MSNBC contributor and Princeton professor Eddie Glaude said Thursday that mass shootings are the result of "toxic masculinity" that teaches people to think they can protect themselves.
Glaude said mass shootings such as the one in Parkland, Fla., Wednesday come from America's "ongoing obsession with guns" that can partly be blamed on the complicity of politicians, business interests, and Americans’ cowardice. He then said the larger problem is the "myth" that citizens can protect themselves instead of relying on the government for security.
"There is a toxic masculinity at the heart of this gun, this gun culture, rooted in a myth about who we take ourselves to be," he said. "Americans, rugged individualism—the government is not going to protect you, we can protect ourselves, right?"
He went on to describe the AR-15 rifle, which was used in this as well as other prominent mass shootings, as symbolically tied to the Minutemen who fought in the American Revolution.
"And there is a way in which this AR-15 is actually the weapon of the Minuteman," Glaude said.
Glaude then called for a moral revolution to change this gun culture.
"There is this whole myth around it, so we have to begin to imagine ourselves differently. I think we need a revolution of value in this country, a moral revolution where we begin to change what we care about," he said.
In addition, he described how other people he knows deal with gun violence more often, which he blamed on the "gun culture that makes people money."