Basic Pistol

Living and Dying by the Gun in America
An immersive exploration of the American obsession with guns, taking us into the lives of the men who own guns, shoot guns, kill with guns and refuse to live without them.

'Utterly brilliant . deeply researched and thoughtful' - Justin Webb, former BBC North America Editor

This eye-opening encounter with American gun culture reveals the devastating effects of how people are training their minds and bodies to use guns.

Every day, at firearms schools all across the country, Americans are learning how to use a gun. Who are their teachers? What are they being taught? To answer these questions, Harel Shapira, a sociologist at the University of Texas, has spent ten years immersed in the world of gun-training. Throughout the dozens of classes he has taken, and thousands of shots he has fired, he has been taught that the world is filled with ‘bad guys’ who can only be stopped by the self-styled ‘good guys’. He has learned that he must be prepared to kill or be killed, a division that lies the heart of the gun violence that’s now playing out on a daily basis.

Shapira reveals that far from simply teaching the mechanics of gun safety these schools are teaching a way of living in the world that is rooted in racist fears, aggressive masculinity and an entitlement to violence. In storytelling that will take your breath away, we discover that the risk of widespread gun ownership is not simply the possibility of more gun violence and mass shootings. The risk is to the very foundations of democracy itself.

UK Delivery:

• Free delivery on all orders of £10 or more.
• £1.49 delivery fee on orders below £10.
• UK orders are shipped via Royal Mail 2nd Class.

International Delivery:

• Flat rate delivery charges vary by country.

Dispatch and Delivery Times:

• All orders are shipped from our warehouse in Northampton, UK within 48 hours of receipt during working hours.
• UK mainland orders typically arrive within 3-5 working days via Royal Mail 2nd Class.
• International estimated delivery times:
• Europe & Channel Islands: 7 to 10 working days
• USA: 7 to 15 working days
• Rest of the World: 9 to 21 working days

View our full delivery infomation here.