4. The Interwar Period, 1918-34

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we continue to explore the history of gun control in the United States, lookin in this section at the period between the end of the First World War and the 1934 National Firearms Act. In particular, we think about: (i) the key advances in firearms technology from the 1860s to the 1920s; (ii) the influence of the US Civil War on small arms manufacturing and on gun ownership in the United States; (iii) the reaction against arms manufacturers (sometimes referred to as the ‘merchants of death’) in the aftermath of the First World War, and the extent to which gun control measured focused on arms manufacturers as opposed to the owners of firearms; (iv) the growth of organised crime in the 1920s; and (v) the importance of the 1934 Firearms Act.

Course

In this course, Dr Kevin Yuill (University of Sunderland) explores the history of gun control in the United States from the colonial period to the present day. In the first module, we think about the history of the right to bear arms in English law, and the precise formulation of the Second Amendment: ‘A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed’. After that, we trace the history of gun control in the United States from the early 17th-century to the present day in four key periods – 1619-1857, 1865-1911, 1911-34 and 1945-present.

Lecturer

Dr Kevin Yuill is Associate Professor of American History at the University of Sunderland. His primary interests are in the intellectual history of the United States, particularly race and equality in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, attitudes to suicide and death, and attitudes to the possession of firearms. His recent publications include (as co-author) The Second Amendment and Gun Control: Freedom, Fear, and the American Constitution (2017) and Assisted Suicide: the Liberal, Humanist Case Against Legalization (2013).