A few day ago many sources reported on the efforts of the Missouri KKK to get in on the Ferguson action. The white-robed bubba contingent promised that “we will use lethal force as provided by Missouri Law to defend ourselves.” Some racist thugs propose to bring guns to counter the perceived threat posed by folks who are fired up by a long history of police brutality and are declaring that they won’t take it anymore. Anybody surprised by this turn of events?

On the same note, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports today that Ferguson protestors are gearing up for the furror that will probably errupt when the grand jurry issues what many expect will be a white-washing of Darren Wilson’s role in the shooting of Michael Brown. Acording to the report, one faction is exhorting protesters to “pack side arms.” So, if anybody takes this advice to heart, more guns will be added to the lethal mix. I expect that the protestors, with considerably more justification than the KKKers, also claim that they’re concerned with self-defense – and given the over-reaction that the relatively minor episodes of violence in Ferguson have inspired, it’s  hard to deny the force of the sentiment.  

The KKK types are citing Missouri law to justify their rush to the shootout at the OK Corral. While the Missoouri Revised Statutes, Section 563-031, that they cite does attempt to spell out when one may legally defend oneself with lethal force, it doesn’t – on my reading at least – seem to justify folks who are absolutely not threatened by the protests to show up, wave their guns, and fan the flames. But it’s easy for sanctimonious dimwits who want to assert their dominance and pretend that they speak for “the good people of St. Louis County of all races, colors and creeds” to misinterpret such laws with potentially disastrous consequences.

And as for any protestors who may “pack” sidearms, I think that concealed and open carry are now legal, right? While I suspect that Missouri’s very permissive gun laws were intended to enable white folks who have an exaggerated fear of African-Americans rather than angry African-American protestors, the law doesn’t make those distinctions.

Anybody who is surprised by these developments hasn’t been around the proverbial block too many times. The upshot is that we live in a state where laws have been written to encourage mayhem. The sad thing is that I suspet that these laws owe their existence in part to the fear and loathing that lots of white folks feel towards their black fellow citizens.

And it’s the various traditionally entrenched manifestations of that fear and loathing that has created the Ferguson situation in the first place. Now we’ve got Big Daddy Jay Nixon shaking  his finger at protestors and telling us all to hell with police brutality, he won’t tolerate any rioting black folks. Nor should he, but, when he’s addressing the community shouldn’t he at least give a nod of the head to the abuses that left people so angry that they take to the streets? And shouldn’t he let folks like the KKK know that he won’t tolerate any ugly, self-proclaimed “sleeping giants” who want to use Ferguson as an excuse to sling their lethal cudgels? I was visiting in California when I heard Nixon’s speech on the topic and I, a white, middle aged woman, felt like he was waving a red flag meant to incite a currently quiescent bull. No wonder the KKK feels empowered.

And while I’m at it, I haven’t seen a thing in the Post-Dispatch about the KKK’s threats. Did I just miss it? Did they not report on it because it’s potentially inflamatory? But why then did they report on the protestors who “stated plans to ‘make a few fires to stay warm’ – but without the need for firewood.” That isn’t inflamatory (no pun intended)? That doesn’t excite people like the KKK?  If the story is fit to print, print both sides.

Edited slightly for clarity.    

In Northern Ireland what is known as the marching season takes place between April and August. There are lots of parades during this period. By far the most contentious are the Orange Walks, parades that take place mid-July and which commemorate the victory of Prince William of Orange over James II at the Battle of Boyne. This battle cemented the subjugation of Catholic Ireland to Protestant England, and Orange Walks have functioned to ensure that Catholic Irish don’t forget who it is who runs the show in the North.

The Orange walks are contentious because they focus unresolved tensions among two cultural groups that often view each other with suspicion and fear. The Orangemen represent the folks who have historically had the lion’s share of the meager Northern Ireland pie, a situation that is perhaps finally changing in the wake of  decades of civil strife known as the Troubles. Though the largely Catholic nationalist population is beginning to succeed in more equitably integrating into public and economic life, the tension between the groups persists and finds one of its most tangible and occasionally violent expressions in the Orange walks.

I bring this up because St. Louis County has recently had its own experience with civic unrest in the suburban city of Ferguson. As in Northern Ireland, the ongoing Ferguson protests express the conflict between culturally distinct, mutually suspicious groups, one of which  is historically privileged over the smaller, politically subordinate group. I’d also like to suggest that we saw the same impulse that animates the triumphalist Orange Walks surface in downtown St. Louis. I’m referring to the 40 open-carry advocates who paraded through St. Louis Saturday afternoon, sporting “pistols in holsters and long guns slung from their shoulders.”

Understand that I’m not directly comparing the sparsely attended open-carry march with the powerfully organized Orange marchers. I’m just pointing out that when people feel that their privileges are threatened, they’re apt to react defensively. The Orangemen, for instance, refuse to avoid nationalist areas or negotiate their passage; they insist on claiming right-of-way. So, in this context, ask yourself why white St. Louis gunmen feel it’s important to show off their guns in a predominently Black city? Just why is it necessary to, as one marcher put it, “exercise the newly codified rights in the Missouri Constitution” in such an in-your-face way?

Reasons for the march given by participants had to to with proselytizing for guns because, “more people with guns will ‘keep the streets safer’,” and, more tellingly, “we should always be prepared for an attack.”  Do these responses satisfy? One blogger has noted that the issue has lots to do with just who has the guns and is part of a larger pattern of cultural conflict:

It’s the same pattern you see with conservatives on a lot of issues pertaining to “rights.”  They love going on and on about “freedoms” and “Constitutional rights,” but what they really mean is that they’re fighting for these rights for only those who they feel should have them.

When they talk about religious rights, they mean Christian.  When they talk about protecting equal rights, they mean heterosexuals.  When they talk about shrinking government, they only mean laws that are preventing them from getting away with what they want to get away with.

So when they talk about “open carry rights” they’re really only talking about those people who they feel safe around.  Because I really can’t imagine a group of rural country folk sitting in their local diner feeling at ease with a group of 30 openly armed African-Americans strolling in.

Sociologist Angela Stroud has investigated what makes gun ownership attractive to certain middle class white men. In her research concerning concealed carry, she concludes that “part of the appeal of carrying a concealed firearm is that it allows men to identify with hegemonic masculinity through fantasies of violence and self-defense.” I bet that she’d find that to be the case in spades when it comes to openly brandishing those guns in public. Stroud also identifies a specifically racial aspect to the appeal of guns, noting that:

No figure makes these men feel more physically vulnerable than the specter of the Black criminal. They ascribe a violent masculinity to men of color, and construct a sense of self in contradistinction. Because they assume that the Black men they encounter are potentially armed and dangerous, they want to carry a concealed handgun. Having a gun allows them to maintain a confidence that they are capable of responding to any threat …

See why it might be appealing to some to stage an open-carry parade just as the Ferguson demonstrations begin to cool down? When change is not welcome and conflict emerges, there are lots of folks who can’t help feeling that they should always be “prepared for an attack.” The flaunting of weapons on the part of individuals who are motivated by fantasies of fighting off violent threat is, however, potentially toxic. The blogger I quoted earlier perfectly describes the effect of open-carry laws:

The cultural effect of all these laws is to encourage a kind of hypervigilance that’s simultaneously paranoid and arrogant. It encourages armed citizens to seek confrontations and escalate them, confident that they can end them definitively.

In this context, it becomes difficult not to see a post-Ferguson celebration of open-carry as anything other than an invitation to “bring it on,” issued by frightened white men (and women)* trying their best to live up to an heroic, masculine, cultural ideal. I don’t want to labor the point, but in researching this post, I came across a Website maintained by a comic book author who calls himself D.W. Ulsterman (Northern Ireland is also known as Ulster), who asks:

Is it coincidence that a gathering of marchers who support the pro-2nd Amendment open carry laws of Missouri found nary a sign of Ferguson type protesters attempting to confront them?

WhooHooo! Real men arise and grab your guns! We’ll show those Fergunson types! With any luck, we too, just like Northern Ireland, can enjoy twenty or thirty years of well-armed tit-for-tat murder as we turn the culture wars from a metaphor to a reality.

* Stroud earlier interviewed several women who applied for open-carry licenses and concluded that women want guns in order “to feel as powerful as men in a culture where women are taught to feel vulnerable.” Same dynamic, slightly skewed.

N.B. Text edited slightly for clarity.