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Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
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Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment (City Lights Open Media) Kindle Edition

by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 263 ratings
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"Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's Loaded is like a blast of fresh air. She is no fan of guns or of our absurdly permissive laws surrounding them. But she does not merely take the liberal side of the familiar debate."--Adam Hochschild, The New York Review of Books

"If . . . anyone at all really wants to 'get to the root causes of gun violence in America,' they will need to start by coming to terms with even a fraction of what Loaded proposes."—Los Angeles Review of Books

"Her analysis, erudite and unrelenting, exposes blind spots not just among conservatives, but, crucially, among liberals as well. . . . As a portrait of the deepest structures of American violence, Loaded is an indispensable book."—The New Republic

With President Trump suggesting that teachers arm themselves, with the NRA portrayed as a group of "patriots" helping to Make America Great Again, with high school students across the country demanding a solution to the crisis, everyone in America needs to engage in the discussion about our future with an informed, historical perspective on the role of guns in our society. America is at a critical turning point. What is the future for our children?

Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment, is a deeply researched—and deeply disturbing—history of guns and gun laws in the United States, from the original colonization of the country to the present. As historian and educator Dunbar-Ortiz explains, in order to understand the current obstacles to gun control, we must understand the history of U.S. guns, from their role in the "settling of America" and the early formation of the new nation, and continuing up to the present.

Praise for Loaded:

"Dunbar-Ortiz's argument will be disturbing and unfamiliar to most readers, but her evidence is significant and should not be ignored."—Publishers Weekly

" . . . gun love is as American as apple pie—and that those guns have often been in the hands of a powerful white majority to subjugate minority natives, slaves, or others who might stand in the way of the broadest definition of Manifest Destiny."—Kirkus Reviews

"Trigger warning! This is a superb and subtle book, not an intellectual safe space for confirming your preconceptions—whatever those might be—but rather a deeply necessary provocation."—Christian Parenti, author of Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis

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  1. Part of series
    City Lights Open Media
  2. Print length
    242 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    City Lights Publishers
  5. Publication date
    January 23, 2018
  6. File size
    552 KB
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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
263 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book informative and well-researched. They consider it an important academic source with an unconventional view of American history. However, opinions differ on readability - some find it well-written and terrific, while others describe it as clunky and difficult to read.

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20 customers mention "Knowledge"20 positive0 negative

Customers find the book informative and well-researched. They say it provides a comprehensive understanding of the origin of the 2nd Amendment and an interesting unconventional view of American history. The introduction is very informative and the book deepens their understanding of the history of the Second Amendment.

"...This book will keep you riveted, not by the lurid details, but with the suspicion that the early days of America are not so different than today." Read more

"...Still there is good information in here. It's a well researched book, but the thesis falls apart when you reach Amendment 14: That Northerners fully..." Read more

"...recounting of the nepharious history of the 2nd Amendment is eye-opening. This should be taught in every school...." Read more

"...This book is carefully argued and bolstered with factual information." Read more

5 customers mention "Readability"3 positive2 negative

Customers have different views on the book's readability. Some find it well-researched and engaging, while others mention clunky prose and poor organization.

"This is well written and well researched. Much of this information I had never seen framed in this way, it just has the ring and feel of truth to it...." Read more

"Terrific read...." Read more

"this is not an easy book to read because of the magnitude of violence done by the U.S. that is examined in each chapter by Dunbar Ortiz...." Read more

"well researched and well written..." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • James Kalomiris, The Peripatetic Reader
    5.0 out of 5 stars Everything You Wanted to Know about the Second Amendment and American Gun Culture but Were Afraid to Ask
    Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2018
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    The title of this review is no exaggeration. Author Dunbar-Ortiz writes about the many atrocities that litter American history: Andrew Jackson, the slave trade, the extermination of indigenous populations, domestic terrorist organizations (the KKK being the most prominent), guerrilla raids, murders, serial killings, assassinations, the list goes on. American history is bathed in blood, and violence is indeed as American as cherry pie. Outside of racism, is the lust for real property, or blind ambition, the common thread? According to this new book the answer is the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution and the gun culture it codified.

    Dunbar-Ortiz demystifies the origin of historical facts and figures whose images today are either sanitized or unknown. George Washington, for example, is known to have been a prominent surveyor. How is that important? Why was he surveying vast uncharted land? In Westerns the bad guys always wore black hats. Was it really that simple? Who were these criminals, really, and where did they come from? Andrew Jackson is notorious of having killed Indigenous peoples with abandon. Why? What was in it for him? The white sheets of the KKK is a familiar image. Where did they come from? Or the Texas Rangers? What was the REAL catalyst for the American Revolution? The answers to these and other questions will sometimes surprise you, and, as this title indicates, maybe you just don’t want to know the real answer.

    It seems to me this is more a history of the gun culture in America than the Second Amendment. Dunbar-Ortiz devotes great space describing past atrocities by gun-toting, renegade white populations. I don’t mention this as a criticism. Her historical narrative is incisive and engaging, a real page turner. This short but incendiary book blows open the myths underlying the American ethos, many of which have already undergone considerable reevaluation. The presence of the “Second Amendment” in the subtitle is then a little misleading. The take-away from her book though is that the distinction between America’s gun culture and the Second Amendment is academic. America’s gun culture is the ying and the Second Amendment is the yang of American culture, two sides of the same coin, an ongoing trend that shows itself today in police killings (which happen with impunity, now and then) and citizen mass shootings.

    The American past was more complicated than we even now realize, and is awashed in blood. This book will keep you riveted, not by the lurid details, but with the suspicion that the early days of America are not so different than today.
    27 people found this helpful
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  • Pika
    5.0 out of 5 stars well researched and well written
    Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2019
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    this is not an easy book to read because of the magnitude of violence done by the U.S. that is examined in each chapter by Dunbar Ortiz. she uses primary source documents and historical texts as evidence throughout the entire book. as mass shootings become more and more fixed in the American daily life, this book haunts me. every time my friends and family talk to me about mass shootings, I say, "have u read Loaded yet?" because I feel like I can't have an in depth conversation about the greater picture of gun violence in America until we're all on the same page about the origins of gun culture and the true intention behind the 2nd amendment of the late 1700s. the book also sheds light on how mass shootings are even tallied in this country, and what white men owning guns has meant to the U.S. and its security as a nation.

    I cannot explain how often I recommend this book to people in my life. everyday, because that is how often gun violence is apparent in this country.
    14 people found this helpful
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  • Madam Rob
    4.0 out of 5 stars A Strange Book.
    Reviewed in the United States on April 9, 2018
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    This author comes out "guns blasting" against the second amendment. It seems that her argument is that the 2nd Amendment was founded on racist principles: to steal land from Native Americans, and to keep slaves in slavery.

    This is how the book begins. I was eagerly awaiting on how she would handle the 14th Amendment, or the Black Panther Party. I was also waiting to see if she might make an argument that gun-control itself was racist, but no such argument came, an utter disappointment.

    Still there is good information in here. It's a well researched book, but the thesis falls apart when you reach Amendment 14: That Northerners fully intended freedmen to have guns to defend themselves, and even created an amendment saying so. It is a disappointment that the author knowingly ignores this fundemental point, while going on to describe Cruikshank.

    Towards the end of the book, it curiously defends the 2nd amendment as an intent as an individual right, which is doubted in other literatures. It even goes on to describe books written by liberals which have falsified facts in them, which is much appreciated.

    In summary: It's worth the read for the facts, but the thesis falls apart. I'm disappointed that the 14th amendment was skipped over when so much research was obviously put into this book.
    11 people found this helpful
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  • John Henry Riley
    5.0 out of 5 stars This is the best historical analysis of the 2nd Amendment’s role in the Genocide of Native Peoples and enforcement of Slavery
    Reviewed in the United States on August 12, 2022
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    Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s spellbinding recounting of the nepharious history of the 2nd Amendment is eye-opening. This should be taught in every school. The gun control movement needs to read this book and learn its lessons because deep social change is required to end the plague of violence.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • R. Modiano
    5.0 out of 5 stars The Subtext of the Second Amendment Explained
    Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2018
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    In the same tradition of Charles Beard's classic deconstruction of the US Constitution, Dunbar-Ortiz reveals the underlying causes and conditions that inspired the Second Amendment in Loaded. She relates the history and cultural formation of US gun culture and demonstrates its origins in the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous civilizations of the North American continent and the extension of and preservation of slavery in those territories that based their economies on slave labor and accumulation by dispossession. This book is carefully argued and bolstered with factual information.
    11 people found this helpful
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  • Luis N. Amaral
    5.0 out of 5 stars essential reading
    Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2022
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    This book finally makes the insanity of US gun culture understandable. Guns are essential to the white colonizers who must maintain control and exploit native Americans, black Americans and 'inferior' immigrants. That thousands of people are killed every year is a small price to pay to maintain white supremacy.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • thomas schweibold
    4.0 out of 5 stars A very interesting and informative unconventional view of American history ...
    Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2018
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    A very interesting and informative unconventional view of American history which offers
    plenty of insight as to the historical roots of violence and the gun culture in the USA.
    One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Guest
    5.0 out of 5 stars Worth the read
    Reviewed in Canada on May 14, 2018
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    This book is excellent.
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  • Mr. T. Upton
    4.0 out of 5 stars Hard-hitting theory of why so many Americans support gun ownership
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 23, 2018
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    The proposition of this book is that the US obsession with possessing and using guns is closely tied to the country's history of invading and taking control of a foreign land, starting with their own. The author presents her theory in clear terms with lots of historical evidence as support, and her no-holds-barred approach makes the book quite a shocking read in places. My only reservations is that the book could have given more space to opposing views of the historical narrative and I also think it missed a trick in tying the theory in with American's love of disaster and zombie-invasion movies and TV series.
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  • John Hernlund
    4.0 out of 5 stars Great ideas, poor writing
    Reviewed in Japan on September 6, 2019
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    Dunbar-Ortiz argues that the 2nd amendment to the US constitution was always intended to be an individual right (as are all amendments in the Bill of Rights) and was established in the context of violent private frontier settlement expansion into native-occupied lands and civic slave patrols in settled farmland. She makes a compelling case that the "well-regulated militias" cited in the amendment refer to organized citizen slave patrols (once considered a civic duty by law, much like jury duty) and armed self-organized bands of frontiersmen who used savagery and terrorism against native populations to expand and defend their land-holdings. Typical liberal arguments that "a well-regulated militia" in the 2nd amendment refers to government militias (army, national guard, etc.) do not hold water since congress' power to establish an armed militia was already in the main body of the constitution (for example, Article I Section 8 Clause 15) and was not needed in the Bill of Rights (which came later as the first major addendum). She adds a lot of other context for the times, such as the King's pre-revolutionary edict that settlers must return to the colonial borders and cease aggression against native populations, and the famous Stamp Tax was intended to provide for enforcement of this policy. She also traces the origin of modern US policing to the civic slave patrols of yore. In a nutshell, her take on the 2nd amendment is that it reflects the rapacious, unrelentingly greedy, recklessly exploitative nature of US conquest of middle North America. However, once the frontier was closed, and slavery abolished, the 2nd amendment lost its original purpose, but its sinister intentions still haunt us today.

    This is a very important story to tell, and I wish that Dunbar-Ortiz was a better story-teller to weave the tale. Unfortunately the narrative jumps around and the flow is broken and discordant in many places. This could have benefited from some proper editing work, but it seems that nobody took the effort to smooth out the wrinkles. All of the ideas and elements are there, it is well-researched and referenced, it just needs a better presentation to take it to the finish line. I hope that others will pick up this project and take it the rest of the way, so that these arguments can more readily become part of the public dialogue surrounding the 2nd amendment.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Ginger Goodwin
    4.0 out of 5 stars Guns kill people of colour
    Reviewed in Canada on March 23, 2018
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    America the land of liberty for white gun owners to kill people of colour! Interesting read.
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  • Neil Soliven
    4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
    Reviewed in Canada on July 26, 2018
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    great read!
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