A. J. Somerset
Teoksen Arms: The Culture and Credo of the Gun tekijä
Tietoja tekijästä
Tekijän teokset
Merkitty avainsanalla
Yleistieto
- Sukupuoli
- male
- Kansalaisuus
- Canada
- Asuinpaikat
- London, Ontario, Canada
- Palkinnot ja kunnianosoitukset
- Metcalf-Rooke Award (2009)
Jäseniä
Kirja-arvosteluja
Palkinnot
Tilastot
- Teokset
- 3
- Jäseniä
- 38
- Suosituimmuussija
- #383,442
- Arvio (tähdet)
- 4.6
- Kirja-arvosteluja
- 2
- ISBN:t
- 5
Gun politics in the U.S. is a very polarized topic and I think A. J., who is Canadian, was remarkably even-handed in his examination of why that is. Even-handed, but also direct and cutting through the many propagandistic talking points on gun rights and gun control, clearly calling them out for the nonsense they are.
I grew up in rural Oregon and I have many acquaintances who own guns and have bought into the gun nut culture in one way or another which frustrates me. Once in a while I can get one of them to admit that the issue is complicated, and it feels really gratifying. If only we could talk with and not past each other!
This book was like a quest, a search for a holy grail, the decoder ring that explained gun nuttery. The author, a former gun instructor with the Canadian armed forces, was getting back into shooting after a hiatus of many years, and found that his hobby had become radicalized, and he set out to figure out why. A lot of the why tended to be ideas from their neighbor to the south. Much of the book is about specifically U.S. political history, court decisions, state initiatives, etc and their impact on the loosely affiliated group of guys who like guns.
I learned a lot from this book. Much of what I learned is that the facile arguments I have somewhat identified with on the anti-gun side are simplistic and flawed. But I also got a really entertaining tour through the pro-gun Fever swamps.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who lives in North America and is at all interested in our gun problems. Or, is interested in guns at all. I feel that the last greatest hope we have to move forward on finding sane public policies on gun control is the gun owners and enthusiasts who do not buy into paranoid hype. If they can unite with those of us who don't want to own guns, against the poisonous far right gun nut culture, we can make our country safer for everyone while people can still go hunting, target shooting, civil war reenacting, etc.… (lisätietoja)