Guns, Crime, and Punishment in America

by Bernard E. Harcourt

Overview

Guns, Crime, and Punishment in America assembles a diverse group of the nation's leading authorities on guns and gun violence to present the most up-to-date research currently available. Exploring such controversial issues as gun- tracing initiatives, the possible extension of the Brady Bill, gun-oriented policing, federal law enforcement initiatives such as "Project Exile," and civil litigation against gun manufacturers, Guns, Crime, and Punishment in America embarks upon a more balanced and nuanced discussion about firearms. Though the book's contributors operate from a wide variety of political perspectives and methodological approaches, a central desire unifies the book: to end the extreme polarization that currently characterizes the debate on guns, and generate reasonable and practical gun policies in the United States.
Contributors: Sara Sun Beale, Anthony A. Braga, Carl Bogus, Jenny Berrien, Abigail Caplovitz, Philip J. Cook, Garth Davies, Christopher Eisgruber, Jeffrey A. Fagan, Mark Geistfeld, James B. Jacobs, Dan M. Kahan, David Kairys, David B. Kopel, Sanford Levinson, Jens Ludwig, Daniel C. Richman, Jerome H. Skolnick, Richard Slotkin, Chris Winship, and Franklin E. Zimring.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814736555
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	07/01/2003
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	436
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.13(d)

About the Author

Bernard E. Harcourt is Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School, and the author of Illusion of Order: The False Promise of Broken Windows Policing.

Table of Contents

	Introduction	1
Part I	The Great American Gun Debates
A.	Perspectives
1	Continuity and Change in the American Gun Debate	29
2	The Tyranny of Econometrics and the Circumspection of Liberalism: Two Problems with the Gun Debate	44
3	Equalizers: The Cult of the Colt in American Culture	54
4	"Hell no, you can't jack that fool. He stays strapped. He's strapped all the time": Talking about Guns at an All-Boy Correctional Facility in Tucson, Arizona	68
B.	The Second Amendment
5	The Historians' Counterattack: Some Reflections on the Historiography of the Second Amendment	91
6	What Does the Second Amendment Restrict? A Collective-Rights Analysis	117
7	Moral Principle and the Second Amendment	140
Part II	Policy Interventions in the Gun Arena
A.	Gun Tracing
8	New Law Enforcement Uses for Comprehensive Firearms Trace Data	163
B.	Gun-Oriented Policing and Community Interventions
9	Policing Guns: Order Maintenance and Crime Control in New York	191
10	Should We Have Faith in the Churches? The Ten-Point Coalition's Effect on Boston's Youth Violence	222
11	Guns, Drugs, and Profiling: Ways to Target Guns and Minimize Racial Profiling	249
C.	The Brady Approach
12	The Effects of the Brady Act on Gun Violence	283
13	Gun Shows and Gun Controls	299
D.	Federal Enforcement of Gun Laws
14	Project Exile and the Allocation of Federal Law Enforcement Authority	321
15	The Unintended Consequences of Enhancing Gun Penalties	343
E.	Civil Litigation Against Gun Manufacturers
16	The Cities Take the Initiative: Public Nuisance Lawsuits against Handgun Manufacturers	363
17	Tort Law and Criminal Behavior (Guns)	384
18	Guns and Burglars	400
	Contributors	421
	Acknowledgments	430
	Index	431

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"A gathering of well known scholars and policy experts, Harcourt's Guns, Crime, and Punishment in America is an interesting and captivating read. Students of criminal justice will find the book current in analysis as well as thought provoking. Policy types will find it thoughtful and sophisticated. This book is a collection of ideas, not a hodgepodge of topically related articles. Taken together, they make for a very satisfying book."

-The Law and Politics Book Review

Editorial Reviews

"A gathering of well known scholars and policy experts, Harcourt's Guns, Crime, and Punishment in America is an interesting and captivating read. Students of criminal justice will find the book current in analysis as well as thought provoking. Policy types will find it thoughtful and sophisticated. This book is a collection of ideas, not a hodgepodge of topically related articles. Taken together, they make for a very satisfying book."

The Law and Politics Book Review

"A gathering of well known scholars and policy experts, Harcourt's Guns, Crime, and Punishment in America is an interesting and captivating read. Students of criminal justice will find the book current in analysis as well as thought provoking. Policy types will find it thoughtful and sophisticated. This book is a collection of ideas, not a hodgepodge of topically related articles. Taken together, they make for a very satisfying book.”

-The Law and Politics Book Review

From the Publisher