This past summer I was asked to write the concluding chapter for a book on Understanding American Gun Culture. The book was the product of a conference I wanted but was unable to attend and so I was happy to get involved after the fact. The book’s editors asked me to ponder the question, what’s … Continue reading
In my previous two posts (one on The Void and one on Silhouette) I have reflected on the ways in which photographer Garrett O. Hansen’s series of works collectively called “HAIL” both represent and misrepresent gun culture. For the final works in this series, “Memorial,” Hansen uses 12 panels each to depict the actual monthly … Continue reading
The open-access, online book review site, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books, has recently published a review I wrote of Juvenile Offenders and Guns: Voices Behind Gun Violence by Diane Marano. (Note: I grant that “gun violence” is a problematic category but I am not going to engage that issue here.) Although I have said … 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
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
