Author: Tony Grist
One week from today, I will be participating in a conference on my home campus at Wake Forest University called “A Gun is Not Fun: Strategies to Keep Children Safe from Gun Violence.” I’m excited to have a voice in this conversation. I posted some preliminary thoughts on my newly established Light Over Heat Substack, and also reposted my 2022 essay “What We Talk Abut When We Talk About ‘Gun Safety’” there. A description of and registration information for the event follows. I don’t believe it will be recorded, but if you are near Wake Forest University next Monday, March…
I don’t attend the National Rifle Association (NRA) annual meeting and exhibits every year, but every time I attend I learn a great deal about American gun culture. I am attending the meetings in Atlanta this year. It is the first time I will have attended the NRAAM in back-to-back years, having previously attended in 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2024. This post lists all of my blog posts on the NRA annual meeting and exhibits (updated 18 April 2025). 2024 at the KAY BAILEY HUTCHINSON CONVENTION CENTER IN DALLAS, TEXAS What The Professor Learned in His Surprising Journey Inside Gun…
Author’s Note: I’m not bringing back this blog (find me on Substack), but I recently published a short essay that is too important not to mention. I shot a gun for the first time in January 2011. On that day, I began a personal and sociological journey into America’s gun culture that culminated in the June 2024 publication of my book, Gun Curious: A Liberal Professor’s Surprising Journey Inside America’s Gun Culture. Trying to fit more than a decade’s observations in a single book was difficult. Harder still was to write a TL:DR for those for whom a book is…
Cumulative list of significant products of my work on American gun culture: (28) “Guns in America: A liberal gun-owning sociologist offers 5 observations to understand America’s culture of firearms,” The Conversation, 1 May 2025. (27) “Guns are not just for conservative white men,” The Hill, 9 February 2025. (26) “The Agony (and Ecstasy) of Liberal Gun Ownership,” Keynote Address to the Liberal Gun Club National Conference, Las Vegas, Nevada, 19 October 2024. (25) Gun Curious: A Liberal Professor’s Surprising Journey Inside America’s Gun Culture (Jefferson, NC: Exposit Books, 2024). (24) “What the Professor Learned in His Surprising Journey Inside American…
Last Updated: 30 May 2025 As noted previously, I stole the phrase “Gun Culture 2.0” from Michael Bane after I heard him talk about it on his Downrange Radio podcast (and got his ex post facto approval btw), and alot of what I learned in my early days as a shooter were from Bob Mayne’s Handgun World Podcast. So, I am indebted to the hard work of many podcasters, and correspondingly flattered when asked to be a guest. In order for me to keep track of these appearances, I am creating this landing page to collect links to the shows…
I have only been to the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) SHOT Show (Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trade Show) once. I am attending the show, held annually in Las Vegas, for the second time this year. This made me realize I needed to set up a page for collecting my posts on the show. The following are all of my posts on the SHOT Show to date. I will update this page as necessary to keep a current list of all my posts. MISCELLANEOUS POSTS ABOUT SHOT SHOT 2019 at the VENETIAN EXPO CENTER, LAS VEGAS, NEVADA Read the full…
The 2025 series of the Decision Advantage Sprint for Human-Machine Teaming marked a significant step forward in the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning into battle management operations. Through a series of groundbreaking experiments, including the recent DASH 3 iteration, the U.S. Air Force, alongside its coalition partners, Canada and the United Kingdom, tested and refined AI’s potential to enhance decision-making, improve operational efficiency, and strengthen interoperability in the face of growing global security challenges. Held at the unclassified location of the Shadow Operations Center-Nellis in downtown Las Vegas, DASH 3 set the stage for this collaboration, led by…
A masked ICE agent shot and killed a 37-year-old American woman on Wednesday in Minneapolis. The incident, captured on multiple videos from different angles, has gone viral on social media and sparked debate over responsibility for the shooting. In one widely circulated video, ICE officers are seen approaching and surrounding a Honda Pilot stopped in the middle of the street. As officers order the driver to exit her car, one agent steps in front of the vehicle. The driver then reverses. As the vehicle moves forward again, the officer draws his weapon and fires shots from the front and then…
The United States seized overnight two oil tankers linked to Venezuela in back-to-back operations in the North Atlantic and the Caribbean, U.S. officials said Wednesday, escalating enforcement of sanctions against what Washington calls a “ghost fleet” moving illicit oil. U.S. European Command said it seized the merchant vessel Bella 1—later renamed Marinera—for violations of U.S. sanctions after months of monitoring. The tanker, sanctioned in 2024 for allegedly smuggling cargo for a company tied to Lebanon’s Hezbollah, had attempted to evade a U.S.-led blockade of sanctioned Venezuelan oil shipments and was sailing towards Russia under the Russian flag. Separately, Homeland Security…
United States Secretary of Energy Chris Wright on Wednesday announced that the United States plans to exert long-term control over Venezuela’s oil industry, including overseeing its sale “indefinitely.” Subscribe Today Get daily emails in your inbox Speaking to Goldman Sachs’s annual energy banking conference in Miami, Wright said that the United States will sell Venezuela’s ongoing production on the global market, emphasizing its use as leverage to “drive the changes that simply must happen in Venezuela.” Executives from Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil, were slated to attend the conference and hold direct meetings with Wright to discuss future investments. …