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, …
Over 7 years and nearly 700 posts on this blog, I have gotten deeper and deeper into American gun culture. I began blogging in 2012 as a complete outsider, but traveling to the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s SHOT Show last month, I realized that I have “gone native,” as anthropologists say. (At the SHOT Show, … Continue reading
I first met John Correia back when he only had 600,000 subscribers to his Active Self Protection YouTube page (he now has 1.3 MILLION). Back when he was still pastoring a church. Back when Active Self Protection was a side hustle. Back before he was profiled in The Atlantic magazine. Amazingly, all that was just … Continue reading
Some readers of this blog know I have a side hustle stringing tennis rackets, including for Wake Forest University’s men’s tennis team. In 2016, the team played in the NCAA Championships in Tulsa, Oklahoma. During my free time, my wife and I visited the site of the Tulsa race massacre of 1921 in which whites … Continue reading
I have previously attended the National Rifle Association annual meeting twice. Exhibitors and attendees at that show are not very diverse. In my estimation, the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show is even less diverse. The faces in the crowd in the picture above and every other picture I have … Continue reading
Because I am mostly concerned with the practical aspects of guns — how they are used — I do not focus on the symbolic dimension of guns as much as many, like Jennifer Carlson (gun carriers see themselves as “citizen-protectors”), Angela Stroud (concealed carry is an expression of “hegemonic masculinity”), or Joan Burbick (gun shows … Continue reading
The official colors of Wake Forest University are old gold and black. I couldn’t help but notice a number of firearms at the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show in the school colors. OK, so not every gun is exactly old gold, but close enough. Roberts Defense also sells … Continue reading
Beyond the many guns — like the Glock 48 and 43X and new Mossberg MC1sc pistol — and the shooting stars seen at SHOT Show Industry Day at the Range, there were any number of other people and things I saw that merit a brief mention. Ashley Hlebinsky is not a shooting star, per se, … Continue reading
