The Gun Dilemma

Robert J. Spitzer is Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the State University of New York, College at Cortland. He is the author of sixteen books, including four on the presidency and six on gun policy. He is also Series Editor for the book series "American Constitutionalism" for SUNY Press, and the "Presidential Briefing Book" series for Routledge. In 2003, he received the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Scholarship. Spitzer is the author of over 700 articles, papers, and op-eds appearing in many books, journals, newspapers, and web sites on a variety of American politics subjects. He served as President of the Presidents and Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association and as a member of the New York State Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution. He has testified before Congress on several occasions. Spitzer is often quoted and interviewed by American and international news outlets, including The Today Show,Good Morning America, ABC Nightly News, PBS's News Hour, MSNBC's All In With Chris Hayes, Countdown With Keith Olbermann, CNN, NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, The Diane Rehm Show, 1A, documentary films "Guns and Mothers" (PBS, 2003), "Under the Gun" (Katie Couric Film Company, Epix, 2016), "The Price of Freedom" (Flatbush Pictures/Tribeca Films, 2021) and media outlets in over twenty countries. His articles have appeared in such publications as the New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, CNN.com, the New York Daily News, Time Magazine, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, and Salon, among others. He was also a visiting professor at Cornell University for thirty years.

The conservatives' campaign to expand gun rights through the legislatures and courts often is cloaked in faulty claims about American history. In this book, Robert Spitzer sets the historical record straight when it comes to regulating large-capacity magazines, silencers, and carrying guns in public, as well as with the particularly scary "sanctuary" movement. Common-sense gun regulation, it turns out, is as American as apple pie, and there remains broad public support for that approach. Spitzer's well-founded concern, amply illustrated in this book, is that that approach is being trumped by a pro-gun judicial ideology, putting public safety further at risk.

• Acknowledgments Chapter One: The Gun Policy Fork in the RoadChapter Two: Assault Weapons and Ammunition MagazinesChapter Three: The Sound of SilencersChapter Four: Weapons Brandishing and DisplayChapter Five: Second Amendment Sanctuaries: Coloring Outside the Lines of FederalismChapter Six: Conclusion: Navigating the Gun Fork in the RoadAbout the AuthorNotes Index