Gun Guys, by Dan Baum

Gun Guys: A Road Trip
By Dan Baum
Knopf
Five stars
Reviewed by Jessica Gribble

This amazing book deserves many more readers than it will surely have, even if it sells extremely well. Basically, everyone who ever has been, or ever will be, affected by guns or gun laws should read Gun Guys: A Road Trip. And that’s all of us. Dan Baum is an unlikely person: a liberal guy who lives in Boulder, Colorado, and grew up loving guns. His personal polarization helps him fit into both societies and ask questions about guns: Why do people love them? Why do people hate them? Do they make society safer or less safe? Do bans work?

Baum shot his first gun, a .22 rifle, at summer camp. He was no good at sports and had started to feign illness when a big man named Hank Hillard showed up at camp and taught the boys how to shoot rifles. Baum’s five bullet holes were inside the black dot. Hank “handed back the target and gave [Baum his] first-ever man-to-man look. ‘Nice shootin’, Tex.’” Thus began his love affair with guns.

Describing himself as a “stoop-shouldered middle-aged man in pleated pants and glasses, looking ridiculous in an NRA cap,” Dan Baum travels the country to talk to people who love and use guns. He starts at a range in Cherry Creek State Park, south of Denver, where he figures out that some people (mostly men) shoot because the hardware is so cool—they learn about high-tech guns from video games and buy guns that are easy to shoot. “It [shooting an AR-15] was effortless, like shooting a ray gun…. Imagine a guitar that made you play like Eric Clapton.”

Baum engages the open carry question by wearing his gun (a 1917 Smith & Wesson .45 revolver) into a Boulder Target. No one comments. So he moves into the concealed carry world, taking classes that emphasize the Five Cardinal Rules. Instructor Judy says, “You need to decide whether you’re willing to take a life. Make your decision in advance and review it often. Don’t wait until you’re in a situation. If you can’t do it—if you can’t take a life—don’t get a gun.”

Baum explores many different gun cultures. He writes about deer hunting. Machine guns. The murder of a young father in New Orleans. Prop guns for movies. Gun shows. Nervous people buying guns at a relative’s insistence. Sport shooting matches. The Schützenfest (during which German men shoot a huge carved wooden eagle off a pole). Criminals using guns. Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. People who have been gravely injured by guns. Classes on how to use a pistol in a gunfight. The politics of the Second Amendment. How his wife and daughter feel about him using guns.

Baum interprets the “gun guys” who inhabit this book for his readers. “A gun guy sees it this way: If you want to limit my contact with guns, you must be saying that you don’t trust me with them. You, who may never have shot a gun and know nothing about what it means to handle and operate one, are presuming to make judgments about my ability to do so.”

What’s so great about this book, in the end, is how much Baum respects the people he talks to. He often thinks they’re wrong, misguided, or even scary, but he shares their passion for guns, so he’s willing to consider their points of view. The characters really come alive; the journalism is fun to read and often funny. I can’t think of a better way to learn about both sides of a complex and combative issue.