Gun Violence In American Society: Crime, Justice, and Public Policy provides an in-depth, multidisciplinary investigation into one of society’s major social, public health and political concerns—death, injury, and destruction from the use of firearms. Contributors employ a variety of theoretical, methodological, and data analysis frameworks to address different gun violence issues. They explore how gun violence is created and perpetuated in society, as well as the various forms and social contexts in which it appears. The impacts of gun violence on different social groups, communities, and social institutions are also delineated. Moreover, possible solutions to gun violence are presented.

“An engrossing, moving, and utterly motivating account of the human stakes of gun violence in America.”—Samantha Power, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Education of an Idealist Is America destined to always be a violent nation? This sweeping history by U.S. senator Chris Murphy explores the origins of our violent impulses, the roots of our obsession with firearms, and the mythologies that prevent us from confronting our national crisis. In many ways, the United States sets the pace for other nations to follow. Yet on the most important human concern—the need to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe from physical harm—America isn’t a leader. We are disturbingly laggard. To confront this problem, we must first understand it. In this carefully researched and deeply emotional book, Senator Chris Murphy dissects our country’s violence-filled history and the role that our unique obsession with firearms plays in this national epidemic. Murphy tells the story of his profound personal transformation in the wake of the mass murder at Newtown, and his subsequent immersion in the complicated web of influences that drive American violence. Murphy comes to the conclusion that while America’s relationship to violence is indeed unique, America is not inescapably violent. Even as he details the reasons we’ve tolerated so much bloodshed for so long, he explains that we have the power to change. Murphy takes on the familiar arguments, obliterates the stale talking points, and charts the way to a fresh, less polarized conversation about violence and the weapons that enable it—a conversation we urgently need in order to transform the national dialogue and save lives.

An excellent companion to Violence in America: The History of Crime, this volume provides fascinating insight into recently developed theories on the sources of recurring conflict in American society. With their main focus on traumatic issues that have generated group violence and continue to do so, the contributors discuss the most intractable source of social and political conflict in our history--the resistance of Black Americans to their inferior status, and the efforts of White Americans to keep them there. Other intriguing topics include the emergence and decline of political terrorism and the continuation of violent threats from right-wing extremists, such as the Klan, the Order, and the Aryan nations. The basic assumption underlying all interpretations is that group violence grows out of the dynamics of social change and political contention. The idea presented is that the origins, processes, and outcomes of group violence, like the causes and consequences of crime, must be understood and dealt with in their social contexts. This volume is essential reading for students and professionals in history, criminology, victimology, political science, and other related areas. SEE QUOTE W/ VOLUME ONE

This Violent Empire traces the origins of American violence, racism, and paranoia to the founding moments of the new nation and the initial instability of Americans' national sense of self. Fusing cultural and political analyses to create a new form of political history, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg explores the ways the founding generation, lacking a common history, governmental infrastructures, and shared culture, solidified their national sense of self by imagining a series of "Others" (African Americans, Native Americans, women, the propertyless) whose differences from European American male founders overshadowed the differences that divided those founders. These "Others," dangerous and polluting, had to be excluded from the European American body politic. Feared, but also desired, they refused to be marginalized, incurring increasingly enraged enactments of their political and social exclusion that shaped our long history of racism, xenophobia, and sexism. Close readings of political rhetoric during the Constitutional debates reveal the genesis of this long history.

While many books explore such specific issues as gun violence, arson, murder, and crime prevention, this encyclopedia serves as a one-stop resource for exploring the history, societal factors, and current dimensions of violence in America in all its forms. This encyclopedia explores violence in the United States, from the nation's founding to modern-day trends, laws, viewpoints, and media depictions. Providing a nuanced lens through which to think about violence in America, including its underlying causes, its iterations, and possible solutions, this work offers broad and authoritative coverage that will be immensely helpful to users ranging from high school and undergraduate students to professionals in law enforcement and school administration. In addition to detailed and evenhanded summaries of the key events and issues relating to violence in America, contributors highlight important events, political debates, legal perspectives, modern dimensions, and critical approaches. This encyclopedia also features excerpts from such important primary source documents as legal rulings, presidential speeches, and congressional testimony from scholars and activists on aspects of violence in America. Together, these documents provide important insights into past and present patterns of violent crime in the United States, as well as proposed solutions to those problems.

In American Homicide, Randolph Roth charts changes in the character and incidence of homicide in the U.S. from colonial times to the present. Roth argues that the United States is distinctive in its level of violence among unrelated adults—friends, acquaintances, and strangers. America was extraordinarily homicidal in the mid-seventeenth century, but it became relatively non-homicidal by the mid-eighteenth century, even in the slave South; and by the early nineteenth century, rates in the North and the mountain South were extremely low. But the homicide rate rose substantially among unrelated adults in the slave South after the American Revolution; and it skyrocketed across the United States from the late 1840s through the mid-1870s, while rates in most other Western nations held steady or fell. That surge—and all subsequent increases in the homicide rate—correlated closely with four distinct phenomena: political instability; a loss of government legitimacy; a loss of fellow-feeling among members of society caused by racial, religious, or political antagonism; and a loss of faith in the social hierarchy. Those four factors, Roth argues, best explain why homicide rates have gone up and down in the United States and in other Western nations over the past four centuries, and why the United States is today the most homicidal affluent nation.

This groundbreaking multidisciplinary book presents significant essays on historical indigenous violence in Latin America from Tierra del Fuego to central Mexico. The collection explores those uniquely human motivations and environmental variables that have led to the native peoples of Latin America engaging in warfare and ritual violence since antiquity. Based on an American Anthropological Association symposium, this book collects twelve contributions from sixteen authors, all of whom are scholars at the forefront of their fields of study. All of the chapters advance our knowledge of the causes, extent, and consequences of indigenous violenceÑincluding ritualized violenceÑin Latin America. Each major historical/cultural group in Latin America is addressed by at least one contributor. Incorporating the results of dozens of years of research, this volume documents evidence of warfare, violent conflict, and human sacrifice from the fifteenth century to the twentieth, including incidents that occurred before European contact. Together the chapters present a convincing argument that warfare and ritual violence have been woven into the fabric of life in Latin America since remote antiquity. For the first time, expert subject-area work on indigenous violenceÑarchaeological, osteological, ethnographic, historical, and forensicÑhas been assembled in one volume. Much of this work has heretofore been dispersed across various countries and languages. With its collection into one English-language volume, all future writersÑregardless of their discipline or point of viewÑwill have a source to consult for further research. CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction Richard J. Chacon and RubŽn G. Mendoza 1.ÊÊStatus Rivalry and Warfare in the Development and Collapse of Classic Maya Civilization Matt OÕMansky and Arthur A. Demarest 2.ÊÊAztec Militarism and Blood Sacrifice: The Archaeology and Ideology of Ritual Violence RubŽn G. Mendoza 3.ÊÊTerritorial Expansion and Primary State Formation in Oaxaca, Mexico Charles S. Spencer 4.ÊÊImages of Violence in Mesoamerican Mural Art Donald McVicker 5.ÊÊCircum-Caribbean Chiefly Warfare Elsa M. Redmond 6.ÊÊConflict and Conquest in Pre-Hispanic Andean South America: Archaeological Evidence from Northern Coastal Peru John W. Verano 7.ÊÊThe Inti Raymi Festival among the Cotacachi and Otavalo of Highland Ecuador: Blood for the Earth Richard J. Chacon, Yamilette Chacon, and Angel Guandinango 8.ÊÊUpper Amazonian Warfare Stephen Beckerman and James Yost 9.ÊÊComplexity and Causality in Tupinamb‡ Warfare William BalŽe 10.ÊÊHunter-GatherersÕ Aboriginal Warfare in Western Chaco Marcela Mendoza 11.ÊÊThe Struggle for Social Life in Fuego-Patagonia Alfredo Prieto and Rodrigo C‡rdenas 12.ÊÊEthical Considerations and Conclusions Regarding Indigenous Warfare and Ritual Violence in Latin America Richard J. Chacon and RubŽn G. Mendoza References About the Contributors Index

This provocative thesis calls violence the driving force not just of war, but of politics and even social stability. Though violence is commonly deplored, political scientist Ginsberg argues that in many ways it is indispensable, unavoidable, and valuable. Ginsberg sees violence manifested in society in many ways. "Law-preserving violence" (using Walter Benjamin's phrase) is the chief means by which society preserves social order. Behind the security of a stable society are the blunt instruments of the police, prisons, and the power of the bureaucratic state to coerce and manipulate. Ginsberg also discusses violence as a tool of social change, whether used in outright revolution or as a means of reform in public protests or the threat of insurrection. He notes that even groups committed to nonviolent tactics rely on the violent reactions of their opponents to achieve their ends. And to avoid the threat of unrest, modern states resort to social welfare systems (a prudent use of the carrot instead of the stick). Emphasizing the unavoidability of violence to create major change, Ginsberg points out that few today would trade our current situation for the alternative had our forefathers not resorted to the violence of the American Revolution and the Civil War.

Winner of the 1993 Michael J. Hindelang award of the American Society of Criminology. By 1990 there were approximately 200 million guns in private hands in the United States, and around half of American households contained a gun. Over 30,000 people a year are killed with guns in suicides, homicides, and acci-dents, and Americans use guns for defensive purposes over a million times a year. There is little doubt that gun violence and control are issues of vital importance, and they continue to inspire national debate. It is doubtful, however, whether most gun debates are worth listening to. Not surprisingly, such debates generally leave their participants exactly where they began, with their biases intact, and onlookers perplexed. Written deliberately to counter an atmosphere of hysteria and extremism. Point Blank, now in paperback, offers logi-cal argument supported by empirical information. It con-fronts fundamental questions head-on. On its initial publication in 1993, Point Blank won the Michael J. Hindelang Award of the American Society of Criminology for the book that "made the most outstanding contribution to criminology." Point Blank reports both original research and assesses existing evidence drawn from a wide variety of academic disciplines, including criminology, sociology, law, and medicine.