More than ever, it feels like cultural and political divisions over firearms are tearing the United States apart. Guns are an undeniable and contradictory presence in America, both widely owned and controversial. This book does something remarkable: it promotes insight over animosity in understanding the complex reality of guns in America. It challenges firearms skeptics, entertains enthusiasts, and informs the uncommitted by taking readers on a surprising journey inside gun culture. A lifelong liberal from the San Francisco Bay Area, David Yamane became a new gun owner as a 42-year-old and embarked on an immersive twelve-year study of American gun culture. Weaving together his personal experiences and sociological observations to explain why guns make sense to those who own them, he illuminates defensive gun ownership, the risk of negative outcomes associated with firearms, and what responsible gun ownership looks like in the twenty-first century. This book lowers the heat on America's inflamed arguments about firearms and models the civil discussions we desperately need.

More than ever, it feels like cultural and political divisions over firearms are tearing the United States apart. Guns are an undeniable and contradictory presence in America, both widely owned and controversial. This book does something remarkable: it promotes insight over animosity in understanding the complex reality of guns in America. It challenges firearms skeptics, entertains enthusiasts, and informs the uncommitted by taking readers on a surprising journey inside gun culture. A lifelong liberal from the San Francisco Bay Area, David Yamane became a new gun owner as a 42-year-old and embarked on an immersive twelve-year study of American gun culture. Weaving together his personal experiences and sociological observations to explain why guns make sense to those who own them, he illuminates defensive gun ownership, the risk of negative outcomes associated with firearms, and what responsible gun ownership looks like in the twenty-first century. This book lowers the heat on America's inflamed arguments about firearms and models the civil discussions we desperately need.

"To understand public opinion and political behavior, researchers typically sort people by self-identified groupings such as party identification, race, gender, education and income. This book advances gun owners as a new classification. It demonstrates a "gun gap", which captures the differences between gun owners and non-gun owners, and shows how this gap improves conventional models of political behavior. The gun gap in fact represents an important explanation for voter choice, voter turnout, perceptions of personal and public safety, preferences for gun control policies, and support for the death penalty. Moreover, the gun gap is growing. During the 1970s and 1980s, the gap was small. However, legislative battles over guns in the early 1990s marked a significant growth in the gun gap that continues to this day. The 2016 presidential election witnessed the largest recorded gun gap in history. The gun gap in voter choice was nearly three times larger in 2016 than the gender gap, and exceeded age and education gaps by notable margins. This book also focuses on variation among gun owners. Gun owners are not a monolith but exhibit attitudinal and behavioral differences that can be as large as the gap between gun and non-gun owners. The gun gap thus affords a new and compelling vantage point to evaluate modern mass politics"--

This book is filled with pictures of rare, strange and unusual guns, firearms and other weapons. Lewis Winant was a major dealer and collector of firearms. He assembled here more than 300 pieces. The many strange and freakish gun fabrications that are shown in this book are a tribute to man's inventive energy as applied to the development of arms. From days just past and from days long gone, Lewis Winant has selected over 300 pieces as representative of the oddities that have been constructed to utilize the propelling force of gunpowder. There are pistols in knives and canes; pistols in flashlights, purses, plows, whips, bicycle handlebars, stirrups, keys, pipes, belts, sundials, and other contrivances. In addition there are other types classified as oddities, such as squeezers, knuckle-dusters, alarm and trap. There are combination weapons, turret, chain and harmonica pistols, guns using superposed loads and other variations from the norm. These remarkable firearms come from more than fifty collections.

"A funny, raucous, eye-opening, wholly non-partisan trip in search of Americans who love their guns"--

Understanding America's Gun Culture focuses on building understanding of some of the issues associated with U.S. gun culture and the contemporary debate about the availability and use of guns. This edited volume is unique in that it draws on a wide variety of disciplines and presents perspectives on both sides of the debate. Contributors hail from the academic disciplines of history, social work, criminal justice, sociology, religion, and theological ethics as well as policy agencies. Some chapters examine the issues social-psychologically to help readers better understand dynamics within the debate. Others pose important ethical and philosophical questions about gun culture. Still others address practical policy solutions for enhancing gun safety and minimizing gun violence, even bringing in international perspectives. This second edition includes literature published in the last two years and two new chapters, one focusing on gender within gun culture and another that features a conversation between the editors and an ethnographic researcher with broad expertise in gun culture and research and policy trends. Together, the chapters create a thought-provoking compilation that offers insightful findings, considers theoretical and practical implications, and invites further exploration of the topic.

The liberalization of concealed carry laws over the past several decades represents a dramatic expansion of the right to bear arms in the United States. Concealed Carry Revolution offers the first comprehensive but concise history of the development of these laws, from the restricted era of gun carry in the 19th century, through discretionary permitting systems in the 20th century, to today's shall issue and permitless carry regimes. It also explores variation in the implementation of shall issue concealed carry laws from state to state, especially in terms of training requirements. Accessibly written, this book will appeal to experts and interested others alike.