Shooting a gun is relatively easy. The number of toddlers who have shot and killed themselves and others is ample evidence of that. Shooting a gun with enough accuracy for most self-defense situations is also simpler than it might seem. Ask those who took basic gun training courses with Tom Givens and successfully defended their … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
I was skeptical when Paul Carlson of Safety Solutions Academy invited me to attend a shoothouse course he was putting together for members of the gun media at Alliance Police Training. In addition to not exactly being a member of the gun media, the focus of my work is specifically on civilian armed self-defense as … Continue reading
Almost 8 years ago, I shot a gun for the first time, not because I was interested in guns, but because I was afraid of them. Exactly 6 years ago, in November 2012, I took my first gun training course: Massad (Mas) Ayoob’s MAG-40. (See also the funny and informative case of Mas testing the … Continue reading
I received some pleasant news from the publisher of my article on “The Sociology of U.S. Gun Culture” this morning: It is one of the Top 20 most downloaded articles published since July 2016. In the article I argue that there really is no existing sociology of gun culture because we have been too focused … Continue reading
I found some extra material that got left out of my first three posts (here and here and here) reflecting on Matthew Ford’s study of military small arms innovation. So this is a bonus post reflecting on the idea of “Gucci kit” applied to those who carry concealed. Recalling Ford’s definition of Gucci kit (taken … Continue reading
This is the third of three posts reflecting on the civilian defensive firearms lessons to be learned from Matthew Ford’s book about military small arms innovations. Part 1 considered balancing competing features of weapons, ballistic science and lethality, and Part 2 looked at the implications of how the “battlefield” is defined. This third post considers … Continue reading
