From The Truth About Guns:

The three components that we identified can be considered to be “cultural” according to the definition used in our analysis. For example, Kohn found that recreational or sporting subcultures, such as hunting, target shooting, or competition shooting “signify certain kinds of values, traditions, and/or ways of life that those gun owners see as part of their cultural heritage” (Kohn, 2006, p. 15). Both Stroud (2016) and Carlson (2015a) showed that ownership of guns for self-defense is not merely pragmatic, but is associated with an entire set of symbolic meanings that encompass personal identity, masculinity, power, freedom, racial attitudes, responsibility, morality, and views of governmental threat.