Blown Away: American Women and Guns

Front Cover
Gallery Books, Apr 20, 2004 - Social Science - 336 pages
A controversy that has divided America for decades.

A decision more women must confront every day.

In the long-standing and heated debate between gun-control advocates and supporters of the Second Amendment, the perspective of women has often been overlooked in what most perceive to be the "masculine" world of firearms. This is the subject journalist Caitlin Kelly was motivated to explore after she was threatened by a stalker and contemplated acquiring a gun for her own protection.

Through interviews and firsthand accounts, Kelly probes the many issues affecting women who own guns and influence gun policies, to those whose lives are most affected by gun violence, and our society's conflicted views on women who acquire guns for sport and self-defense. Voices include activists and legislators such as Representative Carolyn McCarthy, whose husband and son were the victims of a shooting rampage; Patty Varone, who served Rudy Giuliani as a bodyguard for nine years; Mary Leigh Blek, founder of the Million Mom March; and Paxton Quigley, a modern-day Annie Oakley who teaches women how to shoot in the name of empowerment -- as well as insights on guns and violence from such high-profile women as Halle Berry, Madonna, and the late Katharine Graham.

Brutally frank in its description, yet balanced in its analysis, Blown Away is an up-close and unflinching look at guns in America -- and the women who live with them.

From inside the book

Contents

Introduction
1
A Moving Target
17
Annie Get Your Gun
47
Copyright

13 other sections not shown

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About the author (2004)

Caitlin Kelly is a National Magazine Award-winning freelance writer and winner of five journalism fellowships. A former journalism professor at New York University and Concordia University, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Town & Country, Glamour, and others.

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