Open Fire Understanding Global Gun Cultures [Hardcover]

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?

Open Fire presents a broad analysis of the social, cultural and political significance of firearms and the worlds they create.

The Social Life of Guns: An Introduction--Charles Fruehling Springwood * SECTION I. Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun: Nation-States, Small Arms, and Local Victims * 2. Gunscapes: Toward a Global Geography of the Firearm--Charles Fruehling Springwood * Silent But Deadly: Guns and Ceasefire Agreements in Northern Ireland --Jeffrey Sluka *
4. Gun Politics: Reflections on Brazil's Failed Gun Ban Referendum in the Rio de Janeiro Context--Donna Goldstein * 5. Of Guns, Children and the Maelstrom --Frank Afflitto * 6. Warriors and Guns: the Anthropology of Cattle Rustling in Northeastern Africa--Nene Mburu
* SECTION II. Cocked and Loaded: Race, Sex, and Gender * 7. Arming Desire: The Sexual Force of GunlS+