The only comprehensive discussion of the American concealed weapon carry movement that has appeared in print, Professor Patrick traces the emergence and diffusion of this powerful and successful citizens" movement. Patrick shows how a new American gun culture consisting largely of political amateurs emerged from the older, traditional and largely apolitical "hobby" gun culture, and has in turn mobilized, created its own media systems (anti-media) and, by means of what he calls horizontal interpretive communities, overcome deeply entrenched, top-down professional opposition from elites. This new gun culture has successfully countered well-organized vertical propaganda campaigns delivered by the mass media to establish a new political information system in which Second Amendment rights have been unambiguously recognized as a fundamental individual right. This new informational sociology has empowered citizens in the most important informational battle of modern times -namely the right...