1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910478854603321

Autore

Joyce Justin A.

Titolo

Gunslinging justice : The American culture of gun violence in Westerns and the law / / Justin A. Joyce

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Baltimore, Maryland : , : Project Muse, , 2020

Baltimore, Md. : , : Project MUSE, , 2020

©2020

ISBN

1-5261-4798-X

1-5261-3874-3

1-5261-2617-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (v, 183 pages)

Collana

Manchester scholarship online

Disciplina

791.436278

Soggetti

Self-defense (Law) - United States

Firearms - Law and legislation - United States

Gun control - United States

Firearms in popular culture - United States

Firearms in motion pictures

Western television programs - United States - History and criticism

Western films - History and criticism

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Previously issued in print: 2018.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (pages [227]-241) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction : the warp, woof, and weave of American gun violence -- 'A kind of wild justice' : revenge and constitutional commentary in the Western -- No retreat : American self-defense doctrine -- American gun rights : from national defense to self-defense -- The guns that 'won the Western' : firearm iconography in Western iconography in Western literature and film -- Guns and governmentality : normative masculinity and disciplined gun violence -- 'Deserve's got [everything] to do with it' : property, process, and justice in Unforgiven -- Old dogs and new tricks : race and justifiable homicide in neoliberalism's Western imagination.

Sommario/riassunto

This book is a cultural history of the interplay between the Western



genre and American gun rights and legal paradigms. From muskets in the hands of landed gentry opposing tyrannical government to hidden pistols kept to ward off potential attackers, the historical development of entwined legal and cultural discourses has sanctified the use of gun violence by private citizens and specified the conditions under which such violence may be legally justified. Gunslinging justice explores how the Western genre has imagined new justifications for gun violence which American law seems ever-eager to adopt.