I got into gun culture, personally and professionally, not long before Sandy Hook. Hence, not long before Wayne LaPierre’s post-Sandy Hook sound bite, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” (all italics in the original text). Ignoring the appropriately criticized “only,” I have often … Continue reading
Although the entire premise of this blog and my research on Gun Culture 2.0 more generally is that self-defense and concealed carry have been become the core of American gun culture, I do recognize that self-defense and concealed carry have always been a part of American gun culture. Even in the late 18th and early … Continue reading
I had the opportunity recently to review historian Clayton Cramer’s new book, Lock, stock, and barrel: The origins of American gun culture (Praeger, 2018), for CHOICE, a monthly publication of the Association of College & Research Libraries designed to help librarians decide which books to add to their collections. My overall evaluation is that this … Continue reading
Sociologists are “my people,” but when sociologists talk about guns and gun culture, I often feel a profound disconnect from my own experience with and understanding of the same. At a special session on religion and guns/gun culture today at the annual meeting of the Association for the Sociology of Religion in Philadelphia, one of … Continue reading
Quote from opening statement by Jonathan Metzl, organizer of a session on “Gun’s and Violence in Trump’s America” at annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in Philadelphia. Sometimes social scientists studying guns (accidentally?) say what they really think. Continue reading
The 14th Annual National Organization of Church Security and Safety Management National Church Security Conference is a wrap. Three of the four members of our church security collaborative inquiry team attended the conference at Grace Church in Frisco, Texas. I was invited into this project because of my long history of work in the sociology … Continue reading
Reading The New Yorker magazine recently — or, rather, listening to it on Audible because I don’t have much time to read — I was interested to come across a story called “Active Shooter” by humorist David Sedaris. Half-listening, my ears perked up when I heard that he had flown to Greensboro, NC and was … Continue reading
