Language of the Gun

by Harcourt, Bernard E.

• ISBN13: 9780226316093
• ISBN10: 0226316092
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-02-15
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

Legal and public policies concerning youth gun violence tend to rely heavily on crime reports, survey data, and statistical methods. Rarely is attention given to the young voices belonging to those who carry high-powered semiautomatic handguns. In Language of the Gun, Bernard E. Harcourt recounts in-depth interviews with youths detained at an all-malecorrectional facility, exploring how they talk about guns and what meanings they ascribe to them in a broader attempt to understand some of the assumptions implicit in current handgun policies. In the process, Harcourt redraws the relationships among empirical research, law, and public policy. Home to over 150 repeat offenders ranging in age from twelve to seventeen, the Catalina Mountain School is made up of a particular stratum of boysthose who have committed the most offenses but will still be released upon reaching adulthood. In an effort to understand the symbolic and emotional language of guns and gun carrying, Harcourt interviewed dozens of these incarcerated Catalina boys. What do these youths see in guns? What draws them to handguns? Why do some of them carry and others not? For Harcourt, their often surprising answers unveil many of the presuppositions that influence our laws and policies.

Author Biography

Bernard E. Harcourt is professor of law at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Illusion of Order: The False Promise of Broken Windows Policing (2001) and the editor of and a contributor to Guns, Crime, and Punishment in America (2003).

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
PART ONE. A SEMIOTIC OF THE GUN	1	(104)
1 Catalina Mountain School, Tucson, Arizona	3	(10)
2 A Road Map of the Catalina Interviews	13	(18)
3 Symbolic Dimensions and Primary Meanings	31	(26)
4 Three Clusters of Primary Meanings	57	(16)
5 Placing the Clusters in Practice Contexts	73	(21)
6 The Sensual, Moral, and Political Dimensions of Guns	94	(11)
PART TWO. EXPLORING METHODOLOGICAL SENSIBILITIES	105	(70)
7 Sartre and the Phenomenological Gaze	111	(14)
8 Levi-Strauss and the Structural Map	125	(20)
9 Bourdieu and Practice Theory	145	(12)
10 Butler and the Performative	157	(10)
11 Embracing the Paradigm of Dirty Hands	167	(8)
PART THREE. MAPPING LAW AND PUBLIC POLICY	175	(62)
12 A Genealogy of the Youth Gun Field	179	(14)
13 The Landscape of Law and Public Policy	193	(26)
14 Leaps of Faith in Levitt and Bourgois	219	(11)
15 Making Ethical Choices in Law and Public Policy	230	(7)
Acknowledgments	237	(2)
Appendix: Treatment of Juvenile Records in State Sentencing	239	(8)
Notes	247	(10)
References	257	(14)
Index	271