The rifle brought about the birth of these United States

 From Geoff Mann "Give your mom a gun" (LRB Vol. 46 No. 5 · 7 March 2024)

Guns are central to America’s mythology. In the patriotic version of its history, from an imaginary ‘revolution’ to westward conquest to cops keeping the streets safe, guns are the tools of America’s self-creation. ‘This country was born with a rifle in its hand,’ Philip Sharpe wrote in The Rifle in America (1938). ‘As a matter of fact, the rifle brought about the birth of these United States. The United States and the rifle are inseparable.’ 

"This country was born with a rifle in its hand" which is how the white colonialists established the Racial Contract in America.