The book is an expansion of a 1996 "Journal of American History" article that uses falsified research to argue that guns were uncommon during peacetime in the early United States and that a culture of gun ownership arose only much later.
The book is an expansion of his 1996 "Journal of American History" article. Belleisles, then a scholar at Emory University, was shown to have used falsified research in his book to argue that guns were uncommon during peacetime in the early United States and that a culture of gun ownership did not arise until much later.