Dan Baum is the author of Gun Guys which documents how he – a Jewish liberal Democrat – strapped on a Colt Detective Special .38 revolver, left his comfortable home and family in Boulder, Colorado, and undertook a walkabout to meet his fellow gun lovers. His goal: to confront his inner conflict over his love of guns. The book is a thoughtfully composed and revealing look at the reality of gun culture America, and an intimate look at the men – from Jewish submachine gun collector to Hollywood armorer to hog hunter – who love their firearms. We recently sat down at Random House’s offices in Manhattan to talk about the issues raised by this, his fourth book. – Diane Mehta

THE BELIEVER: You say that carrying a firearm gives you a sense of guardianship and moral superiority. Why?

DAN BAUM: You have the secret. You’re wearing this gun and you’re hyper aware of the gun, of how dangerous it is, and you’ve got your head on a swivel all the time because it keeps you in this “condition yellow” I talk about in the book. You walk along the street among the unarmed and you feel like their protector. Because if an Adam Lanza were to show up, you’d be the guy.

BLVR: How does that feel?

DB: It takes you pretty quickly to devaluing the role of government. For a leftie, that’s kind of uncomfortable. We believe in nice, big, vigorous government that’s going to take care of us and protect us—then you realize no, if something were to happen, the police wouldn’t be there. That’s one of the reasons why I wrote the book. To figure out: Why is a fondness for guns the same chromosome as conservative politics?

BLVR: You took some gunfight training. Did it dislodge your belief that you’d be quick enough to handle a real emergency?

DB: When I heard about the Aurora movie-theatre shooting, my first thought was I wish I had been there with my gun. The New York Times editorial page sneered at the idea that an armed citizen would have been any good there—they said thank God there wasn’t an armed citizen; then there would have been two people shooting in the theater. Gun guys would say, “Yeah, you want two people shooting in the theater. What’s worse than one guy with a gun bent on mass murder?”

BLVR: In Gun Guys, you talk about “offensive vigilance.” Is it good for tens of thousands of people to feel amped up? What are the consequences for our collective mental state?

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