I have known for a couple of months but did not want to say anything until it was officially announced: I am giving the lunch presentation this year at the National Firearms Law Seminar in Indianapolis, April 26th. I will be using my own experience of becoming an armed American to shed light on the … Continue reading
As I noted yesterday, I was a guest recently on the Texas Public Radio live call-in program “The Source.” Throughout the show, the host David Martin Davies referred to “common sense” gun laws and fortunately, before the show ended, I was able to formulate a thought in response: If we want to build some consensus, … Continue reading
In my last post, I thought about the distinction between good guys with gun and bad guys with guns, and whether we can make that distinction only after someone has acted good or bad with a gun (“By their fruits ye shall know them”). The most recent incident spurring these thoughts is the mattress-in-dumpster shooting … Continue reading
Last year I was invited to serve as one of the “critics” in an “author-meets-critics” session at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in Montreal. The author in question is someone whose work I admire, Jennifer Carlson, so I gladly accepted. Putting together my list of top books on guns in America, I … Continue reading
Earlier this week I recorded segments for a future episode of Dr. Celine Gounder’s “In Sickness and In Health” podcast. Her third season in production is on gun violence as a public health problem. I made clear to her that my scholarly expertise is on American gun culture not gun violence, and she welcomed me … Continue reading
I don’t re-blog much on this site, and I definitely try to stay out of politics (though sometimes I can’t help myself). Lately more than ever. To be perfectly honest, I have grown weary of the culture war rhetoric on both major sides of the debate over guns in American society. I don’t want to … Continue reading
Not what I wanted to do this morning, but when I saw a fellow sociologist Tweet about a New York Times story on “How to Buy a Gun in 15 Countries,” I couldn’t help myself. According to the Times, “Many Americans can buy a gun in less than an hour. In some countries, the process … Continue reading
