by Dan Baum
Dennis Henigan of the Brady Center had a good answer to the slippery-slope argument: What difference does it make what gun-control advocates really want? It’s not like they’re going to get their way just because they want something; we have laws. “Not only are we not talking about outlawing guns, but guns cannot be outlawed” after the Heller decision, he writes on page 40 of his 2009 book Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths that Paralyze American Gun Policy. On page 99 he continues, “In the final analysis, the slippery slope argument asks policymakers to forgo the life-saving benefits of sensible gun control policies because it is possible to dream up some hypothetical scenario in which such policies may increase the likelihood of a gun ban. This is sheer folly. In no other area of policymaking would we allow such rank speculation to defeat proposals that have concrete and demonstrable benefits.”
The story on this page about the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency making the producers of The Other Guys change their poster came from “Altered Movie Poster Puts the Spotlight on a San Francisco Agency’s Gun Ban,” by Maria Wollan, in The New York Times, September 5, 2010. Capital One’s refusal to allow a woman to put a picture of her husband hunting on her credit card was the NRA’s “Outrage of the Week” on Friday, April 22, 2011. The story of Constitution Arms being denied the opportunity to sponsor a Maplewood, New Jersey, Little League team was reported as “N.J. Kids Baseball League Rejects Maplewood Gun Dealer’s Sponsorship,” by Philip Read, in the Newark Star-Ledger, March 5, 2010. Zachary Fisher’s story was on CBS 13, Sacramento. The story about Providence’s toy-gun buyback, “Disarming the Toy Box,” ran in The Boston Globe on December 19, 2010.
The Carville/Begala quote is from Take It Back, pages 49–50.
The Garry Wills quote on this page comes from “Murders at One Remove,” Baltimore Sun, September 5, 1994. “A ridiculous minority of airheads” was the work of Perry Young, in his article “We Are All to Blame” in The Chapel Hill Herald, April 24, 1999. The “popguns” line belongs to Eric Sharpe, from his article “Outdoorsmen Can’t Ignore Gun Control,” which ran in the Los Angeles Daily News, June 11, 1995. Gene Weingarten took after “bumpkins and yeehaws” in his Washington Post column, Get Me Rewrite, on October 14, 2010. Mark Morford’s writing about women gun owners ran as “Pistol-Packin’ Polyester,” in SF Gate, March 21, 2001.
Sarah Palin’s speech to the NRA was reported, among other places, on the Huffington Post’s Politics Daily as “Sarah Palin Tells NRA Convention Obama Would Ban Guns If He Could,” by Mary C. Curtis, May 15, 2010.
Gun owners—even those who belong to the NRA—may not be as rigid in their thinking as they are frequently portrayed. In December 2009, the Republican pollster Frank Luntz surveyed 832 gun owners—401 who belonged to the NRA and 431 who didn’t—on behalf of Mayors Against Illegal Guns and came up with some surprising results. The vast majority of both groups—85 percent of non-NRA gun owners and 69 percent of NRA members—supported closing the gun-show loophole. Support was even stronger in both groups for laws requiring gun owners to tell the police if their guns were stolen. Both groups were over 80 percent in their approval of background checks at gun stores.
* * *
* In 2008, 2009, and 2010, there were 46,712 murders. To get a rough figure for June-December 2007, I took the 2007 total—17,128—divided by 12, and multiplied by 7, to get 9,991, making a rough murder total, from May 2007 to the end of 2010, of 56,702.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ayoob, Massad. In the Gravest Extreme: The Role of the Firearm in Personal Protection. Massad F. and Dorothy A. Ayoob, 1980.
———. The Gun Digest Book of Concealed Carry. Iola, Wis.: Gun Digest Books, 2008.
Bellesiles, Michael A. Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.
Benson, Ragnar. Modern Weapons Caching: A Down-to-Earth Approach to Beating the Government Gun Grab. Boulder, Colo.: Paladin Press, 1990.
Bijlefeld, Marjolijn, ed. The Gun Control Debate: A Documentary History. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997.
Blanchard, Kenneth V. F. Black Man With a Gun: A Responsible Gun Ownership Manual for African Americans. Baltimore: American Literary Press, 1994.
Burbick, Joan. Gun Show Nation: Gun Culture and American Democracy. New York: New Press, 2006.
Cassidy, Kyle. Armed America: Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes. Iola, Wis.: Krause, 2007.
De Becker, Gavin. The Gift of Fear and Other Survival Skills That Protect Us from Violence. New York: Dell, 1997.
Diaz, Tom. Making a Killing: The Business of Guns in America. New York: New Press, 1999.
Eddie the Wire. How to Bury Your Goods: The Complete Manual of Long-Term Underground Storage. Boulder, Colo.: Paladin Press, 1999.
Garbarino, James. Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them. New York: Free Press, 1999.
Halbrook, Stephen P. The Founders’ Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2008.
Hemenway, David. Private Guns, Public Health. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004.
Henigan, Dennis A. Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths that Paralyze American Gun Policy. Dulles, Va.: Potomac Books, 2009.
Kelly, Caitlin. Blown Away: American Women and Guns. New York: Pocket Books, 2004.
Kleck, Gary. Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1997.
Kleck, Gary, and Don B. Kates. Armed: New Perspectives on Gun Control. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2001.
Kohn, Abigail A. Shooters: Myths and Realities of America’s Gun Cultures. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Kopel, David B. Guns: Who Should Have Them? Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1995.
Levitt, Steven D., and Stephen J. Dubner. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explains the Hidden Side of Everything. New York: Morrow, 2009.
Lott, John R. More Guns Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
———. The Bias Against Guns: Why Almost Everything You’ve Heard About Gun Control Is Wrong. Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2003.
National Research Council. Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2005.
National Rifle Association. NRA Guide to Personal Protection in the Home. Fairfax, Va.: National Rifle Association, 2000.
———. NRA Guide to Personal Protection Outside the Home. Fairfax, Va.: National Rifle Association, 2006.
———. NRA Guide to the Basics of Pistol Shooting. Fairfax, Va.: National Rifle Association, 2009.
National Shooting Sports Foundation. The Writer’s Guide to Firearms and Ammunition. National Shooting Sports Foundation, undated.
Nelson, Zed. Gun Nation. London: Westzone, 2000.
Schulman, J. Neil. Stopping Power: Why 70 Million Americans Own Guns. Mill Valley, Calif.: Pulpless, 1994.
Sherrill, Robert. The Saturday Night Special and Other Guns with Which Americans Won the West, Protected Bootleg Franchises, Slew Wildlife, Robbed Countless Banks, Shot Husbands Purposely and by Mistake & Killed Presidents—Together with Continuing Debate Over Same. New York: Charterhouse, 1973.
Sowell, Thomas. Intellectuals and Society. New York: Basic Books, 2009.
Stevens, Richard W. Dial 911 and Die: The Shocking Truth About the Police Protection Myth. Hartford, Wis.: Mazel Freedom Press, 1999.
Sugarmann, Josh. Every Handgun Is Aimed at You: The Case for Banning Handguns. New York: New Press, 2001.
Taylor, Alan. American Colonies: The Settling of North America. New York: Penguin, 2001.
U.S. Department of Justice. Violent Encounters: A Study of Felonious Assaults on Our Nations’ Law Enforcement Officers. August 2006.
Walker, Tony. How to Win a Gunfight: Gaining the Half-Second Advantage. Conshohocken, Pa.: Infinity Publishing, 2007.
Weiner, Jon. Historians in Trouble: Plagiarism, Fraud, and Politics in the Ivory Tower. New York: New Press, 20
05.
Wenger, Stephen P. Defensive Use of Firearms: A Common Sense Guide to Awareness, Mental Preparedness, Tactics, Skills, and Equipment. Boulder, Colo.: Paladin Press, 2005.
Wright, James D., and Peter H. Rossi. Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms, expanded edition. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1994.
Wright, James D., Peter H. Rossi, and Kathleen Daly. Under the Gun: Weapons, Crime, and Violence in America. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1983.
Yewman, Heidi. Beyond the Bullet: Personal Stories of Gun Violence. Vancouver, Wash.: Dash Consulting, 2009.
Zelman, Aaron. Gun Control, Gateway to Tyranny: Proof that U.S. Gun Law Has Nazi Roots. Hartford, Wis.: Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, 2006.
Zelman, Aaron, and L. Neil Smith. The Mitzvah: For Those Who Love Freedom and for Those Who Should. Hartford, Wis.: Mazel Freedom Press, 1999.
Zelman, Aaron, and Peter Spielmann. The Life Insurance Conspiracy Made Elementary by Sherlock Holmes. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976.
Zelman, Aaron, and Richard W. Stevens. Death by “Gun Control”: The Human Cost of Victim Disarmament. Hartford, Wis.: Mazel Freedom Press, 2001.
Also by Dan Baum
Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans
Citizen Coors: An American Dynasty
Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs
and the Politics of Failure
A Note About the Author
Dan Baum is the author of Nine Lives, Smoke and Mirrors, and Citizen Coors. He was a staff writer for The New Yorker and has written for Rolling Stone, Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, and many other publications.
Visit: www.danbaum.com
For more information, please visit www.aaknopf.com