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” … Continue reading
On the occasion of my 5th blog-iversary recently, I listed my 10 most popular blog posts ever. To my surprise, my 9th most popular blog post ever was published just 2 months ago, which means it got strong immediate readership. It was my second take on what I have called “The Problem with Averages in … Continue reading
In doing some background reading for my recent post on gun ownership statistics, I came across a very interesting guest column on the New York Times’ “The Upshot” page. It was written by David Rothschild, an economist at Microsoft Research (PredictWise.com), and Sharad Goel, an assistant professor at Stanford University in the School of Engineering. … Continue reading
Although I have already written more about gun ownership statistics than I care to (here and here and here and here), the questions of who owns how many guns and how we know are important. So I took note when sociologist Dan Hirschman posted today on the scatterplot blog that the data for the 2016 … Continue reading
When I tell my more liberal friends I am studying “gun culture,” they frequently hear me saying “gun violence,” since their primary association with guns is with violence. Although my interest in guns is actually in the culture that surrounds it rather than violence, I still spend a few days on “gun violence” — firearm-related … Continue reading
Recently, a major national research organization asked for my input on a study of gun owners they are launching soon. Since I have taken advantage of their work often in the past, I was happy to share my time and thoughts with them. Of course I emphasized the importance of trying to understand the phenomenon … Continue reading
Before I began studying American gun culture, I spent 20+ years studying American religion. So it is perfectly natural that I would try to bridge the two interests. It is also the case that people often connect religion and guns in America. This, too, makes sense because the United States today is one of the … Continue reading
