Review of GUN CURIOUS by Karl Rehn

I should have mentioned that a few weeks ago, Karl Rehn published a review of Gun Curious on his blog. You can read his thorough comments here.

His is not a purely objective review of the book, to be sure. As a gun trainer, he is part of the subject matter of Gun Curious (e.g,. I quote his book, Strategies and Standards for Defensive Handgun Training). As a friend, he was willing to take my calls and discuss the complexities of civilian gun training.

On the other hand, as one of the few people who knows anything systematically about the history of firearm training, he is a subject matter expert. For all of these reasons, I care quite a bit about what he thinks about my work.

I won’t review Rehn’s review here, but simply quote his bottom line:

If you teach people about guns, or are in the gun business, or are an activist in the gun rights movement, you should buy a copy of this book and read it — if for no other reason than to support Dr. Yamane’s research and disprove the “conventional wisdom” of the publishing elites that there was no market for a book like this.

It’s a book you can hand your Gun Curious friends or co-workers who maybe don’t understand why you carry or why you don’t support “common sense gun safety laws” like banning the AR-15. They might be more receptive to his commentary on those issues since he is presenting the information from an academic, not activist, perspective.

Would someone that opposes gun ownership and concealed carry read this book? They should, but people with strongly held beliefs are highly resistant to information that doesn’t support their pre-existing views, and are likely to dismiss it as “NRA propaganda” even though the author clearly states that on most issues he still leans left of center and has no affiliations (and no funding from) any pro-gun groups. Having a loaner copy lying around might be worth it.

I can’t say I disagree.