Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions in our national gun control debate. The issue is not whether we should have gun control laws in this country — or what they should be.The issue, really, is why so many white middle-American men view any effort to regulate firearms as an assault on their very identity – and thus fight sane and rational laws as if their lives and liberties were at stake.

Turns out the NRA’s logic is BS.  The facts are that from 1994, when the Brady Gun Safety Act went into effect, through 2010, background checks stopped 2,079,000 applications for firearms transfer through licensed firearm dealers.  In 2010 alone, about 73,000 applications were denied by the FBI and about 80,000 by state and local agencies.  47 percent of the FBI denials were because of felony convictions or because the applicant was a fugitive from justice; 31 percent of the state and local denials were to convicted or indicted felons.

Currently, the U.S. ranks number-one in countries with the highest rate of civilian gun ownership per capita, according to the Estimating Civilian Owned Firearms report published by Small Arms Survey  in September 2011. Using a scale of comparison, Americans own more guns than Israelis or Iraqis living in the embattled Middle East. Furthermore, a 2013 Small Arms Survey report stated that between 1986 and 2010, gun manufacturers have produced more than 98 million pistols, revolvers, rifles and shotguns for domestic sale. 

For several of director Czubek’s subjects, vulnerability is their overriding concern.  This is never more present than in Sarah McKinley’s case.  A very young, slender mother—recently widowed by a cancer-ridden husband—she presides alone over a desolate 2,000 acre spread in Blanchard, Oklahoma, wide-eyed over the immensity of her loneliness. With one hand around her weapon and another around the baby, she eyes the rubble from a recent break-in.  She stood her ground and shot the intruder dead.  Now she must live with the psychic consequences of her actions.