9781422273517

DAVID WILSON

MASON CREST PH I L ADELPH I A | MI AMI

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Foreword .................................................................................... 6 Chapter 1: Mapping America’s Guns .................................... 11 Chapter 2: Gun Statistics in the United States . ................. 25 Chapter 3: Timelines: Guns Throughout U.S. History ....... 41 Chapter 4: Key Players in the Gun Rights Debate ............. 59 Chapter 5: International Gun Culture . ................................ 75 Series Glossary of Key Terms ................................................. 88 Further Reading & Internet Resources ................................. 92 Index . ........................................................................................ 94 Author’s Biography ................................................................. 96 Credits . ..................................................................................... 96 K E Y I C O N S T O L O O K F O R Words to Understand: These words, with their easy-to-understand definitions, will increase readers’ understanding of the text while building vocabulary skills. Sidebars: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Educational Videos: Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, providing them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Text-Dependent Questions: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented there. Research Projects: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis. Series Glossary of Key Terms: This back-of-the-book glossary contains terminology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field.

It was an honor to be asked to write the foreword for the Gun Country series. Since I’m not a celebrity, and it is unlikely you have ever heard of me, I’d like to tell you a bit about my background and experience as it applies to guns. I am a security, emergency management, and business continuity consultant helping public and private sector organizations to be better prepared to withstand disasters. I help them draft plans, provide training, and conduct exercises to improve their organizations’ preparedness posture. In short, I coach organizations on how to ready their people to handle crises. My career began as a Marine infantryman, armorer, and counterintelligence specialist. I then became a police officer, serving as a SWAT officer, firearms instructor, hostage negotiator, and neighborhood team leader. I’ve worked for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as an intelligence officer and protective security advisor. I’ve been the chief instructor at a private shooting club. Mixed in there were a few years as a volunteer firefighter and EMT. My knowledge of guns is fairly extensive. I know quite a bit about numerous makes and models of guns, including rifles, pistols, and shotguns. I’ve fired many types and styles of guns from .22 caliber pistols (very small) to 155-millimeter howitzers (so big they need to be towed by a truck). I have a great deal of experience in “use of force,” which is the legal term for the appropriate times and conditions when different types of force can be used by civilians, the military, and law enforcement. I’ve seen close-up what guns can do to a human body. But I am getting ahead of myself. I am what some would consider a late bloomer when it comes to shooting and guns. My

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shooting experience started when I was eighteen at U.S. Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina. Prior to that, the only guns I knew were toys and BB guns. You may have heard it is important to make a good first impression; well, the rifle ranges of Parris Island certainly made a good first impression on me. Boot camp takes about three months. The first month was filled with screaming drill instructors, summer humidity and heat, and what seemed like endless push-ups. Very disorienting and uncomfortable. As the second month of boot camp began, our company marched out to the rifle ranges and the change in atmosphere was remarkable. We began our march at the industrial Mainside part of the base and ended at the pastoral grounds of the ranges. Where Mainside was mostly paved and sandy, the ranges had huge fields of green grass. Where Mainside had quite a bit of traffic and other mechanical noise from steam plants and the like, the ranges were quiet with the sound of birds and the wind blowing through the trees punctuated by the pleasant sound of the crack of rifle fire as Marines practiced their craft. The difference was amazing. That initial experience set a high standard for the rest of my life. The training I received there was exceptional; few would argue the Marines create excellent shooters. Over the next fifteen years I would experience a wide variety of firearms as I became an expert in their operation and maintenance and learned how to employ them to inflict the least damage while accomplishing a mission or in the line of duty. I would not consider myself a “gun nut” or even an enthusiast. I don’t own very many. I don’t get emotional when I’m around them. I look at them as tools, much like a carpenter looks at a hammer. I’m comfortable around them because I know what they can and cannot do. My position on guns is that of a pragmatic advocate. The appropriate gun in the hands of a well-trained person can result

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in the pursuit of a lifelong and engaging sport. It can also be a potent solution to a desperate problem and a powerful deterrent. I believe guns alone are not dangerous. As with many controversial topics, the disagreements often arise from a lack of knowledge and experience coupled with our natural tendency to generalize and oversimplify complex problems. We are better served when we gather information from varied sources and break down the problems into manageable issues. I’m not asking you to agree with me. Based on what I know and what I’ve done, this is how I feel. I will continue to read thoughtful material and talk to people who make a conscientious effort to understand the issues. That’s one of the reasons I appreciate this series as it does a very good job exploring some of the most contentious issues such as assault weapons, the gun economy, and Second Amendment rights. Clients frequently ask me to help them address the threat of an active assailant, commonly referred to as an “active shooter.” The active shooter scenario encompasses so many of the issues surrounding guns. Mental health, gun ownership, concealed carry, and law enforcement response are all part of the conversation although some of my clients seem unaware of the connections. I wish I’d been able to refer them to the Gun Country series to fill some of their knowledge gaps. By reading this foreword and having the series in front of you, you are already ahead of the game. You are on your way to forming your own thoughtful opinion on the topic of guns and the surrounding issues. I admire the good work author David Wilson has done presenting a complicated topic in a fair and straightforward manner. I encourage you to take the time to carefully consume this series regardless of your current position on the topic. Do the activities, follow the video links, and answer the questions at the end of the chapters. Keep an open mind and turn up your critical

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thinking. Ask yourself difficult questions and then actively pursue the answers. By doing these small additional tasks, you will come away with a very good base of knowledge on a complicated subject. If you still have questions, use the information and knowledge from the Gun Country series to drive further research. If you have not already done so, consider visiting a gun show, take a marksmanship class and shoot a pistol if you never have, and talk with law enforcement to gain their perspective. You should also consider talking with emergency room doctors and nurses, teachers, and school administrators for their perspectives as well. To think is not to know. To experience is to know. Use this series as the basis for your experience.

Jeff Murray, MA ASIS Certified Protection Professional Certified Firearms Instructor

Foreword

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grandfathering: Exempting a person from new laws, regulations, or policies. lax: Weak, ineffective, half-hearted, rarely enforced. libertarianism: A political ideology that advocates for smaller government, fewer regulations, and greater civil rights. railroading: Using heavy-handed tactics or outright force to get a desired result. Southern states have higher gun ownership rates than those in the Northeast. WORDS TO UNDERSTAND

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Mapping America’s Guns

Although there are as many guns in the United States as there are Americans (or more), the distribution of guns to people is not a one-to-one ratio. Instead, different regions of the nation have higher gun ownership rates, while the types of guns owned also vary from location to location. Gun ownership throughout the United States does peak, however, in rural areas, where half of all Americans living outside of cities say they own guns, compared to just one in five Americans living in urban areas who report owning guns. This imbalance in ownership, furthermore, means that 82 percent of rural Americans say the right to own a gun is essential to their beliefs about freedom, while just 59 percent of urban Americans agree. The Northeast: A Diversity of Ownership and Regulations No part of the nation owns fewer guns per capita than the northeastern states, encompassing the entire Atlantic seaboard north of Washington, D.C. New York State has the fewest registered gun owners of any state, with just 3.3 guns per 1,000 residents, or about 83,000 registered firearms

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overall. Connecticut has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, banning sales of new assault weapons and prohibiting transfers of grandfathered weapons (i.e., weapons currently outlawed, which were at one point legal to purchase and own). Massachusetts requires any gun owner to obtain a permit from the police (with about 3 percent of permit applications denied per year) and to keep their weapon(s) registered in a state database, even if someone is making a private sale, such as a sale between family members; in addition, no person younger than age 21 may purchase a handgun. The New England region features both strict and lax laws: three states ban assault rifles, while New Hampshire only requires gun buyers to possess identification and pass a criminal background check, requiring a waiting period for only a handful of types of guns. Some northeastern states that promote strict gun control have success stories to justify their laws. Massachusetts had just

New England Gunsmithing

The geographical region of New England, encompassing Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, held many of the first colonies established in American history. During the colonial era, gunsmithing required the collaborative work of several people: a founder to melt and shape metal, a blacksmith to hammer heavy steel parts, a whitesmith to manufacture delicate parts or file and polish the metal, and a woodworker to cut a stock and grip. Apprentices learned these skills between the ages of twelve and twenty.

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3.6 gun deaths per 100,000 people in 2016. By comparison, New Hampshire had 9.9, and Alaska and Louisiana both hit 20. On the international stage, Switzerland, France, Austria, and Finland have about 3 gun deaths per 100,000 people. The South: Liberal Gun Laws Predominate Several of the states in the South (comprising all Atlantic coast and inland states south of Washington, D.C.) have the highest gun ownership rates across a variety of statistics. Southerners are most likely to own any firearm, most likely to own only a handgun, and most likely to own a handgun in conjunction with a rifle and/or shotgun. Southerners are also, by far, the most likely to report owning a gun for protection against other people (nearly three in four southern gun owners) and also the most likely to report owning a gun for protection against animals (nearly one in four southern gun owners). By total count, no state in the country has more registered guns overall than Texas, possessing as many guns (over 700,000) as the next two states, Florida and California, combined. What’s more, Texas also leads the lists of many different types of registered weapons: it has the most registered machine guns, the most short-barreled rifles, the most registered destructive devices (such as grenades), and the most registered silencers (nearly a quarter of a million; no other state has more than 85,000). Texas’s long history of gun ownership and the state’s cowboy culture play roles in its topping the list: one of the most expensive guns ever auctioned, an 1836 Colt Paterson revolver, was purchased in Dallas in 2011 for nearly one million dollars. After capturing the famed outlaws Bonnie and Clyde, Texas Ranger Frank Hamer kept their pistols and sold them to a collector. Fisher County, in northwestern Texas, is known as “the worst place to rob a gas station,” since half the population has

Chapter 1: Mapping America’s Guns

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Several states in the South have the highest gun ownership rates across a variety of statistics.

a license to carry a concealed handgun. FBI background checks for firearm purchases in Texas rose by 137 percent between 2000 and 2016. Texas is also a major center for gun smuggling and trafficking, having only two laws on its books about firearm trafficking, one of which only addresses sales to criminal groups. Florida is the nation’s second-largest gun-owning state, with a population that is about half of California’s but owns more guns overall. It is an interesting case study, as it has many guns but relatively lower gun violence, ranking just twenty-eighth in the

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