Join us Saturday, February 10th at 1pm when Wall Street Journal reporter Cameron McWhirter will discuss his latest book American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Named a most anticipated book of the fall by The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Bloomberg American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15 presents the epic history of America’s most controversial weapon.
In the 1950s, an obsessive firearms designer named Eugene Stoner invented the AR-15 rifle in a California garage. High-minded and patriotic, Stoner sought to devise a lightweight, easy-to-use weapon that could replace the M1s touted by soldiers in World War II. What he did create was a lethal handheld icon of the American century.
In American Gun, the veteran Wall Street Journal reporters Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson track the AR-15 from inception to ubiquity. How did the same gun represent the essence of freedom to millions of Americans and the essence of evil to millions more? To answer this question, McWhirter and Elinson follow Stoner―the American Kalashnikov―as he struggled mightily to win support for his invention, which under the name M16 would become standard equipment in Vietnam. Shunned by gun owners at first, the rifle’s popularity would take off thanks to a renegade band of small-time gun makers. And in the 2000s, it would become the weapon of choice for mass shooters, prompting widespread calls for proscription even as the gun industry embraced it as a financial savior. Writing with fairness and compassion, McWhirter and Elinson explore America’s gun culture, revealing the deep appeal of the AR-15, the awful havoc it wreaks, and the politics of reducing its toll. The result is a moral history of contemporary America’s love affair with technology, freedom, and weaponry.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cameron McWhirter is co-author with Zusha Elinson of American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15. He also is the author of Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America. McWhirter is a U.S. News reporter for The Wall Street Journal based in Atlanta, covering breaking news, politics, and economics. He is a graduate of Hamilton College and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. He has been a Thomas J. Watson fellow in the Sudan and Eritrea, a Nieman fellow at Harvard University, and a MacDowell fellow in Peterborough, New Hampshire.
ABOUT THE EVENT
This event will be held at February 10th at 1pm in Pretty Good Books' Grand Salon (118 Church Street, LaGrange, Georgia 30240). It is free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase and a book-signing will follow.
