The Politics of Gun Control [Paperback]

Robert J. Spitzer (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1566430216 | ISBN-13: 978-1566430210 | Publication Date: February 1995

In the wake of Gabby Giffords and the 2011 Arizona shootings, The Politics of Gun Control takes on renewed significance. Robert J. Spitzer has long been the go-to guy on gun control, and his evenhanded treatment of the issue continues to compel interest and interviews by such luminaries as Terry Gross and Keith Olbermann. Where else will you find an author writing on this subject who is a member of both the NRA and the Brady Center? New to the Fifth Edition: Features a new, in-depth section on the movement to allow gun carrying on college campuses. Covers recent public shootings including that of Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona. Includes such recent court rulings as D.C. v. Heller, McDonald v. Chicago, and others. Offers new data on gun ownership, gun deaths, school shootings, and public opinion on gun control. Looks at NRA politics in recent elections. Examines ATF role changes in light of increased border patrols and heightened Mexican drug violence. Explores phenomena related to social media including gun meet-ups. Hear more from Robert Spitzer:Listen to Bob Spitzer talk about gun control on public radio. See Bob Spitzer on Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Professor Spitzer chats with Terry Gross on Fresh Air.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Although someone is murdered in the U.S. every 21 minutes, and in more than 50% of the cases by handguns, Americans cling to the gun culture with a tenacity that transcends all reason. Clearly, primordial meanings are at work here, a symbolism as profound as it is irrational. Spitzer discusses the various dimensions of the controversy with a rare balance and maturity. The author first analyzes the Second Amendment, drawing out its legal interpretations (an ``armed militia'' is not quite the same as drug dealers with AK-47s). He then examines the consequences of guns to the nation, from injury to accidents, homicide to suicide; the political battle between the NRA and Handgun Control Inc.; and the history of policy making, culminating in the assault weapons ban and the Brady bill. Spitzer ends the book by suggesting a new public policy based on an international model, one that includes nonproliferation of new weapons and arms control for those that already exist, but whether this form of regulation would work is a moot point. It is not so much the hunting ethos that keeps guns in 70 million American homes but the cultural mythology that champions self-reliance and a frontier ethic.

Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

[Offers] a formula that might move the gun debate off dead center. --E. J. Dionne, Jr., The Washington Post (4/21/99)

The Politics of Gun Control does an excellent job of introducing undergraduates to the policy area in a way that engages them and facilitates the development of their critical and analytical abilities. Robert J. Spitzer admirably covers all of the key matters pertaining to gun control. The book provides a theoretical framework, the necessary discussion of the Second Amendment, a thorough analysis of the problem of guns and gun control, good treatment of the politics of gun control (political parties, interest groups, citizens), and some nice case studies. The book's scholarship is sturdy and does not reflect any appreciable bias. I believe that this is the best text on policy making in a particular area currently in print. --Patrick Pierce, Saint Mary's College

The Spitzer book was the first book I assigned for my junior-level public policy course. It worked just as I had planned because it was a real-life, exciting, controversial example upon which we could build an understanding of the policy process. Spitzer engages the students with the controversy but continuously puts the emphasis on policy issues like the Second Amendment, the gun and antigun lobbies, the complexities of the federal system, and the evolution of a national policy. --Janet Frantz, University of Louisiana at Lafayette --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Chatham House Pub (February 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566430216
• ISBN-13: 978-1566430210
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,431,427 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert J. Spitzer is Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the State University of New York, College at Cortland, where he has taught for over thirty years. He is also Series Editor for the book series "American Constitutionalism" for SUNY Press. He's received the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Scholarship, and served as President of the Presidency Research Group, an international association of presidency scholars (affiliated with the American Political Science Association). He has testified before Congress on several occasions, and is often quoted and interviewed by American and international news outlets. He earned his Ph.D. from Cornell University.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Promising concept - fails to deliver on the facts., May 23, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Politics of Gun Control (American Politics Series) (Paperback)

"Not concerned with the efficacy..." of gun control laws. That about sums up The Politics of Gun Control. Dr. Spitzer started out to write a book exploring the policy resolution ramifications of gun control, but along the way he got sucked into arguments for the pro and con of gun control, and ended up delivering a weak polemic for stricter gun control laws.

Dr. Spitzer's original question intrigued me greatly. How, in a civilized society, does one develop a rational and moral course of action when so many competing interests are so stridently opposed to each other? What are the proper roles of the courts, of the federal government (both legislative and executive branches), of local government, and of advocacy groups, in determining the proper direction for government policy? Sadly, after posing these questions, The Politics of Gun Control fails to deliver, beyond the superfluous finale that the gun control dilemma can be resolved by treating gun control similarly to international arms control. (Suffice it to say I was unconvinced.)

Alternatively, as pro-control literature, The Politics of Gun Control fails utterly. Unlike Dr. Kleck's Targeting Guns, The Politics of Gun Control offers little insight into the methodologies of the studies cited, why one may be better than another, and offers virtually no explanation of the plausible mechanisms that underlie quoted study's results.

For other examples of the failings inherent in The Politics of Gun Control, consider the following:

- Many of the significant citations are taken from newspapers and magazines. While this may be acceptable for anecdotal recollections, it is not sufficient for scientific analysis. When concluding that "easy accessibility of weapons" is a significant contribution to a rise in homicide, one expects a more respected source than the New York Times.

- In the section devoted to participants to the debate, twenty-three pages are devoted to a rather mean-spirited negative portrayal of the National Rifle Association, and only one page to Handgun Control, Inc. In one quote, the rabidly anti-gun Josh Sugarman of the Violence Policy Center is passed off as a "policy analyst".

- The section lambasting the NRA for its position on KTW "cop-killer" bullets blatantly misrepresents critical facts: facts readily available in Osha Gray Davidson's Under Fire: The NRA and the Battle for Gun Control. The result is that readers like "A customer from Michigan" draw erroneous conclusions and disparage a stand that never was.

- The material on "assault weapons" contains the same fabrications reported in HCI's partisan literature, and fails to adequately deal with the objections raised by David Kopel and others. Left unanswered are such critical objections as the irrationality of a ban on "assault weapons" that are fundamentally indistinguishable from other, unbanned, semi-automatic firearms, and that far from being criminal weapons of choice, "assault weapons" are actually under represented in crime. Again, the result is that less knowledgeable readers complain of the non-existent "proliferation of automatic weapons." If a book can be judged by its results, this one failed miserably to produce enlightened readers.

- The claim that firearms are not regulated because they are not under the control of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, is demonstrably false. (Interestingly, Robert Delfray of the National Shooting Sports Foundation reports the CPSC exemption for firearms was instituted because HCI attempted to use the CPSC to ban "the sale of bullets for handguns.") Firearms are manufactured according to SAMI regulations (part of ANSI) in addition to a multitude of access laws, not that you could learn this from The Politics of Gun Control.

- The chapter on the interpretation of the Second Amendment fails to answer any of the arguments raised by pro Second Amendment scholars (who are not necessarily anti-control) such as Clayton Cramer, Robert Cottrol, Stephen Halbrook, David Kopel, Don Kates, Sanford Levinson and Lawrence Tribe. (Most of these authors have works available on Amazon.Com - I suggest you search and decide for yourself.) Many of these scholars appear in the endnotes, so obviously Dr. Spitzer has read their work, but their primary arguments are neither presented nor refuted. Of greater concern is that Dr. Spitzer's work promised to tell us what role, if any, should be assigned to judicial precedent, in deciding the future of gun control. Given that the courts have produced both good and bad decisions, how are we to know which ones are to be given credence and which consigned to the trash heap? After reading this chapter I was left with the feeling that Dr. Spitzer's criteria was based on which cases supported his preferred outcome.

On a general basis, I found especially irritating the emotive, value-based, unsupported, adjectives that are peppered throughout the text. I was looking for an alternative viewpoint, not consistent needling. For pro-control readers this may give you a warm glow; for more doubtful readers it may simply make you grit your teeth and reach for the markup pen.

In the final analysis, Dr. Spitzer begins with the twin propositions that the "purpose of government is to maintain order" and that the "purpose of firearms is the ... destruction of people, animals, and objects." Neither assumption is adequately supported; they are presented to be taken on faith. Perhaps, to one holding such beliefs, the burden of proof for the necessity of gun control is much lighter. To those who actually believe that governments are instituted to secure the blessing of liberty and that firearms are simply a tool for good or ill, The Politics Of Gun Control remains unconvincing.

23 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very readable scholarly treatment of a controversial topic., June 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Politics of Gun Control (American Politics Series) (Paperback)

Spitzer offers a very readable scholarly treatment of this crucial public policy issue. He does a very thorough job of analyzing the problem of gun violence in America and makes clear and reasonable arguments about appropriate public policy responses. This is a must read for anyone interested in the issue.

35 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A balanced and informative treatment, December 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Politics of Gun Control (American Politics Series) (Paperback)

I found Mr. Spitzer's book to be quite informative and thought-provoking. In regard to the question of evidence, I don't know what book Mr. Anderson of Portland, OR read, but Spitzer's book has an ample and varied list of sources (pages 154-203), about a quarter of the entire book. Most of his sources are respectable journals such as the Journal of the AMA and the NE Journal of Medicine, and he also cites many Supreme Court decisions in his examination of the Second Amendment's meaning. To Prof. Spitzer's credit, he also consulted the familiar sources on the pro-gun side of the debate: Kleck, Gertz, Kates, Rossi, et al. I'm sure that Spitzer will be accused of being "biased" or "liberal" because most of his conclusions do not support the pro-gun arguments, but please note that he, at times, does find some value in the questions that their research raises (see his comments on Kleck's doubts about a comprehensive national survey, pages 56-57). Spitzer's treatment of the Brady Law is also even-handed (pages 125-26).

Spitzer's book provoked me to thinking about the gun issue in new ways. His thesis that the gun-control debate is largely one of public-policy making in which "elephantine political forces battle over political mice" (page 136) is developed very well throughout. I also found his examination of the NRA quite interesting. After reading it, I began to feel that the organization has really hurt its own rank-and-file base by overly politicizing the issue of firearms. There must be a lot of outdoor enthusiasts and sportsman who don't think that the proliferation of automatic weapons and KTW armor-piercing bullets (aka, "cop-killer bullets") would make America a safer place. But the NRA does not permit such dissention in their ranks it seems (page 83). Spitzer writes that because of its hard-line, no compromise approach, the NRA "has often sacrificed both a sense of perspective and the truth, leading to a general erosion of its credibility outside of its core constituency" (page 100). I agree.

In short, I feel that this is a very useful and informative work. In light of the recent outbursts of gun violence in our country, I think that everyone concerned about the gun issue has an obligation to read this book.