May 9, 2016:
“As luck would have it, page 99 of The Gunning of America points the reader right toward my biggest authorial challenge in the book—but also one of its singularities and unique contributions. The first half of the page describes the demise of Benjamin Tyler Henry, the embattled genius inventor of the fearsome repeater rifle that, before too long, will be renamed from the “Henry” rifle to the now-iconic “Winchester” rifle, in honor of its capitalist and manufacturer rather than its maker. Like other aspiring mechanics and Yankee inventors of his day, Henry had been “’wealthy several times,’ his obituary notes, and poor just as often.” But here, on this page, we’re seeing how the power is shifting in 1866 from the creative inventor with creative talent but no capital toward the industrialist, Oliver Winchester, who had capital but not creative talent.”
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Salon.com
April 30, 2016:
“An abridged history of the American gun culture, told from legend and popular memory, might go like this: We were born a gun culture. Americans have an exceptional, unique, and timeless relationship to guns, starting with the militias of the Revolutionary War, and it developed on its own from there.”
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Huffington Post
April 26, 2016:
“In her previous book, Marriage Confidential: Love in the Post-Romantic Age, Haag took aim at “semi-happy” marriages and explored how to recast them. In this one, she focuses on combat of a different kind. Haag delves into the history of the gun industry (Winchester, Colt) and explains how over the past 150 years it has shrewdly created a demand for its products. Rather than framing the debate about guns as a Second Amendment question, Haag argues that it is a business — and one in need of strong economic regulation.”
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Don’t Go There
Process
July 7, 2016:
“The Paradox of Gun History”
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The Trace
June 8, 2016:
“The NRA Has Been Making the Same Slippery Slope Argument Since 1934.”
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Kera
June 1, 2016:
“The Second Amendment states that people have the right “to keep and bear arms.” This hour, we’ll talk about how many Americans have interpreted that right as a directive – and about how gun manufacturers have marketed their products throughout our nation’s history – with Pamela Haag.”
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To the Best of Our Knowledge
The Gun, May 22, 2016:
“Guns are a part of our national mythology. Just consider the Western, Annie Oakley, Daniel Boone — it’s hard to deny the role guns had in shaping America.”
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To the Best of Our Knowledge
The Legend of Sarah Winchester, May 22, 2016:
“Sarah Winchester (born 1840) was the heiress to the Winchester Estate with a 50% holding of the Winchester Repeating Rifle Company. She used her vast fortune to construct a mansion for 38 consecutive years.”
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To the Best of Our Knowledge
The Gun Myth, May 22, 2016:
“The Western. The 2nd Amendment. Guns are a part of our national DNA – like apple pie and baseball. Pamela Haag says not so fast. In her book “The Gunning of America,” she argues that early gun barons –with iconic names like Colt and Remington — created the American gun culture.”
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