Policing the Second Amendment Guns, law enforcement, and the politics of race

Jennifer Carlson

Book - 2020

"An urgent look at the relationship between the politics of guns, race, and policing in America today"--

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Subjects
Published
Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press [2020]
Language
English
Main Author
Jennifer Carlson (author)
Physical Description
xiv, 280 pages ; 25 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages [209]-261) and index.
ISBN
9780691183855
  • A Note to Readers
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction An Armed Society Is a Policed Society
  • Chapter 1. Gun Politics in Blue
  • Chapter 2. The War on Guns
  • Chapter 3. Never Off Duty
  • Chapter 4. When the Government Doesn't Come Knocking
  • Chapter 5. Legally Armed but Presumed Dangerous
  • Conclusion Our Gun Talk
  • Appendix A. Methodological Approach
  • On Gun Militarism: Discarded Lives
  • On Gun Populism: Shame on Us
  • On Reform: At the Pinnacle of Privilege
  • Appendix B. Procedures for Protecting Research Subjects
  • Appendix C. Interview Guide
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A professor of sociology and government offers a study of gun laws and their racial implications in three states. Though sometimes overly academic, Carlson's account points to an important social problem: The Second Amendment right to carry a firearm is unequally applied to members of different ethnic groups. In particular, African Americans, such as Philando Castile, may be authorized to carry concealed weapons, but that fact did not keep a white police officer from gunning him down at a traffic stop. "The proliferation of guns," writes the author, "disproportionately harms African Americans who are feloniously killed, injured, and traumatized by them at rates that exceed manyfold those of other racial groups in the United States"--and that especially includes state harassment, usually by police. Carlson demonstrates in an argument that centers on Arizona, California, and Michigan that police officers and leaders tend to support gun rights, and far more so than the public; in particular, they oppose widespread bans. This seems a curious stance given that an armed society is certainly more lethal than an unarmed one, "but police nevertheless appear willing to live with the consequences of a widely armed society." This is generally as true in "gun-restrictive" California as it is in "gun-lax" Arizona. In the West, Carlson ventures, a tradition of law enforcement being used in the service of ethnic oppression--mostly of Hispanics and Native Americans--has translated into oppression of all minorities. This has not lessened in the least with the arrival of Donald Trump, since he "represented the populist stitching together of hard-knuckled policing with gun rights patriotism," earning the support of the Fraternal Order of Police and the National Rifle Association. Ultimately, Carlson writes, "structural racism intersects with gun policy to aggravate, rather than ameliorate, vulnerabilities facing communities of color." No one who reads this will doubt that the Second Amendment has particularly deadly dimensions in minority communities. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.