Gun Control and Gun Rights: A Reader and Guide

Rating:
Summary: Reasoned, Balanced and Badly Needed
Review: For the most part, the gun-policy debate in the United States could be well summed up by Yeats' words: The best lack all conviction while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity. Truly honest scholarship, in the sense of a dispassionate exploration of the issues underlying the debate, has been sorely lacking. Even the best, scientifically-based work has taken the form of attempts to prove something about the social benefits or social costs of private gun ownership. No one, it seems, has come forward to frame the questions that the debate ought to be seeking to answer.

Andrew McClurg, David Kopel and Brannon Denning have done just that. While holding very different personal views - McClurg is an advocate of increased gun control while Kopel and Denning are in favor of broader gun rights - these three have built a framework within which a meaningful debate can begin.

Anyone who truly cares about finding a workable resolution to our country's disagreements over gun ownership - anyone, that is, who will make the effort to get beyond simply demanding that things be settled their way - will benefit from reading this book.

I want to stress how very important it is that we, as informed, thinking citizens, take control of this debate. Politicians work to extend and ensure their tenures by polarizing constituencies around divisive issues. They have, in all too many instances, no genuine desire to find solutions that meet and respect the vital interests of all. If lasting resolutions are to be achieved, if answers are to be found that we can all live with, they will have to be built from the ground up in the minds of individuals who have taken responsibility for their own beliefs.