Gun Culture & American Democracy

Wednesday, January 10, 7:30 PM

Joan Burbick, professor of English and American Studies at Washington State University, has written a socio-historical introduction to American gun culture in a book entitled Gun Show Nation. The author of Rodeo Queens & the American Dream and Healing the Public, Burbick talks about the social, legal, and political history of gun culture and its current expression in contemporary America. She shows how the Second Amendment rights movement was born of the social unrest of the 1960s and highlights the paradoxical belief that the gun itself is capable of stopping violence. She concludes that for many white, middle-aged men, the gun serves as a powerful symbol of personal freedom and is representative of a mythologized frontier past. Downstairs at Town Hall, enter on Seneca Street. Presented by the Town Hall Center for Civic Life and Elliott Bay Book Company, the Seattle Post Intelligencer and CeaseFire.

$5

Tickets & info
Tickets are $5 at the door only. Town Hall members receive priority seating.