Weeping Willows Dance

Book excerpt: National commentators and social researchers have made Spitzer's The Politics of Gun Control a standard source for understanding America's gun control debate. The book has been widely heralded for its wide-ranging and fair-minded coverage of the national gun culture, the history and meaning of the Second Amendment, the criminological consequences of guns, the interest groups involved, public opinion, and the policy making roles of Congress, the presidency, and the bureaucracy. In the final chapter Spitzer convincingly proposes an innovative framework based on international relations and arms control to suggest a new way to proceed toward political accommodation on the gun control issue. New to the third edition of The Politics of Gun Control is coverage of the proliferation of concealed-carry laws in cities and counties. The book covers the debate and data on the effect of these laws on crime rates, homicide rates, gun-related violence and accidental deaths. School violence-including the shooting at Columbine High and other schools around the country's also explored including: the congressional response in the aftermath of these episodes; the Senate's passing of a historic juvenile justice bill requiring background checks for gun show purchases; tougher penalties for sale to juveniles or to felons; mandatory gun locks on new handguns; and a ban on import of high-capacity ammunition clips. Also new to this edition are discussions of the liability lawsuits filed against gun manufacturers by cities and counties; NRA political funding of Republicans in the 2000 election campaign and lobbying successes with the Bush administration; new activism by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence (formerly Handgun Control); the Million Mom March (May 2000); and the expiration of 5-day waiting period for gun purchases in 1998; and the FBI's new computerized background check system.