100 books like Loaded

By Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz,

Here are 100 books that Loaded fans have personally recommended if you like Loaded. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America

Pamela Haag Author Of The Gunning of America: Business and the Making of American Gun Culture

From my list on new or surprising on American guns and gun culture.

Why am I passionate about this?

I got interested in American guns and gun culture through the backdoor. I’d never owned a gun, participated in gun control politics, or thought too much about guns at all. Guns might not have interested me—but ghosts did. I was beguiled by the haunting legend of the Winchester rifle heiress Sarah Winchester, who believed in the late 1800s that she was being tormented by the ghosts of all those killed by Winchester rifles. As I scoured the archives for rare glimpses of Sarah, however, it dawned on me that I was surrounded by boxes and boxes of largely unexplored sources about a much larger story, and secretive mystery: that of the gun industry itself.

Pamela's book list on new or surprising on American guns and gun culture

Pamela Haag Why did Pamela love this book?

I admire this book for its measured erudition on a topic (guns) that the author feels is the most formative cultural chasm in the US. Winkler, a renowned legal scholar, uses the 2008 Supreme Court Heller decision that enshrined the second amendment as an individual right to bear arms as the touchstone for a riveting and more wide-ranging investigation of the history of gun rights as well as gun control laws. Winkler finds historical precedents for the concept of an individual right (if not a mandate, in some cases) to bear arms.

However, what I found most surprising is Winkler’s account of the equally sturdy and deeply-rooted history of gun control and regulation. This revises the popular wisdom that gun control, essentially, has no history—that the US was a land of unfettered gun-toting and gun-owning that was only later thwarted by modern, liberal gun restrictions. On the contrary, by the…

By Adam Winkler,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Gunfight as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Gunfight is a timely work examining America's four-centuries-long political battle over gun control and the right to bear arms. In this definitive and provocative history, Adam Winkler reveals how guns-not abortion, race, or religion-are at the heart of America's cultural divide. Using the landmark 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller-which invalidated a law banning handguns in the nation's capital-as a springboard, Winkler brilliantly weaves together the dramatic stories of gun-rights advocates and gun-control lobbyists, providing often unexpected insights into the venomous debate that now cleaves our nation.


Book cover of Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry That Radicalized America

Pamela Haag Author Of The Gunning of America: Business and the Making of American Gun Culture

From my list on new or surprising on American guns and gun culture.

Why am I passionate about this?

I got interested in American guns and gun culture through the backdoor. I’d never owned a gun, participated in gun control politics, or thought too much about guns at all. Guns might not have interested me—but ghosts did. I was beguiled by the haunting legend of the Winchester rifle heiress Sarah Winchester, who believed in the late 1800s that she was being tormented by the ghosts of all those killed by Winchester rifles. As I scoured the archives for rare glimpses of Sarah, however, it dawned on me that I was surrounded by boxes and boxes of largely unexplored sources about a much larger story, and secretive mystery: that of the gun industry itself.

Pamela's book list on new or surprising on American guns and gun culture

Pamela Haag Why did Pamela love this book?

Busse offers the new perspective of an insider—an erstwhile gun executive. I’ve always held that the gun industry has gotten far too little attention historically, and that commercial forces substantially helped to create and then maintain the American gun mystique and culture long after the “frontier” closed. Busse’s work shows just how explicitly the gun industry today, since 9/11 and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, relies on “manufactured fear” to push products. The book teems with examples of fear marketing, including endorsements from social media celebrities that created a new breed of “couch commandos,” steeped in the “glorification of violence, the utter rejection of political correctness, and the freewheeling masculinity and objectification of women.” And in Busse’s view it’s not just that gun marketing has changed, but that the gun industry has transformed American culture itself, radicalizing it and shifting it toward authoritarianism.

We’ve seen and felt this malevolence of…

By Ryan Busse,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Gunfight as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A former firearms executive pulls back the curtain on America's multibillion-dollar gun industry, exposing how it fostered extremism and racism, radicalizing the nation and bringing cultural division to a boiling point.
 
As an avid hunter, outdoorsman, and conservationist–all things that the firearms industry was built on–Ryan Busse chased a childhood dream and built a successful career selling millions of firearms for one of America’s most popular gun companies.

But blinded by the promise of massive profits, the gun industry abandoned its self-imposed decency in favor of hardline conservatism and McCarthyesque internal policing, sowing irreparable division in our politics and society.…


Book cover of Columbine

Rick Emerson Author Of Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World's Most Notorious Diaries

From my list on exposés to keep you reading past midnight.

Why am I passionate about this?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by the hidden histories of everyday things, especially in media and popular culture. (Who were those people on TV laugh tracks? Where did Muzak records come from?) A career in broadcasting only sharpened this interest, informing two decades of writing and performing.

Rick's book list on exposés to keep you reading past midnight

Rick Emerson Why did Rick love this book?

Shortly after I finished reading Dave Cullen's masterpiece, someone asked my opinion of it. After a long pause, I said, "That book left a mark."

Cullen spent ten years researching this account of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, and it shows. He brings clarity to confusion, leavens horror with humanity, and does his best to counter the media's (repeated) failings. This book is sad, grim, frightening, enraging...and one of the best true-crime books ever written.

By Dave Cullen,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Columbine as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

**THE GROUNDBREAKING BESTSELLER AND CLASSIC**

'Excellent . . . amazing how much still comes as a surprise' New York Times Book Review

'Like Capote's In Cold Blood, this tour de force gets below the who and the what of a horrifying incident to lay bare the devastating why' People

'A staggering work of journalism' Washington Post

'The tragedies keep coming. As we reel from the latest horror...' So begins the epilogue, illustrating how Columbine has become the template for nearly two decades of "spectacle murders." It makes the imperative to understand the crime that sparked this flame more urgent than…


Book cover of Citizen-Protectors: The Everyday Politics of Guns in an Age of Decline

Pamela Haag Author Of The Gunning of America: Business and the Making of American Gun Culture

From my list on new or surprising on American guns and gun culture.

Why am I passionate about this?

I got interested in American guns and gun culture through the backdoor. I’d never owned a gun, participated in gun control politics, or thought too much about guns at all. Guns might not have interested me—but ghosts did. I was beguiled by the haunting legend of the Winchester rifle heiress Sarah Winchester, who believed in the late 1800s that she was being tormented by the ghosts of all those killed by Winchester rifles. As I scoured the archives for rare glimpses of Sarah, however, it dawned on me that I was surrounded by boxes and boxes of largely unexplored sources about a much larger story, and secretive mystery: that of the gun industry itself.

Pamela's book list on new or surprising on American guns and gun culture

Pamela Haag Why did Pamela love this book?

Jennifer Carlson, Citizen-Protectors: The Everyday Politics of Guns in an Age of Decline, does the rare thing of actually asking gun owners (she interviewed sixty of them) why they have guns, and what guns mean to them. As a sociologist, Carlson immersed herself in the “gun carry culture”—Americans who carry guns with them in everyday life, which is a new wrinkle in American gun culture. I was surprised by many of her findings and insights, and in some cases I was struck by their elegance; for example, Americans carry guns because they feel the US is “in decline” because of social chaos, and “guns are perceived as solving the problem” of that chaos.

What’s new and surprising here, and that I especially appreciated, is that Carlson in her own words “does something different” in this book, rejecting both the “gun politics” narrative that the “gun culture is an affirmation…

By Jennifer Carlson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Citizen-Protectors as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From gang- and drug-related shootings to mass shootings in schools, shopping centers, and movie theatres, reports of gun crimes fill the headlines of newspapers and nightly news programs. At the same time, a different kind of headline has captured public attention: a steady surge in pro-gun sentiment among Americans. A Gallup poll conducted just a month after the Newtown school shootings found that 74% of Americans oppose a ban on hand-guns, and at least 11 million
people now have licenses to carry concealed weapons as part of their everyday lives. Why do so many Americans not only own guns but…


Book cover of Private Guns, Public Health

Thomas Gabor Author Of American Carnage: Shattering the Myths That Fuel Gun Violence

From my list on gun violence and the gun industry.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a former Professor of Criminology who has published over 200 works. While I have written about gun policy for 30 years, my first book on the topic was stimulated by the murder of an unarmed Trayvon Martin in Florida by an armed neighborhood vigilante who pursued Trayvon for no reason other than that he was a tall black male wearing a hoodie. I was outraged by the shooter’s contention that he was acting in self-defense. This case prompted me to write my book Confronting Gun Violence in America which included two chapters on the issue of defensive gun use. 

Thomas' book list on gun violence and the gun industry

Thomas Gabor Why did Thomas love this book?

Private Guns, Public Health is a comprehensive, evidence-based review of research on the link between gun availability and mortality.

The book explains why policies are urgently needed to address America’s gun violence problem. Hemenway makes the case for a public health approach to gun violence prevention, as opposed to a reactive punitive approach anchored in the criminal justice system. It is not about banning guns but preventing violence in the same way that research-based practices led to dramatic reductions in fatalities arising from car accidents.

Measures supported by Hemenway include safe storage practices, addressing the mental health of the public, encouraging Hollywood to promote responsible gun ownership, preventing gun theft through safe shipping practices, regulating guns as a consumer product, and ensuring that all gun sales proceed through licensed dealers.

By David Hemenway,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Private Guns, Public Health as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

On an average day in the United States, guns are used to kill almost eighty people and wound nearly three hundred more; yet such facts are accepted as a natural consequence of supposedly high American rates of violence. Private Guns, Public Health reveals the advantages of treating gun violence as a consumer safety and public health problem-an approach that emphasizes prevention over punishment and that has successfully reduced the rates of injury and death from infectious disease, car accidents, and tobacco consumption.

Hemenway fair-mindedly and authoritatively outlines a policy course that would significantly reduce gun-related injury and death, pointing us…


Book cover of Repeal the Second Amendment: The Case for a Safer America

Thomas Gabor Author Of American Carnage: Shattering the Myths That Fuel Gun Violence

From my list on gun violence and the gun industry.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a former Professor of Criminology who has published over 200 works. While I have written about gun policy for 30 years, my first book on the topic was stimulated by the murder of an unarmed Trayvon Martin in Florida by an armed neighborhood vigilante who pursued Trayvon for no reason other than that he was a tall black male wearing a hoodie. I was outraged by the shooter’s contention that he was acting in self-defense. This case prompted me to write my book Confronting Gun Violence in America which included two chapters on the issue of defensive gun use. 

Thomas' book list on gun violence and the gun industry

Thomas Gabor Why did Thomas love this book?

Repeal the Second Amendment is a highly engaging book that makes the case for amending the Constitution in order to facilitate gun law reform.

Lichtman shows that gun controls were in place from the early days of the Republic and that the Second Amendment to the Constitution referred to the “right to keep and bear arms” within the context of militia service only. This right did not apply to an individual right to bear arms. In the 1800s many states prohibited the carrying of guns.

Lichtman provides a path forward to repealing the Second Amendment and addresses skeptics who claim that such an undertaking is a fool’s errand.

By Allan J. Lichtman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Repeal the Second Amendment as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

There's an average of one mass shooting per day in the United States. Given the ineffectiveness of the gun control lobby, it's time for a strategy with spine. In Repeal the Second Amendment, Allan Lichtman has written the first book that uses history, legal theory and up-to-the-minute data to make a compelling case for the amendment's repeal in order to create a clear road to sensible gun control in the US. Repeal the Second Amendment explores both the true history and current interpretation of the Second Amendment to expose the NRA's blatant historical manipulations and irresponsible fake news releases. Lichtman…


Book cover of Gun Baby Gun: A Bloody Journey into the World of the Gun

Norman Baker Author Of ...And What Do You Do?: What the Royal Family Don't Want You to Know

From my list on how the world works.

Why am I passionate about this?

We all need to understand more about how the world ticks, who is in control, and why they act as they do. And we need to salute those of courage who refuse to go along with the flow in a craven or unthinking way. I was an MP for 18 years and a government minister at the Department for Transport with a portfolio that included rail, bus, active travel, and then at the Home Office as Crime Prevention minister. After leaving Parliament, I became managing director of The Big Lemon, an environmentally friendly bus and coach company in Brighton. I now act as an advisor to the Campaign for Better Transport, am a regular columnist and broadcaster, and undertake consultancy and lecturing work.

Norman's book list on how the world works

Norman Baker Why did Norman love this book?

An astonishing well-researched and detailed analysis of the arms trade and the omnipresence of guns in the world today. Full of startling and worrying statistics, for example, that there are 12 billion bullets produced every year which kill at least 500,000 people. The book reveals how in some places it is easier to get a gun than to get a glass of water. Solo killers, the military, the hunters, the paranoid suburban Americans, they are all here, and it is not a pretty picture.

By Iain Overton,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Gun Baby Gun as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA NON FICTION DAGGER

'A brilliantly researched journey, capturing the gun's strangely accepted place in human life and, far too often, death' JON SNOW

EVERY MINUTE, OF EVERY DAY, SOMEONE SOMEWHERE IS SHOT

There are almost one billion guns across the globe today - more than ever before. There are 12 billion bullets produced every year - almost two bullets for every person on this earth. And as many as 500,000 people are killed by them every year worldwide. The gun's impact is long-reaching and often hidden. And it doesn't just involve the dead, the wounded, the…


Book cover of Lafcadio, The Lion Who Shot Back

Stuart Gibbs Author Of Once Upon a Tim

From my list on so funny they’ll make you laugh out loud.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm the New York Times bestselling author of five middle grade book series: Spy School, FunJungle, Charlie Thorne, Moon Base Alpha, and Once Upon a Tim. Together, my books have sold over six million copies. Although my books are mysteries and adventures at heart, there is a great deal of humor in them, which is probably the secret to their success. I hear from a surprising number of readers (or the parents of my readers) that someone has laughed so hard at my book that they have fallen off a couch. My sense of humor has come from careful reading of the books listed here, over and over again, throughout my life.

Stuart's book list on so funny they’ll make you laugh out loud

Stuart Gibbs Why did Stuart love this book?

While Silverstein is most known for his wonderful compendium of poetry, Where The Sidewalk Ends, this was one of my favorite books as a child (and my sister’s too). Yes, it’s written for kids, but it’s still a great read as an adult, laugh-out-loud funny – and ultimately, very affecting. As you may have deduced from the title, it’s about a lion who figures out how to shoot back to defend himself and his pride against hunters – which then sparks an extremely inventive and surprising journey. Plus, it is deftly illustrated by Silverstein as well.

By Shel Silverstein,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Lafcadio, The Lion Who Shot Back as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Shel Silverstein's first children's book, Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back—a whimsical tale of self-discovery and marshmallows—is turning fifty with a return to the vintage full-color cover.

Is a famous, successful, and admired lion a happy lion? Or is he a lion at all? Written and drawn with wit and gusto, Shel Silverstein's modern fable speaks not only to children but to us all!

First published in 1963, this book had rave reviews from the New York Times, Time magazine, and Publishers Weekly, as well as a starred review from Kirkus. Now celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, Lafcadio is being reissued…


Book cover of The Psychology of Police Deadly Force Encounters: Science, Practice, and Policy

Matthew J. Sharps Author Of Processing Under Pressure: Stress, Memory, and Decision-Making in Law Enforcement

From my list on cognitive science and the criminal justice system.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a professor of cognitive and forensic cognitive science. I have consulted on hundreds of criminal cases, most involving violent crime, and have published a body of research on the cognitive dynamics involved in eyewitness memory, officer-involved shootings, and training for IED detection in counterterrorism environments. The dynamics I've studied in the law-enforcement/forensic realm have proven to be important in the realm of firefighting and other first-response emergency services, as I also discuss in my book Thinking Under Pressure. This is an important field of study across the emergency and first response services, and will probably become more important in the future.

Matthew's book list on cognitive science and the criminal justice system

Matthew J. Sharps Why did Matthew love this book?

This is an excellent work in which Dr. Miller smoothly blends the principles of modern psychology with the street realities of modern law enforcement situations. 

It is an excellent companion to my own work which focuses on cognitive factors in the criminal justice system, and also on my book, which deals with these factors in the realm of fire service and other first responder emergency operations. 

Dr. Miller gives a realistic view of psychology in the dangerous realm of law enforcement.

By Laurence Miller,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Psychology of Police Deadly Force Encounters as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Recent events have highlighted both professional and public interest in the use of force by police, especially those involving officerinvolved shootings. The Psychology of Police Deadly Force Encounters: Science, Practice, Policy is the first book to comprehensively review the scientific literature in neuropsychology, cognition, personality, and criminology as they relate to the mindset of an officer before, during, and after a deadly force incident. Chapter topics also illustrate practical applications of deadly force psychology to agency policy, training curricula, internal and legal investigation of cases, administrative and disciplinary measures, criminal prosecution, civil litigation, legal strategy, clinical services for officers and…


Book cover of Moral Contagion: Black Atlantic Sailors, Citizenship, and Diplomacy in Antebellum America

Kevin Kenny Author Of The Problem of Immigration in a Slaveholding Republic: Policing Mobility in the Nineteenth-Century United States

From my list on US immigration in the nineteenth century.

Why am I passionate about this?

I write and teach about nineteenth-century US history, and I am interested in immigration for both personal and professional reasons. A native of Dublin, Ireland, I did my undergraduate work in Edinburgh, Scotland, completed my graduate degree in New York City, moved to Austin, Texas for my first academic job and to Boston for my second job, and then returned to New City York to take up my current position at NYU, where I teach US immigration history and run Glucksman Ireland House. The key themes in my work—migration, diaspora, and empire—have been as central to my life journey as to my research and teaching. 

Kevin's book list on US immigration in the nineteenth century

Kevin Kenny Why did Kevin love this book?

Moral Contagion tells the shocking story of the Seamen Acts, under which free Black sailors were imprisoned during their stay in southern ports during the antebellum era.

At least 20,000 free Black maritime workers, mostly from Britain and northern US states, were confined—and an unknown number, abandoned by their captains, were sold into slavery. The presence of free Black people in the South—widely feared as a source of “moral contagion”—contradicted the logic of slavery and threatened the very survival of that institution.

Why do I include this book on a list about US immigration history in the nineteenth century? Because, as Michael Schoeppner powerfully demonstrates, that history cannot be understood without considering the laws and policies controlling the movement of Black people in a slaveholding republic.

By Michael A. Schoeppner,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Moral Contagion as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Between 1822 and 1857, eight Southern states barred the ingress of all free black maritime workers. According to lawmakers, they carried a 'moral contagion' of abolitionism and black autonomy that could be transmitted to local slaves. Those seamen who arrived in Southern ports in violation of the laws faced incarceration, corporal punishment, an incipient form of convict leasing, and even punitive enslavement. The sailors, their captains, abolitionists, and British diplomatic agents protested this treatment. They wrote letters, published tracts, cajoled elected officials, pleaded with Southern officials, and litigated in state and federal courts. By deploying a progressive and sweeping notion…


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