Roundtable: The Business of 19th Century Firearms

On June 23, 2022, the U. S. Supreme Court released one of its most controversial decisions in recent decades, New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, which established a right to carry firearms outside one’s home for self-defense. For historians of the early republic, Bruen’s appeal to “text, history, and tradition” means the work of rigorous historically grounded study of firearms in North American history has never been more important. The central question posed by this roundtable is how did the differing conceptions of white and free black communities shape how firearms were conceptualized and regulated in the early U. S.? Additionally, how did changing norms of masculinity undergird the production of firearms and gun culture, while also attempting to reform violent culture? In the spirit of the 2024 BHC theme: “Doing Business in the Public Interest,” this roundtable proposal not only addresses a pressing issue of public interest – firearms manufacturing and regulation in the nineteenth century U. S. – but its panelists will help us better understand how the production, marketing, and consumption of these firearms was highly racialized, gendered, and politicized.