In honor of John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley: In Search of America, I am keeping my eyes open for clues about America’s gun cultures as Sandy and I travel from our home in North Carolina to Yellowstone National Park and back. My inaugural post on this series can be found here.

This is my belated final post from this past summer’s Travels with Sandy in Search of America’s Gun Cultures.

Much like Steinbeck himself in Travels with Charley, once we left Theodore Roosevelt National Park and North Dakota, a lot of the trip was a blur as we made our way home. Covering well over 5,000 miles across 17 states in 30 days pulling a travel trailer was a lot. Probably too much.

Our short stay in Barnesville, Minnesota on Day 23 is the occasion for this finale. Specifically, a car we saw on the main street in town with a whole lotta bumper sticker action going on.

I have made a name for myself in the field of gun studies in no small part by my appropriation of Michael Bane’s phrase “Gun Culture 2.0.” I have been blogging here for 11 years, introduced the term into the scholarly lexicon in 2017, and recently published my most comprehensive essay to date on the evolution and contours of defensive gun ownership in America. I may actually even write a book about Gun Culture 2.0 some day.

Despite its usefulness, Gun Culture 2.0 is definitely a two-edged sword. Read simplistically, it can be seen to suggest that Gun Culture 1.0 pursuits (hunting, recreational/sport shooting, and collecting) are going extinct. I do not mean to suggest this at all. The fact is, guns are fun and there are all sorts of overlaps between Gun Culture 1.0 and Gun Culture 2.0 people and activities.

The term Gun Culture 2.0 also naturally raises questions about future evolutions of gun culture. When I first met trainer William Aprill, he said with his characteristic biting humor, “I thought we were on Gun Culture 4.5 by now.” I haven’t seen the work yet, but Derek LeBlanc of Kids Safe Foundation told me he met an anthropologist who is claiming to be writing about Gun Culture 4.0. And my friend and fellow writer Kevin Creighton has written recently about a possible Gun Culture 3.0.

My response to the idea of a Gun Culture 3.0, 4.0, or 4.5 has been the same for a few years now: Not until I finish my book on Gun Culture 2.0!

But seriously, I have speculated about possible futures for gun culture. One possibility is the emergence of a new core of gun culture, Gun Culture 3.0. If this happened, I think the most likely candidate would be a gun culture centered on protecting and promoting the Second Amendment in all its sacred glory, as Jessica Dawson has argued. According to Claire Boine and her colleagues, this subculture already exists within American gun culture, particularly in states that are unfriendly to gun rights. Part of its growth potential, in my view, is that this Gun Culture 3.0 would not entirely depend on people actually owning or using guns. Members of Gun Culture 3.0 could support the Second Amendment on conservative political principles alone. Given gun owners’ increasing political and demographic diversity, I see this as the least likely of the three future possibilities. But there is tremendous energy at the intersection of conservative politics and the Second Amendment today, so I cannot rule it out entirely.

This brings me back to the car I saw in Barnesville, Minnesota. The bumper stickers actually highlight how Gun Culture 1.0, Gun Culture 2.0, and Gun Culture 3.0 are not mutually exclusive.

Gun Culture 1.0: USA Shooting Proud Supporter, X-Stand Tree Stands

Gun Culture 2.0: Fight Crime, Shoot Back

Gun Culture 3.0: Stand Your Ground on the Second Amendment, Socialism Sucks, “I’ll Keep My Guns, Freedom, and Money,” and more!

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