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Arms: The Culture and Credo of the Gun, by A. J. Somerset
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After a fifteen-year hiatus from the world of guns, journalist, sports shooter, and former soldier A.J. Somerset no longer fit in with other firearm enthusiasts. Theirs was a culture much different than the one he remembered: a culture more radical, less tolerant, and more immovable in its beliefs, “as if [each] gun had come with a free, bonus ideological Family Pack [of political tenets], a ready-made identity.” To find the origins of this surprising shift, Somerset began mapping the cultural history of guns and gun ownership in North America. Arms: The Culture and Credo of Gun is the brilliant result.
How were firearms transformed from tools used by pioneers into symbols of modern manhood? Why did the NRA’s focus shift from encouraging responsible gun use to lobbying against gun-safety laws? What is the relationship between gun ownership and racism in America? How have the film, television, and video game industries molded our perception of gun violence? When did the fear of gun seizures arise, and how has it been used to benefit arms manufacturers, lobbyists, and the far-right?
Few ideas divide communities as much as those involving firearms, and fewer authors are able to tackle the subject with the same authority, humor, and intelligence. Written from the unique perspective of a gun lover who’s disgusted with what gun culture has become, Arms is destined to be one of the most talked-about books of the year.
- Sales Rank: #299116 in Books
- Published on: 2015-09-15
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.90" h x .90" w x 6.00" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 352 pages
Review
A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2015
Listed among the top five books of 2015 by The Hill Times
Praise for Arms and A.J. Somerset
"What makes his book entertaining, often funny and ultimately an important addition to the limited canon on guns is that Somerset is a gun guy. He owns them, shoots them and loves them. And yet he is exasperated because gun owners, along with their culture and rhetoric, have increasingly 'grown more radical,' leaving 'anyone who breaks ranks' as a 'traitor to the cause.'"—Michael S. Rosenwald, The Washington Post
“By digging deep into history, brushing off dusty lawsuits, and pounding some pavement, Somerset manages to avoid all of the clichés about North American gun politics and overturn everything that is held to be gospel. This is a brilliant piece of investigative journalism and surprisingly entertaining.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Every political question evokes emotion, but a few [like gun control] are so bound up with visceral feelings that even close friends find it hard to disagree over them without rancor and exasperation ... [Somerset] has a fine talent for narrative writing ... Valid and thoughtful."—Wall Street Journal
"What we talk about when we talk about guns: How did they become as American as baseball and as sacred as Jesus? And is there any going back? These are among the questions explored by a onetime soldier in an unflinching journey across our cultural battlefields."—O, The Oprah Magazine
"A one-time soldier, [Somerset] paints a convincing picture ... Yet he maintains a consistent sense of humor—self-deprecating, gruff, curmudgeonly."—Globe & Mail
"[Arms is] a pleasingly acerbic popular history—an equal-opportunity lambasting of everyone from American gun weenies to Canadian cultural nationalists."—Maclean’s
"Somerset's writing is an odd but effective mix of classic argument/thesis prose and zippy school-of-New-Journalism narrative a-la Hunter S. Thompson or Tom Wolfe... Once you tune into his blending of third-person research with first-person anecdotes, the book pulls you along. Arms entertains — even as it educates."—The Winnipeg Free Press
"There are big parts of the book I disagree with, but [A.J. Somerset is] a very good writer. There are passages that are great … really, really interesting."—Cam Edwards, NRA News’ Cam & Co.
"Rambling, tragic, and surprisingly funny."—Quill & Quire
"A timely book that informs our ongoing conversation about gun violence."—Gill Deacon, CBC’s q
"A great book."—Emily Keeler, National Post
"A.J. Somerset's excellent — and, yes, timely — work of cultural history and social psychology goes behind the headlines ... in an attempt to locate the 'wellspring of crazy' that has created today's neo-Wild West. Witty and informed."—Waterloo Region Record
"In Arms, Somerset investigates the evolution of the gun as technology and as totem, exploring how a simple tool transformed into the symbol of a nation and a nation divided."—Inverse.com
"A very interesting read ... and not what you might expect ... if gun culture fascinates you ... I'd encourage you to check it out."—Ryan Jespersen, CHED Radio
"Absolutely fabulous."—Terry Moore, The Drive (CFAX Victoria)
"Thought-provoking ... A well-researched perspective on ... gun culture that can appeal to gun rights novices and those who are already well-versed in this debate."—McGill Tribune
In Arms, novelist, sports shooter, and former army reservist A.J. Somerset instills new life in the gun book's third wave: neither reportage nor redneck tourism, Arms brings ballistics, legal history, and criminology to bear on the gun in fiction and film. A sharp-eyed, snarky, sure-handed, and sportive take on America's favorite weapon.
A.J. Somerset's nonfiction has appeared in numerous outdoor magazines, and his first novel, Combat Camera, won the Metcalf-Rooke Award.
From the Back Cover
After a fifteen-year hiatus from the world of guns, journalist, sports shooter, and former soldier A.J. Somerset no longer fit in with other firearm enthusiasts. Theirs was a culture much different than the one he remembered: a culture more radical, less tolerant, and more immovable in its beliefs, "as if [each] gun had come with a free, bonus ideological Family Pack [of political tenets], a ready-made identity." To find the origins of this surprising shift, Somerset began mapping the cultural history of guns and gun ownership in North America. Arms: The Culture and Credo of Gun is the brilliant result.
How were firearms transformed from tools used by pioneers into symbols of modern manhood? Why did the NRA's focus shift from encouraging responsible gun use to lobbying against gun-safety laws? What is the relationship between gun ownership and racism in America? How have the film, television, and video game industries molded our perception of gun violence? When did the fear of gun seizures arise, and how has it been used to benefit arms manufacturers, lobbyists, and the far-right?
Few ideas divide communities as much as those involving firearms, and fewer authors are able to tackle the subject with the same authority, humor, and intelligence. Written from the unique perspective of a gun lover who's disgusted with what gun culture has become, Arms is destined to be one of the most talked-about books of the year.
About the Author
A. J. Somerset has been a soldier, a technical writer, a programmer, and a freelance photographer. His non-fiction has appeared in numerous outdoor magazines in Canada and the United States, and his articles have been translated into French and Japanese. His first novel, Combat Camera, won the Metcalf-Rooke Award.
Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Very good and evenhanded look at the North American gun debate.
By Anna in PDX (was Cairo)
Disclosure: Although I've never met the author in person, we interact on LibraryThing so he is a friend of sorts. I bought this book because I had heard about it from him and he talked about his research during the writing process.
Gun politics in the U.S. is a very polarized topic and I think A. J., who is Canadian, was remarkably even-handed in his examination of why that is. Even-handed, but also direct and cutting through the many propagandistic talking points on gun rights and gun control, clearly calling them out for the nonsense they are.
I grew up in rural Oregon and I have many acquaintances who own guns and have bought into the gun nut culture in one way or another which frustrates me. Once in a while I can get one of them to admit that the issue is complicated, and it feels really gratifying. If only we could talk with and not past each other!
This book was like a quest, a search for a holy grail, the decoder ring that explained gun nuttery. The author, a former gun instructor with the Canadian armed forces, was getting back into shooting after a hiatus of many years, and found that his hobby had become radicalized, and he set out to figure out why. A lot of the why tended to be ideas from their neighbor to the south. Much of the book is about specifically U.S. political history, court decisions, state initiatives, etc and their impact on the loosely affiliated group of guys who like guns.
I learned a lot from this book. Much of what I learned is that the facile arguments I have somewhat identified with on the anti-gun side are simplistic and flawed. But I also got a really entertaining tour through the pro-gun Fever swamps.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who lives in North America and is at all interested in our gun problems. Or, is interested in guns at all. I feel that the last greatest hope we have to move forward on finding sane public policies on gun control is the gun owners and enthusiasts who do not buy into paranoid hype. If they can unite with those of us who don't want to own guns, against the poisonous far right gun nut culture, we can make our country safer for everyone while people can still go hunting, target shooting, civil war reenacting, etc.
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
Great read!
By andy shanks
A thoughtful and well researched piece. Written with humor and a keen insight into the mythology of gun nuttery in it's many forms this easy to read book lays out the history and pathology of gun worship and abuse. As a gun owner myself I highly recommend this to anyone who wishes to gain an understanding of why the gun debate is, as Somerset says, like two tribes of monkeys flinging poo at each other.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
It's a strange and terrible journey, taking the reader down a long highway ...
By Spencer Rhys Hughes
A.J. Somerset makes a difficult confession at the outset of the book: he is a relatively liberal-minded man who likes guns. The audience gasps in confusion. How can this be so!? Doesn't gun ownership go hand-in-hand with shut-in sociopaths writing racist blog creedos and screaming about misandry on YouTube?
Well, of course not.
In an incredible effort at making headway for the Moderate and the Gun-Appreciative Liberal in the increasingly virulent cultural quagmire of the Guns Debate, A. J. Somerset has set forth on an adventure to find what he terms "The Wellspring of Crazy" -- the Source of Gun Insanity. It's a strange and terrible journey, taking the reader down a long highway westward, swerving between lanes, avoiding the claws of the politico-economic Leviathan and potshots from the new age Survivalist crowd. Sleepless and pondering the fearsome skyline lurking beyond our hotel windows, A. J. Somerset finds more than enough Fear and Loathing to go around.
Arms: The Culture and Credo of the Gun is many things: history lesson, anthropological survey, dialectic, political essay, philosophical treatise, and, perhaps because the writer ventures too close to the Wellspring, himself, a little bit of Gonzo Journalism. I learned a lot in my reading--which is, of course, the goal of reading non-fiction: to learn. My mind was expanded, and I was sober. I think I got close to something like capital-U Understanding. Of course, he was preaching to the choir...I, myself, am an outspoken Leftist with an aesthetic and occasionally hobbyistic appreciation of the firearm. So perhaps my reading was biased.
But, nonetheless, I review: A. J. Somerset ventured to our cultural frontier to dig up the shallow grave of Truth. He's followed the major tributaries of American gun culture as far as he dared. Did he find the Source? No, that would be too simple an explanation. Instead, he found Sources, plural, overgrown by a bacterial culture of Culture. A mold of national dialogue. The narrative wove between the lessons of history and the archetypes and false idols those lessons produced--the image of the Cowboy, the Rifleman, the Vigilante, the Survivor--and found a tangled viper's nest of ideas writhing under the American consciousness. And then it reached into that nest and tried to pry the snakes apart, more concerned about identifying which ones were venomous than whether or not it was being envenomed in its effort. The book gumshoes its way around the cases of What Is This and How This Came To Be. It succeeds in addressing those cases with integrity, humor, and thoroughness. A. J. Somerset took those cases as close to their conclusions as he could...maybe as close as anyone could. And like any detective drawn into a case too big to handle, he's left clutching at the Truth with white knuckles, furious and exhausted, not knowing what to do next and not having anyone to shoot.
This is an excellent book for people interested in "Gun Culture" from an anthropological or academic point of view. It's an excellent book for people, particularly Americans, who have started to wonder why they think the way they do about guns. It's an excellent book for people looking to understand How This Came To Be. It's an excellent book for people interested in the Gun Debate but less interested the shrieking voices involved in it.
It's not an excellent book for people searching for What To Do Next. It's not an excellent book for people looking for an Answer. There are no answers here precisely because there's nobody to shoot. You can dig up the old body of Truth and unravel the venomous vipers from its ribs, but you can't make the skeleton dance. This isn't a resurrection, it's an autopsy. If you're okay with that, I highly recommend you pick it up.
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