Basic Pistol: Living and Dying by the Gun in America
Sep 2026 · Pan Macmillan
Ebook
320
Pages
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About this ebook
A shocking encounter with American gun culture that reveals the devastating effects of how people are training their minds and bodies for violence.
'Exceptional . . . shows his readers a world full of complex people' - The Economist
'Utterly brilliant . . . deeply researched and thoughtful' - Justin Webb, former BBC North America editor
Every day, at firearms schools across the country, ordinary Americans are learning how to use a gun. Who are their teachers? What are they being taught, and for what purpose?
Harel Shapira, a sociologist at the University of Texas, has spent ten years immersed in the world of gun-training. Throughout the dozens of classes he has taken, he has been taught that the world is filled with ‘bad guys’ who can only be stopped by the self-styled ‘good guys’. He has learned that he must be prepared to kill or be killed.
Basic Pistol reveals how these schools are going far beyond teaching the mechanics of gun safety. They are teaching a way of living in the world rooted in racist fears, aggressive masculinity and an entitlement to violence. It will explain why the risk of widespread gun ownership is not simply the possibility of more gun violence and mass shootings. The risk is to the very foundations of democracy itself.
'A must read' - Heather Ann Thompson
‘Groundbreaking’ - Adam Winkler
'Fascinating, disturbing, necessary' - Eric Klinenberg
'Exceptional . . . shows his readers a world full of complex people' - The Economist
'Utterly brilliant . . . deeply researched and thoughtful' - Justin Webb, former BBC North America editor
Every day, at firearms schools across the country, ordinary Americans are learning how to use a gun. Who are their teachers? What are they being taught, and for what purpose?
Harel Shapira, a sociologist at the University of Texas, has spent ten years immersed in the world of gun-training. Throughout the dozens of classes he has taken, he has been taught that the world is filled with ‘bad guys’ who can only be stopped by the self-styled ‘good guys’. He has learned that he must be prepared to kill or be killed.
Basic Pistol reveals how these schools are going far beyond teaching the mechanics of gun safety. They are teaching a way of living in the world rooted in racist fears, aggressive masculinity and an entitlement to violence. It will explain why the risk of widespread gun ownership is not simply the possibility of more gun violence and mass shootings. The risk is to the very foundations of democracy itself.
'A must read' - Heather Ann Thompson
‘Groundbreaking’ - Adam Winkler
'Fascinating, disturbing, necessary' - Eric Klinenberg
A shocking encounter with American gun culture that reveals the devastating effects of how people are training their minds and bodies for violence.
'Exceptional . . . shows his readers a world full of complex people' - The Economist
'Utterly brilliant . . . deeply researched and thoughtful' - Ju...
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About the author
Harel Shapira is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. In Basic Pistol, as well as his previous book, Waiting for José: The Minutemen’s Pursuit of America, he uses long term ethnographic research to understand right wing politics and gun culture in contemporary America. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation as well as the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and his writing has been featured in The New York Times and The New Republic. In 2015 he was named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, and in 2021 a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study.
Harel Shapira is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. In Basic Pistol, as well as his previous book, Waiting for José: The Minutemen’s Pursuit of America, he uses long term ethnographic research to understand right wing politics and gun cultu...
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