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Reviews
Merchants of the Right: Gun Sellers and the Crisis of American Democracy by Jennifer Carlson
catnbooks's review against another edition
3.0
I appreciate the respectful curiosity this author had in starting conversations about where people stand with guns. I am not sure this accurately describes where gun owners stand as a whole in the USA and anytime you are in qualitative data with this small of a sample it doesn’t feel like I could use this as a reference point. I may not see eye to eye with this author, but I like where this is going and feel it could be nurtured into something great
whitneymouse's review
challenging
informative
slow-paced
3.5
A little repetitive, but generally interesting in how the NRA and gun sellers influence Conservative culture.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gun violence, Hate crime, Racism, Mass/school shootings, and Pandemic/Epidemic
onmalsshelf's review against another edition
Thank you to LibroFM and Princeton University Press for this ALC in exchange for an honest review.
In complete honesty, this made me want to throw my phone in the lake or into a path of a speeding car.
What in the repetitive spew was this? I guess if there's one thing gun shop owners have going for them is that they all have the same exact talking points, which the author used repeatedly. This needed some major editing. If each person you interview says the same thing, you don't need to give basically the same quote from them all on the subject.
We get it: people on both sides of the aisle sought out guns at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (not a justified reason to buy a gun if i'm being honest). That minorities felt that people on the right were going to hurt them due to racism and bigotry (a justified reason for them to want to protect themselves).
There were zero crucial lessons given in this.
What this author did instead of showing both sides of the aisle in the first 37% of this, is let right wing, gun shop owners spew racist words and Fox News talking points. She let them have a voice on why gun control laws need to be more lax. In a world where we've had 210 mass shootings in the United States in 2023 so far at the time of this review (May 11, 2023)?
In complete honesty, this made me want to throw my phone in the lake or into a path of a speeding car.
What in the repetitive spew was this? I guess if there's one thing gun shop owners have going for them is that they all have the same exact talking points, which the author used repeatedly. This needed some major editing. If each person you interview says the same thing, you don't need to give basically the same quote from them all on the subject.
We get it: people on both sides of the aisle sought out guns at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (not a justified reason to buy a gun if i'm being honest). That minorities felt that people on the right were going to hurt them due to racism and bigotry (a justified reason for them to want to protect themselves).
There were zero crucial lessons given in this.
What this author did instead of showing both sides of the aisle in the first 37% of this, is let right wing, gun shop owners spew racist words and Fox News talking points. She let them have a voice on why gun control laws need to be more lax. In a world where we've had 210 mass shootings in the United States in 2023 so far at the time of this review (May 11, 2023)?
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gun violence