Jennifer Carlson
About Jennifer Carlson
Speech topics
Moving Through our Gun Dilemmas
Can we have a better gun debate? Political divisiveness is at an all-time high–and nowhere is this more apparent than in the debate about guns in society. Drawing on rich accounts of how guns impact Americans, this talk suggests that we don’t have a gun debate–but a gun dilemma, characterized by the abundant presence of guns alongside an intolerable level of gun violence. It offers two guiding aphorisms to rethink the gun debate: first, we don’t have a gun violence problem, we have a gun trauma problem and second, guns solve problems for the people who turn to them. In doing so, this talk opens up a third space to journey through the gun debate with compassion and vulnerability rather than dehumanizing discord. Attendee results:
- Understand gun trauma as a dominant thread within American society that impacts individuals, families and communities
- Understand motivations for gun ownership that move beyond the partisan narratives of gun rights with real-world examples
- Bring compassion and vulnerability into the conversation about guns
- Learn effective, outside-the-box strategies for addressing gun harm
Speaking videos
Books by Jennifer Carlson
“Merchants of the Right: Gun Sellers and the Crisis of American Democracy” (2023)
Merchants of the Right: Gun Sellers and the Crisis of American Democracy
“Policing the Second Amendment: Guns, Law Enforcement, and the Politics of Race” (2020)
The United States is steeped in guns, gun violence—and gun debates. As arguments rage on, one issue has largely been overlooked—Americans who support gun control turn to the police as enforcers of their preferred policies, but the police themselves disproportionately support gun rights over gun control. Yet who do the police believe should get gun access? When do they pursue aggressive enforcement of gun laws? And what part does race play in all of this? Policing the Second Amendment unravels the complex relationship between the police, gun violence, and race. Rethinking the terms of the gun debate, Jennifer Carlson shows how the politics of guns cannot be understood—or changed—without considering how the racial politics of crime affect police attitudes about guns. Drawing on local and national newspapers, interviews with close to eighty police chiefs, and a rare look at gun licensing processes, Carlson explores the ways police talk about guns, and how firearms are regulated in different parts of the country. Examining how organizations such as the National Rifle Association have influenced police perspectives, she describes a troubling paradox of guns today—while color-blind laws grant civilians unprecedented rights to own, carry, and use guns, people of color face an all-too-visible system of gun criminalization. This racialized framework—undergirding who is “a good guy with a gun” versus “a bad guy with a gun”—informs and justifies how police understand and pursue public safety. Policing the Second Amendment demonstrates that the terrain of gun politics must be reevaluated if there is to be any hope of mitigating further tragedies.
“Citizen-Protectors: The Everyday Politics of Guns in an Age of Decline” (2018)
"From gang- and drug-related shootings to mass shootings in schools, shopping centers, and movie theatres, reports of gun crimes fill the headlines of newspapers and nightly news programs. At the same time, a different kind of headline has captured public attention: a steady surge in pro-gun sentiment among Americans. A Gallup poll conducted just a month after the Newtown school shootings found that 74% of Americans oppose a ban on hand-guns, and at least 11 million people now have licenses to carry concealed weapons as part of their everyday lives. Why do so many Americans not only own guns but also carry them? In Citizen-Protectors, Jennifer Carlson offers a compelling portrait of gun carriers, shedding light on Americans' complex relationship with guns. Delving headlong into the world of gun carriers, Carlson spent time participating in firearms training classes, attending pro-gun events, and carrying a firearm herself. Through these experiences she explores the role guns play in the lives of Americans who carry them and shows how, against a backdrop of economic insecurity and social instability, gun carrying becomes a means of being a good citizen, an idea that not only pervades the NRA's public literature and statements, but its training courses as well. A much-needed counterpoint to the rhetorical battles over gun control, Citizen-Protectors is a captivating and revealing look at gun culture in America, and is a must-read for anyone with a stake in this heated debate."--
At a glanceJennifer Carlson
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