The Great American Gun War

Over the course of this year, the centenary of William F. Buckley’s birth, we will republish an article by him weekly. In this week’s feature, Buckley finds himself convinced that the existence of guns has far less to do with gun crime; rather, the culture surrounding firearms for a region or group appears to be the greatest determining factor.

Once every great while, one comes across a stretch of prose which, ever so calmly and resolutely, picks one up off the ground and orients one over toward where the sun is really shining. This happened to me on reading in the fall issue of The Public Interest (10 East 53rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10022) an article by Mr. B. Bruce-Briggs, a literate economist. Up until then I was moving toward what might be called creeping acquiescence in the matter of gun control legislation. Mr. B-B has changed all that in his serene, exhaustive, scholarly inquiry into what he calls “The Great American Gun War.”