History

Community Violence

These Economists Think Guns, Not the Crack Epidemic, Drove the ’90s Murder Boom

New research contends that a surge in handgun production and possession propelled murder rates in American cites — until new restrictions on firearms reversed the trendlines.

History

Pre-Regulation, Gun Silencers Showed Up at Some Horrific Crime Scenes

Second Amendment activists and their Republican allies in Congress are pushing to slash a more than 80-year-old law regulating the sale of gun silencers. The proposal, included as a plank of the Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreation Enhancement Act, has…

History

The Attacks That Killed the Most Police Officers in the Last 100 Years

Most of the incidents were shootings.

History

That Time the NRA Tied the Tiananmen Square Massacre to American Gun Rights

Why Time and Newsweek refused to run the group's startling ad.

History

The NRA Has Been Making the Same Slippery Slope Argument Since 1934

Firearms manufacturers and the gun lobby now act in lockstep, but it wasn’t always that way.

History

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison Didn’t Want Guns on Their College Campus

This 1824 document banned firearms for the future students of the University of Virginia.

Culture

Does the Bible Enshrine a ‘God-Given Right’ to Shoot in Self Defense?

Backers of a Mississippi bill extending Stand Your Ground to houses of worship are the latest gun-owning Christians to claim the support of scripture, but their views may have more earthly origins.

Gun Policy

Nancy Reagan’s Gun Reform Legacy

Because of her influence, gun lobbyists can't claim Ronald Reagan as a strong supporter of their views.

History

Twenty Years Ago, a Gun Industry Exec Got Fed Up with How Many Firearms Wind Up in Criminal Hands.

So he blasted his fellow insiders for aiding the black market in this forgotten trade magazine op-ed.

History

New York Times Staffers Used to Hold Shootouts for Thanksgiving Turkeys

It’s one of the newspaper's Rifle and Pistol Club traditions that lives on in the archives of the “Little Times” newsletter.

History

This 1968 Report Debunks the Claim That Gun Control Led to the Holocaust

The NRA talking point was discredited almost 50 years ago.

History

Watch Robert F. Kennedy Push for Tougher Gun Laws in Roseburg, Oregon 47 Years Ago

"With all the violence and murder and killings we’ve had in the United States," the Democratic candidate said, two weeks before his death, "I think you will agree that we must keep firearms from people who have no business with guns or rifles.”

History

Vermont’s Long, Strange Trip to Gun-Rights Paradise

Why the Green Mountain State and its singular history are to thank for new laws that allow the concealed carry of guns without a permit.