****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
I am a criminal defense lawyer and despise firearms because of the consequences their use too often yields in my clients' lives: I cannot recall the number of murder cases I've had in which a young man, usually inner city and Black, kills a rival over a girl, a bottle of whiskey, or some imagined "disrespect." When I was a kid, these contests got resolved with fists. Now, two lives are lost -- the decendent and his too often impuslive killer.Where'd all these guns come from? Isn't there some way to get them off of the street? I fume sometimes about repealing the Second Amendment. No one is serious about the use of guns to combat tyranny. Government is more powerful and all-encompassing than ever in the 21st century. What's more, the power of government to suppress any challenge with force is overwhelming. Instead of using guns to fight government, we kill each other and tell ourselves patriotic lies to justify it all.So I read this book to learn about the other side after reading an interview of the author with Joe Nocera, a columnist in The New York Times. I thought the author handled himself well in the interview.I am glad I read the book. It did not change my mind about the scourage that guns have become in our society. But it did make me realize how my blinders have kept me from appreciating the appeal of guns to so many Americans. Frankly, the book even got me a little curious abuot guns, truth be told.I doubt we will ever get rid of guns in the United States. I did not know that some folks buy guns, and then bury them in protective covers to make them harder to find should the government ever try to seize them all.I'm not sure guns are a necessary part of the American psyche; I am sure that dislodging them from the place they hold in the minds of many Americans will be a task even more difficult than the battle to transform cigarettes from indicia of what's cool into cancer sticks.I recommend this book to anyone curious about the ubiquity of guns and what makes guns so controversial in American life. The writing is always good, and the author is always fair. He did not change my mind, but I now look at those on the other side with a respect and understanding I did not have before reading this book.
