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"The author clearly and persuasively challenges the shibboleth that the Second Amendment was designed to protect individual gun possession." —Choice
An in-depth analysis of the folklore surrounding gun use and the state of the debate in today's political climate.
Few social issues have produced more exaggerated claims and contention among Americans than the struggle to control gun violence. Fueling the emotional fire in debates between firearm groups such as the National Rifle Association (NRA) and gun control advocates is the dispute over the importance of guns in American culture. Is the fondness for firearms truly part of a venerable American tradition, one to be observed with very few limits? In this fascinating inquiry, Alexander DeConde delves into the myths and politics regarding gun keeping, as well as the controversies over gun use, crime, and policing from the early days of the republic to the present.
DeConde explains why the United States, with all its resources, fails repeatedly to confine gun violence to the same low levels achieved by other advanced democracies.
"A sweeping overview of the social, legal, and political clashes that guns have inspired from the colonial era to the present."— Political Science Quarterly
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Alexander DeConde is Professor of History, Emeritus, at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of Ethnicity, Race, and American Foreign Policy and Presidential Machismo: Executive Authority, Military Intervention, and Foreign Relations, both published by Northeastern University Press.
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