Four Hundred Years of Gun Control

Four Hundred Years of Gun Control
Author: Howard Nemerov
Publisher:
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2008
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

Investigative analyst Nemerov compares the rhetoric and the legislation to the reality of how gun control's promises and laws have come to affect real people.

After Gun Violence

After Gun Violence
Author: Craig Rood
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2019-05-20
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0271085452

Mass shootings have become the “new normal” in American life. The same can be said for the public debate that follows a shooting: blame is cast, political postures are assumed, but no meaningful policy changes are enacted. In After Gun Violence, Craig Rood argues that this cycle is the result of a communication problem. Without advocating for specific policies, Rood examines how Americans talk about gun violence and suggests how we might discuss the issues more productively and move beyond our current, tragic impasse. Exploring the ways advocacy groups, community leaders, politicians, and everyday citizens talk about gun violence, Rood reveals how the gun debate is about far more than just guns. He details the role of public memory in shaping the discourse, showing how memories of the victims of gun violence, the Second Amendment, and race relations influence how gun policy is discussed. In doing so, Rood argues that forgetting and misremembering this history leads interest groups and public officials to entrenched positions and political failure and drives the public further apart. Timely and innovative, After Gun Violence advances our understanding of public discourse in an age of gridlock by illustrating how public deliberation and public memory shape and misshape one another. It is a search to understand why public discourse fails and how we can do better.

The Promise

The Promise
Author: Matt Bennett
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 32
Release: 2013-12-18
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0815725876

Bennett chronicles the attempts of the families with children who were shot at Sandy Hook Elementary to change gun laws and explains why it is so difficult to pass effective legislation to limit gun sales. THE BROOKINGS ESSAY: In the spirit of its commitment to high-quality, independent research, the Brookings Institution has commissioned works on major topics of public policy by distinguished authors, including Brookings scholars. The Brookings Essay is a multi-platform product aimed to engage readers in open dialogue and debate. The views expressed, however, are solely those of the author. Available in ebook only.

First Freedom

First Freedom
Author: David Harsanyi
Publisher: Threshold Editions
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2019-10-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 1501174010

From one of America’s smartest political writers comes a “captivating and comprehensive journey” (#1 New York Times bestselling author David Limbaugh) of the United States’ unique and enduring relationship with guns. For America, the gun is a story of innovation, power, violence, character, and freedom. From the founding of the nation to the pioneering of the West, from the freeing of the slaves to the urbanization of the twentieth century, our country has had a complex and lasting relationship with firearms. In First Freedom, nationally syndicated columnist and veteran writer David Harsanyi explores the ways in which firearms have helped preserve our religious, economic, and cultural institutions for over two centuries. From Samuel Colt’s early entrepreneurism to the successful firearms technology that helped make the United States a superpower, the gun is inextricably tied to our exceptional rise. In the vein of popular histories like American Gun, Salt, and Seabiscuit, Harsanyi takes us on a captivating and thrilling ride of Second Amendment history that demonstrates why guns are not only an integral part of America’s past, but also an essential part of its future. First Freedom is “a briskly paced journey…a welcome lesson on how guns and America have shaped each other for four hundred years” (National Review).

Debating Gun Control

Debating Gun Control
Author: David DeGrazia
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2016-09-16
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 019025128X

Americans have a deeply ambivalent relationship to guns. The United States leads all nations in rates of private gun ownership, yet stories of gun tragedies frequent the news, spurring calls for tighter gun regulations. The debate tends to be acrimonious and is frequently misinformed and illogical. The central question is the extent to which federal or state governments should regulate gun ownership and use in the interest of public safety. In this volume, David DeGrazia and Lester Hunt examine this policy question primarily from the standpoint of ethics: What would morally defensible gun policy in the United States look like? Hunt's contribution argues that the U.S. Constitution is right to frame the right to possess a firearm as a fundamental human right. The right to arms is in this way like the right to free speech. More precisely, it is like the right to own and possess a cell phone or an internet connection. A government that banned such weapons would be violating the right of citizens to protect themselves. This is a function that governments do not perform: warding off attacks is not the same thing as punishing perpetrators after an attack has happened. Self-protection is a function that citizens must carry out themselves, either by taking passive steps (such as better locks on one's doors) or active ones (such as acquiring a gun and learning to use it safely and effectively). DeGrazia's contribution features a discussion of the Supreme Court cases asserting a constitutional right to bear arms, an analysis of moral rights, and a critique of the strongest arguments for a moral right to private gun ownership. He follows with both a consequentialist case and a rights-based case for moderately extensive gun control, before discussing gun politics and advancing policy suggestions. In debating this important topic, the authors elevate the quality of discussion from the levels that usually prevail in the public arena. DeGrazia and Hunt work in the discipline of academic philosophy, which prizes intellectual honesty, respect for opposing views, command of relevant facts, and rigorous reasoning. They bring the advantages of philosophical analysis to this highly-charged issue in the service of illuminating the strongest possible cases for and against (relatively extensive) gun regulations and whatever common ground may exist between these positions.

A Well-Regulated Militia

A Well-Regulated Militia
Author: Saul Cornell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2008-08-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199712441

Americans are deeply divided over the Second Amendment. Some passionately assert that the Amendment protects an individual's right to own guns. Others, that it does no more than protect the right of states to maintain militias. Now, in the first and only comprehensive history of this bitter controversy, Saul Cornell proves conclusively that both sides are wrong. Cornell, a leading constitutional historian, shows that the Founders understood the right to bear arms as neither an individual nor a collective right, but as a civic right--an obligation citizens owed to the state to arm themselves so that they could participate in a well regulated militia. He shows how the modern "collective right" view of the Second Amendment, the one federal courts have accepted for over a hundred years, owes more to the Anti-Federalists than the Founders. Likewise, the modern "individual right" view emerged only in the nineteenth century. The modern debate, Cornell reveals, has its roots in the nineteenth century, during America's first and now largely forgotten gun violence crisis, when the earliest gun control laws were passed and the first cases on the right to bear arms came before the courts. Equally important, he describes how the gun control battle took on a new urgency during Reconstruction, when Republicans and Democrats clashed over the meaning of the right to bear arms and its connection to the Fourteenth Amendment. When the Democrats defeated the Republicans, it elevated the "collective rights" theory to preeminence and set the terms for constitutional debate over this issue for the next century. A Well Regulated Militia not only restores the lost meaning of the original Second Amendment, but it provides a clear historical road map that charts how we have arrived at our current impasse over guns. For anyone interested in understanding the great American gun debate, this is a must read.

The Politics of Gun Control

The Politics of Gun Control
Author: Robert J. Spitzer
Publisher:
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2020-10-13
Genre: Gun control
ISBN: 9780367502843

"This book is the classic work on the tumultuous national gun debate in the US. The eighth edition brings together the latest research in gun politics, policy, law, history, and criminology and covers new topics including the Second Amendment sanctuary movement, the connection between the concealed gun carry movement and crime, the cascading troubles besetting the National Rifle Association coupled with a surging gun safety movement, the bump stock controversy, and the rise of red flag laws. This book provides a comprehensive and accessible source widely used by scholars, journalists, and in classrooms. New to the Eighth Edition - Covers the ascendance of the Second Amendment sanctuary and gun safety movements, resulting from heinous shootings in Las Vegas and Parkland, Florida. Tracks the financial, political, and legal crises that threaten the dominance of the National Rifle Association. Examines new policy measures including universal background checks, limits on large capacity ammunition magazines, the bump stock controversy, and "red flag" laws, among others"--

Reducing Gun Violence in America

Reducing Gun Violence in America
Author: Daniel W. Webster
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2013-01-28
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1421411113

The book includes an analysis of the constitutionality of many recommended policies and data from a national public opinion poll that reflects support among the majority of Americans—including gun owners—for stronger gun policies.

The Tyranny of Gun Control

The Tyranny of Gun Control
Author: Richard M. Ebeling and Jacob G. Hornberger
Publisher: The Future of Freedom Foundation
Total Pages: 180
Release: 1997-01-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1890687057

The right to own firearms is one of the most fundamental, inherent rights of man. Not only do individuals have the natural, God-given right to own property, they also have the basic right to defend themselves from murderers, rapists, thieves, burglars, and other violent, antisocial people in society. Most important, individuals have the right to defend themselves from the oppressive, tyrannical acts of their own government. This book shows why gun control poses an enormous threat to the liberty of the American people. It is a must read for anyone concerned about the future direction of freedom in the United States.

Disarmed

Disarmed
Author: Kristin Goss
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2010-12-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1400837758

More than any other advanced industrial democracy, the United States is besieged by firearms violence. Each year, some 30,000 people die by gunfire. Over the course of its history, the nation has witnessed the murders of beloved public figures; massacres in workplaces and schools; and epidemics of gun violence that terrorize neighborhoods and claim tens of thousands of lives. Commanding majorities of Americans voice support for stricter controls on firearms. Yet they have never mounted a true national movement for gun control. Why? Disarmed unravels this paradox. Based on historical archives, interviews, and original survey evidence, Kristin Goss suggests that the gun control campaign has been stymied by a combination of factors, including the inability to secure patronage resources, the difficulties in articulating a message that would resonate with supporters, and strategic decisions made in the name of effective policy. The power of the so-called gun lobby has played an important role in hobbling the gun-control campaign, but that is not the entire story. Instead of pursuing a strategy of incremental change on the local and state levels, gun control advocates have sought national policies. Some 40% of state gun control laws predate the 1970s, and the gun lobby has systematically weakened even these longstanding restrictions. A compelling and engagingly written look at one of America's most divisive political issues, Disarmed illuminates the organizational, historical, and policy-related factors that constrain mass mobilization, and brings into sharp relief the agonizing dilemmas faced by advocates of gun control and other issues in the United States.