Top 10 Most Viewed Posts in 2020

I launched this blog in February 2019 because my Gun Culture 2.0 blog has come to be read almost exclusively by people who are invested in gun culture. Although they are an important audience for my work, I also want to translate what I am learning about guns to the gun curious — those interested in but unsure about guns. People in the middle. Those who are not already 100% convinced of their views.

Although I am not yet convinced that I am reaching such an audience, and readership of this blog lags well behind Gun Culture 2.0, I remain committed to posting here about issues relating to guns for people across the political and gun ownership spectra.

Unlike on Gun Culture 2.0, the Top 10 most viewed posts of 2020 were, with one exception, posted in 2020:

1. Student Range Visit Reflection: Fear to Fun. Three of the top 4 most viewed posts in 2020 were reflections written by students in my Sociology of Guns seminar at Wake Forest University. This post received 3 times as many views as the #2 post on this list.
2. Pandemics, Protests, and Firearms Purchasing. The Great Gun Buying Spree of 2020 is something I posted about several times in 2020. I am surprised some of the other posts didn’t do better, but this is a significant post with links to some of the others.
3. Student Range Visit Reflection #3: A Strange Mixture of Emotions. Another post by a Sociology of Guns student, a favorite of mine who may end up at an Ivy League law school next year. You read her here first.
4. Student Range Visit Reflection #8: Under No Circumstances Should a Gun Be in the Hands of a Typical Citizen. Post by the student in my Sociology of Guns course who was easily the most pro-gun control student in the class.
5. From Gun Curious to Gun Owner – Then What? Posted early in the pandemic gun buying spree, I link here to some early efforts to educate new gun owners.
6. What is Gun Culture 2.0? A brief primer on Gun Culture 2.0 in comparison to Gun Culture 1.0 and Gun Culture 0.0. A good starting point.
7. Who Are The Liberal Gun Owners? This brief post about a neglected category of gun owners actually spurred me to investigate the issue further which lead to a scholarly article published at the end of 2020 by the same title.
8. Liberals Own Guns, Too! 2020 was a big year for liberal gun owners in the media and organizationally.
9. Golfers, Gun Owners, and Social Identity. Some personal reflections on gun owner as an identity in the context of broader data.
10. Guest Lecturer John Johnston: No One Needs a Gun Until They Do. John Johnston has been a guest lecturer in my class three years running, and always brings a lot of information and sophisticated thinking to the table. This year, among other things, he addressed the question, “Why does somebody need to carry a gun in public anyway?”

HONORABLE MENTION: The only post from 2019 to crack the Top 10 in 2020, an important post with some legs: Why Surveys Underestimate Gun Ownership Rates in the U.S.

Briefing Sociology of Guns students at the range prior to shooting. Photo by Robin Lindner/RLI Media

My main goal for 2021 is to make serious progress in writing my book on American gun culture. To that end, I may have to cut back on my blogging here and at Gun Culture 2.0. I hope to continue to emphasize quality over quantity, though, and appreciate everyone’s continued interest in and support of my work here.