Guns, Guns, Guns: A History of Gun Violence (Lapham's Quarterly, 2018)

  Lapham’s Quarterly, A History of Gun Violence. (2018) A depressing read, with enough data to show that humans have generally expended more effort and skill on making effective weapons than any other tool. War has always been as much about the combatants’ ability to manufacture effective weaponry as about their mastery of strategy and tactics.

The perfection of the hand gun by Colt, Smith & Wesson and others has made gun violence almost as normal as bread. It has also made killing so easy that murder has become the default ingredient of many crimes that would be successful without it. The US Supreme Court’s misinterpretation of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution has encouraged a sense of personal entitlement that has spread into all other aspects of communal life, so that conflict is for many people now the prime mode of relating to others.

As usual, an excellent overview of the subject, consisting mostly of firsthand accounts and analyses based on knowledge of the history. But a melancholy read. The cover is an interpretation of the Gunfight at the OK Corral. Recommended. ****