Pines and Plains Libraries

In this book, the author, deadliest sniper in U.S. history tracks down and shoots the ten most important American firearms, from a flintlock rifle to a Colt revolver to the latest high-tech weapon he used as a Navy SEAL. He uses these guns as a window on United States history, making the sweeping argument that the American story has been tied to and shaped by the gun. He revisits turning points in American history, including the single sniper shot...

"In this beautifully written and powerful memoir, author Craig K. Collins ushers readers down a remarkable path--one that wends from the American frontier to present-day suburbia. Along the way, he explores the meaning of a history--of his family's and his country's--that is infused with the culture of the gun. Stops include an Indian massacre at Bad Axe, the siege of Vicksburg, the slaughter of buffalo in Montana, and the discovery of gold in a remote...

"This takedown of American gun culture argues that the nation's fathers did not intend the Second Amendment to guarantee an individual right to bear arms-and that this intentional distortion of the record is an urgent threat to democracy. Hundreds of lives are lost to firearms every day in America. The cost is more than the numbers-it is also the fear, the anxiety, the dread of public spaces that an armed society has created under the tortured rubric...