The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment: How to Talk about Race, Religion, Politics, and Other Polarizing Topics

by Thom Hartmann

Overview

The New York Times–bestselling author explores the real history of guns in America and how to limit both their lethal impact and the gun lobby’s power.

Taking his typically in-depth, historically informed view, Thom Hartmann, the most popular progressive radio host in America, examines the brutal role guns have played in American history, from the genocide of the Native Americans to the enforcement of slavery (Slave Patrols are in fact the Second Amendment’s “well-regulated militias”) and the racist post–Civil War social order. He shows how the NRA and conservative Supreme Court justices used specious logic to invent a virtually unlimited individual right to own guns, which has enabled the ever-growing number of mass shootings in the United States. But Hartmann also identifies a handful of powerful, commonsense solutions that would break the power of the gun lobby and restore the understanding of the Second Amendment that the Framers of the Constitution intended. This is the kind of brief, brilliant analysis for which Hartmann is justly renowned.

Praise for The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment

“In this precise primer on firearms practices and policies, progressive talk-show host Hartmann examines the history of routine gun usage and extreme gun violence and assesses the influence of gun ownership on contemporary political, economic, and social norms…. A brief but powerful analysis of a searing national crisis.” —Booklist

“34,000 REASONS TO READ THIS BOOK: That’s the number of gun-related deaths annually in America.” —Norman Lear

“When Thom Hartmann talks, I listen. What Thom Hartmann writes, I read. This book about the history of guns in America—and most importantly, what should be the future of guns in America—is important, mind-opening, and profoundly helpful.” —Marianne Williamson

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781523086016
Publisher:	Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Publication date:	10/17/2023
Series:	The Thom Hartmann Hidden History Series , #1
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	193
Sales rank:	97,456
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Thom Hartmann is a progressive national and internationally syndicated talk show host. Talkers magazine named him America’s most important progressive host and has named his show one of the top ten talk radio shows in the country every year for over a decade. A four-time recipient of the Project Censored Award, Hartmann is also a New York Times bestselling author of twenty-four books, translated into multiple languages.

Table of Contents

Foreword vii

Preface x

Introduction: The Social Cost of Guns 1

1 The Unholy Alliance of Racism, Genocide, and Guns 6

2 The Sanitized History of America 10

3 The Roots of American Gun Culture in the "Discovery" of America 15

4 From Columbus to Jamestown 18

5 From Genocide to Slavery 22

6 Early Hints toward the Second Amendment 26

7 Gun Culture's Ebb and Flow 28

8 How Slavery Laid the Foundation of the Second Amendment 31

9 Gun Culture Enshrined: The Second Amendment 34

10 A Constitutional Rorschach Ploy: Limits on Slavery? 36

11 How Europe's History of Mercenaries and Military Coups Shaped the Second Amendment 41

12 How Fears of Abolition Shaped the Second Amendment 47

13 The Myth of the Well-Armed Cowboy 52

14 The Gunshot That Ended Reconstruction 61

15 The Failure of Reconstruction and the Rise of the Klan 63

16 Racists Turn Open Carry into the New White Hood 69

17 Copwatching and Its Connection to Gun Control 76

18 One Sunny August Day in Texas 82

19 1966: A Turning Point in America's Gun Culture 89

20 Guns, Militarism, and the War on Drugs 95

21 Heller: Reinterpreting the Second Amendment 99

22 Political Corruption Underwrites America's Gun-Control Nightmare 109

23 Gun-Control Activists Are Confronting Only the Tip of the Iceberg 114

24 Neoliberalism Drives Inequality; Inequality Drives Mass Murder 118

25 Weapons of War on Americas Streets 125

26 Semiautomatic Weapons 127

27 What America Learned from Cars-and How to Apply It to Guns 133

28 Gun Manufacturing in the 21st Century: 3-D Printing 137

29 Well-Regulated Smart Guns Are Here 140

30 Addressing Racism to Reduce Gun Violence 144

31 Learning from Other Nations 148

Notes 151

Acknowledgments 160

Index 162

About the Author 170

Editorial Reviews

08/05/2019

In this lucid but partisan treatise, Hartmann (The Crash of 2016), a nationally syndicated progressive radio host, dismisses the conventional wisdom that the Second Amendment was intended as a bulwark against an overreaching government. He contends that it was actually intended to serve two purposes: ensuring the continued existence of colonial “slave patrols”—state-sanctioned militias that hunted escaped slaves—and to prevent a standing army, which Thomas Jefferson believed was a threat to democracy that could only be remedied by a Swiss-style citizen militia. Hartmann follows this analysis with a passionately argued indictment of America’s gun culture, which he identifies as the source of mass shootings and white supremacist violence. He criticizes current trends in the U.S. that facilitate gun culture, among them excessive money in politics (which allows gun manufacturers outsize political influence), a wrongheaded Supreme Court, and growing inequity in general, which 40 studies link to increased rates of violence in a society. Hartmann’s proposed solutions include laws requiring “smart guns” that only fire for an authorized user, bans on semiautomatic weapons, and diminishing racial inequality (and therefore violence) through integration, reparations in the form of affirmative action, and better educational opportunities for African-Americans. This lucid but decidedly radical polemic will probably not convince those who disagree, but it will speak to progressives. (June)

Publishers Weekly

34,000 REASONS TO READ THIS BOOK: That’s the number of gun-related deaths annually in America.”
—Norman Lear
 
“There is so much fascinating, I-didn’t-know-that history, my entire copy of Hidden History has turned yellow from highlighting stuff that’s cool, amazing, and vital. I didn’t know that Thomas Jefferson demanded passage of the Second Amendment so citizen militias would eliminate the need for our new nation to have a standing army. I didn’t know that the first big gun control campaign was the KKK’s seizing of weapons from black citizens, kicking off a century of Jim Crow. Hartmann, who lets us know he enjoys squeezing off a few rounds from a semiautomatic handgun, eschews the usual BS we hear from both the NRA and NPR. Guns kill, but in an America where most gun deaths are suicides, Hartmann proves with undeniable stats that the bullets are loaded by despair and inequality. Truly a tour de force in a quick read. I’m a gun control skeptic, but I'll admit, Hartmann’s book blew me away.”
—Greg Palast, Puffin Foundation fellow in investigative reporting and author of the New York Times bestseller The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
 
“In this riveting book, The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment, Thom Hartmann exposes the searing social and human costs of a nation awash in firearms. Because it is impossible to understand the present without understanding the past, Hartmann shows how the history of genocide and slavery forms the bedrock of United States history and how the Second Amendment was ratified to preserve that racist framework. The book compellingly examines the myths at the root of modern American gun culture and how that culture emerged in reaction to social and economic changes in the United States, as well as savvy marketing and legal maneuvering by weapons manufacturers. As the humane journalist and thinker that he is, Hartmann makes sure to fuse history and the present by offering an array of realistic and ramifying solutions to ‘cure’ America of its gun violence epidemic.”
—Katrina vanden Heuvel, Editor and Publisher, The Nation 
 
“Thom Hartmann’s new book on America and guns achieves the impossible: it is brief yet definitive. I couldn’t put it down. And now I can’t stop thinking about it.”
—Scott Carter, playwright (Discord, C.3.3) and Executive Producer, Real Time with Bill Maher
 
“When Thom Hartmann talks, I listen. What Thom Hartmann writes, I read. This book about the history of guns in America—and most importantly, what should be the future of guns in America—is important, mind-opening, and profoundly helpful.”
—Marianne Williamson
 
“Among the many hidden truths about our gun culture and politics Thom reveals are the prerevolutionary connections of guns and slave control, as well as guns and Native American genocide. Reading this book dispels the connections we all assume, that the Second Amendment was fundamentally about freedom versus the minority controlling the majority, racism triumphing over human rights. Most importantly, Thom tells us what we can do right now to move forward.”
—Larry Cohen, Chair, Our Revolution; Past President, Communications Workers of America; and Founding Chair, Democracy Initiative
 
“With The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment, Thom Hartmann adroitly links the relationship of guns to slavery from Columbus through Reconstruction to racism in present-day America. He explains how common-sense gun regulation has dramatically reduced mass shootings, suicides, and other terrors of gun violence in countries like Australia. This book should be required reading for every legislator.”
—Earl Katz, political ethicist and Emmy-nominated documentary producer
 
“Ask yourself this: How did the United States, with 5 percent of the population, end up with 50 percent of all the guns, worldwide, in civilian hands? If you can’t answer that question, or if that statistic itself shocks you, then read Thom Hartmann’s brilliant The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment. From our blood-soaked history to practical, proven solutions, the book is illuminating, infuriating, and motivating. It should be required reading for every high school student—and member of Congress.”
—Medea Benjamin, author and cofounder of CODEPINK
 
“Unfortunately, the debate about guns in the United States has been intractable and inflammatory. Thankfully, Thom Hartmann sets the score straight in his new book about firearms in America and the Second Amendment. One by one, he rips away the false narratives and myths about guns in the United States. This is a powerful book that is incisive as a stepping-stone to a new understanding about and approach to gun reform in the Wild West of nations.”
—Mark Karlin, founder of BuzzFlash.com and former Chairman and President, Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence
 
“It’s no surprise to anyone that Thom Hartmann is a prolific, brilliant, bestselling author and talk radio host. What is a surprise is when the man meets the moment so perfectly. That happens in his new book, The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment.
            “This profoundly personal yet typically insightful historical work so wonderfully encapsulates the pulse of our time and the sea change the Parkland kids and others have made in our national, and deadly, struggle with guns in America.
            “Thom Hartmann is a national treasure, and so is this book.”
—Stephanie Miller, national radio host
 
“Political sloganeering aside, guns do in fact kill people. Tens of thousands of Americans are gunned down year after year in their homes, churches, schools, offices, cars, theaters, at birthday parties, playgrounds, music events—anywhere and everywhere. It’s a national plague directly traceable to a handful of corporate profiteers, gun lobby extremists, and gutless politicians. In this liberating book, Thom Hartmann exposes their scam and proposes a path to gun sanity.”
—Jim Hightower, populist radio commentator, syndicated columnist, and editor of the monthly newsletter The Hightower Lowdown
 
“There is a widely accepted false choice that either we protect the lives of our schoolchildren or we protect our freedom to own guns, but we can’t do both. If you want to understand how we’ve come to think in such black-and-white terms and how the debate over guns has become so polarized as to seem intractable, this book is for you. And if you want a sane, wise, and informed way to resolve the problem, this book is most definitely for you. Thom Hartmann is one of our most brilliant and most compassionate thought leaders. Read this book and you’ll be inspired and encouraged by practical answers and a true path forward.”  
—John Robbins, bestselling author and cofounder and President, Food Revolution Network
 
“Hartmann has given us a riveting chronicle of the history of America’s gun culture. Hartmann at once unravels the anemic underpinnings of the deafening claims by gun rights advocates for constitutional sanction while showing how gun rights ideology, born from slavery, is rooted in racial hatred and tribalism manipulated by economic demands of racketeering gun manufacturers and their corporate and political allies.”
—Bobby Kennedy
 
“No one does a better job of rolling out the Constitution, opening up the historical records, and separating fact from fiction than Thom Hartmann. This book is brilliant. So brilliant that if every American were to read it and take its message to heart, the lies that are used to divide could lose their power. And we might just find the common ground that so frequently eludes us.”
—John Nichols, National Affairs Correspondent, The Nation
 
"Thom is the professor America needs. If people knew what he knows, we'd have a vastly different country. If you want to know anything and everything about the issue of guns in America, you have to read this book."
—Cenk Uygur, Host, The Young Turks and CEO, TYT Network

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