As the 2004 Presidential Election was beginning to take shape, Kyle Cassidy took note of the important role the simple concept of gun ownership was playing. Hardly anyone he knew didn't have an opinion in the debate over owning guns. Why was a constitutionally protected right so heavily debated, and who exactly are these folks that own guns? "I began to wonder who these seventy or so million Americans were, how they lived and what was important to them. I set out to photograph as many gun owners as I could and ask them one question: "Why do you own a gun."" Cassidy traveled some 20,000 miles, crisscrossing the country to meet with gun owners in their homes. Cassidy's photo essays create a powerful, thought provoking and sometimes startling view of gun ownership in the U.S. These "everyman" portraits, and the accompanying views of gun owners, fashion a riveting and provocative hardcover book. "I made two decisions early on," Cassidy says in his Introduction to the book. "First that I would photograph anyone who was willing, owned a gun, and whom I could physically get to.
Secondly, I decided I wouldn't treat these subjects any differently than I would if I were photographing "Lottery Winners" or "Cancer Survivors" - I didn't want to rely on the crutch of controversy to prop my images up. I wanted a good portrait first." "As far as I could tell, there were no politically neutral books about gun owners - they all seemed to be propaganda, one way or the other. My job wasn't to make gun owners look good, or to spin something one way or another it was to take a series of interesting portraits".
- ISBN10 0896895432
- ISBN13 9780896895430
- Publish Date 26 June 2007 (first published 1 January 2007)
- Publish Status Out of Stock
- Out of Print 22 December 2010
- Publish Country US
- Publisher F&W Publications Inc
- Imprint Gun Digest (Imprint of KP Books)
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 208
- Language English