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Arms: The Culture and Credo of the Gun
After a fifteen-year hiatus from the world of guns, journalist, sports shooter, and former soldier A.J. Somerset no longer fit in with other firearm enthusiasts. Theirs was a culture much different than the one he a culture more radical, less tolerant, and more immovable in its beliefs, “as if [each] gun had come with a free, bonus ideological Family Pack [of political tenets], a ready-made identity.” To find the origins of this surprising shift, Somerset began mapping the cultural history of guns and gun ownership in North America. The Culture and Credo of Gun is the brilliant result. How were firearms transformed from tools used by pioneers into symbols of modern manhood? Why did the NRA’s focus shift from encouraging responsible gun use to lobbying against gun-safety laws? What is the relationship between gun ownership and racism in America? How have the film, television, and video game industries molded our perception of gun violence? When did the fear of gun seizures arise, and how has it been used to benefit arms manufacturers, lobbyists, and the far-right? Few ideas divide communities as much as those involving firearms, and fewer authors are able to tackle the subject with the same authority, humor, and intelligence. Written from the unique perspective of a gun lover who’s disgusted with what gun culture has become, Arms is destined to be one of the most talked-about books of the year.
- GenresPoliticsNonfiction
362 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 15, 2014
11 people are currently reading
226 people want to read
About the author
A.J. Somerset
2 books25 followersA.J. Somerset wrote for outdoor magazines in Canada and the United States, including Outdoor Canada, Fly Fisherman, Ontario Out of Doors, and American Angler, "the best-written, best-edited, and best-looking publication in its class." He contributed regular columns to Fly Tyer and The Canadian Fly Fisher, and twice received writing awards from the Outdoor Writers of Canada, but quit outdoor writing in 2005 to concentrate on fiction. His first novel, Combat Camera, received the 2010 Metcalf-Rooke Award. He lives in London, Ontario.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
March 10, 2016
I admit, with me Mr. Somerset was preaching to the choir about how the USA's gun policies are totally insane. He comes as an outsider, though, being Canadian, but also as a military veteran and an avid hunter.
He is most convincing in his blistering of the late Antonin Scalia, who died while I was reading this book. He is amazed that Scalia, in his disastrous D. C. v. Heller opinion, totally dismissed the preaamble to the Second Amendment, "A well regulated militia being essential to the security of a free state", as so much irrelevant waste of ink.
Scalia also argued that under English common law, this requires all men to bear arms so as to be called up into a rag tag ad hoc militia (like the hoods in Burns, OR). He forgets we already have a well regulated militia standing, which is called the National Guard under the jurisdiction of the sates, not the feds.
Besides, in every other country recognizing English common law (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, much of the Caribbean, the UK itself), law makers are saying "Tony, you're just making this crap up", and in fact these countries have the toughest gun laws in the world.
The book is quite a bit repetitive and somewhat pedantic, so makes tough read and hence 3*. Too scholarly for light reading
He is most convincing in his blistering of the late Antonin Scalia, who died while I was reading this book. He is amazed that Scalia, in his disastrous D. C. v. Heller opinion, totally dismissed the preaamble to the Second Amendment, "A well regulated militia being essential to the security of a free state", as so much irrelevant waste of ink.
Scalia also argued that under English common law, this requires all men to bear arms so as to be called up into a rag tag ad hoc militia (like the hoods in Burns, OR). He forgets we already have a well regulated militia standing, which is called the National Guard under the jurisdiction of the sates, not the feds.
Besides, in every other country recognizing English common law (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, much of the Caribbean, the UK itself), law makers are saying "Tony, you're just making this crap up", and in fact these countries have the toughest gun laws in the world.
The book is quite a bit repetitive and somewhat pedantic, so makes tough read and hence 3*. Too scholarly for light reading
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October 22, 2015http://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2015/1...
Excerpt by A.J. Somerset
Unlike the Christian God, the gun lobby was made, not begotten. The National Rifle Association (NRA), which today is generally considered the most powerful lobby in the United States, began as the government's lapdog, an organization created to train men for the army.
Shooting was good and wholesome sport, and attaining some skill at arms the duty of the middle-class male. But as violent crime rose, so did the movement for gun control, which transformed the NRA into the gun lobby we know today.
The Newtonian relationship between gun control and the gun lobby is particularly evident in Canada, where our original equivalent to the NRA -- the Dominion of Canada Rifle Association -- had stuck to its original mandate and faded into obscurity after the Great War. When the gun control movement came along, Canada's gun lobby did not exist. It would be necessary to invent one.
Read more here: http://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2015/1...
Excerpt by A.J. Somerset
Unlike the Christian God, the gun lobby was made, not begotten. The National Rifle Association (NRA), which today is generally considered the most powerful lobby in the United States, began as the government's lapdog, an organization created to train men for the army.
Shooting was good and wholesome sport, and attaining some skill at arms the duty of the middle-class male. But as violent crime rose, so did the movement for gun control, which transformed the NRA into the gun lobby we know today.
The Newtonian relationship between gun control and the gun lobby is particularly evident in Canada, where our original equivalent to the NRA -- the Dominion of Canada Rifle Association -- had stuck to its original mandate and faded into obscurity after the Great War. When the gun control movement came along, Canada's gun lobby did not exist. It would be necessary to invent one.
Read more here: http://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2015/1...
November 3, 2015
Well thought out and a tad angry (which is good). AJ is also very funny which makes this a little more fun to read. Once you pull out many arguments (even on both sides) it's like reading religious texts as literal history taken verbatim. Also, both sides (but mostly the fanatics) choose an a la carte belief system of laws/constitution/etc. out of context as if the gun is (re)writing history and not history writing the gun. The author is an avowed hunter and likes guns, which give this book a unique take on gun culture. AJ goes deep to find "the wellspring of crazy" and succeeds.
October 14, 2015
The most important and timely book of the year. Sadly, it will likely be the most important and timely book of the year for some time to come.
July 11, 2022
I wasn't sure how to take this book at the start with its cheery and pithy prose but "Arms" turned into a page turner. A.J. Somerset has turned an amazing amount of research into a well crafted and thoughtful work on cultural issues that surround not only guns but what it means to be American or Canadian.
Delightful observations like "Bass Pro is built to look like an Alaskan fishing lodge - or at least, what an Alaskan fishing lodge would look like if it had 130,000 square feet of retail floor space and had been grafted onto the end of a shopping mall on the shore of a lake covered with asphalt and teeming with huge, shining, metalized fish" keep the reader entertained and thinking.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in current events and culture. "Arms" will not disappoint.
Delightful observations like "Bass Pro is built to look like an Alaskan fishing lodge - or at least, what an Alaskan fishing lodge would look like if it had 130,000 square feet of retail floor space and had been grafted onto the end of a shopping mall on the shore of a lake covered with asphalt and teeming with huge, shining, metalized fish" keep the reader entertained and thinking.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in current events and culture. "Arms" will not disappoint.
October 19, 2016
A serious topic handled via some (at times) hilarious writing. The author, a self-proclaimed gun lover (but not a gun nut), digs into the fallacies surrounding modern gun culture. Lots of good discussion around bridging the anti-gun/gun nut divide that the U.S. is constantly debating.
June 14, 2016
A.J. Somerset makes a difficult confession at the outset of the book: he is a relatively liberal-minded man who likes guns. The audience gasps in confusion. How can this be so!? Doesn't gun ownership go hand-in-hand with shut-in sociopaths writing racist blog creedos and screaming about misandry on YouTube?
Well, of course not.
In an incredible effort at making headway for the Moderate and the Gun-Appreciative Liberal in the increasingly virulent cultural quagmire of the Guns Debate, A. J. Somerset has set forth on an adventure to find what he terms "The Wellspring of Crazy" -- the Source of Gun Insanity. It's a strange and terrible journey, taking the reader down a long highway westward, swerving between lanes, avoiding the claws of the politico-economic Leviathan and potshots from the new age Survivalist crowd. Sleepless and pondering the fearsome skyline lurking beyond our hotel windows, A. J. Somerset finds more than enough Fear and Loathing to go around.
Arms: The Culture and Credo of the Gun is many things: history lesson, anthropological survey, dialectic, political essay, philosophical treatise, and, perhaps because the writer ventures too close to the Wellspring, himself, a little bit of Gonzo Journalism. I learned a lot in my reading--which is, of course, the goal of reading non-fiction: to learn. My mind was expanded, and I was sober. I think I got close to something like capital-U Understanding. Of course, he was preaching to the choir...I, myself, am an outspoken Leftist with an aesthetic and occasionally hobbyistic appreciation of the firearm. So perhaps my reading was biased.
But, nonetheless, I review: A. J. Somerset ventured to our cultural frontier to dig up the shallow grave of Truth. He's followed the major tributaries of American gun culture as far as he dared. Did he find the Source? No, that would be too simple an explanation. Instead, he found Sources, plural, overgrown by a bacterial culture of Culture. A mold of national dialogue. The narrative wove between the lessons of history and the archetypes and false idols those lessons produced--the image of the Cowboy, the Rifleman, the Vigilante, the Survivor--and found a tangled viper's nest of ideas writhing under the American consciousness. And then it reached into that nest and tried to pry the snakes apart, more concerned about identifying which ones were venomous than whether or not it was being envenomed in its effort. The book gumshoes its way around the cases of What Is This and How This Came To Be. It succeeds in addressing those cases with integrity, humor, and thoroughness. A. J. Somerset took those cases as close to their conclusions as he could...maybe as close as anyone could. And like any detective drawn into a case too big to handle, he's left clutching at the Truth with white knuckles, furious and exhausted, not knowing what to do next and not having anyone to shoot.
This is an excellent book for people interested in "Gun Culture" from an anthropological or academic point of view. It's an excellent book for people, particularly Americans, who have started to wonder why they think the way they do about guns. It's an excellent book for people looking to understand How This Came To Be. It's an excellent book for people interested in the Gun Debate but less interested the shrieking voices involved in it.
It's not an excellent book for people searching for What To Do Next. It's not an excellent book for people looking for an Answer. There are no answers here precisely because there's nobody to shoot. You can dig up the old body of Truth and unravel the venomous vipers from its ribs, but you can't make the skeleton dance. This isn't a resurrection, it's an autopsy. If you're okay with that, I highly recommend you pick it up.
Well, of course not.
In an incredible effort at making headway for the Moderate and the Gun-Appreciative Liberal in the increasingly virulent cultural quagmire of the Guns Debate, A. J. Somerset has set forth on an adventure to find what he terms "The Wellspring of Crazy" -- the Source of Gun Insanity. It's a strange and terrible journey, taking the reader down a long highway westward, swerving between lanes, avoiding the claws of the politico-economic Leviathan and potshots from the new age Survivalist crowd. Sleepless and pondering the fearsome skyline lurking beyond our hotel windows, A. J. Somerset finds more than enough Fear and Loathing to go around.
Arms: The Culture and Credo of the Gun is many things: history lesson, anthropological survey, dialectic, political essay, philosophical treatise, and, perhaps because the writer ventures too close to the Wellspring, himself, a little bit of Gonzo Journalism. I learned a lot in my reading--which is, of course, the goal of reading non-fiction: to learn. My mind was expanded, and I was sober. I think I got close to something like capital-U Understanding. Of course, he was preaching to the choir...I, myself, am an outspoken Leftist with an aesthetic and occasionally hobbyistic appreciation of the firearm. So perhaps my reading was biased.
But, nonetheless, I review: A. J. Somerset ventured to our cultural frontier to dig up the shallow grave of Truth. He's followed the major tributaries of American gun culture as far as he dared. Did he find the Source? No, that would be too simple an explanation. Instead, he found Sources, plural, overgrown by a bacterial culture of Culture. A mold of national dialogue. The narrative wove between the lessons of history and the archetypes and false idols those lessons produced--the image of the Cowboy, the Rifleman, the Vigilante, the Survivor--and found a tangled viper's nest of ideas writhing under the American consciousness. And then it reached into that nest and tried to pry the snakes apart, more concerned about identifying which ones were venomous than whether or not it was being envenomed in its effort. The book gumshoes its way around the cases of What Is This and How This Came To Be. It succeeds in addressing those cases with integrity, humor, and thoroughness. A. J. Somerset took those cases as close to their conclusions as he could...maybe as close as anyone could. And like any detective drawn into a case too big to handle, he's left clutching at the Truth with white knuckles, furious and exhausted, not knowing what to do next and not having anyone to shoot.
This is an excellent book for people interested in "Gun Culture" from an anthropological or academic point of view. It's an excellent book for people, particularly Americans, who have started to wonder why they think the way they do about guns. It's an excellent book for people looking to understand How This Came To Be. It's an excellent book for people interested in the Gun Debate but less interested the shrieking voices involved in it.
It's not an excellent book for people searching for What To Do Next. It's not an excellent book for people looking for an Answer. There are no answers here precisely because there's nobody to shoot. You can dig up the old body of Truth and unravel the venomous vipers from its ribs, but you can't make the skeleton dance. This isn't a resurrection, it's an autopsy. If you're okay with that, I highly recommend you pick it up.
February 23, 2016
The stated goal of Arms: The Culture and Credo of the Gun is to examine why some Americans "believe monumentally stupid things about guns and why their beliefs... are so immovable." Author A.J. Somerset calls the answer to these questions the Wellspring of Crazy, and compares his search to Ponce de Leon's quest for the Fountain of Youth. Somerset's credentials are that he is a retired Canadian soldier and current bird hunter. He knows guns. He likes guns. But he doesn't like what some Americans (and Canadians) feel and believe about guns.
This is a mixed book. Somerset at times comes across as smug and sarcastic. He certainly sympathizes with some issues around gun ownership, but deeply disagrees with others (such as the perceived need to carry a loaded handgun in one's purse, just in case, while shopping with the kids at Wal-mart). At other times, Somerset is deeply disturbed by gun violence and cynical about our chances of changing the current frequency and volume of gun deaths.
Somerset is a good stylist, but I found some of his metaphors were over-used, such as his constant references to the state and the government as the Leviathan of Thomas Hobbes. Part history, part political commentary, this book covers a wide range of topics. Somerset touches on American myths of the Rifleman and the Western gunslinger, heroes who save the day with guns. He spends some time looking at the Second Amendment, the NRA, and armed militias used to break up railroad workers' and coal miners' strikes in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He looks at the modern cultures of self-defence and survivalists.
In the end, Somerset concludes that most non-suicide gun violence (about two thirds of gun deaths in the U.S. are suicides) is angry young men doing what angry young men have always done: lashing out at a society that doesn't live up their inflated expectations of what the world owes them. Only now, they have easy access to firearms.
This book will not convince gun activists that they're in the wrong. It won't give anti-gun activists any really new arguments to sway the unconvinced. It's a broad, stylish survey of a complex topic, but doesn't really contribute much to the ongoing discussion.
This is a mixed book. Somerset at times comes across as smug and sarcastic. He certainly sympathizes with some issues around gun ownership, but deeply disagrees with others (such as the perceived need to carry a loaded handgun in one's purse, just in case, while shopping with the kids at Wal-mart). At other times, Somerset is deeply disturbed by gun violence and cynical about our chances of changing the current frequency and volume of gun deaths.
Somerset is a good stylist, but I found some of his metaphors were over-used, such as his constant references to the state and the government as the Leviathan of Thomas Hobbes. Part history, part political commentary, this book covers a wide range of topics. Somerset touches on American myths of the Rifleman and the Western gunslinger, heroes who save the day with guns. He spends some time looking at the Second Amendment, the NRA, and armed militias used to break up railroad workers' and coal miners' strikes in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He looks at the modern cultures of self-defence and survivalists.
In the end, Somerset concludes that most non-suicide gun violence (about two thirds of gun deaths in the U.S. are suicides) is angry young men doing what angry young men have always done: lashing out at a society that doesn't live up their inflated expectations of what the world owes them. Only now, they have easy access to firearms.
This book will not convince gun activists that they're in the wrong. It won't give anti-gun activists any really new arguments to sway the unconvinced. It's a broad, stylish survey of a complex topic, but doesn't really contribute much to the ongoing discussion.
June 7, 2016
This book is well written and very informative. I can recommend it to anyone looking for relatively objective information on the history and cultural relevance of firearms in North America.
I've grown up and lived in countries with very tight gun control regulations. For Europeans the gun lobby and culture as they exist in the USA are a very strange bogeyman. We get introduced to it from headlines when there was another mass shooting or a toddler accidently killed their parents. We learn about the NRA in documentaries like @Bowling for Columbine. We see how guns are seemingly part of everyday life in the way the gun culture is presented on US tv shows and movies.
I always had the typical European anti-gun stance and no exposure to anything that would make me question that. But since I moved to Canada I've come in contact with people that had personal experiences with firearms, either as a hobby or in a more serious context.
That made me aware that I had nearly no background knowledge on guns, be it mechanical function, history or how they became one of the American symbols for freedom. I wanted information on all these points and most importantly I wanted them from a mostly objective source (i.e. not a NRA member but also not someone so anti-gun that they would never even touch one).
I still feel like it was Kismet that I stumbled over this book. Somerset is a hunter with military background, but he also has a healthy attitude towards gun regulations and the kind of people that should not walk around armed.
This book turned out to be the best summer read 2015 for me. It was highly entertaining, informative and well researched (secondary sources are provided). An additional bonus for me is the fact that Somerset is Canadian. While he mostly focusses on the development of the gun culture in the USA, he always shines a light on the events taking place parallel in Canada.
The best part though was Somerset's humor. I have not read many non-fiction books that made me laugh out loud!
I've grown up and lived in countries with very tight gun control regulations. For Europeans the gun lobby and culture as they exist in the USA are a very strange bogeyman. We get introduced to it from headlines when there was another mass shooting or a toddler accidently killed their parents. We learn about the NRA in documentaries like @Bowling for Columbine. We see how guns are seemingly part of everyday life in the way the gun culture is presented on US tv shows and movies.
I always had the typical European anti-gun stance and no exposure to anything that would make me question that. But since I moved to Canada I've come in contact with people that had personal experiences with firearms, either as a hobby or in a more serious context.
That made me aware that I had nearly no background knowledge on guns, be it mechanical function, history or how they became one of the American symbols for freedom. I wanted information on all these points and most importantly I wanted them from a mostly objective source (i.e. not a NRA member but also not someone so anti-gun that they would never even touch one).
I still feel like it was Kismet that I stumbled over this book. Somerset is a hunter with military background, but he also has a healthy attitude towards gun regulations and the kind of people that should not walk around armed.
This book turned out to be the best summer read 2015 for me. It was highly entertaining, informative and well researched (secondary sources are provided). An additional bonus for me is the fact that Somerset is Canadian. While he mostly focusses on the development of the gun culture in the USA, he always shines a light on the events taking place parallel in Canada.
The best part though was Somerset's humor. I have not read many non-fiction books that made me laugh out loud!
July 25, 2016
A most interesting book. The author's take on the how, why and what of the North American gun culture and some of the differences between Canada and the United States. Mr. Somerset delves into some of the history of America's use and fascination with the gun, provides numerous examples and offers an explanation on how the Second Amendment has morphed into what it stands for in today's world. This is a very readable book and if you have any interest in or consider yourself part of this culture, I think you will enjoy it.
March 30, 2016
While there are a few points Somerset makes with which I disagree, I genuinely enjoyed this book. Arms is both factual and refreshing, and Somerset's tone is at once academic and approachable, casual and smart. If you're into history, the gun control debate, and a bit of swearing, this is a fantastic book for you.
June 25, 2016
Refreshingly non-partisan overview of American (and to some extent, Canadian) gun culture.
November 11, 2016
A really good book that makes fun of the extremists on both sides of the gun debate, while making some serious points.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews