Spec there is a great deal of nudity and it was cold was december as men were chained to their cell doors with their hands chained to their legs which was a forced standing. Rumsfeld eventually said he stands in his desk all day why cant they . I can tell you that seeing someone in a force standing position has nothing to do with standing at a desk. It was torture. We are here today with author of a new book gunning of America Business in the making of american gun culture. Pamela why did you write this book and when did you decide we needed a book like this . It is an interesting story people who talk about guns love them or hate them that we have never owned a gun or even used one with guncontrol politics i came through this struggle story offend of mine told me this story of the winchesters daughterinlaw. And according to legend believe that he was being haunted by the spirits of everybody killed so i found is an absolutely captivating story but it was a very elusive subject but then you tell happened but then my mind wandered back to sarah but i thought for maybe the more interesting story but the story of the gun industry itself and i wanted to know more so i began to look into it. That is fascinating the tragedy of american gun violence of the american done business that ironclad logic was the a morality of business not diabolical intentions of the gunman gunslinger that developed out of the exceptional quest for new and larger markets of social consequences with that mystification of the American Indian culture of the Second Amendment and cowboys and the front year and the charisma of violence with videogames and hollywood and it is explained the legacy of what always was and still is a business that seems to capture the rest of the book talk about gun culture propelled by business historically so we have a few elements that is unique among nations. Part of the history of the gun culture with the gun industry isnt just about the Second Amendment but there is also commodities that is sold and was treated like an and regulated to understand that exceptional legacy in to behave like an industry to have any other aspiration as any other industry. With larger numbers it is only natural so that we ask the question who will buy all the guns . So i take that is strange to believe that element of our gun culture had to gain by selling and promoting their product is the most invisible when we think about guns. It is exclusively about interpreting a the Second Amendment. If i were eli whitney or the gun manufacturers reading this book them might be inclined to push back that a morality of business and then it creates the product and then to do the things they are authorized to do and to protect themselves how is that a reflection of a morality . What i mean is the first dash and capitalist or industrialist thinking about the product as a good product or a bad product. As more Conscious Capitalism but for the first generation that built the gun industry they looked at them more essay a product in the self. It was the empirical view as they started to do other things. But then he found itself with a cotton gin and found himself broke with big muskets that was something to do with his machine. And then those type of men who were more interested in making things they and what theyve made. It is the vanguard and is part of that culture but they were neutral about their products. Host i believe all men of those get manufacturers of history did any of them express in the research that you did, and there is an amazing amount of research coming it is a definitive and provocative and fascinating history and what they had done . That is a great question they saw that rifle and then the americans of the gun as it and implement for war. But as they are produced by private industry the logic is very different. A very ambitious capitalist and for him it is horrible for civilians and at a time of great difficulty and then to come played it happen too quickly. It to see the logic of guns. Is looking at it from the business calculator but he wrote about the moral effect and how that would affect the person who had that rifle . And they were looking at it to be equal to a troop and then to develop the commercial market to talk very provocative plea with individuals traveling through the wild country. Very much the mystique of the rifle. With those circumstances. And then before the civil war but his comment is about the sunshine. You mention in advertising there is a part of your book that totally amazed me. Id like you to explain what this is. Picture a redheaded boy at the movies on the edge of his seat. With the star speakers what will he say . Winchester of course,. But you know, that your son wants a gun but you dont know how much. He cant tell you it is beyond words. What is that and who wrote that and what does that signify in the history of the business . That is a very provocative those go from the early 1900s in the second to is from 1921. Change how they have gone about their business big things aho of happening we were modern country but this is the first frontier era so like another industry to figure how do we create value for this product . Also with modern advertising to tap into the desires and the feelings about products so it is from a Marketing Campaign in the Company Records with the idea they would sell letters to all retailers with the exact number they wanted to reach 573 boys between the ages that the company felt this was the new target audience. It is surprising today but they thought those that had that winchester add would be saving up their quarters to go to a local dealer to buy a winchester rifle. The company was aware there were age limits on who could buy guns. Then they would go right back to headquarters but as also indicated becoming very emotional and deepening of the mystique we be in the 1800s it wasnt love to be be in the 1900s loved but not needed but then that turns into the every gene languages and psychology they started to make the gun and object devi emotional fulfillment to tap into emotional leads. Needs. Host we havent mentioned the word hunting. Since america has been created there is a significant portion of the population in rural and areas where if they didnt make though living gore put food on the table they would enjoy that as a sport. How does that connect totally separate and apart in that crime component and the history and winchester was so enamored but the point that you raise but to you talk about a gun culture but the gun in a discipline dash industry was a tune to these cultures and one of them certainly was those through fishing and shooting back at the same time they recognized what was called the ordinary or the average shooter was the farm boy through american agriculture then of course, they would speak out to those military markets. So really in the 19th century there is a whole variety of gun subcultures that coexist and politically it gets unified politically as one object but we have had very eclectic uses of guns and that is the major point in my book from the 1800 s that has much deeper political and social values and directed value. Host winchester had a house tell us about her house. Ever since sarah was the daughterinlaw board 18 and 40 lung tissues board in 1840 and married and had his series of misfortunes and her life she lost several babies, one born alive died tragically then her husband died of a gruesome case of tuberculosis. Legend has it she was a spiritualist and believed the world of the dead overlaid the world of the living is like a ghost story and they have a message did in this case according to legend she was told but she wusses haunted by the spirits of the casualties perhaps building a house for them we dont really know why but she was to keep building nonstop to use their rifle fortune to do so. So on and ill win she buys a plot of land and from that point on she built an extravagant house that is like a riddle and did not stop until her death. Host how many rooms and what did it look like . Why did she get so carried away . Guest before the earthquake hit of sid francisco it had two bedrooms that the earthquake collapsed the front part of the house and there are a few explanations when she was up to but just she was an architectural ideas didnt know anything so she would just build a room on top of another of a staircase that led nowhere just to the ceiling. Very small rooms with only two flecked doors but much bigger doors that lead to know where it was designed like a vase. You dont know where you are going and you could lose your way. With those stories said she did this to evade the wicked spirits or those winchester casualtys but did research i found water to enticing clues but i can say that i have to prove that. Host you have a pitcher in your book of her seance room . That is one of the things and they would perform as seance to create a involution to set their it was also recommended that they should spend hours said day sitting in a small cabin in the room in that great materialization would come to them faithfully every single day and write in the center of the mystery house is a route known as the seance room and how she was pacing back and forth. And those that conforms very much so to meditate that was the source of research . But the winchester archives to spend several weeks going to the Company Records about sayvilles nor Marketing Advertising copy or the board of directors in memoirs from employees. I also research those records and the Oliver Winchester family letters and those winchester records are the backdrop. What was the impact of hollywood and television in movies like Jimmy Stewart . What is that pop culture of that done iconography . That is a huge and with pop culture just how much it proliferates in the 1900s in the 1900s were talking about it with the quantity of production is staggering it is 35 million that were published in the 50s over 1400 western movies by 1960 the fall of the books written about gunslingers all but 241 of the 2,000 were written in the 1900s so a lot of the mystique of the times is really a function of the pop culture of the 20th Century America reflecting back and a lot of this takes the seeds that were planted in the 1880s and in the 70s to develop them normally these stories of the gunmen knew that direction and they tend to exaggerate the quantity of gun violence and the quality for lack of better term why it happened it was over honor to lend credibility but truly was just much more impulsive or a new impulse but it planted the seed for the explosion of the gun mystique in the 20th century. We had several president s assassinated garfield, mckinley and a number of other attempts but added that trigger any National Discussion of that control a f not, why . Id later that happens in the 60s but what is the impact of those defense, even its if any . In my work i did not see a shift in the Public Discourse but Theodore Roosevelt was often also shot in the shoulder on the way to his speech he said it will take more than that and deliver this speech in any way so for that time period to my knowledge it didnt have much of an impact but by any means with the gun politics that is a difficult subject is in your epilogue you can get into it with common sense recommendations that i want to get into but before i do, when you look at the history at what point does the nra become powerful . The National Science legislation is debated in so late 1920s, early 1930s is really moment when you can begin to see the emergence of a gun politics that we recognize today. In 1934 the nra president who was an olympic marksman testify he has not been paid for his visits to washington are lobbying efforts until two years before. You can see this is a very terminal organization. But during that time the organization for the first time used to direct Mail Campaign for all of its members to urge them to write their legislators to oppose this first attempt at federal firearms legislation so it is beginning to become a force in the early 1930s and it was much earlier organized in any kind of progun control forces. So they did have an organizational head start politically over guncontrol organizations. But even then during the 1930s for hearing its important to note that the attorney general really to do a distinction between the hobbyists who are represented by the nra and the gun industry. He felt the gun industry was be very cooperative in dealing with the bootlegger violence and gun violence. He actually chided the represented by the nra because he felt there be an unreasonable or being more obstinate and stubborn in their position. Although it is worth pointing out the nra was in favor of legislation with the machine gun but they were beginning that slippery slope argument that if we let this legislation go, eventually theyll come after the rifle. So the rifle and the hunter sort of became an alibi. A reminder to viewers weirs beacon with pamela haig, author of gunning of america, business in the making of america gun culture. Family is a is a historian with a phd from yale. My question is, ill come out and ask it, what is your position, if any specifically on the Second Amendment. What is the me to . I know that i came into this with a Firm Position of at all and i dont think im leaving with the particular viewpoint. I think it is part of our culture, gun culture that is indeed exceptional. It it is protecting the rights of citizens of arms, other countries do not have this protection. Since that is that is in place, to me it makes more sense to pay some attention politically, not to the Second Amendment aspect of things of interpreting that but to the gunmakers. Or the gun industry. And to shift the attention a little bit away from the gun owner uneven tactically it just seems that is not in an effective approach. I do not think there has been nearly enough attention to this other arena perhaps the gun industry has to do more. Maybe consumer activism can become more of a focus as we try to deal with a problem of gun violence that everyone cares about regardless of what their position is on the Second Amendment. So really my book is really toward tipping the focus. Lets set aside the issue of the gun owner and look a little more at that gun maker. Pamela, one of your suggestions at the end of your book is that you consider repealing the 2005 act that exempted gun manufacturers from gun liability. My question is, gun manufacturers are creating a perfectly legal products on a huge scale by the military, police, and lawabiding sportsmen and hobbyists. If they create a product that was up in your hand or injures somebody from the Product Point of view or design flaw, are are they not, with a nappy liable for that . Why should they be liable for any other kind a liability. This is a controversy now between Bernie Sanders of course and hillary clinton. Different positions on this. Can explain to me why we should repeal that 205 law. The gun industry today enjoys a unique status that would be the envy of almost any other industry. Its not just the 2005 legislation, since 1997 that been insulated from any federally funded research that might appear to support guncontrol legislation. So they are protected from that, the challenge to their market. Since 1972, they have been exempted from consumer regulatory bodies and they fell under the alcohol, tobacco, firearms umbrella. Firearms umbrella. That is not actually consumer organization. So, they do enjoy a lot of special privileges. I do not think the idea behind repealing that legislation is that a gun company could ever be held universally liable simply for harm. It is that right now americans do not have a day court by which they can develop a case, case, court case that perhaps the company has not done enough for example to manage its dealers so that the dealers are not selling inordinately to criminals. Or they have have not done enough to ensure product safety. It is more, at least gaining access to the process which right now does not exist. Why would you hold the manufacture liable for the behavior of a completely separate distinct entity like a dealer who was supposed be following the law in his state of federal law. How would the manufacture have anything to do that . Actually historically the gun manufacture and dealers had close relationships. In the late 1990s when some of the civil litigation was considered smith wesson voluntarily said we want to devise a code of ethics for dealers, the dealers were selling our guns. It is quite comprehensive and it was inspired, maybe unfortunately by this lawsuit in several cities. The result of that was a move in a very positive direction. They were modeling themselves after the audio industry and they were going to say here are some things that we won our dealers to do, for example for example they need to work harder against purchasers. So there is evidence this type of pressure might compel manufacturers to think more closely about how they are dealers are doing business and historically when chester certainly did that. Theyre always on top of which dealers were pushing more product, which dealers were undercutting their prices. So there is a lot of intimacy between the manufacture and the dealer which is different than the dealer and the customer. Ic. I recently asked the rifle association, yesterday in fact i wanted to to understand their point of view. I asked her taught people, what are your recommendations for reducing gun violence . Here are two things they came up with they responded with and i would would like to get your take on it. Number one, arrest, prosecute and punish those who break the moss. The simple fact that anything illegal that anyone can do with a firearm is already illegal under current law but these are not being forced. What about that . Guest i think that is taking it beyond my area of expertise with a history of the gun industry. Host and youre a blog you make or four recommendations. Im just fantasy what you and i have both written books about guns. I think that like you, i have not figured out precisely what i see solutions for gun violence are. Im interested in looking at the socalled guncontrol advocates in the National Rifle association and think are there any points to agree on. I find a the point that they agree with you on, it is smart gun technology. Now, now, in your epilog you write that guncontrol advocates and opponents hate this idea, or you use words similar to that. That they loathe the idea that smart gun technology. But i asked the National Rifle association with her position was in the response was, if a market wants it, they are not opposed to it. I think their issue is if there is a law requiring it be for the technologies you start maybe ever, before the technology is perfected, where it could be circumvented or will its technology that was blocked in order for been able to use the gun, but if the market determine that for example if the federal government tomorrow said manufacturers, we want smart and technology quickly developed for all the guns we buy from you. You you know the millions of rifles and handguns. The manufactures would probably scramble to do that and the nra would have no opposition to that and the consumer would benefit. So so smart and technology seems to be something you agree with the nra on or they agree with you on. What is the future, what is the promise of that as a potential potential remedy to think violence question work. Guest that emerged from my reading out of the secondary literature is a really compelling, new, interesting point. Much of the problem with guns is the second hamm purchases, people who buy guns that end up another hands. It was really address that. I think its a part to recognize nothing is singlehandedly going to solve any problem of the enormity of gun violence and a lot of the problem of gun violence ivy sleaze not just about guns. This market and technology has been in the pipeline, there have been companies, theres a a German Company developing it, even some graduate students at john hopkins with very little money were making great progress in developing some prototypes for spark in technology. To me, it is at least a solution that gets off the familiar track of trying to predict who might end up for example who might be a mass shooter when they have no red flag, when there is apsley no way that a gun dealer could be expected to be there my. At least the technology is a little more of a business focus perspective. It could be incentivize incentivized very much as you have described. It is trying Something Different that would cut into all the secondary markets which as i understand our problem. The criminal access. Host yeah the other idea that they mention to me, the nra did was quote, its fix our broken Mental Health system, those monthly of people people with a propensity for violence even when identified like the colorado theater and navy yard, tucson, fort hood shooters there not be placed in the National Instant check system to ensure they are not able to purchase firearms. Plus, i believe some of these mass killers are passing background checks. It seems as though many states are not feeding the right information into that system and to fix that system would be as urgent a priority as any other guncontrol recommendation. What you think about that, as you survey the current landscape is this Mental Health issue a valid what do you think . Guest one of the statistics that really strikes me and i think these into your question is that 60 of gun deaths are suicide. So its not not just the people were actually committing crimes out to Mental Health issues, is that the majority of the over 30,000 gun deaths in this country every year are suicide and selfdestruction. 38 are homicide, 2 or accident. So, thats a very hidden tragedy in the gun control debate. I think that is definitely one of the avenues that could be explored but again, a lot of the violence that is every day and ordinary in the cities really is not propelled by Mental Health issues per se. So it is a complicated issue. The intention on guns tend to emerge out of Mass Shootings and out of these very dramatic and disoriented and tragic attacks. We also have daytoday gun violence like a city in baltimore who has very little to do with that. Host we also seem to argue for targeted lawenforcement prosecution to zero in on those areas. For any person to be killed by a gun is of course a hideous tragedy. I understand though that firearm related deaths have been on the decline about 50 over the last 20 years. I guess the question is how do the pamela haigs and nras and william tolls of the world somehow get together on things that as he said or a basket of things that can get these numbers down, way below where they are . And suicide is interesting. Guest i think suicide really has been invisible for almost 100 years. Even though the attention to gun violence that started in the 1920s it was very much about urban, bootlegger gangster violence. Even then gun suicide rates were on the rise but they have never really been integrated into this conversation in a meaningful way i dont think on either side. So that is definitely something that i think should be made more visible. Its its one of the gun issues that needs to be more visible. But some of the hopeful signs that i see when i take about taken a business focus support approach, another recommendation i made is that we take a conscious focused approach to gun which in my mind means thinking a little less about what everybody has a right to do and what other people have a right thats force them to do and think more about what doing more than is required, legally or contractually. For example, after a new orleans mass shooting, i, cant remember which one it is now, walmart voluntarily decided they were not going to sell a particular assault weapon as it was called. Nobody was insisting, nobody was asking, that was simply an attempt i believe that being a good, corporate citizen, trying something. There is a gun shop in milwaukee wisconsin, badger guns that was found to be responsible for selling guns that Kill Police Officers involved in crime. They crime. They now have a members only policy. They only sell to, sorta like cosco like cosco i guess. They only sell to members of their store. People they know. These things are being forced legally or by the Second Amendment are unregulated in, but they are just gestures of trying to do it we can on a conscious base level, trying trying to be good corporate citizen. It. Host to think the massmarketing done by gun manufacturers over the years created demand or did it tap into a latent american affection for a fascination with American History expressed through guns which is the cutting edge of war and Law Enforcement and so forth. So did the marketing can read the demand or was the interest already there . Guest that is a greg great chicken and egg question pressure that i think applies to any industry. I spent a a lot of time thinking about that. It is certainly the case there is never a time when there was no gun to man in america. Guns have always been here you can ice my customers. But the algorithm of the gun industry like any other industry was really demanding. Patented firearms were newfangled and quite lethal. These are repeater firearms with a revolver and rifle, built to last. They are ideally not used all that often. And furthermore, they. And furthermore, they are being produced in ever greater quantities faster as the country became more urban, more of of a post frontier country, arguably more of a country with guns when you really do need it. At the turnofthecentury maybe things could have gone another way. Technology goals obsolete all the time. Maybe the guns of the frontier wouldve faded as we became more of an urban society but they didnt. So i think it every key moment the industry had to figure out like any other industry, not because their dialogue diabolical, how do we find more business who is going to buy all of these guns . When Oliver Winchester opened his factory in 1866 the six the town but he is crazy. They said who is ever who is ever going to buy guns in the quantity that you can produce them which was 200 per day. And i thought while you will operate for three or four days and set idle the rest of the time. The factory went bankrupt and part of the problem was simply these guns were not needed by the average american. So there has always been, its a tango. Its a tango between preexisting desires and the quite natural business of creating new desires, finding new Market Building and designing guns that may appeal to those markets and there a lot of interesting failures along the way as well as not regard. Host were guns one of the first global, multinational american exports and businesses . To me, this is one of the most fascinating findings out of the archives. I had no idea of this when i went into this research. When i thought about gun owners in the gun customer buffalo bill, john wayne, the usual images, it is fascinating that in the years before and after the civil war the american gun industry very much survived and stayed alive on his international nonus sales. The scope of the is absolutely breathtaking. All of the major manufactures from cold, winchester, anothers, the staying alive on selling guns to almost every country but the United States. In winchesters case he had a huge contract for 20000 rifles for the assault of the Ottoman Empire in 1870. Smith wesson sold to the russians are kept the factory busy for five years. Remington sold 140,000 rifles to the feds which is the largest production ever realized. Then camped one of their most enchanted family members at the royal courts in europe where he demonstrated the rifle and sold profitably to sweden, norway, the war forces for the pepsi and vatican, egypt. Winchester had a contract to 1866 in six in mexico. The list goes on. So even though the United States is viewed with the unique gun pathology. We have a completely strange strange relationship with guns and it is worth noting that the countries that are very judgmental toward the american gun problem today were very much the countries that were keeping that business alive in the 19th century for a good chunk of time. Really after the civil war the demand here was dismal. Had had it not been for these Foreign International contracts its very unlikely these entities could have stayed in business. Winchester certainly not, he needed his contract. So i think the american gun culture is really better and more accurately understood as an international phenomenon. It was a global phenomenon by which america was arming the world. There were clamoring for these new, modern weapons. By 1881, according to one account almost every single rifle, gun on a system was was of american origin with the exception of one model. That is globally your speaking of. Yes, this is a very hidden part of the gun history. Spee1 so in other words the french, colonial empire, the British Colonial empire, countries who currently are certainly happy to criticize our good culture, they fueled the multinational manufactures of america and was a supplier . Absolutely we can think about the very first gun market in the United States is been the u. S. Military because we were relying in the late 1700s on most entirely on europe, but as our industry developed, as we were on the cutting edge of the survivors in that industry, the sales at this very key juncture in the 1850s and 1860s and seventies, they very much relied on that international commerce. This was part of the first wave of globalization. The United States gun industry was very much the leading edge of that. I would be hardpressed to name a country or continent by that winchester had not armed. They had globetrotting salesmen salesman as early as the 1860s who formed expatriate communities throughout europe, so even though belgium had started as the gunsmith powerhouse, it was rapidly superseded by american industry and to be fair, it is very much the case that although these countries do not have civilian violence the way we do today, that imperialism and western europe very much fueled our gun industry at a key moment. Host what is the connection between gun history and Race Relations in the United States. Im thinking about post civil war events . Spee1 i think a lot of the gun history could be told as a history of a Race Relations. Our gun ownership before the civil war was higher in the south and it was in other regions of the country. That dates back to colonial days. After the civil war as it became clear that africanamericans in the south were not going to enjoy the rights or protections that they expected, even from africanamerican leaders began to recommend that the winchester had a place of honor in every blackhole, this became a way, sort of an equality of last resort. This would be a way that africanamericans could defend themselves in the absence of other sections and in the absence of true equality. The gun steps and fill that role. So at this point we are on the spiral, the gun might be love for that reason then embrace for that reason, but over time the guns tend to get turned inward and get used in more intimate stitches