Necropolitics and the NRA.....guns and men.

Necropolitics and the NRA.....guns and men.

 In the present neoliberal era of terror and insecurity, it seems that what we may be witnessing is a new, unprecedented form of biopolitical governmentality in which necropower, or the technologies of control through which life is strategically subjugated to the power of death (Mbembe 2003),

Yesterday i heard on the radio a programme about the death chidren in the USA through guns. I also discovered a new word necropolitics. It describes the politics around death and murder. It examines the attitude of the killers and those who are it's victims. In particular it examines whose deaths are invisible and whose are not. It says a great deal about fear; perception and power.
The programme talked about the National Rifle Association of the USA. Overwhelmingly it's membership was white, right wing men who had almost a sexual fetish about their guns. They stroked them, touched them tenderly and would have given Freud much to speculate on. In the BRA gender was rigidly binary. If a woman wanted a gun it was feminised ; it was available in pink and had a hand bag like device to carry it in. The NRA was right wing, had a simplistic individualism where men defended their homestead..from bad men who would attack their home and family. There was fear and a feeling that their masculinity was on trial. There was no understanding that most people who die by guns either shoot themselves or are shot by someone they know. There was no appreciation that a handgun would in most situations be sufficient even if this perceived threat was true. Automatics, assault weapons and others were not distinguished from the smaller hand gun. There was no appreciation that the second amendment was about a militia and muskets and not modern weapons  

The myth of the Wild West and the cultural assumptions have created a deadly situation. The BRA claims that the solution against bad men with guns is good men with guns. Yet how in the horror of a hail of bullets do you distinguish one from another? If they are wearing a police uniform or a military one then it's easy.. if not it's virtually impossible. Would you not be reluctant to think that a 64 year old accountant would be the bad or mad man with doctored weapons? Would you if you knew grant gun ownership to someone with mental health issues. In Texas you are required to have at at least twenty hours training to be a hairdresser yet gun instruction required only twelve. Guns are designed to kill they exist for no other reason. They should not be an adjunct for failing sexuality, crises of masculinity or a right wing libertarian agenda. The manufacture of guns is about profit, income and jobs. The NRA push an agenda that hides the real issues , promotes a false consciousness and exploit and there us all. The necropolitics of the NRA says much about race, gender and cultural perceptions. It must be challenged...