Books in Brief

Stopping Power: Why 70 Million Americans Own Guns, by J. Neil Schulman (Synapse-Centurion, 288 pp., $22.95)

SINCE I’ve never read his science-fiction novels, I know J. Neil Schulman mainly from his faxes, which used to arrive on my desk at Reason magazine every now and then. These attacks on the guncontrol movement and defenses of the right to keep and bear arms took various, sometimes quirky forms, including transcripts of Schulman’s remarks before the Los Angeles Police Commission on the issue of carry permits and his interview with a grammarian on the literal meaning of the Second Amendment. Now Schulman has put these tidbits together in a book, along with op-ed pieces, magazine articles, speeches, letters, computer network discussions, radio editorials, and unpublished essays. This is “a bunch of things I wrote over the last few years … in the heat of battle,” and it often shows. But there is still much of value in the book, especially Mr. Schulman’s incisive critiques of the factoids, misleading rhetoric, and outright lies of the anti-gun lobby.

JS

About the Author

Jacob Sullum

AB

About the Author

Arnold Beichman

Featured Tags

Stopping Power: Why 70 Million Americans Own Guns, by J. Neil Schulman (Synapse-Centurion, 288 pp., $22.95)

SINCE I’ve never read his science-fiction novels, I know J. Neil Schulman mainly from his faxes, which used to arrive on my desk at Reason magazine every now and then. These attacks on the guncontrol movement and defenses of the right to keep and bear arms took various, sometimes quirky forms, including transcripts of Schulman’s remarks before the Los Angeles Police Commission on the issue of carry permits and his interview with a grammarian on the literal meaning of the Second Amendment. Now Schulman has put these tidbits together in a book, along with op-ed pieces, magazine articles, speeches, letters, computer network discussions, radio editorials, and unpublished essays. This is “a bunch of things I wrote over the last few years … in the heat of battle,” and it often shows. But there is still much of value in the book, especially Mr. Schulman’s incisive critiques of the factoids, misleading rhetoric, and outright lies of the anti-gun lobby.