[Sociologist Harel] Shapira’s interest in gun culture grew out of research for his 2017 book, “Waiting for José: The Minutemen’s Pursuit of America,” a study of a volunteer militia group that patrolled the U.S. border, intent on keeping out illegal immigrants from Mexico.
A member of that group who was also a National Rifle Association instructor took him shooting. The encounter revealed what Shapira describes as an “experiential gap” between his own unease with firearms and the instructor’s comfort and enthusiasm.
How, he wondered, could two people in the same world experience the same object — a gun — in such profoundly different ways? The question would come to undergird his research.
Shapira uses statistics sparingly in his new book, letting qualitative research carry much of the argument. But he points to one striking shift. In 1999, only about a quarter of American gun owners said self-defense was their primary reason for owning a firearm; hunting ranked first. Today, 72 percent cite self-defense, while hunters, he writes, are a “stark minority.”
In Shapira’s telling, firearms training operates as a feedback loop. Fear brings people to the classroom, and the course gives them new reasons to be afraid.
— Sasha von Oldershausen in 42 Gun-Training Classes Later, He Understands Why We’re So Afraid
“Shapira uses statistics sparingly in his new book, letting qualitative research carry much of the argument.”
Translation: his research is not repeatable, and he is clothing his own opinions and prejudices in a mantle of professional credentials.
I read the article. This liberal PhD white man, like so many of them, has a very difficult time explaining to himself. Why is it, that a black man is in the business of being a firearms instructor???
I’ve noticed a changed in the way the media portrays gun ownership. They had to change. YouTube and the rest of the independent internet has forced them to.
Black people teaching white people, and others about guns. That situation has never occurred to a white liberal???
Even the liberal white lesbi@n was comfortable with only the democrats having guns and in control. Until Trump got into office. Then she wanted a gun.
But she had to learn from a black guy!!!😃
It would not surprise me if she was, or still is a member of the group.
“Gays Against Guns”
Guns for me but not for you.