The Crisis of Gun-Subjectivity

Abstract: The American gun culture narrative is a particularly powerful ideology that requires a set of concepts drawn from continental philosophy and psychoanalysis in order to fully understand. My view is that narratives of securitization and gun-subjectivity operate through the mediation of empty signifiers rooted in fears, desires, and displaced enjoyments. Contemporary theory increasingly acknowledges that subjectivity was never a unity in the first place, but is instead the product of an irreconcilable gap. Understanding this gap, and how ideologies fill it, will help us understand the powerful grip that the social imaginary of gun-ownership has on us, and contributes to the gun crisis we face today.