Published: November 16, 2012
The US has the highest rate of civilian gun ownership in the world. How did this come to be? Was America’s “gun culture” present from the very beginning?
On this episode, the History Guys look at who has had access to guns in the U.S., and what those guns have meant to the people who have owned them. They also consider the importance of guns at the time the Second Amendment was drafted, and explore the central role government has played in the dissemination of firearms to citizens. And they pay a visit to a 21st century version of the armories of the past: a gun show.
James Sties
I enjoyed the show. I am amazed that you are amazed that violent crime is down and private gun ownership is up. Isn’t that just what gun enthusiasts predicted would happen if more people armed themselves?
doug
Surprised you didn’t mention Rob Williams http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/negroeswithguns/
an example of a rural African American seeking gun rights in the south which, in a way, might be more notable than the oft cited Panther example.
Jack
Good as the show was, it missed half the story, the legal half. One part is the great success that gun lobbyists have had reversing gun laws in state after state, ending or weakening restrictions on owning and carrying gun.
The second and more important is the role of the Supreme Court and its reinterpretation of the 2d Amendment. Since you started with a reading of the amendment and spoke about how militias functioned, I expected you to address this question. Your analysis of the situation in the country is contrary to Scalia, who worked from the premise that Americans were well-armed and brought those arms with them to the muster.
Please, do a follow-up show on this topic, there is so much more to it than could be addressed in one episode.
judith claire
I will try to find the sessions that I missed. I grew up on a farm in Michigan and my brothers had guns for hunting. I have lived in Washington DC since 1963. If I wanted a gun, I could walk to the corner and buy on for maybe $50.00 or less. I was curious about the last few sentences on the program today, Nov.18th. – a neighborhood can get together and agree to protect themselves (somthing like that) but a mixed income neighborhood is not the same as a suburban “look alike” neighborhood. The Heller (not sure of spelling) “keep a gun” win at the Supreme Court, was from a white man who lived in a largely black neighborhood…in Washington. I guess now it is who can grab and shoot first and hit their mark? Great program.
Evan
This was a great show. I live in rural Vermont – I’m a liberal and also a gun owner and hunter so I break the modern day stereotypes you referred to – we are still out there. I support legislation banning assault weapons and I don’t believe in the slippery slope when it comes to guns. The show helped me put my own feelings on gun ownership into a historical perspective. Even the apocalyptic discussion struck some sensational survivalist chord in my deep being.
David James
Interestingly, we may find that gun ownership may increase with more fervor because Obama was re-elected. I think there is a general fear among many gun enthusiasts that laws may be enacted that will seriously restrict the type of fire arms that the average citizen can purchase with Obama in office. As a result many people may see this recent election as a legitimate reason to purchase that firearm that they have been thinking about owning before its to late. Personally, I can understand this fear. I have been a gun enthusiast for years, I’m a veteran, and I’m also a reenactor. I reenact everything from the French and Indian war through World War 2 and my recent fear has been the possibility that the WW2 weapons that I use at public events, such as the M-1 Carbine and the M-1 Garand (pictured above) will be restricted. In other words they may be grouped with and treated with the same scrutiny as modern assault weapons and be restricted. We have recently seen restrictions by Obama’s administration targeted directly at the importation of service M-1 carbines that were on loan to South Korea. They were essentially banned by the president from being returned to U.S. soil. Keep in mind that these weapons belong to the United States. So there is a genuine fear that the tools of our favorite pass times will in some way be taken from us.
Martin
In answer to a caller’s question, one of the profs stated there was no instance of armed citizens standing up to oppressive US government action. However, it had been my understanding that the white supremacist gangs of the post-Civil War South were often intertwined with local and even state governments–either with persons overlapping or such gangs operating with the tacit blessing of local/state governments. Would Southern blacks and civil rights activists arming themselves against such parties not be a sufficiently qualifying example?
Mike
The claim was that there was never a case of armed citizens serving as a check on government power in American history. These leaves out the American Revolution, which seems incompatible with the rest of the podcast’s discussion of the role of militia in the revolution.If the Black Panthers ever succeeded in deterring police abuse, it leaves them out, too (plus the examples suggested by Martin, and others of their ilk.)
Dorr’s Rebellion strikes me as another example. Maybe the Texas Revolution.
Ben Dexter
While I greatly enjoyed the show, I have to take issue with Mr. Ayer’s closing remarks lamenting how many deaths by use of guns in the home are accidental.
The vast majority of deaths by guns in the home are intentional suicides. Conversely, the last year of data available from the CDC states that during 2010 a whopping 606 people were killed in accidental shootings in the US, both inside and outside the home. Taking the same statistics, you’re about 56 times more like to be accidentally killed in a car crash, 55 times more likely to be killed by poisoning, and 10 times as likely to accidentally suffocate.
http://webappa.cdc.gov/cgi-bin/broker.exe?_service=v8prod&_server=app-v-ehip-wisq.cdc.gov&_port=5081&_sessionid=/Kt0IZZrM52&_program=wisqars.details10.sas&_service=&type=U&prtfmt=STANDARD&age1=.&age2=.&agegp=AllAges&deaths=120859&_debug=0&lcdfmt=lcd1ageðnicty=0&ranking=10&deathtle=Death
Tom Hanks
I was so disappointed in this promising show. I have no axe to grind, but when I heard right at the start the number of murders (not murder rate) in tiny towns in the old west being compared to the numbers in modern cities, I knew this episode was about politics; not history.
Are you planning to change the name of your program to, “The Revisionist History Guys”?
Mikala
Writing in agreement with Martin… In fact, earlier in this very show you highlighted the Black Panther story — noting, in particular, their successful (and nonviolent) use of their weapons to curb police brutality in Oakland (in the short term). Yes, the Panthers’ willingness to threaten and use violence eventually spiraled out of control and (arguably) led to their undoing — I wouldn’t call it a *successful* example of an armed citizenry fighting back against the government. But it was certainly an *attempt*, and I was surprised you guys didn’t make the connection for the caller. (I just finished reading “My People Are Rising,” Aaron Dixon’s memoir of his time in the BPP… A good read, if anyone’s interested.) Thanks for your great show, I’ve just discovered it and am enjoying it very much!
Matt Fields
Hi guys. What a fantastic podcast! I learned so much from this lesson, I was really surprised by how much I didn’t know.
I am an ESL teacher in China, and I’m interested in getting some interesting stories with audio transcripts to play for my students. Guns in america is one of the topics they’re most endlessly curious about. I’m sure you are busy enough producing the podcasts, but I’m wondering if it’s possible to get transcripts of the lessons?
Thanks for producing this.
Anita Brosius-Scott
I very much appreciated the historical perspective on gun ownership provided on this show. The opening example of the rarity of a 3-fatality gun battle in the early west – and thus its widely-disseminated publicity at the time – was particularly eye-opening. In comparison to today’s tolerance of repeated high-victim-count gun fatalities and our political unwillingness to counter the trend, it’s particularly sobering.
Thank you as well for providing historical perspective on gun ownership and use at the time that the Constitution was written.
Revelations from more recent history were also most interesting. The gun-show attendee who has been to “hundreds” of gun shows since the 50′s was able to provide us with a perspective on the changing demographics of those attendees and their gun type preferences. I posit that a direct correlation could be found between the increased interest in assault weapons by teens and early-20′s, and the prevalence of violent video games featuring the use of assault weapons. I’m surprised this important influence on our culture was not addressed. The behavior of our people is a product of our culture; our media serve as our culture’s disseminators. Violent video games, I posit, stimulate the appetites that must be “fed” at gun show assault weapons booths, and illustrate the fantasies that are on occasion fulfilled in Aurora and Newtown, Virginia Tech and Tucson. Let’s not forget to notice and discuss the elephant in the room.