CSGS Research

Firearms use and regulation in the 18th and 19th centuries: Modeling the Application of Historical Methods for Law and Policy in the Bruen Era

With the support of an $830,000 grant from Arnold Ventures, CSGS has hired two postdoctoral researchers, Brennan Gardner Rivas and Evan Turiano, both with U.S. History PhDs, for a two-year, in-depth study of 18th and 19th century firearms laws and culture. In spring 2024, they began studying the interrelationships of people, places, and arms across five diverse states (CA, CT, MS, OH, OK). The primary objective of the project is to create a field guide for judges and others interested in this area of study. The project also promises to enrich historical understanding of the changing contexts, uses, and public attitudes towards firearms through data collection and analysis of archival and primary sources.

Rivas leads a multi-state group of graduate students who conduct research on the ground in all five states. Several Wesleyan undergraduate students assist with transcribing hand-written historical documents. Rivas, Turiano and Jennifer Tucker have also conducted research trips to several states. During a visit to the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, they found a rich collection of firearms in early western films, which speaks to the historical memory of the American West.

In October 2025, CSGS added Joseph Stoltz to the team as a digital humanities postdoctoral researcher. Stoltz, who holds a PhD in history, brings a set of skills and experiences that will enhance the project’s field guide.

Engineering Safety into U.S. Firearms, 1750-2010: Inventions, Manufacturers, Outcomes, and Implications

A 2023 “Dangers and Opportunities of Technology” award of $150,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) supports a two-year research project led by Tucker and Stephen Hargarten, MD (Medical College of Wisconsin’s Comprehensive Injury Center) on historical firearms patent records. Utilizing multiple tools and databases, the research will result in the first academic reports about the history of efforts to design safety into firearms and the nature of cultural and scientific discussions about them since 1750.

CSGS is partnering with Wesleyan’s Quantitative Analysis Center (QAC), to research U.S. patents related to firearm innovation since the founding of the U.S. Patent Office in 1802. Maryam Gooyabadi, an assistant professor at the QAC, is supervising students who are downloading data and developing a program to streamline analysis.

Maya Seshan, a medical student at the Medical College of Wisconsin, is working with Hargarten on research examining the chronology, purpose, and case studies for a selected number of gun safety patents. Together, with CSGS, they will elucidate the genesis and historical context for these patents and the healthcare perspectives on these safety features specifically, utilizing the patent data as well as archival data and gun manufacturing histories.

As part of this project, Tucker and Hargarten will visit Washington, D.C. to study archives of how physician and public health leaders have responded to firearm safety projects and to what extent, if any, health professionals were involved in manufacturing safety tests.

How Modern Bullets Maximize Lethality

With a $26,000 grant from Arnold Ventures, CSGS completed a case study about the feasibility of designing a lethality index for non-military firearms. The aim of this study was to demonstrate proof of concept and ability to conduct rigorous scientific testing to quantify the terminal ballistics of a variety of bullets and firearms across a timeline of 1800s to the present. 

During 2025, Stephen Hargarten, of the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, and CSGS founding director Jennifer Tucker secured new funding to continue this research. The journal Vital City recently published an update about their project titled “How Modern Bullets Maximize Lethality”.  The article details their ongoing multidisciplinary study combining expertise from specialists who normally have not worked together, including trauma surgeons and historians of technology.

Colt Firearms Manufacturing in London

Joseph Slaughter, assistant professor of history and former associate director of CSGS, is currently working on “Faith and Firearms”, his second book project. In 2024, CSGS provided funding for his travel to London to conduct research on Sam Colt’s London factory in the 1850s as part of this project. Slaughter also teaches “God & Guns: the History of Faith and Firearms in America”, which includes a student field trip to The Church of the Good Shepherd in Hartford, CT. The church was commissioned by Elizabeth Colt as a monument in memory of her husband, Samuel Colt.