Two Mass Shootings in Texas in One Month: Who Owns Guns in the U.S? (Answer: White Republican Evangelical Men Above All)

Latest mass shooter in Texas from Odessa American

1/ Texas has just had two mass shootings in one month. In both, aggrieved white males who had easy access to guns went on rampages and killed multiple people. In light of this, we need to review — all over again — who owns guns in the U.S., where they're far too easy to access.

— 𝕎𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕒𝕞 𝔻. 𝕃𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕤𝕖𝕪 🌈 (@wdlindsy) September 2, 2019

2/ The latest Pew study of the demographics of gun ownership in the U.S. finds that "white men are especially likely to be gun owners."

It also finds that gun ownership is far more common among Republicans than Democrats.https://t.co/s5GFLpd0OE pic.twitter.com/0voTcOK54I

— 𝕎𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕒𝕞 𝔻. 𝕃𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕤𝕖𝕪 🌈 (@wdlindsy) September 2, 2019

3/ There's more: as Stephen Merino states in his 2018 study "God and Guns: Examining Religious Influences on Gun Control Attitudes in the United States," finds that "evangelical Protestants are more likely to own a gun compared to the general population." https://t.co/6xyhmFIqjq

— 𝕎𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕒𝕞 𝔻. 𝕃𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕤𝕖𝕪 🌈 (@wdlindsy) September 2, 2019

4/ Data aggregated recently by Ryan Burge shows (white) evangelical Protestants leading the list of religious groups opposed to bans on assault weapons. https://t.co/Ovxuhy4xWI pic.twitter.com/26ujJpetut

— 𝕎𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕒𝕞 𝔻. 𝕃𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕤𝕖𝕪 🌈 (@wdlindsy) September 2, 2019

5/ There are, in other words, easily demonstrated correlations between race, gender, political affiliation, and gun ownership in the U.S.

— 𝕎𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕒𝕞 𝔻. 𝕃𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕤𝕖𝕪 🌈 (@wdlindsy) September 2, 2019

6/ White Republican evangelical men lead the pack when it comes to gun ownership, and certain interest groups in the U.S. want to hide or lie about these easily ascertained data any time YET ANOTHER aggrieved white man with too easy access to guns shoots a bunch of folks.

— 𝕎𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕒𝕞 𝔻. 𝕃𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕤𝕖𝕪 🌈 (@wdlindsy) September 2, 2019

7/ Put differently, the problem, when it comes to solving the problem of too easy access to guns and horrendous levels of gun violence in the U.S., is white men, and, in particular, white Republican men — aided and abetted by "pro-life" white evangelicals.

— 𝕎𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕒𝕞 𝔻. 𝕃𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕤𝕖𝕪 🌈 (@wdlindsy) September 2, 2019

8/ Any time yet another of these massacres occurs, they trot out the lies all over again and say that gun violence by black folks is the "real" problem, that the perpetrator was a Jewish native American Democrat — when this is easily disproven.

— 𝕎𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕒𝕞 𝔻. 𝕃𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕤𝕖𝕪 🌈 (@wdlindsy) September 2, 2019

9/ A big hurdle in these discussions are the "Democrats" who spend more of their time on social media trying to tamp down discussion of these problems and demographics than they do addressing the problem — typical circular firing-squad behavior.

— 𝕎𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕒𝕞 𝔻. 𝕃𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕤𝕖𝕪 🌈 (@wdlindsy) September 2, 2019

10/ About the white Christian "pro-life" voters who put Donald Trump in the White House:

Pro-life my eye and Betty Martin.

— 𝕎𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕒𝕞 𝔻. 𝕃𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕤𝕖𝕪 🌈 (@wdlindsy) September 2, 2019

I'm glad that the Odessa American today published the photo of Seth Aaron Ator found at the head of this posting. As soon as his name was released, people got busy on social media shopping around a yellowed-out photo of him that seems to have been doctored to make him appear non-Caucasian. As this was being done, people pumped out the message that he was a Jewish native American Democrat. In all of 10 minutes, using publicly available resources at Ancestry and FamilySearch, I was able to track his Ator ancestry back to his immigrant ancestor, Johann Casper Eader, born in 1721 in Alsace, who came with other Germans to Philadelphia on 3 December 1740 — carrying a (Christian) family bible, according to his descendants, one long treasured in his family. 

Casper Eader settled in the German communities of Frederick County, Maryland. From there within a generation or two, his descendants fanned out to east and then west Tennessee, with Seth Ator's family line migrating from west Tennessee to Arkansas, then Oklahoma, and finally, Texas. As with other families of German descent with colonial roots in the Southern states, within one or two generations, they were marrying families of Anglo and Celtic background, so that his family tree is quite clearly, on the Ator side, the family tree of a white, Christian, German-Anglo-Celtic family — like many others you'll find in the regions in which his family has lived (Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas).