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Vote Gun

How Gun Rights Became Politicized in the United States
  • Patrick J. Charles
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2023
View more publications by Columbia University Press

About this book

Patrick J. Charles charts the rise of gun rights activism from the early twentieth century through the 1980 presidential election, pinpointing the role of the 1968 Gun Control Act. Offering a deep dive into the politicization of gun rights, Vote Gun reveals the origins of the acrimonious divisions that persist to this day.

Author / Editor information

Patrick J. Charles is senior historian and archivist for the United States Air Force. He is the author of Armed in America: A History of Gun Rights from Colonial Militias to Concealed Carry (2018). His research and writings have been cited by the Supreme Court of the United States, lower federal courts, and state supreme courts.

Reviews

Robert J. Spitzer, author of The Gun Dilemma:
No study has excavated NRA history to this depth and detail. The basic outlines of this narrative have been often told, but the author here provides a degree of detail, nuance, and complexity that has not been brought to light until now. This alone makes it an important, and also highly readable, contribution.

Joseph Blocher, coauthor The Positive Second Amendment: Rights, Regulation, and the Future of Heller:
In Vote Gun, Patrick Charles sheds light on the historical origins of the gun debate, drawing on painstaking archival research and challenging received wisdom about the historical role of the “gun lobby.” This book is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the balance of gun rights and regulation in the United States.

Kristin Goss, coauthor of The Gun Debate: What Everyone Needs to Know:
Vote Gun challenges the NRA’s narrative of its own history, including that it has the power to swing elections, as well as the conventional wisdom that the NRA only became a fierce gun lobby in the late 1970s. The book is an important history of the role of the gun rights movement, as well as the evolution of gun politics and policy, throughout the first eight decades of the twentieth century.


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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
May 2, 2023
eBook ISBN:
9780231557658
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Other:
50 b&w figures
Downloaded on 24.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.7312/char20884/html
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