guns and violence

This from the Atlantic:

The reason guns cannot be regulated in the USA is because of the violence, not in spite of it. The violence is necessary to maintain the fear, and the fear is necessary to maintain white male privilege. The idea that white men can and do shoot people causes every interaction with a white man to carry a tinge of threat: If you disrespect him, or merely fail to please him enough, he just might explode. When they say that two dozen dead children are the price we pay for freedom, what they mean is that they are willing to pay that price to preserve white male privilege. As recent events demonstrate, white male privilege is the preeminent policy goal for them, outweighing even honor, truth, and democracy. That they pursue it through terrorism should not be surprising; it was ever thus. That they cannot admit their true goal, even to themselves, is a side-effect of the defeat of the Confederacy. They cannot bear to be called a "racist" because to them, that term evokes "loser." When the South lost, we tied the shame of defeat to the cause of racism, hoping to kill it. Instead, it appears we have killed shame.