‘Real men can use gun just as they do iPhone’: Why Burgess Owens’ comments are a hangover of Trump era

Burgess Owens also slammed pharmaceutical companies’ recent announcement that clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccines for children would be expanded. Image courtesy: @BurgessOwens

US Congressman Burgess Owens raised eyebrows over the weekend after giving a speech about how “real men” should, among other things, “know how to use a gun just as they an iPhone”, take a stand against trans athletes and speak up against COVID-19 vaccine trials for infants and children.

“Real men when evil steps up to the doorstep do not get on their knees and beg for mercy for the wife and kids. He’s prepared himself. Just like he knows how to use an iPhone he knows how to use a gun, and he shows up and takes care of business,” said Owens, speaking Turning Point USA’s America First in Phoenix, as per Deseret News.

“He’s determined to never, never allow his wife and kids to look at him as a whiner, weenie and wimp,” Owens added.

Owens also slammed pharmaceutical companies’ recent announcement that clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccines for children would be expanded.

“Real men do not stand silent as our kids are being used as guinea pigs,” Owens said. “This is a father who’s a coward, he’s a whiner, weenie and wimp that lets a 6-month little baby be vaccinated so that CNN feels good about it. Unbelievable.”

Owens’ comments are a perfect encapsulation of the Trump era hangover that’s currently engulfing US and conservative politics. But before we get to that, let’s briefly examine who he is, where he made the speech:

Who he is

Owens is a former NFL player who helped the Oakland Raiders win the 1980 Super Bowl and later converted to the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon church. He is a vocal supporter of former US president Donald Trump and represents Utah’s fourth district.

Owens is a frequent Fox News guest who has come under scrutiny for other media appearances linked to QAnon, a baseless conspiracy theory that has increasingly crept into US politics. He is the author of the book Liberalism or How to Turn Good Men into Whiners, Weenies and Wimps.

Where he made the speech

Owens made the speech at Turning Point USA, a conference founded by radio show host Charlie Kirk. The conference advocates for conservative values in schools and on college campuses. Owens spoke over the weekend alongside conservative luminaries such as Donald Trump Jr., Tucker Carlson and Kyle Rittenhouse, who was recently acquitted of all charges in the deadly Kenosha shootings and who received a standing ovation from attendees.

Why Owens’ comments are a hangover of Trump era

While the former US president is largely gone from the US political scene – courtesy of his social media ban and his reluctance to leave his abode of Mar-a-Lago in Florida – his presence continues to be felt (this, even as he threatens a 2024 presidential bid).  It was Trump, as de facto head of the Republican Party, who set the table for conservatives like Owens to follow his lead on issues such as gun control, trans athletes and COVID-19 .

While gun control has for long been a third rail of US politics, the country has suffered a growing number of mass killings these past few years under Donald Trump with 2019 setting a record.

Parsing Trump’s statements on guns and gun control can be an exercise in futility. In the aftermath of repeated mass shootings and killings, the former president veered from making statements like ‘take the guns first’ to promoting arming teachers in the classroom and claiming he “saved the 2^nd Amendment”. This, in between imposing a ban on “bump stocks” which are used to convert semi-automatic guns into automatic weapons. In the final tally though, Trump remained a staunch ally of the powerful NRA (which incidentally spent approximately $30 million on his 2016 presidential campaign) until the end of his term.

On trans athletes, Trump’s feelings are as clear as day. In February, the former president in his Conservative Political Action Conference speech – his first public address since leaving the White House – claimed that women’s sports “will die” if trans athletes are allowed to compete.

“A lot of new records are being broken in women’s sports – hate to say that ladies – but got a lot of new records that are being shattered,” he said as per Business Insider. “Young girls and women are incensed that they are now being forced to compete against those who are biological males. That is not good for women,” he added as per Independent.

For conservatives, when it comes to COVID-19 vaccines, the die was cast long ago. In the early stages of the pandemic in fact, and by Trump itself when he dismissed the virus as “nothing more than a common cold” despite privately speaking of how deadly it was. And despite taking massive credit for the US’ vaccination programme, Trump continues to reject calls to encourage his followers to get the vaccine.

In fact, Trump had to face hostility from a section of his own adoring audience on Sunday when he revealed he’d taken the booster shot. “Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t,” Trump says in response to the audience booing, as per CNN. “That’s all right, it’s a very tiny group over there.”

As long as conservatives like Owens continue to follow the former president’s lead, the culture war issues of gun control, trans athletes and sadly, even COVID-19 , will continue to linger as a Trump era hangover.