Are People Clinging to their Guns and Religion?

April 23, 2009

Kyle Kubler

After watching a recent 60 Minutes, the issue of gun control was brought to my attention. As stated in the program, there’s been a direct correlation between the increase in gun and ammunition sales and the worsening of the recession. The statistics brought me back to April last year when Obama uttered the ominous phrase that haunted him while on the campaign trail.

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

The sound-bite sparked outrage from both the right and the left, played upon consistently by the Republican candidate John McCain. The rising gun sales and gun massacres in the United States led me to ask the question: Are we clinging to our guns and religion? How far was Obama from the truth?

Gun sales have increased 42% from last year, but there is reason to believe that gun sales have increased more since Obama has been in office. This is amid the fear that Obama is going to take people’s guns away.

Richard Poplawski who murdered three Pittsburg police officers last week allegedly “feared the Obama gun ban that’s on the way” and “didn’t like our rights being infringed upon”.

While it’s true that the Obama administration has published a desire to restore the automatic weapons ban was instated during Clinton’s administration and allowed to run out during Bush’s, it seems very unlikely that any political action will be taken against guns in the near future. Guns are one of the few products helping our economy and with issues from Afghanistan and Iraq to the global economic crisis, Obama will have little time to battle guns.

The next part of the equation is the part where Obama falls short. Church attendance and personal worship has stood at a standstill for 15 months according a Gallup Poll. It seems that in these hard economic times people have used other methods to keep their spirits up.

The stagnant number of churchgoers during this recession shouldn’t surprise us. Even during the Great Depression of the 1930’s there was only a 5% increase in church attendance. One of the factors attributed to this slight increase was the invention of the radio. This allowed many priests and religious leaders to convey their religious message without having their followers leave their house.

Maybe this is an indication that religion is far from gone in everyday American life. It’s very possible that more and more Americans are incorporating religion in their life without actually going to church. Whatever the case, it’s clear to say that while gun sales have spiked, religion has not followed suit.

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