Why Americans Stockpile Guns

From Vox, "No other high-income country has suffered such a high death toll from gun violence. Every day, more than 110 Americans die at the end of a gun, including suicides and homicides, an average of 40,620 per year. Since 2009, there has been an annual average of 19 mass shootings, when defined as shootings in which at least four people are killed. The U.S. gun homicide rate is as much as 26 times that of other high-income countries; its gun suicide rate is nearly 12 times higher."

Over one billion small arms are distributed globally, of which 857 million (about 85 percent) are in civilian hands. Around half of those guns are in the United States, and Americans have 120 guns for every 100 citizens - more than double the following two countries on the list, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. A recent study finds that only 3% of American adults own 30% of the guns (130 million).

Why so many guns?

What seems to get lost in the debates about gun violence is why Americans are so intent on continuing to stockpile guns. Americans do not trust their government. There is a belief that at any time, the U.S. government could round up and detain anyone that disagrees with its policies. Many citizens who stockpile guns believe that weapons are a significant deterrent to that existential threat. This article from Forbes asks, Why Are Federal Bureaucrats Buying Guns And Ammo? The report cites some statistics that I never knew:

• Did you know that the Department of Veterans Affairs (V.A.) has a police force? Since 1996, the V.A. police force has grown from zero employees with arrest and firearm authority to 3,700 employees today. V.A. officers are armed with AR-15s, Sig Sauer handguns, and semi-automatic pistols.
• Other agencies buying weapons and ammo include the Department of Education, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Smithsonian, Railroad Retirement Board, Small Business Administration (SBA), and the Social Security Administration.

This reminds me of the mutually assured destruction (MAD) military strategy. The doctrine holds that the threat of using strong weapons against the enemy prevents the enemy's use of those same weapons. The strategy is a form of Nash equilibrium in which, once armed, neither side has any incentive to initiate a conflict or disarm. The consequence of this strategy is that weapons continued to be manufactured and sold to both sides. It's the only explanation for how America could end up with 5,428 nuclear warheads and Russia with 6,257.

Just because you are paranoid

Ordinary citizens see statistics like those above and ask why does the V.A. or the SBA guns and ammo. Behind the MAD-ness and conspiracy theories is a deep mistrust of the government. It's why there are conspiracy theories that the U.S. government is behind the mass shootings. Why would the government be behind mass shootings? To move public sentiment toward banning guns. Banning guns would allow the government to round up anyone that disagrees with its policies. The logic is circular and not provably true or false. But is it as crazy as it sounds?

U.S. track record of civil rights abuses

• In 1787, during the debates over the framing of the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton predicted that when faced with war or other threats, America would "resort for repose and security to institutions which tend to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they, at length, become willing to run the risk of being less free."
• In 1798, little more than a decade after the framing of the Constitution and only seven years after the Bill of Rights was ratified, Hamilton's fears were proved correct. The Sedition Act of 1798, known as the Alien and Sedition Acts, targeted immigrants and made it a crime to criticize the government. The broad terms of the law nullified the First Amendment's protection of free speech and freedom of the press. Prominent supporters of the Republican Party, many of them journalists, were arrested for criticizing the Federalists in power.
• Over 100 years later, the U.S. government was still not big on dissent. Passed on May 16, 1918, the WWI Sedition Act made it a crime to criticize the government or the war effort.
• Soon after was the Palmer Raids of 1919 to 1921. From Wikipedia, "The Palmer Raids were a series of raids by the United States Department of Justice to capture and arrest suspected socialists, especially anarchists and communists, and deport them from the United States."
• During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln (and later Grant) suspended the writ of habeas corpus. A right that pre-dates the Magna Carta and that the U.S. Constitution includes explicitly in the Suspension Clause.  
• What was Executive Order 9066, and what did it do? Issued by President Franklin Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, this order authorized the evacuation of all persons deemed a threat to national security from the West Coast to relocation centers further inland. In the next 6 months, over 100,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry were moved to assembly centers. Later, Korematsu v. United States ruled that Executive Order 9066 was constitutional.
• At the beginning of America's Cold War with the Soviet Union in the 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) launched a hunt for Communist sympathizers and subversives. McCarthy's Senate committee and HUAC made sweeping accusations against individuals and organizations, often only on the evidence of unidentified informants.
• Beginning in 1971, journalists and congressional investigation revealed that the U.S. government, through the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and other agencies, had been spying on and, in some cases, sabotaging the efforts of, civil rights and antiwar groups since the 1950s.

So, why are young white males killing children?

Since 1982, an astonishing 123 mass shootings have been carried out in the United States by male shooters around age 17. Between 1970 and June 16, 2020, 175 school shootings were perpetrated by 17-year-olds. 16-year-olds committed the second-highest number of school shootings, with 163 shootings. Why?

I hope what I have outlined above helps answer a few questions and put the current state of America into some context. However, this last question, why are kids killing kids? I wish I knew.