" culture and the NRA are so tied at the hip to the Bush Administration and the Republican Party, because they both yearn for the day when the white male reigned supreme.

The gun, with all its real and imagined powers, is the symbol for them of that "paradise lost."



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