Harel Shapira – författare

As cultural, social, political, and historical objects, guns are rich with complex and contested significance. What guns mean, why they matter, and what policies should be undertaken to regulate guns remain issues of vigorous scholarly and public debate.Gun Studies offers fresh research and original perspectives on the contentious issue of firearms in public life. Comprising global, interdisciplinary contributions, this insightful volume examines difficult and timely questions through the lens of: Social practiceMarketing and commerceCritical theory Political conflict Public policy Criminology Questions explored include the evolution of American gun culture from recreation to self-protection; the changing dynamics of the pro-gun and pro-regulation movements; the deeply personal role of guns as sources of both injury and security; and the relationship between gun-wielding individuals, the state, and social order in the United States and abroad. In addition to introducing new research, Gun Studies presents reflections by senior scholars on what has been learned over the decades and how gun-related research has influenced public policy and everyday conversations.Offering provocative and often intimate perspectives on how guns influence individuals, social structures, and the state in both dramatic and nuanced ways, Gun Studies will appeal to students and researchers interested in fields such as sociology, political science, legal history, criminology, criminal justice, social policy, armaments industries, and violent crime. It will also appeal to policy makers and all others interested in and concerned about the use of guns.

They live in the suburbs of Tennessee and Indiana. They fought in Vietnam and Desert Storm. They speak about an older, better America, an America that once was, and is no more. And for the past decade, they have come to the U.S. / Mexico border to hunt for illegal immigrants. Who are the Minutemen? Patriots? Racists? Vigilantes? Harel Shapira lived with the Minutemen and patrolled the border with them, seeking neither to condemn nor praise them, but to understand who they are and what they do. Challenging simplistic depictions of these men as right-wing fanatics with loose triggers, Shapira discovers a group of men who long for community and embrace the principles of civic engagement. Yet these desires and convictions have led them to a troubling place. Shapira takes you to that place--a stretch of desert in southern Arizona, where he reveals that what draws these men to the border is not simply racism or anti-immigrant sentiments, but a chance to relive a sense of meaning and purpose rooted in an older life of soldiering. They come to the border not only in search of illegal immigrants, but of lost identities and experiences.

They live in the suburbs of Tennessee and Indiana. They fought in Vietnam and Desert Storm. They speak about an older, better America, an America that once was, and is no more. And for the past decade, they have come to the U.S. / Mexico border to hunt for illegal immigrants. Who are the Minutemen? Patriots? Racists? Vigilantes? Harel Shapira lived with the Minutemen and patrolled the border with them, seeking neither to condemn nor praise them, but to understand who they are and what they do. Challenging simplistic depictions of these men as right-wing fanatics with loose triggers, Shapira discovers a group of men who long for community and embrace the principles of civic engagement. Yet these desires and convictions have led them to a troubling place. Shapira takes you to that place--a stretch of desert in southern Arizona, where he reveals that what draws these men to the border is not simply racism or anti-immigrant sentiments, but a chance to relive a sense of meaning and purpose rooted in an older life of soldiering. They come to the border not only in search of illegal immigrants, but of lost identities and experiences.Now with a new afterword by the author, Waiting for Jose brings understanding to a group of people in search of lost identities and experiences.

As cultural, social, political, and historical objects, guns are rich with complex and contested significance. What guns mean, why they matter, and what policies should be undertaken to regulate guns remain issues of vigorous scholarly and public debate.Gun Studies offers fresh research and original perspectives on the contentious issue of firearms in public life. Comprising global, interdisciplinary contributions, this insightful volume examines difficult and timely questions through the lens of: Social practiceMarketing and commerceCritical theory Political conflict Public policy CriminologyQuestions explored include the evolution of American gun culture from recreation to self-protection; the changing dynamics of the pro-gun and pro-regulation movements; the deeply personal role of guns as sources of both injury and security; and the relationship between gun-wielding individuals, the state, and social order in the United States and abroad. In addition to introducing new research, Gun Studies presents reflections by senior scholars on what has been learned over the decades and how gun-related research has influenced public policy and everyday conversations.Offering provocative and often intimate perspectives on how guns influence individuals, social structures, and the state in both dramatic and nuanced ways, Gun Studies will appeal to students and researchers interested in fields such as sociology, political science, legal history, criminology, criminal justice, social policy, armaments industries, and violent crime. It will also appeal to policy makers and all others interested in and concerned about the use of guns.

'Utterly brilliant . . . deeply researched and thoughtful' - Justin Webb, former BBC North America EditorThis eye-opening encounter with American gun culture reveals the devastating effects of how people are training their minds and bodies to use guns.Every day, at firearms schools all across the country, Americans are learning how to use a gun. Who are their teachers? What are they being taught? To answer these questions, Harel Shapira, a sociologist at the University of Texas, has spent ten years immersed in the world of gun-training. Throughout the dozens of classes he has taken, and thousands of shots he has fired, he has been taught that the world is filled with ‘bad guys’ who can only be stopped by the self-styled ‘good guys’. He has learned that he must be prepared to kill or be killed, a division that lies the heart of the gun violence that’s now playing out on a daily basis.Shapira reveals that far from simply teaching the mechanics of gun safety these schools are teaching a way of living in the world that is rooted in racist fears, aggressive masculinity and an entitlement to violence. In storytelling that will take your breath away, we discover that the risk of widespread gun ownership is not simply the possibility of more gun violence and mass shootings. The risk is to the very foundations of democracy itself.

'Utterly brilliant . . . deeply researched and thoughtful' - Justin Webb, former BBC North America EditorThis eye-opening encounter with American gun culture reveals the devastating effects of how people are training their minds and bodies to use guns.Every day, at firearms schools all across the country, Americans are learning how to use a gun. Who are their teachers? What are they being taught? To answer these questions, Harel Shapira, a sociologist at the University of Texas, has spent ten years immersed in the world of gun-training. Throughout the dozens of classes he has taken, and thousands of shots he has fired, he has been taught that the world is filled with ‘bad guys’ who can only be stopped by the self-styled ‘good guys’. He has learned that he must be prepared to kill or be killed, a division that lies the heart of the gun violence that’s now playing out on a daily basis.Shapira reveals that far from simply teaching the mechanics of gun safety these schools are teaching a way of living in the world that is rooted in racist fears, aggressive masculinity and an entitlement to violence. In storytelling that will take your breath away, we discover that the risk of widespread gun ownership is not simply the possibility of more gun violence and mass shootings. The risk is to the very foundations of democracy itself.