The Caffeinated Penguin

Posted By matt on August 29, 2007

As some of you may know, I am in Kyle Cassidy's () book Armed America: Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes (page 134). Since it was new to the market, and I'm in it, I've avoided commenting on it until recently. Since Mark Vanderberg over at the Gun Rights Advocates Podcast asked me to do a segment on it for use in an Episode where he interviewed Kyle, I figure I might as well blog about it too.

This is not the type of book you see when you think about a “gun book”. This is because (as Kyle says) it's not a book about guns – it's a book about people. What you find is that you see people in the book which you wouldn't expect – the couple nearing retirement (with a machinegun collection), the staunchly anti-gun fellow (with a pair of his grandfather's antique pistols which he has made into a lamp), the guy who doesn't really seem to care one way or the other (but still owns a handgun from when he was younger and it was the cool thing to do). On the flip side, there are the people you would expect – the hunter (with walls of trophies and a fine hunting rifle), the guy worried about the government (and wearing a bandanna so you can't see his face).

I could see people criticizing the book for “not presenting a fair and balanced view about the gun rights debate”, and they might have a point there – namely that they miss the point of the book. Kyle keeps a lot of “editorial commentary” out of the book. There is a little forward at the beginning (where my cat Arthur is the very last picture on the second page) where Kyle explains the book and a bit of the history, but aside from that, the format is simple – there is a photo on the right side page, and the words of those photographed on the facing left side page. No comments, no judgment. It does not further an agenda, it just displays what is. I find this to be very useful, because it is, in a sense, empirical. These are photographs of people, and these are their words, you are left to draw your own conclusions.

One could also suppose that Kyle posed people in order to further one side of the argument or the other. At this point, I should probably present a bit of an insider's view to refute this. The process was simple – Kyle picked a room, Phil set up lights, we picked guns, and stood however we liked. Kyle took many pictures, and one of the made it into the book. The only thing which was at all staged (and it is understandable given Kyle's weakness for felines) is that cats were often lured into the photo by strategically placed catnip. Indeed, I think that the photo selected of Liz and I had more to do with the placement of Arthur than the placement of us.

The only one criticism I personally have about the book is the print quality. After looking at the photos on the website on a high-quality monitor (Dell 2005FPW, which uses the same LCD as the Apple Cinema display, and was hooked to a Mac for the correct color profile… oh, and we looked at it on one of the Cinema displays as well..), you realize just how good Kyle's photographs are. The printing in the book just makes them appear a bit dull and lifeless. They could be so much better had the printing been done a little better. Realistically, this was probably a bit of a compromise for the sake of commerce – at an Amazon price point of $20 and an in-store price of $30, it becomes an “impulse buy coffee table book”. If it were more expensive, say $50, I think you'd sell a lot fewer. Furthermore, there is always the possibility of another print run, with a “photographer's cut” where the print quality is much higher, selling for $100 or so.

I should also note that there are two similar groups of gun owners underrepresented here. The first are people who don't want their neighbors to know that they have guns, and the second are people who don't want the authorities (gov't, police, etc.) to know that they have guns. Unfortunately, that is the nature of the beast. Many people have illegal guns. In New York state, you need to register all handguns with the police. Failure to do so makes that an illegal gun. If one were to have such a gun, it would not necessarily be the best idea to be photographed with it. It is the nature of the beast, but the unfortunate result is that we lose that aspect of society.

In conclusion, I'd recommend this book for.. well, anyone. It is good for those curious about the gun debate and what kinds of people own guns. I'd suggest that any legislators looking to vote on gun legislation pick up a book and look at the people they are representing. I'd also suggest that anyone who holds a strong opinion on gun ownership pick up a copy and have a look at the people as well. As I said before, the book represents a good cross section of America, and I think that one can learn from it.

Category: LJ Import
Tags: