Armed America: Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes

by Kyle Cassidy

Overview

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 as 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 photographs as many gun owners as I could and ask them one question: "Why do you own a gun.""

Cassidy traveled over 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781440223990
Publisher:	F+W Media
Publication date:	06/12/2007
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Kyle Cassidy is a photographer and author whose photos have appeared in the 'New York Times' and the 'Philadelphia Inquirer,' among others. Primarily known for his fashion and portrait photography, he became interested in photographing gun owners during the 2004 Presidential election

Editorial Reviews

Cassidy asked each subject the same question: "Why do you own a gun?" Their answers are next to their pictures, without comment. The result is highly political, even polemical. The question is, in which direction? Each picture in Armed America could be a pro-gun advertisement—or an anti-gun poster. That's what makes the book so riveting.
—The Washington Post

Alan Cooperman

A dinner-party conversation after the election of 2004 got photojournalist Cassidy wondering about gun owners in America. He found himself curious to learn more about them, to seek some greater understanding of gun ownership by hearing from the owners themselves. This curiosity eventually resulted in this compelling collection of photographs of American gun owners. Cassidy photographed people in their homes and asked them one question: "Why do you own a gun?" The responses are as varied as the people depicted in these pages. The color photographs are stirring, beautifully composed, and humane. Though the subject is gun ownership, Cassidy never fixates on the guns. Instead, they appear as one aspect of his subjects' lives. The handful of photos that seem staged to show off the gun rather than the individual are the least effective in the book. Photography at its best gives us a window through which to see the world differently, and these photos live up to that high ideal by allowing the viewer to move beyond preconceptions about who owns guns and why. Highly recommended.
—Rachel Bridgewater

Library Journal