guns

Trans Texans, Fearing Violence Inspired by Legislation and Rhetoric, Look to Armed Self-Defense

Supporters of gender-related legislation deny that they want to eradicate transgender Texans, but members of that community fear that political rhetoric suggesting they are child abusers will encourage vigilantes who are already staging armed protest at LGBTQ events. Like other Texans, many are arming themselves. 

SCOTUS Decision Means Today's Gun Cases Require Experts on 1790s Weaponry

Legal historians Saul Cornell, Jennifer Tucker and others are in high demand as a legal consultant after the Bruen decision elevated the historical meaning of gun laws to importance in the judicial process. 

Originalism Will Kill Women

by Madiba K. Dennie

"Originalist ideology glorifies an era of blatant oppression along racial, gender, and class lines, transforming that era’s lowest shortcomings into our highest standards."

Why Guns Have Been Shielded from Consumer Safety Regulations for a Half Century

Gun industry lobbyists secured a carveout for firearms from the 1972 legislation establishing the Consumer Product Safety Commission, meaning that federal regulation can't treat guns like any other consumer product. 

My Course Examines Why God and Guns Go Together in America

by Joseph P. Slaughter

Although there are many "peace church" traditions in American Christianity, there are many other historical strains that view violence as an appropriate and necessary means of securing the divinely sanctioned destiny of the nation. 

After Bruen: One Nation, Under Guns

by Ryan Busse

"As bad as America’s gun-violence problem is, it could be about to get much worse," says former gun industry insider turned whistleblower. The selective reading of the historical record advanced by Justice Thomas's opinion would force judges to play historian to decide cases, destabilizing gun law in many ways. 

It's Time to Be Honest About the Partisan Nature of Gun Culture

by Heather Cox Richardson

"The national free-for-all in which we have 120 guns for every 100 people... is deeply tied to the political ideology of today’s Republican Party. It comes from the rise of Movement Conservatism under Ronald Reagan."

Why the States of the Confederacy are the Foundation of American Gun Culture

by Nick Buttrick

White Southerners' efforts to reclaim power after Reconstruction help explain how Americans think about guns: what they're used for, and whom they're used against. 

Can Jurors Hold Alex Jones Accountable?

by Heather Cox Richardson

Alex Jones's defenders on the far right claim the judgment is a political persecution. They must remember that the agents of that verdict weren't government officials, but jurors – American citizens exercising a duty to weigh facts and evidence. Maybe the excesses of MAGA need to meet a jury as well. 

The Geographical Correlation Between Slavery Then and Guns Now

by Matthew Rozsa

A new study finds a strong county-level correlation between the number of slaves owned before the Civil War and the number of guns owned today. Is the answer in the violent history of white supremacy in the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras? 

The Highland Park Horrors Won't Break the Gun Cult's Mythic Hold on America

by Thomas Lecaque and J.L. Tomlin

The myth of the armed citizen has little to do with the American revolution or the vision of the founders. It's all about the right's desire for a revolution to come. 

The Gun Industry Created a New Consumer—Now They're Killing Us

by Ryan Busse

Aiming at a clientele of isolated, insecure young men, the gun industry began to advertise the killing power of its products and encouraging buyers to see this power as a key to their masculine patriotic identities. 

Thomas's Guns Opinion is Ahistorical and Anti-Originalist

by Saul Cornell

"Ultimately, the majority opinion in NYSRPA v. Bruen is one of the most intellectually dishonest and poorly argued decisions in American judicial history."

What SCOTUS's Guns Ruling Means for New York

Researchers suggest that the recently overturned New York state law did make residents significantly safer – from gun suicides – when it was passed more than a century ago. 

The Unity that Follows Tragedy Shouldn't Obscure Buffalo's History of Racism

by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

The invented image of a "City of Good Neighbors" has been a rhetorical one-way street in Buffalo, with calls for unity gaining more traction than calls for justice or equality. 

The Right Celebrated Bernhard Goetz as the Kyle Rittenhouse of the 80s

by Pia Beumer

In the context of economic turmoil, urban crisis, and racial division, a broad swath of the American public made Goetz a heroic symbol of restored white masculinity after he shot four Black teens who asked him for money on the New York subway.

Other Countries Figured Out How to Reduce Gun Massacres

Australia, Britain and Canada took decisive and successful steps to reduce mass shootings since the 1990s. 

Doug Mastriano and the White Christian Nationalist Cult of the AR-15

by Thomas Lecaque

The Pennsylvania Republican nominee for governor has connections to a church that merges radical Christian nationalism with the trappings of the militia movement and a fetishism of assault rifles. 

Pro-Life and Pro-Gun?

by Daniel K. Williams

Gun rights aren't intrinsic to evangelical Christian theology. But they are intrinsic to the individualism through which most white Evangelicals see the world and frame their political identity.

A Former Gun Industry Insider Tells How the AR-15 Conquered America

"About 1999, in the Columbine shooting, the NRA set its political course: We’re in the culture war business."