Episode description

Guns: Laurie Taylor talks to Jennifer Carlson, Professor of Sociology at Arizona State University and author of an in depth study of gun sellers in the US. In 2020 they were on the front line of an unprecedented surge in gun purchasing against a backdrop of pandemic insecurities and political polarisation. Interviewing 50 sellers from four states, 84% of whom were on the right of the political spectrum, she found they were not simply selling guns, but also a conservative vision. How then did they react to a new wave of gun buyers which included women and sexual minorities, some of whom were liberal? Did this vindicate or challenge their gun centric world view? And what are the possibilities for a positive transformation in America's harmful gun culture when only one third of the population are opposed to the personal ownership of hand guns? They're joined by Andrew Nahum, historian & Keeper Emeritus at The Science Museum whose latest work considers the impact of the gun on progress, both intellectual and industrial, from the Enlightenment to the American West, the Cold War and contemporary gun culture. How did so many rifles come to be held in private hands and what does the ongoing preoccupation with the creation of ever more effective firearms tell us about human creativity?

Producer: Jayne Egerton