Guns Unpacked

On this episode of Guns Unpacked, we are joined by Dr. Noah Schwarz, professor of political science at Fraser Valley in British Columbia, Canada. Schwarz’s identity as a dual citizen gives him a unique perspective on gun conversation, allowing him to exist in two worlds. Dr. Schwarz’s first book, On Target: Gun Culture, Storytelling, and the NRA, places a spotlight on how the National Rifle Associ...

In this month’s episode, Alex Trimble Young interviews Brooklyn-based novelist Alexander Sammartino about his debut novel Last Acts (Simon & Schuster 2024). Set in Phoenix and centered on the misadventures of a father and son duo who own a gun store, Last Acts is a hilarious, dark, and touching exploration of the imbrication of US gun culture with masculinity, addiction, and Arizona history. Y...

In this episode of Guns Unpacked, Alex Young interviews historian Kellie Carter Jackson, the Michael and Denise Kellen ’68 Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College. Their discussion focuses on Dr. Carter Jackson’s award-winning 2024 book, We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance. The conversation ranges over topics including the role of firearms in the civil rights str...

In this episode of Guns Unpacked, Dr. Jennifer Carlson interviews Dr. Nora Gross, a sociologist, educator, documentary filmmaker, and assistant professor at Barnard College. They discuss Gross’s 2024 award-winning book, Brothers in Grief: The Hidden Toll of Firearm Violence on Black Boys and Their Schools, and examine how grief, rather than trauma, influences the education, emotional, and social e...

On this week’s episode of Guns Unpacked, we are joined by Toni Jensen, who teaches in the MFA program at the University of Arkansas, Institute for American Indian Arts. Her memoir, Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land, was named a Dayton Literary Peace Prize Finalist and New York Times Editors' Choice book. In our conversation, Dr. Jensen details how her identity as a métis woman and firstha...

In this special episode of Guns Unpacked, we feature a live recording of the closing panel address at the BRIDGS Initiative’s first ever Guns in Society symposium hosted from January 30-31st, 2025. Dr. Alex Trimble Young opens the closing session by recognizing the many cosponsors, collaborators, and contributors to this symposium who made this event possible, which highlights the importance of sc...

In this special episode of Guns Unpacked, co-hosts Jennifer Carlson and Alex Trimble Young cover the highlights (and lowlights) of their work at the BRIDGS Initiative in 2025. In a conversation that ranges from the snarky to the emotional, they take on issues including the algorithmic censorship of gun-related content online to the state of gun studies as a field to the ubiquity of gun-related tra...

In today’s episode of Guns Unpacked, we welcome Dr. Cedric Dark, an associate professor of history in the Henry J.N. Taub Department of Emergency Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Dark co-hosts the “This Day” podcast and is also the co-executive producer of “You Get a Podcast.” Today’s conversation examines Dark’s work, and his experience in public health. Dark dives deeper into percepti...

In this episode of Guns Unpacked, we are joined by Emily Farris and Mirya Holman, who address the unique role of sheriff within the American justice system and the influence they possess in the world of politics, and how that role shapes US gun culture. Farris is an associate professor in political science, and core faculty member in comparative race and ethnic studies” at Texas Christian Universi...

In this episode of Guns Unpacked, host Alex Trimble Young welcomes Wall Street Journal reporters Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson, co-authors of American Gun: The True History of the AR-15 (2023). Their book traces the rifle’s invention by Eugene Stoner, its troubled military adoption, and its evolution into one of America’s most polarizing symbols. Today’s conversation explores the AR-15’s tec...

In today’s episode of Guns Unpacked, we welcome Dr. Michelle Phelps, a professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota. Phelps is an expert on probation, criminal justice reform, and the politics of policing. Her first book is titled Breaking the Pendulum: The Long Struggle Over Criminal Justice, which is co-authored by Philip Goodman and Joshua Paige and published by Oxford University Press...

This episode of Guns Unpacked features Jan Dizard, Professor Emeritus of American Studies at Amherst College, a pioneering thinker about hunting, gun culture, and the environment. Dizard authored groundbreaking works such as Going Wild , Mortal Stakes , and Hunting: A Cultural History (MIT Press, 2022, co-author Mary Zeiss Stange). The interview represents his work on hunting, his exploration of t...

In today’s episode of Guns Unpacked, we welcome Dr. Gerald D. Higgenbotham, an assistant professor of public policy and psychology at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. Dr. Higgenbotham examines contemporary cognitive policies and how they influence repressive history through racism and collective power. Today’s conversation dissects “Firearm Psy...

Guns Unpacked season 2 launching September 8th!

Guns Unpacked Season 2 launches September 8th!

In this episode of Guns Unpacked, we are joined by Dr. Metzl, a psychiatrist and sociologist who examines gun violence and mental health. Dr. Metzl also serves as the Director of the Center for Medicine, Health, and Society at Vanderbilt University. We discuss his 2024 book, What We’ve Become , which examines the Waffle House mass shooting in Nashville, Tennessee in 2017. Our conversation takes us...

In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Emine Fidan Elcioglu, a sociologist at the University of Toronto. Dr. Elcioglu talks to us about her in-depth ethnographic fieldwork studying the politics of migration in Arizona, focusing on anti-immigrant and pro-immigrant groups that mobilized at the border. Her work opens up new insights and new questions regarding the relationship between gun politics and...

Dr. Micheal Sierra-Arévalo is an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin Department of Sociology. From 2020 to 2023 served on the Public Safety Commission for the City of Austin. Today, we discuss Dr. Sierra-Arévalo's extensively researched The Danger Imperative: Violence, Death, and the Soul of Policing . Using in-depth interviews and rich ethnographic observations, Dr. Sierra-Ar...

Dr. Ieva Jusionyte, the Watson Family University Associate Professor of International Security and Anthropology at Brown University, joins us in this episode of Guns Unpacked . We discuss her new book, Exit Wounds: How America’s Guns Fuel Violence Across the Border , which examines the flow of guns from the United States to Mexico and the impact on gun violence and gun culture across borders. Dr....

Dr. Jesenia Pizarro joins us in this episode of Guns Unpacked to dive into the complex dynamics of gun homicide. Dr. Pizarro is an ASU professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, a member of the Homicide Research Working Group, and a board member and recently elected President of the Research Society for the Prevention of Firearm-Related Harms. This episode explores her perspectiv...

In this episode of Guns Unpacked, Dr. Samantha Simon, an Assistant Professor in the School of Government and Public Policy and the School of Sociology, joins us from the University of Arizona. Dr. Simon discusses her new book Before the Badge: How Academy Training Shapes Police Violence, which examines the effects of police training on officers. She also discusses her experiences while researching...

In this episode of Guns Unpacked , we are joined by Dr. David Yamane, a sociology professor at Wake Forest University, to discuss his book, Gun Curious: A Liberal Professor's Surprising Journey Inside America's Gun Culture . Dr. Yamane shares his journey into gun studies and becoming a gun owner as a lifelong liberal. He explains the evolution of gun culture, its contemporary focus on self-defense...

Dr. Alexandra Filindra, associate professor of political science and psychology at the University of Illinois in Chicago, joins us to discuss her new book, Race, Rights, and Rifles: The Origins of the NRA and Contemporary Gun Culture . Dr. Filindra examines the NRA's beginnings and how ideologies of citizenship intersect with support for guns . She explains how historical links between militia ser...

In this episode of Guns Unpacked, we are joined by Dr. Coker, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Connecticut College. We discuss his research on the intersections of mental health, gun violence, and community trauma, particularly among African American youth. He also explains the need to focus on the root causes of gun violence, the importance of community involvement in res...

In this episode of Guns Unpacked, we are joined by Dr. Amy Cooter, the Director of Research academic development and innovation at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute, to talk about her recent book Nostalgia, Nationalism and the US Militia Movement . Dr. Cooter discusses the militia movement, its political significance, and the role of firearms train...