David Yamane, who was born and raised in Half Moon Bay and is now a professor of sociology at Wake Forest University, will speak about his new book “Gun Curious” at Blue Ocean Brewery this weekend.
The book tells the story of how Yamane became a gun owner later in life after moving to North Carolina and the lessons he learned along the way.
Yamane says there are a lot of legitimate and harmless reasons why people want to own guns. Gun ownership could have many different motives, even including historical collections.
“Here on the Coastside, I can imagine there are people who own them for home defense,” said Yamane. “There are also people who are hunters or people who like to shoot recreationally, especially if you have land.”
Although he left the coastside in 1991, Yamane still has family here and stays in regular contact with the friends who grew up with him. By having feet in two different worlds, Yamane is able to observe that while North Carolina gun culture is free and open, it’s harder to see what the gun culture is like on the coast unless you’re a part of it.
The year 2020 saw big growth in gun ownership after the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, the protests folloiwng the murder of George Floyd and then the presidential election in November. Yamane said while there were a lot of new owners, many of them never had an opportunity to learn how to shoot or learn firearm safety.
“I think in a place like the Bay Area, there’s no incentive for people to want to allow there to be gun ranges,” said Yamane. “Those people tend to be more anti-gun so they create ordinances that make it hard for anybody to open a gun range.”
Through becoming a gun owner, Yamane has been able to get into contact with people who are different from him. He considers himself a liberal professor and said it has opened his eyes to get out of echo chambers. Even with recent events with gun violence, Yamane’s book features lessons that come with gun ownership.
“When I think about this attempted assassination, it wasn’t as much about guns as it was about the political division that we have in the country right now,” said Yamane. “From both sides, we hear a lot of extremely heated rhetoric about the other side.”
Yamane believes that there’s been times in the past when the country felt like it was falling apart – much like today.
“I remain cautiously optimistic about how things will go forward,” said Yamane. “Maybe the positive outcome of this assassination attempt is it’ll get people to step back and say ‘I think we’ve taken things too far here.’”
Yamane will be at Blue Ocean Brewing on Sunday, July 21, to talk about “Gun Curious.”
