Under Fire: The Nra and the Battle for Gun Control

Neither an expose nor a polemic, this book bogs down in description while stinting on hard analysis. Davidson ( Broken Heartland: The Rise of America's Rural Ghetto ) intersperses several set pieces--on the 1988 schoolyard massacre in Stockton, Calif., the 1986 congressional debate over the McClure-Volkmer Bill and the workings of a Washington, D.C., emergency room--with a fair-minded history of the National Rifle Association. Davidson looks critically at some of the NRA's broad-brush critics, suggesting that neither side gives ``any credence to the claims of the other.'' He observes that the NRA is ``neither the Evil Empire its foes claim nor the superpatriotic defender of the most cherished American values it claims to be.'' But only in the epilogue does he address important policy questions (such as the role of handguns in self-defense) and sociological analysis (such as of the urban-rural cultural roots of the gun control debate). His conclusion that the epidemic of gun violence must be addressed demands a more rigorous foundation. (Apr.)