A lifelong liberal from the San Francisco Bay Area, David Yamane became a new gun owner as a 42-year-old and embarked on an immersive twelve-year study of American gun culture. Weaving together his personal experiences and sociological observations to explain why guns make sense to those who own them, he illuminates defensive gun ownership, the risk of negative outcomes associated with firearms, and what responsible gun ownership looks like in the twenty-first century. This book lowers the heat on America's inflamed arguments about firearms and models the civil discussions we desperately need.