Only Slate Plus members can gift Slate stories. Become a member to share 10 free articles a month. Before Robert Spitzer grew up to be an expert on American gun policy, he watched a lot of Westerns.

Guns have been deeply woven into American culture since the nation’s earliest days, tied to traditions of frontier life, self-reliance, and personal protection. The Second Amendment, hunting and sport ...

: Guns have long been a crucial part of our existence, with some models standing the test of time. The most popular guns represent a range of uses and eras. This knowledge helps us spot historical ...

As long as I’ve lived in America I’ve enjoyed the comic ritual known as the “hunt for the smoking gun,” a process by which our official press tries to inoculate itself and its readers against p As ...

History is everything, the Supreme Court has ruled — at least when it comes to defining modern Second Amendment rights. As the high court ruled in 2022, the constitutionality of modern gun laws is to ...

The Supreme Court’s preferred method of interpreting the Constitution is originalism, which requires judges to abide by the original public meaning of the constitutional text. This is often more ...

Historical timeline of the development of modern weapons starting at 1364 with the first recorded use of a firearm and ending in 1892 with the introduction of automatic handguns. 1364 - First recorded ...