I am currently studying guns in America. My specific focus is on the shift in the center of gravity of American gun culture from hunting and target shooting (Gun Culture 1.0) to personal protection and concealed carry (Gun Culture 2.0).
My book, Gun Curious: A Liberal Professor’s Surprising Journey Inside America’s Gun Culture, was published by the Exposit Books imprint of McFarland & Co. in June 2024.
Other major publications include:
- “How I Fell for Guns” (Contexts, Summer 2025)
- “Guns in America: A liberal gun-owning sociologist offers 5 observations to understand America’s culture of firearms” (The Conversation, 1 May 2025)
- “Gun Culture 2.0: Evolution and Contours of Defensive Gun Ownership in America,” (The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2023)
- “Understanding and Misunderstanding American Gun Culture and Violence,” (Journal of Lutheran Ethics, 2023)
- “Who Are the Liberal Gun Owners?” (Sociological Inquiry, 2021), with Jesse DeDeyne, and Alonso Octavio Aravena Méndez
- Concealed Carry Revolution: Liberalizing the Right to Bear Arms in America (2021)
- “Targeted Advertising: Documenting the emergence of Gun Culture 2.0 in Guns magazine, 1955–2019,” (Palgrave Communications, 2020), with Paul Yamane, and Sebastian L. Ivory.
- “The Sociology of US Gun Culture” (Sociology Compass, 2017)
I regularly share my thoughts on my Light Over Heat Substack, and on BlueSky and X at @davidyamane. In 2022, I launched a YouTube channel, “Light Over Heat with Professor David Yamane,” on which I post short videos and interviews about issues related to my scholarship.