Before I sneak off to SHOT Show next week, I will be starting the spring semester at Wake Forest University. As I have for the past four academic years, I will be teaching my Sociology of Guns seminar. A copy of this year’s syllabus is available HERE. One modification I made in Version 5.0 was …
I have said it before, on this blog and in scholarly publications (also here), but I will say it again: It is no exaggeration to say that sociologists are only interested in guns and gun culture to the extent that they are related to crime, violence, and social inequality. Now, to be fair, sociologists are …
Most podcasts on which I appear are streamed and recorded live. Celine Gounder’s podcast, by contrast, is more highly produced. She interviewed me in early April for the new season of “In Sickness and In Health” which focuses on gun violence. When she reached out to me, I made clear that my scholarly expertise is …
I am very happy to report that my second academic article on gun culture was published today in the journal Sociology Compass (my first was on religion and gun ownership). Thanks to a generous grant from Wake Forest University’s ZSR Library and the Office of Research & Sponsored Programs, “The Sociology of U.S. Gun Culture” …
I love whisk(e)y. My love knows almost no boundaries. American, Canadian, Indian, Irish, Japanese, Scotch, Texas. Barley, corn, rye, wheat. Neat, rocks, mixed. To fuel my love I have been reading Reid Mitenbuler’s recent book, Bourbon Empire: The Past and Future of America’s Whiskey. Early on, Mitenbuler introduces the first alcohol distiller among the British …
I recently completed the Massad Ayoob Group’s MAG-40 course, “Armed Citizens’ Rules of Engagement,” co-sponsored by Derby Guns of Scottsdale (shout out to Kate and Jim Kreuger!). This is the course Ayoob used to teach under the auspices of the Lethal Force Institute in New Hampshire. (A review of the LFI course written in 1999 …
For the first 42 years of life, I had never even handled a real gun, much less shot one. My experience was limited to shooting BB guns as a teenagers. We would usually shoot at cans, but one day I took aim at a bird that was too far away to hit, pulled the trigger, …
I have written about this issue previously, but the recent court ruling in Connecticut allowing a lawsuit against Remington blaming their advertising for the Sandy Hook massacre to go forward forces me to revisit it. As dumb as many people thought Bushmaster’s “man card” ad was, if it is supposed to be responsible for mass … Continue reading
The past two weeks in my Sociology of Guns seminar we have been talking about the use of lethal force, one week focused on police and one week on non-sworn civilians. Given my background, I cannot speak to either of these issues other than through scholarly studies. So I was pleased to bring in someone … Continue reading
One of the books I am using in class this semester was published in 2014, which in the academic world is fairly recent. But in the world of concealed carry laws, it is ancient. The authors of my text observed that five states at the time did not require a permit to legally carry a … Continue reading
Yesterday, I met The American Dream in East Texas. (Not Dusty Rhodes, RIP). I met a man in East Texas during a focus group interview on safety and security in houses of worship. This story is about the man, not safety and security, not guns or gun culture. But it is a story I very … Continue reading
Judging from what I saw at the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s 2019 Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show, concealed carry products for women continue to be a hot retail category. I discussed this in my series of posts from the 2016 United States Concealed Carry Association (USCCA) Concealed Carry Expo and in the book … Continue reading
Though I am excited to have launched a new blog recently, GUN CURIOUS, I have not forgotten about this blog and my unfinished series of posts on the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show last month. The first gun I owned that I shot regularly was my CZ Redhead 12 … Continue reading
I have previously observed that the National Opinion Research Center’s General Social Survey (GSS) underestimates the rate of gun ownership in the United States. This is a product both of non-response (people who do not answer the “do you own a gun question”) and denial (false negatives) among people who are actually gun owners. Iowa … Continue reading
