Last week I attended a Deliberative Forum on “Guns in America: How Should We Balance Concerns about Gun Rights and Gun Risks?” at Davidson College, a fine liberal arts institution down the road from Wake Forest. I only learned of the Tuesday night event on Monday morning when Philip Smith, President of the National African American Gun Association, emailed me to let me know he would be in North Carolina the following day. I eagerly registered for the event and made my way to Davidson immediately after class. The event was developed by something called the Deliberative Citizenship Initiative at ..read more

Friends, Please save the date: Saturday, June 1st from 6:00pm to 8:00pm EDT. A fabulous new independent bookstore in Winston-Salem, The Bookhouse in Reynolda Village, will be hosting a book launch event for Gun Curious. Please join me for a celebratory drink and a few words about the book. You can also pick up a copy of Gun Curious that I will be excited to sign for you. I am grateful for all of the support I have received in the decade I have been working on this book and the years of struggling to get it published. This event will allow me to celebrate everyone who has been there with me. I ..read more

The second Light Over Heat Virtual Book Club kicked off last night with a thoughtful discussion of Jonathan Metzl’s recently published book, What We’ve Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms (Amazon affiliate link to help offset my expenses in doing this work). The basic format of the book club is a panel of 12 people discussing the book in a Zoom Webinar, with anyone else interested able to attend and interact with each other and the panel in the webinar chat. For our first meeting, we had 11 of 12 panelists present and 15 people going strong in the chat (of 25 registrants – a solid tu ..read more

Cumulative list of significant products of my work on American gun culture: (23) Gun Curious: A Liberal Professor’s Surprising Journey Inside America’s Gun Culture (Jefferson, NC: Exposit Books). (22) “Gun Culture 2.0: Evolution and Contours of Defensive Gun Ownership in America,” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science , Volume 704, Issue 1 (November 2022, published online first June 2023). (21) “Stand Your Ground laws do not allow you to ‘shoot first and ask questions later,’” The Hill (21 April 2023). (20) “Understanding and Misunderstanding American Gun Culture a ..read more

I had a great conversation with a friend and supporter in the DC area this past weekend. He helped me to brainstorm local venues at which I might talk about my forthcoming book, Gun Curious, as well as people/organizations nationally who might need or want to know about my work. I had high hopes of doing a local and national tour of bookstores in support of Gun Curious this summer. I have since learned that the way my publisher has priced the book with the main US book distributor means almost no local bookstore will stock the book. A bookstore that doesn’t stock a book doesn’t want to do an e ..read more

I accidentally just saw that Barnes & Noble has the NOOK ebook edition of my forthcoming book, Gun Curious, on sale for 25% off today. Bargain priced at $10.49! If you’re not on that platform or ready to commit to buying, I also saw that you can get a sneak peak at the first 27 pages of the book on your web browser by clicking on the arrow on the image of the book cover (see screen cap below). That includes the acknowledgments, preface, glossary of gun terminology, and a portion of the book’s introduction. Enjoy ..read more

Any time the lottery goes over a few hundred million dollars, my wife throws a few bucks toward some tickets. When my mind wanders to the possibility of winning, my first thought is always: That would really disrupt our lives! I am fortunate in so many ways, including having a job I enjoy and earning enough from that job (and my second job as a tennis racket technician). I don’t have to worry about whether or not I win the lottery. On the other hand, I probably don’t think enough about money. I have personally subsidized my research and writing on American gun culture to the tune of tens of th ..read more

Averages are funny. I’ve observed before that the “average” American has approximately one testicle. Of course, this average conceals underlying diversity in the distribution of testicles in the population. At the start of Pistol Metrics One at Apache Solutions Firearms Training, instructor Tim Kelly asked us to introduce ourselves and say something about our expectations for the class. I described myself as an “average American gun owner.” Like testicles, this characterization conceals underlying diversity in my shooting practices and abilities. If “average” here means 50%, then my average is ..read more

Sign up for my email list and get a free e-pub copy of Concealed Carry Revolution! Send me the free e-book! By signing up, you agree to receive periodic emails about my work. Unsubscribe at any time. Your contact information will not be shared or sold. E-pub book can be read in free software like Adobe Digital Editions or Freda. Processing… Success! You're on the list. Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again. WHY AM I DOING THIS? With (a) shadow and actual banning of gun-related accounts on social media platforms, (b) n ..read more

We just successfully completed a four-meeting discussion of Gun Country by Andrew McKevitt, culminating in a Q&A with the author in the final session. Things went so well that we are going to hold a second series of meetings on Jonathan Metzl’s recently published What We’ve Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms (find links to purchase below). Reading and Discussion Schedule I have tried to break the book up into 3 logical parts to go along with our three meeting dates (6:00-7:00pm Eastern Time): Thursday, April 4: Read Introduction, Part 1 (“The Seventeenth C ..read more