The Killing Ritual
A look at the Cult of the Gun in America — and the role marketing has played in recruiting its members.
The ritual was happening again. It started with the whispered reports of an armed killer — a young man indoctrinated in a culture that worships military strength — slaughtering innocents by the dozen.
Then began the panicked frenzy of his targets to hide away, to stay silent, to become invisible until the rampage passed.
It ended with dozens of massacred bodies strewn on the ground.
It was always this way. And no one in power did anything to stop it from happening again.
The above scene reflects an annual rite of passage, performed by young men of the Krypteia, a paramilitary arm of the Spartan army that trained candidates in the arts of stealth and murder.
Every autumn during the annual harvest, boys who desired to prove themselves as men would go alone into the countryside, armed with a spear or a knife, killing as many state-owned slaves (helots), as they could.
The ones who came back undetected were considered worthy of citizenship and marriage.
This ritual killing wasn’t considered a massacre or even a crime. In fact, Spartan leadership declared a kind of hunting season on its slave population to keep it in check. So the Krypteia rite was not only a test of manhood, it was also a way for those in power to prevent a conquered people from rising up.
We perform the morning drop-off routine: the car door opens, we exchange a kiss and wish our young children a good day. The car door closes and we give a silent prayer: “please keep my baby safe.”
As we sip our coffee at our desks or at our kitchen tables, we try to banish the visions that creep into our consciousness — those of a black-clad rampage killer spraying bullets into our children’s classrooms.
These are the things that haunt us when we say goodbye to our children. With every new mass shooting, the chance of it being the last goodbye increases.
Hunting season comes more often these days.
“Death Toll Is at 17 and Could Rise in Shooting”
“A Burst of Gunfire, a Pause, Then Carnage in Las Vegas That Would Not Stop”
“A Night of Terror In Orlando”
“Gunman Kills at Least 26 in Attack on Rural Texas Church”
“9 Dead in Shooting in Black Church in Charleston, S.C.”
“Police: 20 Children among 26 Victims of Connecticut School Shooting”
Two schools. A nightclub. A concert. Two churches.
Six men armed with semi-automatic rifles, out to prove something to the world.
187 lives extinguished by the squeeze of a trigger.
That’s just a fraction of the death toll since 1966, when a sniper in a University of Texas clock tower aimed his rifle and took down 17 victims. In total: 1,877 dead from 153 mass shootings over the past 52 years. 71 of the shootings have occurred since 2000, and each year the shootings get deadlier.
The reporting of the events plays out like a ritual in reverse:
The news helicopters hover over the scene as terrified survivors flee into the arms of first responders. They speak of a silent, armed man mowing down human lives as dispassionately as an exterminator spraying insects.
We hear the numbers and then the names of the dead.
We learn the identity of the killer and the make of his weapon.
If he’s captured alive, we get a look at his mugshot.
If he committed suicide or was taken down by gunfire, we see a candid picture, snapped by someone who likely had no clue of the deadly plans assembled behind his often empty-looking eyes.
His profile becomes clearer as the journalists excavate his past: he was a loner. He was abusive toward the women in his life. His family thought he was odd, but not dangerous. He participated in combat and survivalist culture, either through gaming or paramilitary training or target practice or military service. He collected guns.
Red flags were ignored. Balls were dropped. Signs were overlooked.
The question of gun control comes up. Gun control advocates call for tighter legislation. Gun rights activists declare war. Gun sales go up. NRA fundraising increases. Donations to Republican political campaigns roll in by the millions. Lawmakers send thoughts and prayers while they vote down regulations on gun manufacturers.
It seems like a ritual because it is a ritual. A ritual that descends from the ancient roots of Western civilization. It’s a ritual created by America’s biggest cult.
“It’s been recited by defiant soldiers in trenches, reflected on NRA products and resounded throughout speeches. It’s a defiant demand underpinned with tones of courage, bravery, pride and honor that elicit a powerful emotional response from and within those who say it.
For the gun-rights community, it’s a direct, defiant response to gun-control legislation.
Molon Labe represents a type of terse, austere statement called a ‘laconic phrase,’ named after Laconia, the Greek region where Sparta was located. The soldiers were known for minimalistic, militant simplicity, and their language mirrored this.”
— From Defend and Carry, a popular website ‘dedicated to personal defense and the conceal carry lifestyle.’
The phrase, Molon Labe has become a mass-produced slogan. It encapsulates the narrative in which gun enthusiasts see themselves as the heroes: soldiers surrounded on all sides by enemy forces, standing vigilant and stoic while defending their freedom at all costs.
The Three Hundred Become The Three Percenters
The framework of the survivalist story has its origins in ancient Greece: over the course of four days in 480 BC, three hundred Spartans led by King Leonidas held their spot on the narrow pass of Thermopylae, fighting off an army of 100,000 Persians. When an emissary from the Persian king Xerxes challenged them to throw down their arms, the legend goes, Leonidas defiantly proclaimed “Molon Labe,” or “come and take them.”
The Spartans were eventually defeated, but the legacy and spirit of Molon Labe lived on.
Over thirteen hundred years later, in the small Anglo settlement of Gonzales, eighteen men made their stand when the Mexican government sent over 150 soldiers on horseback to retrieve a cannon the town used to defend itself from Indians. According to the Gonzales Chamber of Commerce website,
“There, in the early-morning hours of Oct. 2, 1835, the colonists crossed the river with their cannon, surprising the troops and waving their hastily fashioned flag, which proclaimed “Come and Take It.” Almost immediately the cannon was fired, killing one of Castenada’s men and scattering the rest, forcing them to retreat to San Antonio de Bexar. Thus was fired the shot that set off the struggle for Texas independence from Mexico.”
A 2016 Washington Post article noted the right-wing adulation of the myth of the 300 Spartans of Thermopylae as a kind of origin story:
“Since the popularization of the ‘300’ story, ‘Molon Labe’ became a kind of code word for gun-rights supporters in the United States, as well as the tea party movement, a catchall slogan for those irked by the invasive power of the federal government and the supposed leftist aim to take away their weapons. On social media, that messaging now co-exists with #maga — “Make America Great Again” — and other online slang used by Trump supporters.”
‘Come and take it’ is just the kind of tagline that a cult needs to grab attention and inspire curiosity in potential new members. It’s grounded in history, has a compelling and relatable story behind it, and elicits a strong emotion driven by a target recruits’ natural dislike of authority: defiance.
This morning, as I dropped my son off at kindergarten, a conversation on the radio murmured in the background.
They were discussing the best way to teach children and teachers to be “first responders” during a mass shooting.
The conversation has changed from “how can we stop this from happening?” to “how can we survive this when it happens?”
I gripped my steering wheel and drove home, every breath a prayer, every thought a curse.
In the Cult of the Gun, the apocalypse isn’t an ‘if.’ It’s a ‘when.’
The members of the Cult of the Gun are obsessed with the end of the world. They prepare their souls and their households for the apocalypse as matter-of-factly as one might stock up with flashlight batteries and toilet paper before a hurricane.
When you constantly prepare yourself for survival conditions, you start seeing the world in terms of ‘us versus them.’ The government forces are one kind of ‘them’ that seek to disarm you and turn you into a sheep so they can control your every move. Being a sheep makes you vulnerable to the wolves — the other kind of ‘them’ who will loot and rape and bring ruin to everything you know and love.
You half-hope that the apocalypse would start already, so you can prove yourself worthy as a leader and a ‘sheepdog,’ protecting the untrained flock from the wolves that howl for an end to civilization as you have known it.
Your preparations become a sort of hobby. You read gear reviews and watch YouTube videos on bushcraft. You start showing off your ‘bug out bag’ on social media, to the praise of other survival enthusiasts.
When you live by the gospel of the Gun, you justify your vigilance by citing the normalcy bias. As a good sheepdog, you are able to see more than your flock. What you see are signs that have long been foretold.
The thing about sheepdogs, though, is that they need a master — an alpha — to train them in their duties. The wrong master can train them to see wolves where there are human beings.
“I am a gun. I was never made for hunting, just for killing humans.”
— From the journal of Eric Harris, who with Dylan Klebold killed 13 people and then themselves in 1999 at Columbine High School.
Every cult has a leader. Someone charismatic. Someone who reflects and gives voice to the deeper truths about the world that you’ve been seeking to define.
When you first discover the cult, they feel familiar. Maybe even like family.
The leader offers you a community of like-minded people. If you’re someone whose real home isn’t a place where you feel like you belong, the sense of community can be particularly alluring.
After building a sense of trust, the cult leader starts to plant an idea: that the outside world is dangerous and toxic to your wellbeing.
They cultivate an “us” versus “them” mentality: that the world is going insane and the only ones who can see the truth are members of your group.
The narrative of an outside threat increases in urgency. You’re charged with not only participating in the group, but also recruiting new members — for their own safety. The only place your children are safe is with the cult leader.
The cult leader’s message shifts from one of providing a safe haven from the dangerous world to one of paranoia. You are no longer a community member: you’re a guardian.
The cult leader begins to tell you that the danger goes beyond individuals and is in fact an entire system working against the very values your community lives by.
You see yourself as part of an army. Your cult leader is your commander. The outside world, once full of sheep, is now full of wolves that seek to devour you and your kind.
I’m the National Rifle Association of America and I’m freedom’s safest place.
Your leader signals that it’s time to cut yourself off from the world. Because the world is full of enemies that ‘threaten your very survival.’
“America was founded to escape the elites, but today they run our country. There is no longer any difference between our politicians and the elite media who report on them and the Hollywood elites who bankroll them both. They work together in some newsrooms and boardrooms in Washington. Back rooms and star-studded champagne fundraisers to decide for the rest of us what’s news and what’s not. What’s true and what’s not. Who gets protected. Who goes to prison. Who gets our money and who gets our vote. These elites threaten our very survival. And then we say ‘we don’t trust you, we don’t fear you and we don’t need you. Take your hands off our future.’ I’m the National Rifle Association of America and I’m freedom’s safest place.”
The leader convinces you that everything that the outside world is telling you is a lie — anyone who believes the media or the government has become enslaved — that only your leader knows the truth.
“We’ve had enough of the lies, the sanctimony, the arrogance, the hatred, the pettiness, the fake news…we are done with your agenda to undermine voters’ will and individual liberty in America. So to every lying member of the media, to every Hollywood phony, to the role model athletes who use their free speech to alter and undermine what our flag represents, to the politicians who would rather watch America burn than lose one ounce of their own personal power, to the late-night hosts who think their opinions are the only opinions that matter…to the Joy-Ann Reids, the Morning Joes, the Mikas…To those who stain honest reporting with partisanship…To those who bring bias and propaganda to CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times. Listen up! Your Time is running out…The clock starts now.”
Finally, the leader calls you to arms. It’s time to declare war on the helots.
“They use their media to assassinate real news. They use their schools to teach children that their president is another Hitler. They use their movie stars and singers and award shows to repeat their narrative over and over again. And then they use their ex-president to endorse the resistance. All to make them march, make them protest, make them scream racism and sexism and xenophobia and homophobia and smash windows, burn cars, shut down interstates and airports, bully and terrorize the law abiding — until the only option left is for police to do their jobs and stop the madness.
And when that happens, they’ll use it as an excuse for their outrage. The only way we stop this, the only way we save our country and our freedom is to fight this violence of lies with the clenched fist of truth. I’m the National Rifle Association of America and I’m freedom’s safest place.”
You’re no longer a sheepdog: you are a wolf. And you’re hunting for your pack.
I pick my son up from kindergarten, grateful for another chance to hug him, to see his sweet smile and his blue eyes glowing with curiosity and optimism and trust.
“Pew-pew!” He laughs as he aims a finger gun at me. “You’re dead! I killed you!”
I laugh and pretend to fall over.
And then, while he sleeps, I write about the Cult of the Gun before it claims another recruit.
