by: Justin Hinckley, 2A Issues Coordinator

I was inspired to write this article in response to the constant bleating during, but even after, the election around Tim Walz, his supposed masculinity, and his “support” for gun rights. The Harris campaign attempted to prop up this lie with an embarrassing hunting trip in which Walz had to learn how to load a shotgun, apparently for the first time. Tim Walz is an excellent manifestation of the archetype of the fudd. Fudds such as Walz love variations of the phrase “I support the 2nd Amendment but…” Walz has said some version of this phrase many times, usually with some mention of him being good at shooting a shotgun. It's like he's going for some super fudd title or something.

The fudd is one of the most dangerous avatars in the gun rights debate. They always have been and this era is no different than when I first found myself entering the gun community 20ish years ago, with one notable exception. The fudd is no longer the standard-bearer for the pro-gun side. In fact, the modern fudd is currently relegated almost to a point of cultural irrelevance. A potent example of this is the hemorrhaging of members the NRA has seen since its peak of just over 5 million members around 2013. The NRA has long been known in the gun community as fudd central and in past eras was also the flagship gun rights organization. Yet under their leadership, we saw the creation and passage of major firearms restrictions such as the 1934 National Firearms Act and the 1968 Gun Control Act. To their credit, the NRA has spent considerable resources to temper such legislation and reduce the damage it causes. But this is a key component of fuddism as we will discuss below. They oversee only the shrinking of rights, and their victories are exclusively in slowing the wheel that grinds us to dust. They never break the wheel.

To understand why the fudd is dangerous, we must first attempt to define him. Since the fudd is more of an archetype than a specific behavior or issue, the definition I'll give should be considered a flexible one. There are two basic criteria for being a fudd. First, fudds are gun owners. Second, fudds do not have a strong belief in the natural right of self-preservation. From here, the other things we note about fudds flow naturally. Fudds are often ok with restricting gun rights, as long as they think it won’t affect them. The fudd often rejects magazines holding more than 10 or 15 rounds, suppressors, AR-15s, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, night vision, body armor, automatic guns, optics on handguns, lights on handguns, and all sorts of other things. Sometimes this results in supporting legislation against such things, but it always CAN lead to supporting bans on such items because fudds are often only supportive of guns from a self-centered perspective. If I have no use for this thing, why does anyone need it?

The primary issue with the fudd is not that they don't like guns, it's that their support for gun rights is based primarily on a hobbyist view and not based in a deeper philosophy about human rights. The fudd enjoying gun ownership as a neat hobby or means of providing food for their family is perfectly acceptable, but if your primary reason for owning a gun is cause it's neat or to avoid grocery stores, the restrictions on guns are actually perfectly acceptable. Alas, these reasons are distant considerations compared to the true purpose of gun ownership, or the bearing of arms. I am, of course, talking about the natural right of self preservation. This sacred right springs out of the idea that each person has inherent value as an agent of divinity itself. If we are created in the image of God, each of us is a sovereign being simply from our human nature. We are representatives of something higher, thus meaning our life has a value worth preserving. The firearm is an extension of the deeper philosophy of self-preservation, which is itself built on the idea of the human being with inherent value, rights, and responsibilities.

If your support for gun rights is built on the above ideas, then knee-jerk, poorly planned gun restrictions get no support from you. The reason for this is simple; gun restrictions are barriers to the most effective means of self-preservation and ought to be rejected outright as an attack on the individual sovereignty of each of us. Even though a restriction may not affect you, it ought to be rejected in recognition of its effect it will have on others who are endowed with all the same rights as you. Even in this role as a gun rights supporter borne naturally out of being a human rights supporter, the philosophical gun owner, there is room for interpretation and individual variance. The difference is the philosophical gun owner will have certain restrictions they will not entertain. There is such a thing as too far for them. For those restrictions which could have merit, there is a starting point of rejecting proposed restrictions until such time that overwhelming evidence is brought to bear in support of their restrictions. And no, multitudes of biased, weak data making vast claims of causal certainty based on tenuous correlation is not overwhelming evidence.

Fudds can be convinced of anything because they have no coherent moral reasoning around gun ownership. If you ask them about what they support, or ask them why they reject a new restriction, their justifications will be timid and shallow. As one makes the case for new restrictions, the fudd, considering the social factors of holding controversial views while also standing on no strong moral foundation, is likely to bend to the whims of the mob. This is the reason why fudds can be convinced to support anything, as long as enough people tell them they’re wrong. They won’t even have to present strong arguments to do so, just get a large group together.

Which brings us to the threat posed by fudds. At best, fudds can be relied upon to be suspicious of new gun regulations. This is where the NRA and its resistance to new laws benefits the pro-gun movement. These people will slow roll and water down new gun laws as much as possible. The problem is this is as far as they will go. The NRA oversaw a century of increasing encroachment on our liberties and their fudd base was all too happy to celebrate their various pyrrhic victories. Today, with the gun rights banner being carried by the likes of the Firearms Policy Coalition, Gun Owners of America, and half a dozen smaller groups, we have actually increased gun rights. But even now, with huge strides being made in freedom, fudds continue to embrace concepts like universal background checks and red flag laws. Fudds like Walz continue to give anti-gun advocates someone to point to as the “good gun owner” who support “common sense” regulations. This obviously has no effect on philosophical gun owners, but it can convince the public at large. This is why we must neve let fudds carry the banner of gun rights ever again. We must also continue to convert fudds to be philosophical gun owners, we must teach them why self-preservation is an important concept and how guns fit into the overall morality of humanity.