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
Earlier this year, Mike Pearl from Vice Media contacted me about a piece he was writing on the topic, “How scared should I be of my own gun?” I don’t respond to every media request, but I had some things to say on the topic. We spoke for 45 minutes and to his credit Pearl … Continue reading
To: The Trace From: A Liberal Social Scientist Studying Guns Date: 22 September 2016 Re: Your Antipathy Toward Gun Owners In my Sociology of Guns seminar today, we are reading an excerpt from (Harvard Bachelor’s, Cambridge Master’s, and University of California Ph.D.) anthropologist Abigail Kohn’s book, Shooters: Myths and Realities of America’s Gun Cultures. Published … Continue reading
Unique among the industrial democracies of the modern West, the United States is both “awash in a sea of faith” (to quote historian Jon Butler) and awash in a sea of firearms (as we know from the Small Arms Survey). I have a scholarly paper forthcoming in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion that empirically … Continue reading
I honestly haven’t been keeping close tabs on what some people are saying is an increase in knife violence in New York City, which they attribute to the very strict gun control laws there. But the buzz surrounding this reminded me of a presentation I went to at the annual meeting of the American Society … Continue reading
I had hoped to post some of my own thoughts on mass shootings this week, but the last week of class and other responsibilities overwhelmed me. Which is probably for the best because I am never anxious to speak publicly about a topic in the immediate of a major event. Fortunately, scrolling through my Facebook … Continue reading
As noted previously, I recently served as a discussant on a panel on gun violence at the American Society of Criminology annual meeting. Among the three papers was a very interesting one by Gary Kleck on large-capacity magazines and mass shootings. In my discussion of the papers I began by reflecting on the concept of … Continue reading
