Open fire
Subtitle: understanding global gun cultures
By: edited by Charles Fruehling Springwood.
Contributors: Springwood, Charles Fruehling.
Edition: English ed.
Publisher: Berg
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Oxford, UK; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 227
ISBN-13: 9781845204167; 9781845204174
Subjects: Firearms -- Social aspects -- Cross-cultural studies; Firearms in popular culture -- Cross-cultural studies; Firearms ownership; Violence; Gun control
Genres: Cross-cultural studies.
Description: "Guns are everywhere: three quarters of a billion guns - from pistols to machine guns - exist in the world today. And guns are everything: a hard-won symbol of individual freedom, an index of crime and disorder, a whole industry legitimately contributing to an economy, a popular piece of sports equipment, and an object of desire, endlessly duplicated by toys, video games and films. Open Fire presents a broad analysis of the social, cultural and political significance of firearms and the worlds they create. Illustrated with a wide range of case material - from North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa - Open Fire explores and questions this global icon of our times. Why do guns proliferate? What does it mean to shoot or to be shot? Who owns guns and who does not? How is a firearm, a manufactured thing, very different from any other object? Is there such a thing as a "gun psychology"? How are firearms regarded in places where they are largely non-existent? Is a gun a different thing when held by a white man?"-publisher description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The social life of guns: an introduction / Charles Fruehling Springwood; title: Gunscapes : toward a global geography of the firearm / Charles Fruehling Springwood; title: Gun politics : reflections on Brazil's failed gun ban referendum in the Rio de Janeiro context / Donna Goldstein; title: Of guns, children, and the maelstrom : determining purposive actions in Israeli-perpetrated firearm deaths of Palestinian children and minors / Frank M. Afflitto; title: Silent but still deadly : guns and the peace process in Northern Ireland / Jeffrey A. Sluka; title: Warriors and guns : the anthropology of cattle rustling in northeastern Africa / Nene Mburu; title: Arming desire : the sexual force of guns in the United States / C. Richard King; title: Drawing a virtual gun / Katherine Gregory; title: "Gun rights are civil rights" : racism and the right to keep and bear arms in the United States / Christy Allen; title: "Man to man" : power and male relationships in the gunplay film / Robert Arjet; title: Aiming for manhood : the transformation of guns into objects of American masculinity / Amy Ann Cox; title: "I shot the sheriff" : gun talk in Jamaican popular music / Carolyn Cooper; title: Playing at hate : war games, the Aryan World Congress, and the American psyche / Robert Rinehart; title: The celebration of violence : a live-fire demonstration carried out by Japan's contemporary military / Eyal Ben-Ari and Sabine Frühstück.