[movimenti.bicocca] The Missing Movement for Gun Control in …

Disarmed: The Missing Movement for Gun Control in America

Kristin A. Goss

Cloth | 2006 | ISBN: 0-691-12424-8
304 pp. | 6 x 9 | 9 line illus. 8 tables.



More than any other advanced industrial democracy, the United States
is besieged by firearms violence. Each year, some 30,000 people die
by gunfire. Over the course of its history, the nation has witnessed
the murders of beloved public figures; massacres in workplaces and
schools; and epidemics of gun violence that terrorize neighborhoods
and claim tens of thousands of lives. Commanding majorities of
Americans voice support for stricter controls on firearms. Yet they
have never mounted a true national movement for gun control. Why?
Disarmed unravels this paradox.

Based on historical archives, interviews, and original survey
evidence, Kristin Goss suggests that the gun control campaign has
been stymied by a combination of factors, including the inability to
secure patronage resources, the difficulties in articulating a
message that would resonate with supporters, and strategic decisions
made in the name of effective policy. The power of the so-called gun
lobby has played an important role in hobbling the gun-control
campaign, but that is not the entire story. Instead of pursuing a
strategy of incremental change on the local and state levels, gun
control advocates have sought national policies. Some 40% of state
gun control laws predate the 1970s, and the gun lobby has
systematically weakened even these longstanding restrictions.

A compelling and engagingly written look at one of America's most
divisive political issues, Disarmed illuminates the organizational,
historical, and policy-related factors that constrain mass
mobilization, and brings into sharp relief the agonizing dilemmas
faced by advocates of gun control and other issues in the United States.

Kristin A. Goss is Assistant Professor of Public Policy Studies and
Political Science at Duke University.

Endorsements:

"This book represents a fantastic project, well argued and well-
written and much needed. Focusing on a critical policy topic, Kristin
Goss posits a strong new idea for studying social movements--why they
don't emerge or maybe why they undermobilize. The smooth, almost
seamless movement between social and political theory and case
material is, quite frankly, the strongest I have ever seen."--Bryan
Jones, author of Politics and the Architecture of Choice, coauthor of
Agendas and Instability in American Politics

"Having been involved in the gun safety movement since tragedy struck
my family in 1993, I understand full well the history of the gun-
control movement and the difficulties it has experienced,
particularly in light of today's political environment in Washington.
Disarmed is an excellent study of the efforts put forth by so many to
reduce gun violence."--U.S. Representative Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY),
founder of the Carolyn McCarthy Center on Gun Violence and Harm
Reduction

"Kristin Goss has done important work here that fundamentally tells
the history of the gun debate over the past twenty-five years and of
the efforts of the opposing sides to outmaneuver each other. She
deserves praise for research that is remarkable both in quality and
in volume, and for presenting a massive body of facts in an extremely
readable fashion."--Sarah Brady, Honorary Chair, Brady Campaign to
Prevent Gun Violence

"This outstanding book combines theoretical import with a highly
topical policy issue in a form that is exceptionally readable,
engaging, thoughtful, mature, and insightful. Superb and inventive
data analysis brings the book's theoretical formulations to life as
they are applied to one of the most intractable, controversial, and
interesting policy issues of the last century, gun control. No one
has examined the issue from this end of the lens--the pro-control
side--with such analytical depth and rigor until now."--Robert J.
Spitzer, author of The Politics of Gun Control


Table of Contents:

List of Figures ix
List of Tables xi
Acknowledgments xiii
CHAPTER ONE: The Gun Control (Participation) Paradox 1
CHAPTER TWO: A Movement in Theory 31
CHAPTER THREE: Socializing Costs: Patronage and Political
Participation 73
CHAPTER FOUR: Personalizing Benefits: Issue Frames and Political
Participation 105
CHAPTER FIVE: Changing the Calculation: Policy Incrementalism and
Political Participation 145
CHAPTER SIX: Mobilizing around Modest Measures: Three Cases 176
CHAPTER SEVEN: Conclusion: Politics, Participation, and Public Goods 190
Appendix A: Gun-Related Trends 201
Appendix B: Brief Case Studies of Other Social-Reform Movements 204
Appendix C: Survey of Million Mom March Participants 208
Notes 215
References 249
Index 271