Gunlore

Firearms, Folkways, and Communities

Robert Glenn Howard, Eric A. Eliason, Robert Glenn Howard, Eric A. Eliason

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9781496850935
• eBook ISBN: 9781496850942
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Folklore & Mythology
• Index: Social Sciences

Contributions by Sandra Bartlett Atwood, Nathan E. Bender, London Brickley, Eric A. Eliason, Noah D. Eliason, Tim Frandy, Robert Glenn Howard, Jay Mechling, Annamarie O'Brien Morel, Raymond Summerville, Tok Thompson, and Megan L. ZahayGuns are a ubiquitous part of life in the United States. Arguably more pervasive than physical guns is "gunlore, " which refers to the many folklore genres related to firearms. Gunlore: Firearms, Folkways, and Communities is the first book to engage with the many narratives, rituals, folk-speech, customs, art, and handicraft encompassed by gunlore. Like most expressive cultures, gunlore emerges from specific communities. Groups with a shared interest around firearms may form for many reasons—self-protection, hunting, crime, work, political or social identity signaling, the desire to creatively modify guns, and even the resolve to oppose gun use and ownership. This collection explores a range of gunlore genres and the "gunfolk" groups that give rise to them. Contributors examine topics that include the fetishization of firearms, "Moms Who Carry, " online discussion boards, alternative history cosplay, survivalist communities, gunsmiths and gun craft, and more. Gun owners and gun enthusiasts, in all their varieties, are one of the largest avocational groups in America. The essays in Gunlore seek to expand our understanding of these communities by looking at the various roles firearms play, have played, and can play in our world. Gunlore, for better or worse, is a powerful and pervasive method of self-expression. In examining the folklore around these controversial and politically charged tools, weapons, and symbols, we can begin to understand aspects of American culture that will remain prominent for the foreseeable future.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction. Gunlore and Gunfolks: Defining an Old and Powerful Genre
• Chapter 1. Young Guns: Folklore and the Fetishization of Guns among Juveniles at an All-Male Correctional Facility in Tucson, Arizona
• Chapter 2. Moms Who Carry: Femininity and Firearms in Vernacular Digital Photography
• Chapter 3. Between the Forest and the Freezer: Visual Culture and Hunting Weapons in the Upper Midwest
• Chapter 4. 4chan, Firearms, and Folklore
• Chapter 5. Percussioned Flintlocks: A Nineteenth-Century Folk Art
• Chapter 6. NERF PUNK: The Firearm Folklife of “Alternative History” Cosplay
• Chapter 7. God’s Warriors: Gunlore and Identity in the Vernacular Discourse of a Survivalist Community
• Chapter 8. A Knack for Precision: The Art and Science of a Gun-Making Dynasty
• Chapter 9. Dangerous Tools of Expression: The Benefits and Costs of Gunlore
• Chapter 10. Gun Play as Vernacular Religious Experience
• Chapter 11. Symbols and Things: A Reflection on Gunlore
• About the Contributors
• Index