Gun Curious: A Liberal Professor’s Surprising Journey Inside America’s Gun Culture

by David Yamane

Exposit Books

213 pp., $19.99

From John Wayne to John Wick, America has long had a fascination with guns. In the past few decades, the debate around firearms has become more virulent, more heated, and more personal. It’s no longer even a debate, according to David Yamane, author of Gun Curious, as the left and right consistently talk—or shout—past each other, eschewing engagement in favor of insults and conspiracy theories.

Yamane’s premise in Gun Curious is that, as a liberal academic who is also a gun owner, he might be able to locate common ground between the sides and, through the book, his teaching, and his public speaking appearances, create an area for genuine discussion. As a sociology professor at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, but with a background in über-liberal San Francisco, he would seem to be a good person to attempt to lower the temperature. But this is a big task, given the polarization of American politics.

His path to joining the fraternity of gun owners was a convoluted one. He was in his forties before he even touched, let alone fired, a real gun. The turning point was when a neighbor’s domestic dispute threatened to spill over into his own home, and he realized that he had no way to protect himself or, more importantly, his two young children. As it turns out, this is a very common path to gun ownership, with a scare or near miss leading to a visit to the local gun store. It is not unlike a liberal becoming a conservative after being mugged. Welcome to the real world.

Once he was through the door, he began to decipher the structure of gun culture. He discovered a universe of gun-related cable programs, podcasts, and events. Top Shot, a marksmanship competition show that ran for five seasons on the History Channel, was an eye-opener for him. It revealed the technical depth and history of gun technology and also provided him the sheer enjoyment of watching gun enthusiasts who are very good at what they do.

He also delved into the legal conditions underpinning gun culture, especially the carrying of concealed weapons. In some states, it is virtually impossible to meet the requirements to obtain a permit, while in others it is almost ridiculously easy. In Pennsylvania, for example, a permit costs only $19. Yamane might have added an analysis of whether street crime is lower in concealed carry states, but he misses that particular target.

In fact, protection against crime is the key driver of gun purchases these days. It is such a dominant motivation that Yamane calls the current situation Gun Culture 2.0, differentiating it from the previous era when guns were used mainly for hunting or sport shooting. Guns are still purchased for those reasons, but the focus has shifted to self-defense.

Gun control advocates, especially those at the militant end of the spectrum, argue that most guns purchased for personal protection will never be used for that purpose, and many will never be used at all. The chances of being caught up in a violent crime when a gun is needed are quite small, statistically speaking. Yamane replies that while the chances of a violent encounter are low, the risks are very high, potentially involving your own life and the lives of loved ones. Maybe you will never need to use your gun for defense. But the maxim Yamane applies is: better to have and not need than need and not have. It makes an appealing, clear-minded sense, a Pascal’s Wager for the 21st century.

After Yamane acquired his first gun, he visited a gun range for training in safe, effective use. It was here, and at several other ranges he visited, that he was struck by the normality of the gun owners he encountered. At recreational shooting days, there was no shortage of ordinary Americans—men and women of all skin colors and ethnic backgrounds—united at an essential level by their willingness to have a good time shooting at cans and paper targets.

According to research by the reputable Pew Research organization, the majority of Americans have lived with a gun in their home. More than a third of those who do not currently own a gun indicated that they could see themselves owning one in the future. An even more revealing question asked whether poll respondents had ever fired a gun, whether or not they own one. Only 28 percent said they had never fired a gun, which meant that 72 percent had. “If that is not normal behavior in our society,” Yamane writes, “I don’t know what is.”

The dirty little secret is that many liberals who publicly lament conservative gun culture privately own guns themselves. 

The dirty little secret is that many liberals who publicly lament conservative gun culture privately own guns themselves. 2020 was the “Great Gun Buying Spree.” Gun sales tend to spike in times of social unrest, and it’s mostly liberals who are lined up outside gun stores (conservatives have already bought their guns!). It is as if they are saying, well, yes, crime might be systemic and due to inequities in race and wealth, but I’ll be damned if I’ll be caught empty-handed when it all hits the fan.

Yamane does not have much time for the aggressively anti-gun segment of the liberal side, which he terms the No/Nevers, due to their response to the Pew question on the likelihood of them buying a gun. He is annoyed by their tendency to manipulate statistics, especially when they argue that the mere presence of a gun increases personal risk. Yamane notes that pretty much everything has some element of risk. Alcohol consumption, for example, involves more risk than gun ownership, according to accident and crime statistics. There is a basic hypocrisy, he writes, in “the moms who demand action on guns and consume California Chardonnays, and the New York Times staff who editorialize against guns by day and drink craft cocktails by night.”

One subject that leaves Yamane in a conflicted position are so-called assault weapons, such as the AR-15, even though he owns one. The definition of an assault weapon is opaque—it is a “civilian, semiautomatic version of a military weapon,” according to the Justice Department. These characteristics are supposed to make a weapon “more lethal, more accurate, and/or less conspicuous when used.” The category often boils down to weapons that “look scary,” with black molded plastic and picatinny rails for laser sights and flashlights, but are functionally similar or identical to semiautomatic guns with large detachable magazines that are marketed for hunting and sport shooting.

Yet the “assault weapon” concept evokes strong feelings and the public believes they are more commonly used in school shootings. In fact, handguns are the most common weapon used in school shootings and other mass shootings. Assault weapons were used in just 27 percent of mass shootings, according to data compiled by the Violence Prevention Project, which is nearly the same as the 24 percent that involve sporting rifles or shotguns.

Still, assault rifles have been used in some of the deadliest recent mass shootings, which include the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, and Sandy Hook in 2012. Yamane can see why some liberals believe they should be banned but argues that would would not stop mass shootings. He points out that the worst school massacre was in 1927, a bombing of a school in Michigan, which killed 38 children and five adults.

Leaving the No/Nevers aside, Yamane sees a larger, more centrist section of the liberal community (not counting those who already own guns) who might be open to a discussion with gun owners. But these liberals should accept as a starting point that gun ownership is a normal thing that normal people do and acknowledge that theirs is not a mainstream position.

Equally, they have to acknowledge that gun owners are a diverse group with diverse views. Undoubtedly, some have obnoxiously distasteful attitudes. But “even a knitting group can have assholes in it,” Yamane writes. Liberals need to realize that the retrogrades are not illustrative of the whole, just as gun owners have to accept that not all liberals are “gun grabbers” who see them as deplorables. Within that broad intersection, there is room to agree on ways to enhance gun safety, especially where the young are potentially involved. Youth suicide with guns is a serious issue, offering a permanent and horrific solution to a temporary problem. Keeping guns in a secure place, preferably under lock and key, makes sense. Anyone who buys a gun should be willing to follow the principles of common sense.

Interestingly, the most adamant proponents of increased gun responsibility are often firearms trainers, many of them former military types. Pulling a trigger, they emphasize, inevitably generates moral and legal consequences. Yamane has repeatedly heard them advise that reaching for a gun should be a last resort rather than the first option, even when one is confronted with mortal danger. It sounds like a practical, accessible mental framework that the middle of the political continuum could accept.

This is a sensible, considered conclusion to a sensible, considered book. The author is not expecting millions of Americans to change their minds but hopes for greater respect from all for those on the respective other sides. One may have expected more, such as a set of policy proposals rather than just a call for a new perspective. But perhaps a shift in thinking is a necessary precondition to anything else. Yamane muses that the larger answer is “to get out of our echo chambers and approach each other with civic grace”. That may, in the end, be the only real way to turn a gunfight into a conversation.