How America Got Its Guns: A History of the Gun Violence Crisis

by William Briggs

Overview

In the United States more than thirty thousand deaths each year can be attributed to firearms. This book on the history of guns in America examines the Second Amendment and the laws and court cases it has spawned. The author's thorough and objective account shows the complexities of the issue, which are so often reduced to bumper-sticker slogans, and suggests ways in which gun violence in this country can be reduced.

Briggs profiles not only protagonists in the national gun debate but also ordinary people, showing the ways guns have become part of the lives of many Americans. Among them are gays and lesbians, women, competitive trapshooters, people in the gun-rights and gun-control trenches, the NRA's first female president, and the most successful gunsmith in American history.

Balanced and painstakingly unbiased, Briggs's account provides the background needed to follow gun politics in America and to understand the gun culture in which we are likely to live for the foreseeable future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826358134
Publisher:	University of New Mexico Press
Publication date:	05/01/2017
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

William Briggs is a professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of Colorado at Denver.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

1 Guns in America 1

2 The Advantage of Being Armed 15

3 Number Games 27

4 Twenty-Seven Words 41

5 Guns in American Lives 57

6 Interpreting the Second Amendment 75

7 Magic Never Made a Gun 91

8 The Other Amendment 109

9 Playing by the Rules 123

10 Colfax and Cruikshank 133

11 Enforcement! 149

12 A Century Passes 165

13 Carry, Stand, and Defend 181

14 The Court Speaks 201

15 Guns and the Mind 215

16 The Court Speaks Again 235

17 A Year Passes 253

18 Reducing Gun Violence 265

Notes 285

Bibliography 319

Index 323