Policing the Second Amendment: Guns, Law Enforcement, and the Politics of Race

by Jennifer Carlson

An urgent look at the relationship between guns, the police, and race



The United States is steeped in guns, gun violence--and gun debates. As arguments rage on, one issue has largely been overlooked--Americans who support gun control turn to the police as enforcers of their preferred policies, but the police themselves disproportionately support gun rights over gun control. Yet who do the police believe should get gun access? When do they pursue aggressive enforcement of gun laws? And what part does race play in all of this? Policing the Second Amendment unravels the complex relationship between the police, gun violence, and race. Rethinking the terms of the gun debate, Jennifer Carlson shows how the politics of guns cannot be understood--or changed--without considering how the racial politics of crime affect police attitudes about guns.

Drawing on local and national newspapers, interviews with close to eighty police chiefs, and a rare look at gun licensing processes, Carlson explores the ways police talk about guns, and how firearms are regulated in different parts of the country. Examining how organizations such as the National Rifle Association have influenced police perspectives, she describes a troubling paradox of guns today--while color-blind laws grant civilians unprecedented rights to own, carry, and use guns, people of color face an all-too-visible system of gun criminalization. This racialized framework--undergirding who is "a good guy with a gun" versus "a bad guy with a gun"--informs and justifies how police understand and pursue public safety.

Policing the Second Amendment demonstrates that the terrain of gun politics must be reevaluated if there is to be any hope of mitigating further tragedies.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction

289 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 15, 2020

About the author

Jennifer Dawn Carlson is associate professor of sociology as well as government and public policy at the University of Arizona. She is the author of Citizen-Protectors: The Everyday Politics of Guns in an Age of Decline. Her writing has appeared in such publications as the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. She lives in Tucson, Arizona.

Reviews

[Megan Doney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure that the author's intent is to convince me to defund the police, but that's what she did.

[Sara Shocks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gun militarism vs. gun populism is a really great framework to assess guns in this country, especially regarding law enforcement's views, rather than gun rights / gun control.

[Viral · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up on a whim from my library because it sounded interesting, and I'm really really glad I did. I got this just days before the Highland Park shooting, and the message it carries about looking at gun violence and police as fundamentally linked concepts was really powerful. We simply cannot address gun violence and gun policy if we aren't willing to grapple with how the police as political actors shape our gun laws, gun culture, and "gun talk". Highly highly recommend for understanding our simultaneous police-state/mass-shooting epidemic.

[Quintin Myers · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well thought out book that explores how the gun debate in the US has historically bifurcated policing and guns and how racism plays a role in both. The chapter on gun courts is most compelling but the evidence from police chiefs was extremely eye opening. I also was very interested in her take on mass violence.

[Reba · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really great research and interesting theories, I just found it very dry and tedious to read. Very textbooky.

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Insightful information but took me forever to get through