cover image The Citizen's Guide to Gun Control

The Citizen's Guide to Gun Control

Franklin E. Zimring. MacMillan Publishing Company, $19.95 (210pp) ISBN 978-0-02-934830-7

This book by two criminologists is based on the misguided assumption that the material on police blotters is less the stuff of newspaper headlines and more that of scholarship, and that such an inconclusive study as this will interest general readers. The authors repeat virtually every cliche about gun control, starting with the information that Americans own more guns than residents of any other industrialized nation and ending with the warning that ""reducing gun violence will be a difficult, complex, and expensive task.'' Along the way, they offer such observations as: ``New firearms are normally sold by manufacturers and importers to wholesalers, who sell to dealers, who in turn sell to consumers.'' There are, incidentally, no recommendations on solving the problem of firearm violence. (July 27)