“Race and Guns in America” Webinar on Saturday July 31

I was recently querying Academic Twitter about peer-reviewed social scientific publications on non-deviant African American gun owners to assign in the module on race in my Sociology of Guns seminar (more on that module forthcoming). I was disheartened but not surprised that there are none (historians and legal scholars have done better). After all, only this year was a peer-reviewed sociological study of LGBT gun owners published.

Perhaps the times are changing. From 2:00-4:00pm Eastern Time on July 31, I will be joining Wake Forest Law Professor Gregory Parks and a panel of other academics and experts for a thoughtful and thought-provoking webinar on race and guns in the U.S.

The conversation will examine how race intersects with the history of gun ownership in America, the roots of the Second Amendment, and the modern politics of guns. Panelists will bring a historical, legal, psychological, and sociological lens to bear on the discussion, “Race and Guns in America: A Conversation About Black Gun Ownership.”

You can register for the event here.

The panel Professor Parks has put together is quite impressive. In addition to myself, it includes:

Phillip Smith, Founder and President of the National African American Gun Association

Jennifer Carlson, Associate Professor of Sociology & Government and Public Policy at the University of Arizona and author of “Policing the Second Amendment: Guns, Law Enforcement, and the Politics of Race”

Robert Cottrol, Professor of Law at the George Washington University School of Law and author of “Gun Control and the Constitution: The Courts, Congress, and the Second Amendment”

Nicholas Johnson, Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law and author of “Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms”

Simon Wendt, Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Frankfurt and author of “The Spirit and the Shotgun: Armed Resistance and the Struggle for Civil Rights”

I am looking forward to contributing a little to and learning a lot from this discussion.