I was scheduled to teach Sociology of Religion this semester (Fall 2020), but several students in the spring asked me to teach my Sociology of Guns seminar instead. So here I am, teaching the course for the 6th straight year.
Download a PDF of the current syllabus here. A collection of links to my previous posts on the seminar is available also.
Page from Sociology of Guns syllabus, fall 2020.
The fact that gun sales have been off the charts in 2020 is not news, but some were still surprised at the July sales numbers. The newsadvocacy organization The Trace has created an interesting data visualization drawing on NICS data as a proxy for gun sales.
I don’t have any commentary to add beyond things I have already said elsewhere on this blog (here and here) and in my chat with Jake Charles from the Duke Center for Firearms Law, but posting this as a resource for others to use.
Screen cap of https://www.thetrace.org/features/gun-sales-estimates/
Note also Professor Trent Steidley’s cautionary notes about interpreting NICS data, here, here, and here.)
Gun Curious 