Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture is a controversial 2000 book by Michael A. Bellesiles on American gun culture. The book is an expansion of a 1996 Journal of American History article by Bellesiles, and argues that guns were uncommon during peacetime in early America, and that a culture of gun ownership arose only much later. It initially won the prestigious Bancroft Prize, but later became the first book in that prize's history to have its award rescinded. The revocation occurred after Columbia University's Board of Trustees decided that Bellesiles had "violated basic norms of scholarship and the high standards expected of Bancroft Prize winners."
Read more about Arming America: The Origins Of A National Gun Culture: Thesis, Scrutiny, Emory Investigation and Resignation, Aftermath of The Scandal
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“Our culture, therefore, must not omit the arming of the man. Let him hear in season, that he is born into the state of war, and that the commonwealth and his own well-being require that he should not go dancing in the weeds of peace, but warned, self- collected, and neither defying nor dreading the thunder, let him take both reputation and life in his hand, and, with perfect urbanity, dare the gibbet and the mob by the absolute truth of his speech, and the rectitude of his behaviour.”
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“Any honest examination of the national life proves how far we are from the standard of human freedom with which we began. The recovery of this standard demands of everyone who loves this country a hard look at himself, for the greatest achievments must begin somewhere, and they always begin with the person. If we are not capable of this examination, we may yet become one of the most distinguished and monumental failures in the history of nations.”
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