Read “Gun Country” for Free  

In advance of Andrew C. McKevitt’s panel at Flyleaf Books on the origins of gun culture and gun violence in America, UNC Press is making his recent book Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture, and Control in Cold War America available to the public for free for one week.  

On Tuesday, January 30 at 6pm, Flyleaf Books will host a panel discussion on the rise of gun culture in America and its devastating impact across the nation including in the Chapel Hill community. The panel will feature Andrew McKevitt, John D. Winters Endowed Professor of History at Louisiana Tech University and author of Gun Country; Paige Masten, Deputy Opinion Editor at the Charlotte Observer; Andrew Willinger, Executive Director of the Duke Center for Firearms Law; and Kyle Lumsden, founder and president of Students Demand Action at UNC Chapel Hill.  

After two lockdowns in less than three weeks at the start of the fall 2023 semester, many UNC students and community members rallied around gun control initiatives, working towards meaningful change while dealing with the real-life implications of gun violence in this country. As the number of mass shootings in America continues to rise, we need access to the scholarship and history of how we became a country of more guns than people.  

“I’m grateful that UNC Press is able to offer free access to the book, especially for students,” McKevitt said. “I wrote it with the goal of using the past to make sense of the present. Young people today sometimes feel helpless because of the scale of our gun problem. But as I say in the book, if the gun country of 2024 was forged only in the last few decades, then there is hope that the mistakes others made can be unmade.” 

As the number of mass shootings in America continues to rise, we need access to the scholarship and history of how we became a country of more guns than people.  

“I urge everyone, especially the ‘lockdown generation,’ to read Gun Country because it so eloquently contextualizes the gun violence epidemic gripping our nation. This book is a powerful tool to sharpen our strategies as we continue the fight for gun safety and meaningful reform,” Lumsden said.  

The Washington Post called Gun Country “Sharp, fascinating, devastating, exhaustively researched and often wryly funny, this indispensable book — one of the best works of nonfiction this year — details how America came to be not just a gun country but the gun country.” 

You can also support your local independent bookstore by pre-ordering a copy of Gun Country from Flyleaf here to secure your spot at the event.