The field trip is historically a highlight of the course for students and the reflection essays are among the most popular items I post to my blogs every year (previous student reflections can be found on my Sociology of Guns collected posts page).

The essays provide interesting insights into the experience and thoughts of young adults who for the most part are not invested in, or even familiar with, guns and gun culture. They are gun curious.

The assignment for the short (500 word minimum) reflection essay is as follows:

We return to these early reflections frequently throughout the semester, and students will formally revisit them in a final reflection essay at the end of the class.

I am likely to take a temporary or permanent hiatus from the course after this year, so if you are or have ever been interested in the class, please take advantage of these materials.

[1] A PDF of the syllabus for this semester. I am focusing the course this semester on engaging and updating James Wright’s “Ten Essential Observations on Guns in America.” What has changed and what has not changed in the nearly 30 years since this essay was published? This is a major question my students and I will try to answer.

When I posted my syllabus for Fall 2015, I observed:

When I first began studying and blogging about guns in 2012, I wrote: “Jumping into the gun culture as a complete novice is like jumping into the deep end of the pool without knowing how to swim.”

Putting this syllabus together made me realize that I am still wading around in the shallow end of the pool. There is far more that could be covered, from far more angles, than can be covered in 150 minutes a week for 15 weeks. So, some hard choices had to be made.

Nine years later, I can swim in the deep end of the gun studies pool, but it remains true that choices have to be made as to what to include and what to exclude given time constraints.

[2] A page containing links to dozens of posts from the first 9 years of the course, which I will continue to update over the course of this semester.

[3] A brief description of the course and my approach published in The Conversation’s Uncommon Courses series. That piece centered the student field trip to the gun range, which is certainly the most remarked-on — and the most important — aspect of the class.

Our gun range field trip took place this past Tuesday on the first day of class. Stay tuned for blog posts and “Light Over Heat” videos on that experience in the coming weeks.

If you would like to financially support my student field trip to the gun range, or my efforts to educate people and enrich conversations about guns, please visit my Buy Me a Coffee patron page.

This week, I comment on the students’ field trip reflection essays.

I will also be posting those essays, as usual, on my Gun Curious blog. So watch for those!

The field trip is historically a highlight of the course for students and the reflection essays are among the most popular items I post to my blogs every year (previous student reflections can be found on my Sociology of Guns collected posts page).

The essays provide interesting insights into the experience and thoughts of young adults who for the most part are not invested in, or even familiar with, guns and gun culture. They are gun curious.

The assignment for the short (500 word minimum) reflection essay is as follows:

We return to these early reflections frequently throughout the course of the semester, and students will formally revisit them in a final reflection essay at the end of the class.

Here are some ways you can learn more about the course:

[1] A PDF of the syllabus for this semester. (Those who follow closely will note I dropped the idea of having students write op-ed pieces and reverted back to the typical seminar paper.)

[2] A brief description in The Conversation’s Uncommon Courses series.

[3] A page containing links to dozens of posts from the first 8 years of the course.

Probably the most remarked-on aspect of the class is taking the students on a field trip to the gun range at the start of the course. It is probably the most important part of the class, too.

Our gun range field trip is scheduled for the first day of class again this semester (August 30th). Stay tuned for blog posts and “Light Over Heat” videos on that experience in the coming weeks.

By Connor Stanley

When I arrived at the gun range, I was oddly nervous for the next 45 minutes. Until this field trip, I had never touched a gun, let alone shot one. I watched all the training videos and took careful notes, but much like many aspects of life, you need to actually do it. I can watch as many videos as I want about gun safety, but actually shooting a gun is a very different experience.

When I first walked into the gun range, I could not believe its simplicity. Nothing much more than a little shack in the back, a fence, and a few signs about gun safety. That was it. I always imagined a gun range being “state of the art,” with heavy barriers separating every lane and shiny new targets for every participant. Again, it was nothing more than some pavement showing where each lane was, a mound of mud absorbing the bullet, and paper targets.

Something about this simplicity made me more nervous as everything we do has features to prevent injuries and mistakes. Cars made in 2022 have blindspot monitoring, lane sensors, and even a scanner that knows when the driver’s eyes are off the road. There were none of these new technologies: just the gun and the shooter, much like a 1980s car.

When I was handed the first gun, I was surprised by how heavy it was. I took my time getting comfortable holding it and trying to control my breathing. When I pulled the trigger, I hit the target and cursed simultaneously. When I apologized for cursing, Professor Yamane understood that my reaction was incredibly normal. I could not believe how fast the bullet traveled and how loud the gun was. However, what disturbed me was how accurate it was. Yes, I would like to consider myself a good athlete and somewhat coordinated. However, the fact that I hit the metal target 9 out of 10 times really scared me. My mind just went to the worst-case scenario: what if someone who shouldn’t have a gun has one? I know I should not think like this, but unfortunately, we live in a society where gun-related atrocities occur frequently.

Overall, I really enjoyed my experience. I never thought I would shoot a gun before because no one in my family owns a gun and has never expressed any interest in going to a range. I think part of the reason I was so nervous going to the range was that I had only heard about guns negatively. It seems like every time I turn on the news, there is some tragedy involving guns. After going to the range, I frankly don’t know where I stand on guns. I better understood the appeal of having and shooting a gun as I left the range with a huge smile and so much energy.

However, for the time being, I cannot get the inner voice about how dangerous these objects are out of my head. Thanks to Professor Yamane’s expertise and patience, everything went incredibly smoothly. I think everyone in my group had a wonderful experience. However, I know that not every gun user practices this type of gun safety. I think the more someone uses a gun, the less they worry about how deadly they are. This could be an inaccurate thought, but I think of shooting a gun as like cooking in an oven. The first time I used an oven, I was very afraid of burning myself. However, after a few uses, these fears subsided very quickly. I feel like shooting a gun is similar. A gun owner may feel like a pro and skip some steps in gun safety.

I cannot express how much fun I had at the range. It was something I will never forget. Now, I have to do some deeper thinking about guns in our country. I think this field trip reaffirmed some of my thoughts about how guns are a part of our country, and that they are not going anywhere. I can accept this. Will I ever personally own a gun? Probably not, but I am not as afraid of holding one now. I think, as a country, we need to understand the power of these machines. As someone who was very nervous about going to a range and shooting a gun, I understand why people enjoy it now. However, I would hope that someone who is a gun owner could understand why others have differing views about gun regulation.

By Hanna Vasconcello

Growing up with immigrant parents in a city full of people like me (Miami) meant I did not have many chances to see day-to-day manifestations of American culture like guns. My first idea of gun culture came around 2012 after the Sandy Hook shooting. Because I had never had an experience with a firearm before, my immediate response to guns was negative. The intensity of my disdain for guns constantly fluctuated, but my general attitude was discomfort with the idea of owning, using, or enjoying a firearm. To me, they represented the ugly parts of humanity, like violence and destruction.

It was not until about a year ago that my opinion toward guns started shifting. As I have had to live alone and be in situations where I felt helpless, I have come to terms with how helpful a gun can be in protecting oneself. I also have friends who own guns, which has made me reconsider my negative attitudes toward gun owners. Therefore, my understanding of firearms was more accepting by the time the gun range field trip came around. However, I did not plan to touch or shoot a gun during the trip, an out-of-character decision for my adrenaline-junkie personality. I had never held a gun in my life, and I never saw myself as a person who could shoot one. Maybe I was still carrying some negative assumptions, or perhaps I was terrified of something going wrong once the gun was in my hands.

I ended up shooting all three guns. Once I saw the other girls enjoying themselves, I felt encouraged to join them and see whether this was fun. Self-defense is easy to understand, but I could never grasp why people took joy in guns. How people could hold a firearm and have fun was beyond me. Once I got the hang of gripping and shooting the gun, it started making sense. I found myself smiling and genuinely enjoying my time up there, holding the gun. I congratulated the other girls on their skills and laughed with them. Here we were, gathered together and joking around, all while shooting guns. This experience wholly contrasted with my previously negative views of people who enjoy guns. Having fun with firearms does not equate to taking pleasure in violence or hurting others. Indeed, guns can act as a social facilitator through which people come together to have some friendly competition.

On top of unexpectedly having fun, I was also surprised by how normal the gun felt in my hands. I mentioned before how I did not grow up with guns. One consequence of that was how they have always seemed so far away from my reality. In other words, guns have never felt real to me. Therefore, it is needless to say that the gun initially felt weird in my hands. Its shape, texture, and weight were an unfamiliar combination that took a couple of seconds to get used to. I still vividly remember the harsh vibration and the furious pop after my first shot. After a few more shots, I was surprised to see how quickly the activity became familiar. The loud bangs became less formidable and the bodily aftershocks less unwelcome. This sudden normalcy was significant for me because I have spent my formative years thinking of guns as these mythical objects venerated by hillbillies and sadists. My experience most certainly negated this prejudice and introduced me to the ordinary nature of firearms.

If I showed teenage Hanna the picture of me shooting the semi-automatic rifle at Veteran’s Range, she would have been dumbstruck. The countless school shootings and the lack of gun exposure made her hate these lethal weapons, so she would probably wonder what made her change her mind a couple of years later. I would tell her that I am not a recently-converted gun enthusiast. However, I would say that I understand them better.

Guns can be normal, fun, and provide a sense of safety. Unfortunately, the media does not show people cautiously using guns in a controlled setting, which is why some may come to find them appalling and dangerous. While I can see the good side of guns more clearly, some parts of gun culture still make me uncomfortable. For example, I still cannot fathom civilians possessing arsenals that contain borderline military-grade weapons. Nevertheless, I am grateful for this experience that forced me to get uncomfortable and face a reality I did not know existed.

By Liana Hutton

Approximately half a year ago, when I signed the form to participate in this course, it discussed how we were required to go on a field trip to the gun range. My first thoughts were how interesting this would be because of my background. I grew up in Hilton Head, South Carolina – a place that loves guns – but in a family that grew up in New York and does not like guns. Growing up in a very socially liberal household in a socially conservative area gave me an interesting perspective. Not only did I develop my own beliefs about guns in general, but I also developed a sense of what others believed, and why. In high school, I was part of the Young Democrats club, which came together when mass shootings happened to hold an entire school activity to remember those lost in the Parkland shooting specifically. I remember that day, the members of the Young Republicans club passed around stickers to students that said, “I support the second amendment.”

To sum it up, I lived in a place that loved the second amendment, where lots of teenagers went hunting with their parents growing up, and lived in households that had multiple kinds of guns. I grew up in a family that believed, and still does, that we need gun control, and that some types of guns should be banned.

The gun range experience did not fit with my understanding of guns, but I very much enjoyed it. Because of my family’s view of guns, I would have never gone to a shooting range, let alone shot three different kinds of guns, on my own, with family, or with friends.

When I first showed up at the range, my friend and I were a little anxious. We heard the loud shots of the previous group shooting and immediately went back to the car. Both of our families are very liberal, so it was in our nature to hear that and leave the source it was originating from. When we finally got inside the fence, I was very nervous and didn’t know if I wanted to through with shooting any of the guns. I just didn’t grow up in an environment that encouraged it. It was completely foreign to me!

Skip to the end of the experience – I absolutely loved it! I was surprised by how loud the shots were, but I was also surprised that the jolt of it wasn’t as bad as people said/what it looked like when my classmates shot. I found appealing how easy it was. You just put your hands in the position, aim the gun, and boom! It wasn’t this complex process, and it was over very fast.

I was especially nervous to shoot the semi-automatic rifle, just because of what I had read about them and heard on the news. It also looked like people jolted back a lot with this type of gun, but when I did it, it didn’t hurt and was easy to control.

Guns were and still are a complete mystery to me. This experience slightly took some of the mysteriousness out of something highly debated in our country and move it to a more personal level. I don’t think guns themselves are evil things, I just think it does need to be regulated better who has access to them.

My mom was very wary of the field trip, but my dad was looking forward to what I would think. After this experience, I definitely want to go to a shooting range again. I had no clue what to expect going into the field trip, but I came out of it energized and looking forward to what I would learn in this course.

I feel like throughout my life I only heard either, “I support the second amendment,” or “We need to ban guns, or have a lot more gun control.” I never learned or looked into the middle ground of it or the history behind guns. I never de-mystified why guns are so contested in this country. This experience was a great start to getting my own subjective view of firearms and seeing that they aren’t inherently evil.

In all, I don’t have much of a prior understanding of guns in the US. I mainly see all the school shoootings/police shootings/other mass shootings in the news and think that something needs to be done about this. I see the arguments that people kill people, guns don’t kill people. I also see arguments that 22 year olds shouldn’t have access to AR-15s. For guns themselves, I always thought they were bad, I didn’t want anything to do with them. This experience fought against this view, to my surprise, and now I want to learn more about them and go to another shooting range. This field trip helped my biases surrounding guns and the debate around them, and I can’t wait for my views to be challenged further throughout the year.

By Jayden Brown

After attending the range, I think that my previous beliefs about guns in the US were amplified. When I was holding the guns, it felt like I was handling too much power; it made me very nervous. It made me think about how some people can pull the trigger so easily, especially when it is aimed at another person. I think that television shows have also desensitized us from the truth surrounding guns. On TV, especially on cop shows, the police officers and perpetrators fire guns at each other like it is nothing. They make it look a lot easier than it actually is.  

For the past few weeks, I tried to imagine what it felt like to hold and fire a gun since it was going to be my first time, but I could not get past my nerves. On the drive up to the range, I was stressed out because I did not think that I was going to be able to pull the trigger. In my house, we do not own any guns and none of my immediate family members know how to shoot a gun. I grew up in a household where guns are bad and are the reasons for many problems that we face today.     

One thing that surprised me was how loud the gunshots were. All of the guns that we tried were very loud and caught me off guard every time I squeezed the trigger. When I first got to the range and pulled into the parking lot, the shots from the other group made me jump. I had heard gunshots down the street from my house and I thought that they were loud (I live on the edge of Winston), but nothing compares to standing right there.  

One thing that I learned was how to line up the notches in the gun (I do not know the exact terminology) in order to hit the target. I thought that people would go solely based on their eyesight and try to direct where they wanted the bullet to go. After learning this, I was able to repeatedly hit the target. I even hit the metal target with the pistol on my first try. For the other two guns, my aim was not as good as they had a lot more recoil than the .22 caliber pistol. On top of that, the Glock was much heavier than I thought it was going to be. I could not imagine having to hold the rifle while trying to shoot; it would not have worked out well.      

After this experience at the gun range, I do not think that I necessarily want to go to another one. I used to think that I would want to own a gun for protection when I began to live by myself, but now I do not know. If I did eventually want to own a gun, I would need a lot more practice in order to become comfortable around them.

I was nervous at the range and that was a relaxing situation. I could not imagine having to act in a life-threatening one.

By Elisabeth Kuguru

My experience shooting a gun for the first time today mostly fits with my prior understanding of guns in the US. In recent years, I have become a lot more open to shooting at gun ranges, but I could never picture myself picking up a gun and shooting. Growing up in Nairobi, Kenya, guns were always meant to be feared. They are completely illegal in Kenya, however guards and police are permitted to carry them. When living there, I knew that if a gun was involved it could only mean danger. Although I did not have to be fearful of school shootings in Nairobi, I was wary of terrorist attacks. These were my first impressions of guns, so I was shocked to come to North Carolina to see people open carrying in Costco and at parties.

In my head, there was no gun debate. I believed guns should be illegal and it did not make sense to me that some Americans so strongly believed in their right to own guns. To think of guns as anything other than a lethal weapon against humans is a luxury that I could not afford in Kenya. After being in the United States for a couple of years I have become a little bit more open to the idea of me owning a gun.

I know that gun ownership is a right that Americans will stand by and am under no impression that guns would ever be outlawed in the United States. A couple of close people in my life own guns and I know it is purely for protection which is needed especially while being Black in America. As a woman who lives in the city, I am also no stranger to danger, so I can understand why people choose to own guns; however, I have never desired to own a gun.

Prior to this experience, the mere thought of holding a gun would have sent chills down my spine and made my hands clammy, but I found the experience to be a lot more neutral than I had previously expected. The gun felt more like a dangerous tool instead of the killing machine I thought it was. When I first began, I told Dr. Yamane that I was very nervous, and he replied good, that’s how you should feel! I was glad I was reassured in my feelings as I carefully but calmly held the gun.

Shooting itself was a bit nerve-racking but I felt like I was in control. Aiming was also easier than I was expecting. I am awful at first-person shooter video games, but I found that the gun does a lot of the aiming for you, you just need to line it all up. I was also expecting more uncontrollable recoil, however, when held correctly the recoil was quite manageable.

As we progressed through the different guns, I felt more confident and was quite excited to shoot the AR-15. The entire experience was quite fun and exhilarating. I would shoot at a gun range again for pleasure; however, I still do not think I would ever own a gun. Shooting at a range is one step, but in my head owning a gun is a completely different story for me.

Although today changed my personal reservations about shooting at a range, it did not change my perspective on the overall gun debate. Like everything we learn about in sociology, gun ownership, and the American gun debate is nuanced, so I am excited to learn more about the history and context of guns in the United States.