text: Gun Guys: A Road Trip: Dan Baum: 9780307595416: Amazon.com: Books
  Gun Guys: A Road Trip (Vintage Departures) and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more Enter your mobile number below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.Getting the download link through email is temporarily not available. Please check back later.
  Gun Guys: A Road Trip [Deckle Edge]
  *Starred Review* You don't hear about a lot of preteen gun nuts, but Baum was one of them, discovering when he was five years old that he was a crack shot. He's always known why he loved guns (natural skill in using them and their beauty and efficiency as mechanical devices), but as an adult, he began to wonder why other people loved them. So he decided to do something he'd never done: join the gun culture, meet its people, and find out what made them tick. Along the way, he encounters a 24-year-old young man who lives with his mother and became interested in real guns by playing with simulated guns in video games; a gunmaker who's upset to the point of distraction about the passing of President Obama's health-care bill; a Hollywood armorer; and an expert in the history and manufacture of machine guns. He also deals with the murder of a friend, a victim of exactly the sort of gun violence that sparks the politically polarizing debate that Baum has been witnessing nearly everywhere he goes. Baum is careful not to take a political stance; he's reporting the story, and he's also, as a gun enthusiast, a part of it, but he's not writing an apologia. If you come into the book convinced of the need for tighter gun control, you'll probably leave the same way, although you will leave with a deeper understanding of the many reasons, political and personal, why people love their weaponry. --David Pitt
  The most intriguing of a new crop of books about America and guns. —Jeff Sharlet
  Publisher: Knopf; 1 edition (March 5, 2013)
  ISBN-13: 978-0307595416
  Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #831,944 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  5.0 out of 5 starsNo matter which side of the Gun Rights issue you fall on, you'll find this a fun read and learn a bit about the other side
  You will not agree with everything than Dan Baum has to say, but that is not the point of the book. In this country and in our Government, we have tolerated name calling, assertions devoid of facts, threats, and belittling in the place of rational debate with the only result being that everyone is seething and left feeling that those on the other side are idiots. The internet is especially rife with this. Sheesh guys, lighten up! The right and the left are pushed into their respective corners at this point and they can't seem to even speak with each other.This book is an attempt to restore civility to the discussion and even if you don't agree with everything Dan has to say, you will get something out of it. Conservative gun owners will start to understand that not all Liberals want to take their guns (40% of us actually have guns, many of us carry, and plenty of us don't think that 2A is at all ambiguous and that we could certainly be allys in this debate). Gun control advocates might start to understand that gun rights are often felt as part of the package of self reliance and personal responsibility that many gun owners and 2A proponents have and why many get so worked up when their gun rights are threatened. They might start to understand that they can't just keep the parts of the Constitution that they like and steamroll those they don't and they may start to come to the conclusion that an Assault Weapons Ban is pretty ludicrous. Seriously, if you've ever been to a gun show or shooting range you'll realize that that horse has long ago left the barn.Read more ›
  5.0 out of 5 starsA Definite Mind-Changer
  I started this book as a general foe of guns and a specific foe of assault weapons. Baum's well-written and never-preachy book made me realize how little I understood about most of the issues in the pro- v. anti-gun world. I'll be re-reading this one, probably within a few months....and instead of a library copy I'll be buying one so I can underline those passages most meaningful to me. About halfway through, I sent an email to 15 or 20 friends, some of whom are long-time NRA members, some of whom are so rabidly for or against guns that there's no talking with them, and some of whom were neither hot nor cold on guns. There's material enough in Gun Guys for all of them.
  5.0 out of 5 starsA Tour Of Gun World
  I am a criminal defense lawyer and despise firearms because of the consequences their use too often yields in my clients' lives: I cannot recall the number of murder cases I've had in which a young man, usually inner city and Black, kills a rival over a girl, a bottle of whiskey, or some imagined "disrespect." When I was a kid, these contests got resolved with fists. Now, two lives are lost -- the decendent and his too often impuslive killer.Where'd all these guns come from? Isn't there some way to get them off of the street? I fume sometimes about repealing the Second Amendment. No one is serious about the use of guns to combat tyranny. Government is more powerful and all-encompassing than ever in the 21st century. What's more, the power of government to suppress any challenge with force is overwhelming. Instead of using guns to fight government, we kill each other and tell ourselves patriotic lies to justify it all.So I read this book to learn about the other side after reading an interview of the author with Joe Nocera, a columnist in The New York Times. I thought the author handled himself well in the interview.I am glad I read the book. It did not change my mind about the scourage that guns have become in our society. But it did make me realize how my blinders have kept me from appreciating the appeal of guns to so many Americans. Frankly, the book even got me a little curious abuot guns, truth be told.I doubt we will ever get rid of guns in the United States. I did not know that some folks buy guns, and then bury them in protective covers to make them harder to find should the government ever try to seize them all.Read more ›
  4.0 out of 5 starsAmending the Second
  A nuanced, balanced, and entertaining exploration of gun culture, 'Gun Guys' is Dan Baum's fourth book. The author decides to concealed-carry for a year, and travels around shooting ranges, gun stores, hunts, and meets with advocates on both sides of the gun debate. Mr. Baum manages to deliver a number of facts along the way, and is pretty convincing about the failures of various gun control measures that have been tried, or are under consideration.If you're ex-military like myself, you have a certain healthy respect for automatic weapons; and if you're a left-leaning, big-city liberal, once again like myself, then you may feel rather conflicted about guns, as does the author. And he works it all out. One of Baum's suggestions is that if 'we' must have a liberal agenda of gay marriage and abortion rights, then 'they' should be allowed their guns. Fair enough.
  Published 4 days ago by Wizdude
  It should be required reading.It's also hysterical :)
  Published 1 month ago by Colin Miller
  We came from the same place and got to a VERY different place,with different views.He has style ---- I will say that.
  Published 7 months ago by Steven S.
  This is not a rant full of cherrypicked and distorted factoids. Dan Baum - a self-described "card-carrying liberal Democrat from New Jersey" who also happens to be a...
  Published 8 months ago by Jeffrey E. Dunsavage
  Mr Baum creates balanced point of view by living among lots of different gun groups. Mr. Baum clearly expresses the political stalemate based in half truths and bad studies used...
  Published 11 months ago by S. Lilly
  I wish I could leave a zero star review. The author is a pretentious statist, firmly ensconced in his own luxury.
  I liked the exploration the author went through to try and understand the gun culture in its various forms.
  Published 16 months ago by C. Kalinski
  A look at America's gun culture from the perspective of a liberal gun guy...yes, they actually do exist and I happen to be one of them.
  Published 18 months ago by Douglas Cramer
  "Those Other People - How They Live, What They Do, How They Think" - that's kind of how the book reads to a lot of gun owners.
  Published 18 months ago by Charles B. Jessee
  5.0 out of 5 starsA liberal guy writes about his love for guns
  A liberal guy writes about his love for guns. I really enjoyed this center-of-the-road point of view.