… where gun ownership is mandatory, has begun to attract attention from social theorists as well as policy makers due to its sudden, exponential, growth.
The so-called ‘Flakellants’ (pronounced “flak,” not “flake”) derive their identity from the medieval Flagellants, groups of religious fanatics who marched – and march: flagellants continue to exist – through the towns and cities of Europe half naked, scourging themselves bloody with penitential whips in a public, masochistic act of self-mortification.
Contemporary “Flak”ellants – in a behavior reflecting what David French describes as “a form of gun idolatry or gun fetish that treats a gun as a quasi-sacred object” – march semi-nude in public thoroughfares while scourging themselves with guns in the shape of crucifixes.
Last week, a three thousand-strong contingent of Flakellants took to the streets of Provo (for modesty’s sake, women Flakellants wear flak jackets), their numbers increasing as local citizens spontaneously grabbed their own guns, attached heavy ropes to them, and pistol-whipped themselves.
All Flakellant marches end with at least one public suicide as an act of ultimate sacrifice/penitence; these are apparently never planned but rather the result of an overflow of spiritual/gun-bearing fervor. “Of course, it’s a sin,” one of the Provo marchers commented to a reporter covering the event, “but you can’t stop someone determined to bow to the power of the gun. For us, the pouring out of their blood in front of us is a communion as powerful as the Blood of the Lamb. We wet our fingers with this sacred outpouring and mark our foreheads and our gun crosses with it.”
The next Flakellant march (co-sponsored by the Catholic organization Rifle-Scopus Dei) will be in two days, in Salt Lake City, led by Tennessee Representative Andrew Ogles. It is expected to attract at least ten thousand participants.
