The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Bioarchaeology and the Modern Gun Culture Debate

In his controversial book Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture, historian Michael A. Bellesiles argued that personal gun ownership was uncommon prior to 1850. His book triggered an intense re-examination of the American gun culture. A subsequent investigation into his alleged misuse of antebellum probate records to support his thesis resulted in his forfeiture of the prestigious Bancroft Prize and the loss of his position at Emory University. Historical archaeologists can contribute to the debate on the popularity of guns in early America armed with objective data on the frequency and distribution of gun-related artifacts. Analysis of historic period human remains provides another dimension to the modern gun-culture debate through documentation of the prevalence of gunshot wounds, including those among minority groups whose rates of firearms trauma were generally unreported in official statistics before the 1930s. By accurately recognizing and systematically recording gunshot wounds among historical population samples, bioarchaeologists are uniquely positioned to report the actual frequency and, in many cases, the contexts within which such wounds occurred in the past.