Having endured 33 rejections of the proposal for my book on American gun culture, Gun Curious, I spend a lot of time thinking about the warm reception of other recent books about the same topic. Andrew McKevitt’s Gun Country, which I am hosting a virtual book club on right now, was selected by the Washington Post as one of the top nonfiction books of 2023. And more recently, the New York Times Book Review ran a front cover piece on Jonathan Metzl’s What We’ve Become and Dominic Erdozain’s One Nation Under Guns.
All four of us seek to understand American gun culture, so why do they succeed while I struggle? Certainly, it could be the quality of the writing and ideas, but I honestly think it is something more than that.
When I tried to sell my book Gun Curious to New York-based book editors at large publishing houses, I said there were three audiences for my book:
Gun enthusiasts will be a natural audience for Gun Curious because it tells their story fairly and factually. But firearms skeptics will also want to read this book to understand better the motivations of those who cling so fervently to their guns. And interested outsiders—the broad and deep middle, including the gun curious—will appreciate how the book richly describes an unfamiliar but intriguing social world.
These book editors — and other liberal cultural elite gatekeepers like those at the WaPo, NYTBR, Atlantic, and New Yorker — are definitely among the firearms skeptics I had in mind as an audience for my book.
What I miscalculated was the lack of desire of firearms skeptics to understand gun owners and gun culture on its own terms.
I have often said that one of the challenges we have in the U.S. today around guns is that many people only see one side of their paradoxical existence. This week I realized that it is not just a matter of seeing only one side of the paradox. Many people only care about one side and are perfectly happy to play the Chinese finger trap game (h/t Randy Miyan, Liberal Gun Owners).
This certainly applies to both sides of the gun debate, because gun enthusiasts are no more interested in my discussions of negative outcomes than gun skeptics are in the normality of firearms. But gun enthusiasts don’t control the major organs of cultural production in the United States. Gun skeptics do.
Hence, I am coming to the realization that people whose only interest in guns is in their negative outcomes have no desire to read a book that does not primarily address that interest. They only relate to firearms from the perspective of negative outcomes – and they only want to relate to them that way.
This made me think back to comments by editors who rejected my book proposal by saying they might read an article about the topic but not a whole book. They are just not interested in a book-length treatment of the normality of guns and gun owners. I wonder whether they would even read an article.
Although this does still sting, it’s also a helpful realization because it puts me in touch with reality and tempers my expectations. I thought 2024 of all years would be a time for light over heat on this issue, but I’m afraid that people on both sides are much more interested in partisan red meat to chew on.
It’s not just AR-15s that are “a cultural chew toy for angry partisans,” to quote McWhirter and Eilson’s American Gun. It’s guns and gun culture in general.
Gun Culture 2.0 
I think you are correct. I live in a place where there is no particular awareness nor interest in the dominant American academic and cultural communities, but because of the prevailing traditional culture and the fact our village has no or very limited law enforcement coverage on many nights’ firearms are easily seen as friendly tools. Similarly, the beginning of hunting season is a de facto holiday for many in Keno, Oregon. Your efforts are critical to provide a bridging narrative to many with your literate, articulate tongue explaining gun culture 1.0 and 2. 0. We also need to understand for many urban (and other) communities, the impact upon people and families by firearms used aggressively as weapons. With focused cable news coverage, it appears one massacre after another in our cable news neighborhood which is amplified by activist efforts such as the Gun Violence Archive. In our actual neighborhood it appears quite tranquil, though firearms are everywhere (knock on wood). There is no bridge between the assurance of skilled self-defense and the trauma of gun violence which has polarized many Americans. The effort by nearly all actors except you, appears to advance a narrative through legislation based on values of some communities, but never to find common group and achieve broad buy-in. It is too bad.
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I have long hoped, as my wife has said paraphrasing the Judds, that knowledge can build a bridge. While I continue to hope that, I am declining in confidence. Perhaps my confidence will surge in the coming months leading up to the publication of my book.
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The NM Progressive Democrats pretty much declared war on guns this legislative session. They don’t want nuance or even honesty. They have been tweeting that one bill alone, a one week waiting period, will decrease homicides by 17% and suicides by 11% based on only one paper that to my knowledge, has not been replicated and was seriously criticized by Gary Kleck for its untested assumptions. Kinda reminds me of the Kalesan et al fiasco all over again. Tell people what they want to hear, and they will follow like sheep.
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Confirmation bias is really real.
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Our friend, Mas Ayoob, has done a video where he talks about this issue from a slightly different angle. Namely, there is a big bell curve among beliefs about guns, and the people on the small ends of the curve are fully committed to their views and don’t want to hear anything other than those views. The large number of people in the middle, however, are not so closed minded and can be influenced by rational arguments one way or the other. David, your audience is in that large middle ground – the problem is the channels of distribution for your work are controlled by one of the fringes that doesn’t want an alternative to their narrative to reach that large group in the middle ground.
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Thank you, Tom. This is both a frustration I have and a fear that is building about my book.
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Perhaps it is a consolation that often people who stand by their beliefs, who don’t just parrot the conventional wisdom and who try to present an objective and rational view of a subject are often proven correct by the passage of time. Anyway, keep up your good work and don’t get too frustrated!
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The large number of first-time gun buyers in the years since 2020 is supporting evidence for this view.
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These editors aren’t firearms skeptics. They’re firearms deniers.
Impossible to break through on those types.
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I think it is important to rcognize that it is not a level playing field. As you note “….gun enthusiasts don’t control the major organs of cultural production in the United States. Gun skeptics do.” Hence, as a committed gun owner, I am under constant assault from the skeptic side (not to mention working in academia). So, while I applaud your work attempting to build that bridge, especially in the face of that landscape, that circumsatance is also the source of my unwillingness to consider standing on that bridge.
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The reason there is no middle ground is this: each person, at some point in their life, has imagined themselves in a situation where they were at risk of being killed by an armed attacker. Those that imagine themselves winning or successfully surviving the incident are pro gun to one degree or other. The others imagine themselves failing, freezing or dying because they do not believe themselves capable of success. That realization is likely very unsettling, and has to be wished away using one or more rationalizations:
1) If we pass more laws restricting guns, I can reduce the likelihood that will actually happen to me. (This of course, ignores the harsh reality that the individual is equally unprepared to survive a knife or unarmed attack.)
2) Being unable to succeed is “normal”. After all, I’m not only “normal” – I’m a civilized, enlightened, educated Special Person who embraces all the right causes and all the right values like all the celebrities and other cultural leaders tell me to. Without the magic powers a government uniform gives its wearers, there’s no way I could ever be capable of defending myself.
3) If failure is “normal”, that means believing you could win is dangerously delusional. People like that are *exactly* the kind of people that shouldn’t own guns. After all, if a civilized elite like me couldn’t possibly own one without having some kind of terrible gun accident or “snapping” and becoming a mass murderer (because that sort of thing happens all the time), those icky people certainly can’t be safe owning guns either.
4) I don’t want to hear about examples of regular people being safe, responsible or successful with their guns. By suppressing, ignoring and dismissing those incidents, I can protect the ego-investment I have in my self-image as a non violent ‘civilized person’ and maintain my idealistic belief that a World Without Guns will be a Better Place than the scary armed world those icky Gun People want.
The people that rejected your book likely believe one or more of those tenets, whether they expressed them to you or not.
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Yesterday, in the store, a New Yorker came upstairs and found all the guns that were behind us, and in the display cases. To say he was stunned is an understatement. To say his eyes were filled with fear isn’t.
Somehow, the conversation turned to concealed carry in Wyoming. His fear heightened when we said that a lot of people carry in our area: Jackson Hole.
“And you let them in the store?”
“Yep.”
“And you’re not afraid they’ll start shooting?”
“A lot of good people carry guns. So that shooter would be stupid to pull that shit.”
“How much crime do you have around here?”
“Damn near non-existent.”
“So why carry guns?”
“Because damn near isn’t 100 percent. “
“And some people are stupid enough to try breaking into homes,” someone else chimed in. “And there are wild animals all around.”
“Especially moose,” I said. “I run into them all the time.” Then I show him a video I too of a moose that’s been hanging out in my backyard for several days.
“I’m just not used to guns around me,” the New Yorker said.
“I guarantee you there are a lot of people in New York that own guns.”
That flustered him.
“Then they’re breaking the law,” he finally retorted.
“In New York, yes. Not here in Wyoming.”
He’d had enough and left with his friend from Australia.
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At one extreme end, beyond ‘gun enthusiasts’, I see ‘gun absolutists.’ These are the types who mindlessly repeat the mantra, ‘shall not be infringed’, and will even express perfect contentment with dead schoolkids as an ‘acceptable price to pay.’ At the other end are ‘gun haters’ who truly do loathe, fear, and despise the object itself as inherently evil.
‘Gun skeptics’ whether they currently lean pro or anti, are, I believe, open to persuasion. They likely include not a few recent gun owners. The skeptics are currently being bombarded with anti-gun propaganda on the alleged huge increased risk of just having a gun in the home, in tandem with an appeal to their good nature and community spirit to be ‘responsible gun owners’ (i.e., accept more restrictions.) The effective counter to this is not a denial of certain inherent risks, but rather placing them in perspective, as you did with your fine cigars & ardent spirits video.
Legacy media continues to portray ‘enthusiasts’ as a tiny, unhinged fringe of ‘absolutists.’ I do sense we’ve crossed a tipping point to where this false dichotomy can no longer fly. The gun skeptics are now able to recognize themselves as skeptical, able to choose a final landing place other than absolutist nut or anti-gun zealot. Perhaps this change will also lead to an interest in fair & honest analyses like your book.
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Upon further, barn-chore inspired reflection, I’d add ‘gun accepters’ to the mix somewhere; while not fully ‘enthusiastic’, they recognize the utility of or even need for a firearm. This demographic would comprise both owners and some curious/skeptics.
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After reading this I can better understand your post about fear of becoming cynical. I ran into this myself about 40 years ago (different issues) when I considered completing a PhD in anthropology (MA was in linguistics) and an academic career. The cynicism got the best of me, or reality mugged me depending on your point of view, and I passed on academia three different times. Even back then I concluded I wasn’t up to fighting the prevailing ‘orthodoxy’ especially with the need for tenure for my family. I have had a very satisfying and varied career since, and can’t complain, but I understand your struggles. Feel free to reach out if you need someone to ‘unload’ on. And, btw, I’ll be doing a workshop in April for forensic anthropology grad students on ballistic evidence, so I still get to influence future academics!
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BTW, I have my local library preordering your book right now. They also purchased you last book.
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There’s truth to the old saw that “Conservatives think liberals are stupid, liberals think conservatives are evil.”
When your opponent is not merely wrong, but actually evil, understanding his motivations is tantamount to advocating for the devil. It’s not that they don’t want to understand the evil people. It’s that they are emotionally and morally incapable of even attempting.
Every day I’m told that I’m actually evil because I care more about my “hobby” than about “dead children.” Never mind that guns aren’t my hobby and the worst thing I’ve ever done to children was trick them into taking a nap by pretending that it was a game.
There’s no middle ground. There are a lot of people who just don’t give a damn, but there’s nothing in the middle of the road but roadkill and yellow stripes.
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I’m an Armenian American. When the Turks invaded Armenia, they disarmed my ancestors, telling them that they could rely on the government to protect them.
Instead, the Turks slaughtered 1.5 million, innocent, men, women and children, in the most vicious, cruel, and heartless manner conceivable. My grandmother’s family was annihilated, leaving her an orphan, and she was sold as a sex slave to some Turkish official.
Every single time a government has set out on a course of genocide – Russia, Germany, Cambodia, China, Venezuela, Cuba, Rwanda and Syria, they have made sure to disarm people before they began.
The Jews like to embrace the slogan “Never Again” to describe their views on their own Holocaust. Those words are meaningless, without the tools to back them up. No amount of gun control, no matter how “common sense”, is ever acceptable to those of us who have read the history of human civilization, and understand that an armed populace is the only defense against the evil that is inherent in every person’s soul.
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After a lot of years on the front lines of the 2A fights, and as someone who has worked tirelessly for the normalization of firearms in American culture, I have come to believe that the antigun “movement” is, like other progressive shibboleths, a religion. Everything must be taken on faith — “assault weapons” are evil…gun registration is a good thing…and on and on. You and I part ways here, David. My belief is that the other side doesn’t hate guns. They hate us…HATE us. The middle ground is gone. I have lost friends, the love of family members and pretty much a fortune because I made the choices I have made to fight for these rights, for this culture. I would make the same choices again.
Best…Michael Bane
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Case in point, California SB 1160, introduced on Valentine’s Day by anti-gun fanatic Anthony Portantino, which would require annual registration, with fees, for every firearm owned. The purpose given: “to remind all citizens of the civic responsibility that comes with owning a firearm.” $1,000 fine for non-compliance.
Being quasi-religious zealots, post-Bruen their fervor has only increased to punish the heretics who refuse to conform. They aren’t even pretending any more it’s about safety or reducing crime.
Zealots always make things either:or extremes. So if there is still a middle ground, it needs to denounce loudly and fast what amounts to a pogrom.
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