TL:DR on Thoughts on “Firearms Classes Taught Me, and America, a Very Dangerous Lesson” Blog Post

On my “Light Over Heat” YouTube channel this week, I discuss sociologist Harel Shapira’s opinion essay, “Firearms Taught Me, and America, a Very Dangerous Lesson,” published in the New York Times on 16 May 2023 (gift link here should take you behind the NYT paywall if you haven’t seen the opinion yet).

When I sat down to write the brief show notes for the YouTube episode, I ended up spending 9 hours writing a 3,500 systematic response. Which is probably too much to ask of most people. So, here is the TL:DR or Cliff’s Notes version of that post. If you want to see any of these points elaborated or the documentation supporting them, please pop over to the original post.

TL:DR of this TL:DR I have learned very different lessons from firearms classes than Harel Shapira.

Thoughts on NYT Opinion “Firearms Classes Taught Me, and America, a Very Dangerous Lesson”

On my “Light Over Heat” YouTube channel this week, I discuss sociologist Harel Shapira’s opinion essay, “Firearms Taught Me, and America, a Very Dangerous Lesson,” published in the New York Times on 16 May 2023 (gift link here should take you behind the NYT paywall if you haven’t seen the opinion yet).

The title, of course, is provocative and the essay certainly provoked considerable attention on my social media feeds. My gun-skeptic friends had all of their biases about Gun Culture 2.0 confirmed, while my gun-sympathetic friends didn’t recognize themselves in Shapira’s characterization.

As usual, I tried to translate between these two different perspectives, but 140 characters doesn’t allow for much nuance.

So, in addition to 11 minutes of more free-flowing “Light Over Heat” video comments, this blog post presents the points I would like to make more systematically.

TL:DR I have learned very different lessons from firearms classes than Harel Shapira.

Light Over Heat #5: The Concealed Carry Revolution and Concealed Carry Training

In last week’s video on Gun Culture 2.0, I mentioned the “Concealed Carry Revolution” as establishing an important aspect of the legal environment within which people practice armed self-defense today.

In this fifth “Light Over Heat with Professor David Yamane” video, I discuss the shall-issue and permitless carry revolutions, and a recent criticism by the Michael Bloomberg-funded newsadvocacy organization “The Trace” that these laws allow the promiscuous toting for firearms in public without proper “training.”

The question of gun training is one I have written about frequently on this blog and in Chapter 5 of my book, Concealed Carry Revolution: Liberalizing the Right to Bear Arms in America.

ANNOUNCING UPDATED EDITION of Concealed Carry Revolution: Liberalizing the Right to Bear Arms in America

I am very happy to announce that the Updated Edition of my small (92 page) book on the history and current status of concealed carry laws in the United States is now fully available online via Amazon.

This includes the paperback with free 2-day Prime shipping for $12.95 and the Kindle edition for $0.00 with a Kindle Unlimited subscription or $6.99 otherwise.

If you buy a copy of the book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon (or Goodreads or Google books) because that helps others outside my social networks find the book.

If you bought a copy of the first edition, there’s nothing to prevent you from leaving a review of the Updated Edition.

Guest Lecturer John Johnston: No One Needs a Gun Until They Do

For the third consecutive year, John Johnston of Ballistic Radio and Citizens Defense Research guest lectured in my Sociology of Guns Seminar at Wake Forest University last week.

Here I want to briefly summarize the ideas he shared with my students, while respecting the fact that the session itself was not for public consumption.

(NOTE: In order to provide an environment in which everyone feels comfortable sharing their ideas, no outside observers are allowed in the class and no recording of it is made public. Although there is a clear trade-off in keeping the information private, John mentioned after the session that there were things he was able to share that he might not otherwise because the session was not public.)

John Johnston guest lecturing in Sociology of Guns via Zoom, October 2020.

Practice (Even Train) Using Your Pepper Spray

Even people who are avidly anti-gun recognize the value of pepper spray as a tool of personal protection.

On the other side, some pro-defensive gun people ignore pepper spray thinking that the gun they carry will solve all of their problems. According to trainer John Murphy, this is like trying to “hammer screws.”

Thankfully, those in the civilian defensive gun training industry whose work I respect most are increasingly promoting pepper spray as an important force option, one that can solve problems of personal protection well before lethal force would be necessary or legally justified.

POM pepper spray unit with pocket clip