Gun culture

Tonso, William R., ed., and the Second Amendment Foundation. The Gun Culture and Its Enemies. Bellevue, Wash. Merril Press, 1990. Presents two collections of essays. The first part deals with the gun culture that has developed around the use of guns in many parts of the United States. The second part deals with persons and groups that are determined to destroy, or at least marginalize, gun culture. 

Levin, Bob. Casualties of the Right to Bear Arms Today s Outcasts Can Grab a Handy Semiautomatic and. Taking Cool Moves from the Latest Flick, Go Kill Their Classmates. Maclean s, May 3, 1999, p. 27. Author provides a Canadian pro-gun control viewpoint on the Columbine High School shootings. Levin ridicules the U.S. gun culture in recounting his personal experience with aspects of it. 

Spitzer, Robert. The Politics of Gun Control. 3d ed. New York CQ Press, 2004. This updated survey and analysis covers the development of gun culture, criminological issues, legislative and legal debates (including the Second Amendment), interest groups (including the NRA and Brady Campaign), public opinion, and the relationship of gun issues to overall political trends. 

Squires, Peter. Gun Culture or Gun Control Firearms, Violence and Society. New York Routledge, 2001. This exploration of gun issues is from a British perspective, comparing differences in the gun culture between Britain and the United States, and the resulting differences in the development of social policy. The impact of the 1996 Dunblane, Scotland, shootings on British attitudes is also explored. 

America and Guns. The Economist, vol. 346, April 4, 1998, pp. 16ff. Presents a British viewpoint on U.S. gun problems, giving statistics comparing gun deaths in the United States with other countries and expressing incredulity concerning U.S. gun culture. 

Medical and sociological gun control advocates have also pointed out that such countries as Britain and Japan, with strict firearm controls, have far lower homicide rates than the United States. Gun rights activists question whether such cross-cultural comparisons are valid, noting that European and Japanese societies are more conformist and that it is social control, not gun control, that is responsible for their low rate of violence. 

It is likely that gun control will be an issue in the 2004 presidential race between Democrat John Kerry and incumbent George W. Bush, but it is unlikely to be a major issue like the economy, Iraq, or the war on terrorism. This does not mean it will not be an important issue, however—in the expected close election, any issue able to motivate even a relatively small number of voters could be decisive. (Indeed, Kerry attacked Bush in September 2004 for allowing the assault weapons ban to lapse without making any real effort on its behalf.) Although not as much so as abortion or same-sex marriage, gun control is a cultural issue. The effects of such issues on political outcomes are always hard to predict. 

David B. Kopel, former Manhattan assistant district attorney and firearms law expert. Kopel has written numerous pro-gun rights works including The Samurai, The Mountie, and the Cowboy, a cross-cultural analysis of gun control laws that concludes that the European approach to gun control... 

Introductions, Overviews, and Anthologies Guns in American Society and Culture Gun Control Advocacy (General)... 

Brown, Richard Maxwell. No Duty to Retreat Violence and Values in American History and Culture. Norman University of Oklahoma Press, 1994. A study of the social values involving the appropriate use of violence from frontier days to the present. Brown emphasizes the history of the American West. He also provides an important historical context for the development of gun regulations. 

Kennett, Lee B., and James L. Anderson. The Gun in America The Origins of a National Dilemma. Westport, Conn. Greenwood Press, 1975. Describes the many roles that firearms have played in U.S. culture and how the United States can indeed be said to be the arsenal of democracy with both positive and negative consequences. 

Barnett, Randy E. Guns, Militias, and Oklahoma City. Tennessee Law Review, vol. 62, Spring 1995, pp. 443ff. Explores the emergence of the militia movement and its social and cultural roots. Suggests that one source of the movement is frustration with the refusal of the courts to enforce the Second Amendment. 

Boyd, Neil. Gun Control Placing Costs in Context. Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, vol. 45, October 2003, pp. 473ff. The author believes that the Canadian firearms laws implemented in 1995 have been reasonably effective, although the ongoing decline in gun ownership is part of a larger cultural trend. The program s well-publicized... 

In a culture where honor is 0 important, arguments lead to affronts that demand retribution. The availability of guns increases the chance that the retribution may be deadly. In addiction, the knowledge that the other person may be armed and may begin acting violently may lead to preemptive first strikes. Once conflicts escalate, a man may be more apt to take a first strike... 

Gunness P, Mueller D, Shevchenko V et al (2013) 3D organotypic cultures of human HepaRG cells a tool for in vitro toxicity studies. Toxicol Sci 33(l) 67-78... 

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