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Citizen-Protectors: The Everyday Politics of Guns in an Age of Decline

Online ISBN:
9780190236595
Print ISBN:
9780199347551
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Citizen-Protectors: The Everyday Politics of Guns in an Age of Decline

Jennifer Carlson
Jennifer Carlson

Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology

University of Toronto, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology
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Published online:
23 April 2015
Published in print:
1 June 2015
Online ISBN:
9780190236595
Print ISBN:
9780199347551
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

For the past several decades, the United States has witnessed a profound transformation in what Americans do with the guns they own. While hunting used to dominate American gun culture, now the top reason for owning a gun is protection, and today, there are over eleven million concealed carry licensees. Why are millions of Americans—disproportionately American men—choosing to carry guns as part of their everyday lives? And what are the effects of gun carry on contemporary notions of citizenship, governance, and crime? This book examines these questions. Focusing on southeastern Michigan, particularly Metro Detroit, as a window into broader processes of socioeconomic decline in the United States, the book analyzes how men use guns to navigate contexts of social insecurity and how men’s use of guns is shaped by socio-legal structures supported by the National Rifle Association (NRA). The book draws on in-depth interviews with gun carriers and NRA-certified instructors and ethnography at firearms classes, activist events, and shooting ranges; and online gun forums. The author also obtained a concealed-pistol license, carried a gun on a regular basis, and became certified as an NRA instructor.

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