Utilitarian, neutral tool?

Tom Diaz says the firearm is less a utilitarian tool than an icon, so laden with implicit values its hold over its devotees approaches the mystical. In this context, guns are not simply mechanical devices to be used as means to such ends as self-defense, target competition, or hunting, but function as tribal totems embodying a complex of values that includes manliness (defined in warrior terms), individual liberty (as against the state), self-reliance (as against everyone else), and the administration of preemptory justice by ad hoc personal means (shooting “bad” people).—America and Its Guns: A Theological Expose, pages 115–16

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What do you think? Is he correct? If your initial response is, "B.S!" then he might have hit the nail on the head...
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