The Presentation That Wasn’t: Gun Culture 2.0 and the Changing Face of Gun Owners in America

I have presented my work dozens of times in the 30 years since my first academic conference presentation in 1992. I had never missed a scheduled presentation until this year, when I could not attend a session (organized by Nicholas Buttrick and including Tara Warner and Emmy Betz) at the annual meeting of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science due to my father’s death.

My topic was “Gun Culture 2.0 and the Changing Face of Gun Owners in America.” What I was going to talk about was not new to me, but I was excited to bring my ideas about guns and gun culture to a new audience.

If you are new to my work, if you want a refresher, or ICYMI, you can get an idea of my approach to this topic both in writing and video.

Two YouTube videos from my “Light Over Heat” channel follow. The first is a 15 minute presentation I made to the Outdoor Writers Association of American in October 2021, and the second is the third Light Over Heat video I posted in January 2022. A couple of links to my writing on the issue are included as well.

Light Over Heat #31: The Diversity and (Possible) Future of American Gun Culture

In this week’s Light Over Heat video I discuss diversity in American gun culture, both the diversity of different gun subcultures that exist today beyond the self-defense-oriented Gun Culture 2.0 and diversity within Gun Culture 2.0.

This diversity sets the stage for some speculation about possible futures for American gun culture: (1) post-Bruen growth and consolidation of Gun Culture 2.0; (2) diversity within Gun Culture 2.0 and across gun culture generally leads to a situation where “the center cannot hold” and gun culture fragments with no main center of gravity going forward; and (3) a Gun Culture 3.0 centered on Second Amendment politics.

This latter idea is one that was floated, prematurely in my view, by Claire Boine and her colleagues in their article, “What is gun culture? Cultural variations and trends across the United States.”

Light Over Heat #23: The Benefits of Intellectual Diversity and the Challenge of Achieving It

In my last video (Light Over Heat #22), I reflected on the value of diversity (political, cultural, social, intellectual) in exposing us to people different from us and ideas different from our own. From these differences can come greater understanding. I applied this idea to some of the ways I have come to see the issues raised by the Buffalo mass murder differently.

This week, I reflect on how intellectual diversity has challenged me to think better in my scholarly work on guns. Drawing on Jonathan Haidt’s work in THE RIGHTEOUS MIND (about which I have written before), I highlight the importance of people with different views working together in a spirit of trust to make scholarship about guns, but also (potentially) the world, better.

New “Light Over Heat” videos are released on YouTube every Wednesday, so please surf over to my YouTube channel and SUBSCRIBE to follow, RING THE BELL to receive notifications, and SHARE so others can learn about this work.

Light Over Heat #22: Further Thoughts Post-Buffalo Thanks to Intellectual Diversity

In my last video (Light Over Heat #21), I commented on guns and race, racism, and white supremacy in the wake of the Buffalo mass murder. The comments I received, even the critical ones, were generally very respectful and constructive. Given the name and mission of my YouTube channel — “Light Over Heat” — I appreciate this very much.

The comments also got me thinking about the value of diversity (political, cultural, social, intellectual) in exposing us to people and ideas different from our own. From these differences can come greater understanding.

Getting into gun culture has exposed me to more intellectual diversity than if I had just stayed in my bright blue sociology bubble. In this week’s video, I talk about some of the ways I have come to see the issues raised by the Buffalo mass murder differently.

“Be a Bridge”

Graduation ceremonies always lift my spirits, so after a tough weekend confronting the reality of white supremacist hate in America, I was glad to be able to set that aside and recognize the achievements of over 1,000 Wake Forest University undergraduates (including my youngest son) who completed their final two years of college under extraordinary circumstances.

As I told my own students on the final day of class this semester, I hope that the challenges they face make them stronger, more resilient, more creative, and more compassionate people.

Wake Forest 2022 Commencement. Photo by David Yamane

The commencement speaker this year was Van Jones, who is best known as a CNN political commentator. His address hit all the right notes for me. Here I want to highlight just a couple, but you can watch the entire address on YouTube or read it at the Wake Forest University commencement site.

Light Over Heat #4: Gun Culture 2.0

In this fourth “Light Over Heat with Professor David Yamane” video I discuss the concept of Gun Culture 2.0, the self-defense core of American gun culture today.

I have been developing the concept and studying the phenomenon for over 10 years now, posting hundreds of times on my Gun Culture 2.0 blog and publishing a number of academic and popular works about it.

This is a short (4 minute) video primer for the uninitiated and refresher for the initiated.

Light Over Heat #3: The Changing Face of Gun Owners Today

In this third “Light Over Heat with Professor David Yamane” video I explore what two 2021 National Firearms Surveys tell us about the diverse and changing face of gun owners today.

The first survey, Georgetown business professor William English’s 2021 National Firearms Survey, highlights the diversity of contemporary gun owners.

The second survey, a 2021 National Firearms Survey by scholars at Northeastern and Harvard University, highlights the diversity of those who became new gun owners from January 2019 to April 2021.

Sociology of Guns Seminar Student Final Reflection #7: There is Still More that I Would Like to Know to Make Informed Choices

As noted earlier, the final assignment of the semester in my Sociology of Guns seminar is for the students to write an essay reflecting on their personal experience with and understanding of guns in light of what they learned in the course.

Here is the seventh of several such essays, written by a student whose initial reflections on our field trip to the gun range can be found here. (Link to the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth reflection essays.)

Reflection essay author presenting his work to Sociology of Guns seminar, November 2021. Photo by David Yamane

Gun Culture 2.0 and the Changing Face of Gun Owners in America

I was fortunate to be asked to present on “Guns in America” at the annual conference of the Outdoor Writers Association of America yesterday (6 October 2021). I discussed “Gun Culture 2.0 and the Changing Face of Gun Owners in America.”

I was fairly certain that the presentation would not be recorded, so before I left for Jay, Vermont I recorded an abbreviated (15 minute) version of my talk from my basement studio and uploaded it to YouTube.

Sociology of Guns Module 3: Gun Culture 2.0, the Great Gun Buying Spree of 2020+, and the Changing Face of Gun Owners

This module takes up the demographics of gun ownship, the Great Gun Buying Spree of 2020+, and the changing face of American gun owners.

We know from many surveys over a long period of time that the statistically average legal gun owner is a middle-aged, politically conservative, married, white man from a rural area in the South or Mountain West. Basically, the main characters from TV’s “Duck Dynasty.”

But one of the problems with averages is they hide diversity. The average American, after all, has one testicle.

As we see in this module, compared to Gun Culture 1.0, Gun Culture 2.0 is younger and more female, more racially and sexually diverse, more urban and suburban, and more attracted to handguns for self-defense. New and non-traditional buyers in the Great Gun Buying Spree of 2020+ made this abundantly clear and scholarship on gun owners is beginning to catch up.