I was fortunate to start reading Pamela Haag’s newly published book, The Gunning of America: Business and the Making of American Gun Culture, just prior to attending the United States Concealed Carry Association’s second Concealed Carry Expo (CCX) in Atlanta. It got me thinking about “The Gun Industry” just at the right time. Haag’s book …
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 …
Chapter 3 of Jennifer Carlson’s book on legal gun carriers in Michigan explores the role of National Rifle Association trainers and training courses in the construction and dissemination of the ideal of armed citizenship she calls the “citizen-protector.” Put briefly, the “citizen-protector” accepts the responsibility of using lethal force in defense of innocent life as …
In light of several self-defense shootings in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I am going to review some points I’ve already made in a few posts, but obviously bear repeating. Despite the concern about a rising number of civilian justifiable homicides, and criticisms of “Stand Your Ground” laws as allowing people to “shoot first and ask questions later,” …
This year I attended for the first time the NRA Annual Meetings & Exhibits, which were held in Houston, Texas from May 3-5 at the George R. Brown Convention Center. The NRA reported that 82,228 people attended – a record number (previous high was 73,740). They also reported an 86% increase over the previous year …
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, …
Although I recently wrote about the need to think beyond “good guys” and “bad guys,” I don’t mean to say that these labels are meaningless. For example, individuals who are actively involved in criminal activity are clearly bad guys. If those bad guys also have guns, bad things are likely to happen. Indeed, as James … Continue reading
Lois Beckett covers guns in the United States for The Guardian, and recently cross-posted her work on The Trace, because some researchers at Harvard and Northeastern Universities gave these two gun-control-oriented news organizations early access to their findings from a study of gun ownership in the United States. Beckett highlighted one particular finding from the … Continue reading
Two of the books we’re reading in my Sociology of Guns seminar this year are Abigail Kohn’s Shooters: Myths and Realities of America’s Gun Cultures (2004) and Angela Stroud’s Good Guys with Guns: The Appeal and Consequences of Concealed Carry (2016). Both address the issue of good guys and bad guys in interesting and relevant … Continue reading
To: The Trace From: A Liberal Social Scientist Studying Guns Date: 22 September 2016 Re: Your Antipathy Toward Gun Owners In my Sociology of Guns seminar today, we are reading an excerpt from (Harvard Bachelor’s, Cambridge Master’s, and University of California Ph.D.) anthropologist Abigail Kohn’s book, Shooters: Myths and Realities of America’s Gun Cultures. Published … Continue reading
I was fortunate this summer to take a guided tour of the 9/11 Memorial in New York City. The last time I visited New York, the site was just a fenced in hole in the ground. The memorial site is well done, with its design very evocative of the emotions of loss and remembrance. The … Continue reading
In my recent post on “Becoming a Civilian Defender,” I highlighted Massad Ayoob’s position that “mental awareness and preparedness” and “proper use of tactics” are higher priorities in surviving violent encounters than “skill in combatives” and “optimum selection of equipment.” Which is reassuring to me because I do spend more time on the former than the … Continue reading
Although it was published earlier this year, I recently came across an interesting post on Dr. Sherman House’s “Revolver Science” blog called Becoming the Civilian Defender. “Civilian defender” is House’s term for the regular people who take responsibility for their self-defense along the lines of tactical trainer Patrick McNamara’s “Sentinel” or sociologist Jennifer Carlson’s “citizen-protector.” … Continue reading
