Basic Pistol - Large Print by Harel Shapira (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A deeply researched journey through gun culture and the people for whom guns are a way of life

To understand how people die by the gun, we must first understand how people live by the gun.

This is the realization that led sociologist Harel Shapira to embed himself in TK Training, a popular firearms school in rural Texas just outside sprawling Austin. Forty-two classes, ten thousand rounds of ammunition, and one concealed carry license later, he has emerged with Basic Pistol, a dark and richly detailed plunge into an obsession that shapes the very fabric of American life.

Basic Pistol follows Shapira's fraught journey through TK Training's extensive curriculum. He learns how to hold a gun and how to buy one, how to judge when and when not to shoot, and how to talk to the cops once the trigger's been pulled. All the while, he immerses himself in a community of complexities and contradictions, for whom gun ownership is livelihood, is tradition, is identity. In so doing, he shows how gun culture--and the fears and fantasies of violence it breeds--erodes the very bonds of American society, empowering white men and placing Black humanity in the line of fire.

Page-turning and paradigm-shifting, Basic Pistol shows that if there's any hope of reining in the gun violence epidemic, it must start not with the guns themselves, but with the people who carry them.

Review Quotes

"At once page-turning and deeply disquieting, Harel Shapira's Basic Pistol is a must read for anyone who wants to understand not just why gun violence is so devastatingly prevalent in the United States, but also, and as importantly, how gun ownership has become so normalized, so passionately defended, and so much a part of how countless people now measure their sense of safety as well as connect to their community."--Heather Ann Thompson, author of Fear and Fury and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Blood in the Water

"Basic Pistol is masterfully crafted. It penetrates the heart of American gun culture and, somehow, renders it both deeply human and utterly monstrous. It's a fascinating, disturbing, and necessary book about the violence of everyday life in the United States."--Eric Klinenberg, Helen Gould Shepard Professor in the Social Sciences, New York University

"Utterly brilliant. So much more than the usual diatribe about guns: it is deeply researched and thoughtful. It tells a story about a culture without inviting us to dislike any of the people involved."--Justin Webb, former BBC North America editor

"With analytic rigor, literary skill, and a deep understanding of his subjects, Harel Shapira takes us into the culture of gun ownership and the far-right with a skill that surpasses most journalism on the subject. Basic Pistol memorably demonstrates how a gun safety training program can amount to indoctrination into a never-ending, trigger-ready state of high alert."--Nicholas Lemann, Pulitzer-Moore Professor and Dean Emeritus, Columbia Journalism School, and author of Transaction Man

"Basic Pistol is groundbreaking ethnography. In this fascinating deep dive into America's obsession with guns, Harel Shapira shows how this culture of violence and doom permeates our communities and shapes our politics."--Adam Winkler, Connell Professor of Law, UCLA, and author of We the Corporations and Gunfight.

"Unqiuely researched . . . . an important addition to the conversation about gun violence in the United States."--Library Journal

"Chilling . . . . An eye-opening study that makes its own case for stricter gun control."--Kirkus Reviews

"A vivid and unique perspective on U.S. gun culture."--Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Harel Shapira is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. Shapira is an ethnographer who uses long-term participant observation in order to study political life in contemporary America, with an emphasis on right-wing politics. He is the author of Waiting for José (Princeton University Press), which explores the civilians who patrol the United States / Mexico border. Through fieldwork at gun schools, Shapira considers how people train their minds and bodies to use guns, and what such an education means for the future of American democracy. His previous research has been funded by the National Science Foundation as well as the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.