Adam Winkler
Gunfight
The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America
W.W. Norton, 2013
What's inside?
In America’s contentious debate over gun control, extremists on both sides are misfiring.
Recommendation
This enlightening, meticulously researched essay explores America’s love-hate relationship with guns. Constitutional scholar Adam Winkler sees extremism and misunderstanding on both sides of the debate. In this history of the US Constitution’s Second Amendment – framed in the context of the July 1976 District of Columbia handgun ban – he paints the National Rifle Association (NRA) as an extremist group and Democrats as out of touch with gun owners. getAbstract recommends Winkler’s overview, which weaves in history and often-overlooked but salient facts. However, readers looking for solutions to America’s mass shootings or for remedies to gang violence will find none here. Winkler shrugs off notions of large-scale gun control as wishful, utopian claptrap.
Summary
About the Author
Adam Winkler is professor of constitutional law at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.
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