Friday, October 10 Sessions
Wesleyan Alumni: Notes from the Field
Moderator: Richard Galant (“Now It’s History”)
Panel:
- Patricia Logan-Greene ’99 (University at Buffalo’s School of Social Work )
- Nick Suplina ’00 (Everytown for Gun Safety)
- Rob Wilcox ’01 (Former White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention)
Synopsis:
- As the actions of the Supreme Court and Trump Administration have changed America’s approach to gun safety this year, Wilcox highlighted positive results from the bipartisan 2022 Safer Communities Act. This includes steering about $15 billion into local firearm violence reduction projects from mental health initiatives to efforts to stem the flow of illegal weapons and ammunition.
- Logan-Greene reported on the creation of local threat assessment teams in New York state in the wake of the 2022 TOPS Supermarket shooting in Buffalo, N.Y.
- Suplina discussed how appeals to a gun-focused identity have been used historically by certain groups as a recruitment strategy.
Guns and the Courts
Moderator: Michael McIntire (New York Times)
Panel:
- John Elmore (The Law Office of John V. Elmore P.C.)
- Kristen Elmore-Garcia (The Law Office of John V. Elmore P.C.)
- Jonathan Lowy (Global Action Against Gun Violence)
Synopsis:
- Elmore and Elmore-Garcia shared insights about their work as lawyers representing some of the victims in the 2022 TOPS Supermarket shooting.
- McIntire noted that the Buffalo shooter reportedly regretted the New York law that prevented him from buying a suppressor, which reduces recoil and would have made his shots more accurate.
- Lowy spoke about his experience trying to hold corporations accountable for the real-world harms of the firearms they sell. He is a lead counsel for Mexico in its suit to stem the flow of illegal firearms imports from the United States. He noted that there are some holes in the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms (PLACA) Act, which granted firearms manufacturers broad immunity against civil liability suits.
Public Health Perspectives on Firearm Violence
Moderator: Michael R. Ulrich (Boston University School of Public Health & School of Law)
Panel:
- Matthew Miller and Deborah Azrael (Harvard Injury Control Research Center)
- Bailey Henwood (Trent University)
- Stephen Hargarten (Medical College of Wisconsin)
Synopsis:
- Miller and Azrael reported on the latest firearm violence data.
- Henwood explained her work as a forensic scientist recovering serial numbers from weapons that criminals and terrorists have removed in a bid to protect their supply chains.
- Hargarten explained the ballistics tests he has conducted to measure the energy transfer and bullet impact of a range of historic weapons. His goal is to develop a scientifically rigorous civilian lethality index.
From Data to Discovery: Building a Collaborative Firearm Data Ecosystem Through Quantitative Approaches
Presenter: Maryam Gooyabadi (Hazel Quantitative Analysis Center, Wesleyan University)
Synopsis:
- Gooyabadi’s presentation visually represented her students’ work to create a repository of all the firearms data available on the web (e.g., firearms related patents, guns used in movies).
- During a break following the session, Gooyabadi encouraged attendees to view students’ research posters. Two students—William Allen ’26 and Ethan Chu ‘26—were on hand to answer questions.
Research Update: Modeling the Application of Historical Methods for Law and Policy in the Bruen Era
Presenter: Brennan Gardner Rivas (Center for the Study of Guns and Society)
Synopsis:
- Rivas reported on the work of researchers to scour the archives in Oklahoma, Mississippi, and California for firearms-related local ordinances and court cases from the 1800s. Rivas shared examples of primary sources including Chickasaw court records, Oklahoma City ordinances, and Marshal’s records.
Museums and Movies
Moderators: Ken Cohen (Smithsonian National Museum of American History) and Jennifer Tucker (CSGS, Wesleyan University)
Panel:
- Stephen Aron (Autry Museum of the American West)
- Geoffrey Schumacher (The Mob Museum)
- Harry Lu (Film armorer)
Synopsis:
- Schumacher and Aron discussed the challenges of representing the history of firearms, which has been heavily mythologized in American culture.
- Lu, a veteran Hollywood armorer, shared some of his experiences working with firearms on movie sets.
Historical Methods, Originalism, and the Gun Debate
Moderator: Darrell A. H. Miller (University of Chicago Law School)
Panel:
- Jill Lepore (Harvard University)
- Brian DeLay (University of California, Berkeley)
Synopsis:
Miller moderated a conversation about the connections and tensions between history, law, memory and Second Amendment litigation in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Lepore – the author of the new book, We the People: A History of the Constitution (2025) – began by laying the groundwork of history in constitutional adjudication, followed by a discussion by Prof. DeLay of his experience as an expert witness in court cases, “Bruen elevated history, text, and tradition as the sole criteria for assessing the constitutionality of firearms restrictions,” DeLay said. “That means states now bear the burden of demonstrating that their gun safety laws are consistent with the nation’s tradition of firearms regulation, so history has become the key battleground in Second Amendment Cases.” Topics for discussion included the history of the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the constitution, the role of historians as experts, and the distinctions between history and memory.
Saturday, October 11 Sessions
The Gun Debate in Early Modern Europe: New Research and Teaching Perspectives
Moderator: Peter Rutland (Wesleyan University)
Panel:
- Catherine Fletcher (Manchester Metropolitan University)
- Jennifer Waldron (University of Pittsburgh)
- Christopher Nygren (University of Pittsburgh)
Synopsis:
- Fletcher summarized the premise of her forthcoming book, The Firearm Revolution: From Renaissance Italy to the European Empire, which details the emergence of firearms 250 years before the American founding. (For example, she pointed out that the well-known firearms manufacturer, Beretta, was founded in 1526.) Guns were initially seen as “the devil’s work,” but reports on the successful use of firearms by Hernán Cortés in the conquest of Mexico helped legitimize firearms in Europe.
- Waldron and Nygren spoke about the “Gun Violence and Its Histories” program they launched at the University of Pittsburgh in the wake of the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in 2018. Their program prepares teaching modules for colleges and schools that explore the insights that the humanities can deliver about the role of weapons of war in civilian society. Nygren introduced some visual depictions of war from the 17th century, including Jacques Callot’s powerful series of etchings, Les Grandes Misères de la guerre (1633).
Public History and Interpretation: Libraries, Museums, Artists
Moderator: Shannon Perich (Smithsonian National Museum of American History)
Panel:
- Sarah Langsdon (Weber State University)
- Randy Ramer (JM Davis Arms & Historical Museum)
- Hope Eggett (Museums at Union Station)
- Glenn LaVertu (Parsons, the New School of Design)
Synopsis:
- Langsdon explained the organization of Weber State’s Browning archives, which include everything from patent applications to contracts with foreign customers.
- Eggett discussed the challenges involved in displaying firearms to a general audience. The goal is not to build “a shrine to guns” but rather place them in the context of how the technologies were developed.
- Ramer told the extraordinary story of JM Davis, an Oklahoma hotel owner who accumulated the largest private collection of guns in the United States. Davis’s fascination with guns may have been shaped by the fact that he accidentally shot his younger brother to death when he was 15 years old.
- LaVertu discussed his work displaying material objects from the Revolutionary war and his project for a Minuteman monument to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States in 2026.
Early American Firearm Usage: 1635–1775
Moderator: Kristin Oberiano (Wesleyan University)
Panel:
- David Naumec (Bywater Historical Services, LLC)
- Kevin Sweeney (Amherst College)
Synopsis:
- Naumec reported on his study of lead shot recovered from New England battlefields, providing insight into the typical range at which firearms were used in colonial America. Firearms spread rapidly during this time, helped by a surge of surplus guns after the end of the Thirty Years’ War in Europe in 1648.
- Sweeney noted that half of all households in colonial Massachusetts owned a firearm—usually a fowling piece—but guns were expensive, and men under 25 were less likely to own them. The Continental Army was instead heavily dependent on 150,000 muskets that were supplied by France.
The History of Guns and Religion in the U.S.
Moderator: Jennifer Tucker (CSGS, Wesleyan University)
Panel:
- Joseph Slaughter (Wesleyan University)
- Andrew Moore (St. Anselm College)
- Kelsey Hanson Woodruff (Harvard Divinity School)
Synopsis:
- Slaughter spoke about how guns came to be seen as part of Christian duty, and how Christian Sharps’ innovative breech-loading rifle came to be known as “Henry Ward Beecher’s bible” by abolitionists in Kansas in 1856.
- Woodruff reported on her study of post-evangelical feminists, some of whom have amassed a large following on social media (800,000 and more). These figures are pushing a more progressive Christian agenda, including favoring gun control.
- Moore discussed how many evangelical Christians view events like the August 2025 Minnesota school shooting through the binary prism of good vs. evil, law-abiding citizens vs. bad guys.
Guns in the 19th Century
Moderator: Roberto Saba (Wesleyan University)
Panel:
- Brian DeLay (University of California, Berkeley)
- Elena Kempf (MIT)
- Kellen Henniford (PhD, History, Columbia University)
Synopsis:
- DeLay, who has served as an expert witness in many gun rights cases, shared insights about 19th century firearms regulation, highlighting an 1884 Arkansas law separating civilian and military arms and an 1837 Georgia law banning civilians from carrying bowie knives.
- Kempf discussed the history of early efforts to regulate firearms in the face of new, more deadly projectiles. The movement—led by the Russian Tsars—was central to an 1868 international conference in St. Petersburg, which banned explosive bullets and introduced the concept of “unnecessary suffering” in a bid to introduce some humane limits to the waging of war.
- Henniford spoke about how post-Civil War societal and economic transformations led to the first age-based firearm restrictions, and how modern legal challenges to those regulations should consider this extensive historical context.
Guns as Freedom, Guns as Fear (20th & 21st Cen.)
Moderator: Caroline Light (Harvard University)
Panel:
- John Sheehan (George Mason University)
- Dominic Erdozain (Emory University)
- Jennifer Hubbert (Lewis & Clark College)
Synopsis:
- Sheehan challenged the conventional argument that the National Rifle Association (NRA) was involved solely in firearms training and safety until it was politicized in the 1970s. His archival research shows that the NRA had a strong political agenda already in the 1910s and ’20s, rooted in a grim view of human nature.
- Erdozain, the author of One Nation Under Guns, revisited the trajectory of America’s extraordinary fascination with firearms. His presentation, “Disarming America: Gregory Peck Meets Charlton Heston,” drew attention to a largely forgotten 1958 Western, Big Country, in which guns were portrayed as “a sign of impetuousness and weakness.”
- Hubbert spoke about how the rise of right-wing extremism since 2016 has driven many left-leaning people toward firearms ownership as a form of defensive preparation. Her research highlights the differential impact of these developments across racial, gender, and sexual identity lines.