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…
In June 2023, the podcast “Our Body Politic” broadcast a panel, recorded live at the Center for the Study of Guns & Society’s May 2023 symposium, “Lessons from History on Domestic Violence, Firearms, and the Law.” Karen Attiah, Washington Post columnist and Our Body Politic guest host, moderated the panel, Read more…
Dear all, With the end of the 2022-23 academic year upon us, we would like to share some of the many accomplishments of students working with the Center for the Study of Guns & Society (CSGS) at Wesleyan University during its first full academic year. Coursework This year, the Center offered its 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 her May 12 opinion column in the Washington Post, Karen Attiah wrote about the allure of gun culture, following yet another mass shooting in her home state of Texas. “In the United States, the holy symbol for our cult is the gun, and its sacred text is the Second Read more…
Jennifer Tucker, founding director of the Center for the Study of Guns & Society (CSGS), was recently interviewed on the Brady podcast in an episode titled, “The Rising Lethality of the Second Amendment.” Tucker describes her early introduction to guns in popular culture and how she came to study guns Read more…
Center for the Study of Guns & Society at Wesleyan Newsletter – March/April 2023 Dear All, As the Center for the Study of Guns & Society (CSGS) marks its one-year anniversary in April, we would like to share several developments over the past few months, as well as extend an invitation Read more…
Joseph Slaughter, associate director of the Center for the Study of Guns & Society, was recently interviewed by Current—an online journal of commentary and opinion on contemporary culture, politics, and ideas—about his research on how Christianity and gun culture became intertwined in the U.S. Slaughter discussed his research on gun Read more…
Since the Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the expertise of those who study history and laws related to firearms in the U.S. has taken on new relevance, according to a March 14, 2023 article in The New York Times. That Read more…
