What are the links between guns, violence, and masculinity? This XY collection brings together items highlighting how gun violence is structured in powerful ways by traditional, patriarchal masculinities. Also see XY's complementary collections on "Guns and violence" and on "Mass shootings and masculinity".
(a) Shorter pieces on guns, men, and masculinities
- Campoamor, I Am So Tired of Shouting Into the Void About America’s Young Men and Their Guns. Cosmpolitan, March 24 2021
- Devega, Gun crazy: For too many Americans, guns are tied to masculinity, patriotism and white power. Salon, April 26 2021.
- Cockburn, World disarmament - Start by disarming masculinity, April 30 2015
- Farr, Women, men and the struggle to disarm
- Levant, Ronald, and Christopher Kilmartin, Message about aggressive masculinity is key to Sandy Hook lawsuit against Remington, Feb. 28 2022
- McLean, Chris. (ed). (1997). Comment, Special Issue: Responding to Issues of Guns and Violence, No. 3, Adelaide: Dulwich Centre
- Okun, Mass Shootings - It’s the Masculinity, People. CounterPunch, May 23 2022
- Page, Ella. (2009). Men masculinity and guns. International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) Women's Network.
- Plank, How guns are marked as a gateway to manliness. MSNBC, Feb 21 2022
- Shapiro, Guys and guns: Why men are behind the vast majority of America's gun violence, Nov 3 2021
- Vandegrift, Mourning after mass shootings isn’t enough – a sociologist argues that society’s messages about masculinity need to change, Dec 15 2021
(b) Academic articles and reports on guns, men, and masculinities
Note: This is only a selection of the scholarship on guns, men, and masculinities. See this bibliography.
- Bassin, A. (1997). Why packing a pistol perpetuates patriarchy. Hastings Women’s Law Journal, 8(2).
- Bevan, James, and Nicolas Florquin. (2006). Few Options but the Gun: Angry Young Men. In Small Arms Survey 2006: Unfinished Business. Geneva: Oxford University Press
- BICC, Gender perspectives on small arms
- Bridges, Tristan, and Tober, Tara Leigh. (2022). Mass Shootings and Masculinity. Expert Report prepared for The Joint Federal/Provincial Commission into the April 2020 Nova Scotia Mass Casualty.
- Buchanan, C., V. Farr, M. Flood, and J. Galeria. (2005). Women, Men, and Gun Violence: Options for action. In Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue. (eds.) Missing Pieces: Directions for reducing gun violence through the UN process on small arms control. Geneva: Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (pp. 68-78).
- Farr, K. (2018). Adolescent rampage school shootings: Responses to failing masculinity performances by already-troubled boys. Gender Issues, 35(2), 73-97.
- Farr, Vanessa, Henri Myrttinen and Albrecht Schnabel. (2009). Sexed Pistols: The gendered impacts of small arms and light weapons. Tokyo, New York & Paris: United Nations University Press [Excerpt]
- IANSA. (2022). Ways to Address Hegemonic Masculinity and Gun Violence. International Action Network on Small Arms Briefing Paper, February 2022 (English, French, Spanish).
- Myrttinen, H. (2003). Disarming Masculinities. Disarmament Forum, 4: 37-46.
- Wilkinson, Deanna, and Jeffrey Fagan. (1996). Understanding the Role of Firearms in Violence ‘Scripts’: The Dynamics of Gun Events Among Adolescent Males. Law and Contemporary Problems, 59(1), pp. 55-90.
- Widmer, M. (with G. Barker. and C. Buchanan). (2006). Hitting the Target: Men and Guns. Revcon Policy Brief, June.
Also see:
- This XY collection on "Guns and violence"
- This XY collection on "Mass shootings and masculinity"
- This collection on men's rights, including news reports on mass shootings such as the Toronto massacre in April 2018
- This bibliography of academic scholarship on guns, men, and masculinities.