Gun Culture 2.0 and the Great Gun Buying Spree of 2020

Late in 2020 an editor from the online magazine Discourse contacted me to see if I wanted to write anything about my work on American gun culture for them. The invitation provided an excellent opportunity for me to formalize some of my scattered thoughts on the Great Gun-Buying Spree of 2020. I quickly agreed.

It was published recently so have a look, and read more after the break.

Screen cap of Discourse magazine essay on Gun Culture 2.0

According to its “About” page, Discourse is “a new online journal of politics, economics and culture published by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Discourse is dedicated first and foremost to discourse, to the idea that good thinking and good ideas arise amid the interplay of different viewpoints and perspectives. Discourse is also dedicated to promoting and defending time-tested liberal values with new and innovative thinking.”

Although I am not exactly a (Hayekian free market) liberal in the mold of the Mercatus Center, they placed no limits on what I could write about, did not suggest any ideologically-driven directions, and made no effort in the editing process to substantively change what I argued. To the contrary, I received some excellent editorial feedback from the magazine’s staff and am very pleased with how the essay turned out, including the graphic based on my colleague Trent Steidley’s work with NICS data.