Tony Grist
This past spring, our new virtual book club read and discussed two recent books about guns in America: Gun Country by Andrew McKevitt and What We’ve Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms by Jonathan Metzl.
Things went so well that we decided to keep the ball rolling this fall. I’m pleased to announce that we will be reading a different sort of book than the first two: Why It’s OK to Own a Gun by Ryan W. Davis, a political science professor at Brigham Young University.
Reading and Discussion Schedule
We will be meeting on alternating Wednesdays from 6:00 to 7:00 pm Eastern time beginning September 11th. As Why It’s OK to Own a Gun is fairly brief, I broke it into 2 logical parts. For our third meeting, the author will join us for conversation and Q&A.
- Wednesday, October 9: Q&A session with the author, Ryan Davis, associate professor of political science at Brigham Young University.Professor Metzl join us for a fourth session of Q&A with the author as Professor McKevitt did.
- Wednesday, September 11: Read Introduction through Chapter 4 (“Guns as a Liberal Right”) (pp. 1-86)
- Wednesday, September 25: Read Chapter 5 (“What Are the Effects of Gun Ownership in America”) through Conclusion (pp. 87-166)
Participate
The Light Over Heat Virtual Book Club runs as a Zoom webinar in which 12 panelists have full speaking privileges to discuss the book. Other registrants participate as viewers with written chat capability. During our spring meetings, the chat was extremely active and informative. (To encourage candor, regular meetings will not be recorded, though I may experiment with recording the Q&A session with authors if they are amenable.)
If you’re interested in attending the Light Over Heat Virtual Book Club as a viewer, please register using this Zoom Webinar link: https://wakeforest-university.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_2Zl6IN6fT3OgseuwI3NWWg.
Only registered attendees can join the meeting.
About the Author and Book
Ryan Davis has a Ph.D. from Princeton University’s Program in Political Philosophy. He writes about the value of autonomy and the moral significance of respect for persons.
“Why It’s OK to Own a Gun explores the right to self-defense, but also looks beyond it to what gun ownership fundamentally means in American life. Guns can provide a source of meaning that doesn’t depend on how much money you have or how important your job is. Guns can offer a sense of shared identity that’s not hung up on intellectual credentials or ideological orthodoxy. For many responsible gun owners, owning a gun is a way of positively reclaiming one’s own agency in the world.
It’s true that guns matter to only a minority of Americans, but the same could be said for many important political liberties. Like freedom of religion and freedom of expression, guns should be on the list of basic rights. In fact, they are: as some in America’s founding generation anticipated, gun rights have offered a bulwark for republican freedom. Because there is nothing morally wrong with any of these values, owning a gun is OK.”
Buy the Book
The book is available through all major retail channels as a print book, e-book, and audiobook. You can help support the cost of my work and/or local bookstores by using the following affiliate links to buy the book:
Read the full article here
