Gun sellers sell more than just guns. They also sell politics. From the research behind her book Merchants of the Right, award-winning author Jennifer Carlson sheds light on the unparalleled surge in gun purchasing during one of the most dire moments in American history, revealing how conservative political culture was galvanized amid a once-in-a-century pandemic, racial unrest, and a U.S. presidential election that rocked the foundations of American democracy. Drawing on a wealth of in-depth interviews with gun sellers across the United States, Carlson takes readers to the front lines of the culture war over gun rights, offering crucial lessons about the dilemmas confronting us today, arguing that we must reckon with the everyday politics that divide us if we ever hope to restore American democracy to health.
About Jennifer Carlson
Jennifer Carlson is an Associate Professor of Sociology, Univ. of Arizona, and a MacArthur Fellow (Class of 2022). Her work examines the politics of guns in American life. She is the author of Citizen-Protectors: The Everyday Politics of Guns in an Age of Decline (2015, Oxford University Press), Policing the Second Amendment: Guns, Public Law Enforcement and the Politics of Race (2020, Princeton University Press), and Merchants of the Right: Gun Sellers and the Crisis of Democracy (Forthcoming 2023, Princeton University Press). She is currently the principal investigator on a National Science Foundation grant examining the experiences of gun violence survivors in Florida and California.
Co-sponsors: Department of Political Science, Mershon Center, Department of Sociology
