Guns and White Evangelicals
From The Revealer by The Center for Religion and Media at NYU
January 28, 2026 · 49 min
About this episode
The episode explores the connection between white evangelicals and their beliefs about gun ownership and access.
Why do so many white evangelicals, the religious group with the highest gun ownership rates in the country, believe they have a “God-given right” to possess firearms? William Kole, author of In Guns We Trust: The Unholy Trinity of White Evangelicals, Politics, and Firearms, joins us to discuss evangelicals’ fixation with gun access. Why don’t mass shootings, even in schools, provoke more than “thoughts and prayers” from most evangelicals? How do ideas about race and gender contribute to white evangelicals’ insistence on having unrestricted access to firearms? And, what can we do to address America’s gun problems and get enough evangelicals on board so that it will have a real political impact?
People in this episode
Guest: William Kole
Topics covered
- gun ownership
- white evangelicals
- mass shootings
- race and gender
- political impact
- firearms access
Keywords
- gun rights
- evangelicals
- mass shootings
- firearms
- politics
- race
- gender
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: In Guns We Trust: The Unholy Trinity of White Evangelicals, Politics, and Firearms
Places: America
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