More than 100 scholars, practitioners, and students from across the academic spectrum gathered Oct. 18 and 19 for the Center for the Study of Guns & Society’s (CSGS) annual fall conference at Wesleyan University. The cross-disciplinary summit featured presentations by historians, lawyers, curators, filmmakers, and public health experts, all focused Read more
An opening panel on current legal cases, Alinor Sterling (Koskoff Koskoff and Bieder), Kelly Sampson (Brady), and Leigh Rome (Giffords) discussed how recent legal protections of the arms industry make it difficult to seek damages against manufacturers, dealers, or importers of firearms or ammunition in mass shootings. The panel also Read more
Introducing CSGS postdoctoral researchers Brennan Gardner Rivas and Evan Turiano CSGS is thrilled to welcome two outstanding historians as postdoctoral researchers. Brennan Gardner Rivas and Evan Turiano will contribute to our project on “Firearms use and regulation in the 18th and 19th centuries: Modeling the Application of Historical Methods for Read more
On October 13–14, the Center for the Study of Guns & Society (CSGS) at Wesleyan University, hosted its second-annual fall conference, “Current Perspectives on the History of Guns and Society.” The event convened historians, museum curators, legal scholars, journalists, filmmakers, and other subject-matter experts for panel discussions, a film screening, Read more
In America, firearms are widely discussed through the lenses of laws and ownership, gun violence statistics, and the contested history of the right to bear arms. Firearms are designed to kill. They also can endanger the lives of the operator and bystanders. In 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Read more
Every month in the US, roughly 70 women are shot and killed by their partners. Yet in February 2023, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 1994 law banning firearms possession for people subject to domestic violence protection orders, part of a wave of lower-court challenges to gun regulations Read more
In its Winter 2022–23 newsletter, the National Park Service highlighted a budding partnership between the Center for the Study of Guns & Society at Wesleyan University and Coltsville National Historical Park, writing: “The partnership represents a strong foundation for supporting current research and student engagement locally, throughout the Precision Valley, Read more
The following article by Joseph Slaughter, associate director, Center for the Study of Guns & Society, was recently published by The Conversation U.S. Joseph P. Slaughter, Wesleyan University Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching. Title of course: “God and Guns: the Read more
A U.S. Judge for the Southern District of Mississippi has cited a book co-edited by Jennifer Tucker, founding director of the Center for the Study of Guns & Society, in an order on a case concerning a federal statute prohibiting felons from possessing firearms. “In reviewing the briefing and authorities Read more
