By Christina Parolin

Radical Spaces explores the rise of popular radicalism in London between 1790 and 1845 through key sites of radical assembly: the prison, the tavern and the radical theatre. Access to spaces in which to meet, agitate and debate provided those excluded from the formal arenas of the political nation–the great majority of the population–a crucial voice in the public sphere. Radical Spaces utilises both textual and visual public records, private correspondence and the secret service reports from the files of the Home Office to shed new light on the rise of plebeian radicalism in the metropolis. It brings the gendered nature of such sites to the fore, finding women where none were thought to gather, and reveals that despite the diversity in these spaces, there existed a dynamic and symbiotic relationship between radical culture and the sites in which it operated. These venues were both shaped by and helped to shape the political identity of a generation of radical men and women who envisioned a new social and political order for Britain.

Canberra: ANU Press, 2010. 352p.

Edited by Miriam Gani and Penelope Mathew

On 20 September 2001, in an address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American people, President George W Bush declared a ‘war on terror’. The concept of the ‘war on terror’ has proven to be both an attractive and a potent rhetorical device. It has been adopted and elaborated upon by political leaders around the world, particularly in the context of military action in Afghanistan and Iraq. But use of the rhetoric has not been confined to the military context. The ‘war on terror’ is a domestic one, also, and the phrase has been used to account for broad criminal legislation, sweeping agency powers and potential human rights abuses throughout much of the world. This collection seeks both to draw on and to engage critically with the metaphor of war in the context of terrorism. It brings together a group of experts from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Germany who write about terrorism from a variety of disciplinary perspectives including international law and international relations, public and constitutional law, criminal law and criminology, legal theory, and psychology and law.

Canberra: ANU Press,  2008. 440p.

By Haaz Rashid

As Muslim women continue to be a focus of media-led debate, Naaz Rashid uses original scholarship and empirical research to examine how Muslim women are represented in policy discourse and how the trope of the Muslim woman is situated within national debates about Britishness, the death of multiculturalism and global concerns over international terrorism. Analysing the relevance of class, citizenship status, and regional differences, Veiled threats is a valuable addition to the burgeoning literature on Muslims in the UK post 9/11. It will be of interest to academics and students in public and social policy, race equality, gender, and faith-based policy.

Bristol, UK: Policy Press, 2016. 224p.

By U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

From the Executive Summary: "Over the past two decades, acts of domestic terrorism have dramatically increased. National security agencies now identify domestic terrorism as the most persistent and lethal terrorist threat to the homeland. This increase in domestic terror attacks has been predominantly perpetrated by white supremacist and anti-government extremist individuals and groups. It is clear that the federal government is not adequately addressing this growing threat, but without better data, it is difficult to evaluate whether federal agencies are appropriately allocating resources and setting priorities. [...] This report is a culmination of three years of investigation by the Majority Committee staff for U.S. Senator Gary Peters, Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) into domestic terrorism and the federal response. This report focuses on the rise in domestic terrorism, the federal response, the allocation of federal resources to addressing domestic terrorism, and the role of social media companies in the proliferation of extremist content."

United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. 2022. 129p.

By United States. Department of Justice. Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

From the Preface: "Nine mayors whose cities have experienced mass shootings in recent years attended the Winter Meeting of The U.S. Conference of Mayors, held in January 2020 in Washington, D.C. Their presence in that meeting offered an opportunity for them, as a group, to share both their experiences and their personal feelings about what was required of them as mayors. Their goal in that session was to alert their audience to the need to prepare for a mass shooting; as many veterans of these tragedies agree, the question must not be if your city will experience a mass shooting, but 'when'. This report captures many of the key points offered that day by those mayors and later by key city staff involved in the response to one of the deadliest mass shooting incidents in our history. It is intended to provide guidance on the preparation that should take place in anticipation of an incident occurring, the critical importance of communication during the response to an incident, and the wide range of tasks that must be anticipated in the incident's wake. Sadly, while it is offered to all mayors in the hope that they will never have to call upon the preparation that is urged, it is likely that in the months and years ahead we all will be reaching out to some who will."

U.S. Conference of Mayors. Washington D.C. January 2020. 20p.

By Institute for Economics & Peace

From the Executive Summary: "This is the third edition of the Ecological Threat Report (ETR), which analyses ecological threats in 228 independent states and territories. Produced by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP), the report covers over 3,638 sub-national administrative districts, or 99.99 per cent of the world's population, assessing threats relating to 'food risk, water risk, rapid population growth and natural disasters'. Many ecological threats exist independently of climate change. However, climate change will have an amplifying effect, causing further ecological degradation. The research takes a multi-faceted, multidimensional approach by analysing risk at the national, administrative district and city level, while also assessing these entities by ecological threats, societal resilience and levels of peace. Additionally, the research provides projections to 2050. To assist the international community in prioritising its focus, IEP has identified the countries, administrative districts and cities most at risk."

Institute for Economics & Peace. 2022. 81p.

By: Goodman, Ryan, Kim, Sang-Min; Steinman, Jon; Ford, William

"For the first time in American history, a sitting president of the United States sought to overturn the results of a presidential election and block the peaceful transfer of power to his rightful successor. Former President Donald Trump waged this campaign for months, spreading baseless claims about widespread election fraud and pursuing an array of schemes at the local, state, and federal levels in an effort to reverse the 2020 electoral outcome. This multifaceted campaign--which culminated in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol--has chipped away at many Americans' faith in our democratic processes, emboldened extremists who threaten violence to secure their political preferences, and left a blueprint for future efforts to subvert elections. This crisis is made worse by shortcomings in an array of federal laws, which leave key government institutions vulnerable, and provide legal loopholes that can be exploited by actors looking to subvert the will of the American people. In June 2021, the House of Representatives created the January 6 Select Committee to investigate the events surrounding the attack on the Capitol including their causes. This Guide presents an overview of the Select Committee's findings to date, revealed to the public in a series of hearings that allege President Trump and his associates engaged in a seven-part conspiracy to hold onto power. This Guide covers the numerous threats to American democracy that have emerged, responsive reforms under consideration by policymakers, and how Americans can learn more about these events and possible paths forward toward a more resilient democracy in the future."

Just Security. September 2022. 43p.

By Laura Sciafe

Terrorism. Why does this word grab our attention so? Propaganda machines have adopted modern technology as a means to always have their content available. Regardless of the hour or time zone, information is being shared by somebody, somewhere. Social media is a game changer influencing the way in which terror groups are changing their tactics and also how their acts of terror are perceived by the members of the public they intend to influence. This book explores how social media adoption by terrorists interacts with privacy law, freedom of expression, data protection and surveillance legislation through an exploration of the fascinating primary resources themselves, covering everything from the Snowden Leaks, the rise of ISIS to Charlie Hebdo. The book also covers lesser worn paths such as the travel guide that proudly boasts that you can get Bounty and Twix bars mid-conflict, and the best local hair salons for jihadi brides. These vignettes, amongst the many others explored in this volume bring to life the legal, policy and ethical debates considered in this volume, representing an important part in the development of understanding terrorist narratives on social media, by framing the legislative debate. This book represents an invaluable guide for lawyers, government bodies, the defence services, academics, students and businesses.

London; New York: Routledge, 2017 216p.

By Suzi Mirgani

This ground-breaking book explores the points of convergence between corporate capitalism and terrorist practice. Assessing the increase in the number of terrorist attacks directed against commercial entities in urban areas, such as the Westgate mall in Nairobi or the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris, Suzi Mirgani offers a fascinating and disturbing perspective on the spaces where supposedly oppositional ends of the spectrum meet on common ground. How is it that these urban commercial spaces provide ground zero for a conference between the most powerful forces of contemporary culture: the most mainstream and the most extreme?

Bielefeld, Germany: transcript Verlag. 2016. 199p.

By Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) and Everytown for Gun Safety

In August 2020, loosely organized militias began to patrol Kenosha, Wisconsin, openly carrying guns in direct response to the demonstrations for racial equity in the city after the police shooting of Jacob Blake. One of those who answered a militia’s call-to-arms was Kyle Rittenhouse, a then 17-year-old from Illinois who wandered in Kenosha armed with an AR-15-style rifle. He patrolled the streets openly brandishing his long gun and, within hours of his arrival, had shot three people among the demonstrators, killing two. The violence in Kenosha may have been even worse had the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) not arrested two heavily armed individuals who had driven from Missouri to Kenosha — after the highly publicized shootings — allegedly “with the intention of possibly using the firearms on people.” The two men had attended a Trump rally in Kenosha and planned to continue on to Portland, Oregon. Both were members of the Missouri-based 417 Second Amendment Militia, and one reportedly said he was willing to “take action” if police were defunded. The fatal shootings in Kenosha came at the tail-end of a summer spike in demonstrations nationwide following multiple police shootings and the murder of George Floyd. While the rate of demonstrations per week in the United States has decreased since then, the country continues to witness demonstrations and to grapple with sometimes violent confrontations between counter-demonstrators. In the past year and a half, the sight of demonstrators and counter-demonstrators armed with firearms has

• More.....

  become more common, and the risk of violent escalation has remained high. This collaboration between the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) and Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund (Everytown) presents quantitative research on demonstrations in the United States during the 18-month period from January 2020 through June 2021, documenting 560 events where demonstrators, counter-demonstrators, or other individuals or groups were present and carried or brandished firearms (see inset definition).

New York: Everytown for Gun Safety and Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), 2021. 17p.

By Aidan Johnston

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is maintaining a digital, searchable, centralized registry of guns and gun owners in violation of various federal prohibitions, as revealed by an ATF response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Gun Owners of America (GOA). In November of 2021, an internal ATF memo leaked by Gun Owners of America revealed that ATF had processed and digitized over 50,000,000 “out of business” records of gun dealers in FY 2021. This report was picked up by major pundits and news outlets including Fox News’ Tucker Carlson and the Blaze. This revelation prompted Representative Michael Cloud and 51 other members of the U.S. House of Representatives to send a letter to ATF asking more questions and demanding accountability.5 In response to that letter, ATF revealed to Congress that it currently maintains a database of 920,664,765 such records, of which 865,787,086 are in a digitized format as of November 2021.6 Unsurprisingly, ATF denied that this vast database constitutes a gun registry, which is explicitly prohibited by federal law....

Springfield, VA: Gun Owners of America, 2022. 32p.

By Megan. E. Collins; Susa T. Parker; Thomas L. Scott; Charles F. Wellford

Information is limited on how firearms move from legal possession to illegal possession and use in criminal activities, largely because of data collection capacity and a lack of recent, exhaustive recovery data across jurisdictions. This article includes both an analysis of firearms trace data and prisoner interviews across multiple jurisdictions: New Orleans, Louisiana, Prince George’s County, Maryland, and Chicago, Illinois. Findings indicate that recoveries and trace successes vary across jurisdictions and by type of crime. Jurisdiction regulations were associated with the proportion of guns purchased in state and time to recovery but not with purchaser characteristics. Interviews from imprisoned offenders in two jurisdictions revealed the most common method of obtaining a crime gun was to steal it or buy it off the street.

New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2017. 32p.

By Samantha Bricknell

In 2018 there were 847 reported incidents of firearm theft in which 2,425 firearms were stolen. This represents a 15 percent increase in incidents and a 35 percent increase in stolen firearms since 2008–09. Most thefts targeted residential premises with an average of three firearms stolen in each incident. The largest proportion of thefts occurred in regional parts of Australia, indicating a shift from major cities as the primary site of theft incidents. The majority of stolen firearms were in firearm safes at the time of the theft.

Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2020. 29p.

By Roderic Broadhurst, Jack Foye, Chuxuan Jiang and Matthew Ball

This study provides a snapshot of the availability of weapons across eight omnibus or ‘High Street’ and 12 specialist darknet or illicit cryptomarkets between July and December 2019. Overall, 2,124 weapons were identified, of which 11 percent were found on niche markets. On all markets, weapons for sale included 1,497 handguns, 218 rifles, 41 submachine guns and 34 shotguns. Also available were ammunition (n=79), explosives (n=37) and accessories such as silencers (n=24). Omnibus markets also sold other weapons (n=70) such as tasers, pepper spray and knives, and digital products (n=112), mostly DIY weapon manuals, as well as chemical, biological, nuclear and radiological weapons (n=12). The data allowed for estimates of the cost of weapons and some description of the 215 vendors identified, 18 (8.4%) of whom were active across more than one market.

Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2021. 20p.

By John Rorabacher

The Founding Fathers of the U.S., with good reason, were fearful of governments that did not submit to or grant individual human, natural rights. One of these was the right of self-defense. For these men, an armed society was a hedge against tyranny. The Second Amendment through debate and mis-transcription assumed a somewhat different character than that envisioned by the Founding Fathers. As a consequence, this amendment remained the focus of repeated contention until 2008, when the Supreme Court, for the first time, defined the individual rights of each citizen to defend him or herself. Nevertheless, today, the use of firearms in America, when viewed superficially, gives one the impression of a nation bent on destroying itself through unbridled homicide and suicide. This is borne out by the sheer number of deaths attributed to guns annually in America. However, sheer numbers can be deceiving and cannot be used for comparative purposes. In this paper, we examine the history of guns in the U.S., searching for the causation of gun-related homicide. We also examine Pieter Spierenburg's thesis that democracy came too early to America.

Barrie, ONT: Dark Horse Press, 2014. 134p.

By David E. Olson, Don Stemen, Kaitlyn Foust, Cynthia Guzman, Lisa Jacobs, Sophia Juarez, Holly Michalak, Avery Pankratz, and Amanda Ward

Loyola University Chicago’s Center for Criminal Justice Research, Policy and Practice, through the support of the Joyce Foundation, completed the most comprehensive, detailed analysis of the sentencing of those convicted of firearm possession offenses in Illinois to date. These offenses do not involve the use of a firearm in the commission of a violent crime or the unlawful discharge of a firearm. Rather, these convictions are for the possession of a firearm by individuals not legally authorized to possess or carry a firearm because of their age, having a prior felony conviction, or not applying for and receiving a license to carry a concealed handgun. Depending on the factor(s) that make the possession of a firearm illegal, the legal classifications and possible sentences range from Class 4 felonies (the least serious felony) to Class X felonies (the most serious felonies other than first degree murder), and carry sentences ranging from probation for up to 30 months to 30 years in prison. Out of all the arrests and convictions in Illinois for firearm-related offenses over the past decade, 72% have been for firearm possession offenses while 28% have been for the use of a firearm in the commission of a violent crime or illegal discharge of a firearm. Despite the concern over firearm violence, and increasingly punitive laws surrounding illegal firearm possession offenses implemented over the past 15 years, the lack of objective, detailed research limits the ability of practitioners and policy makers to assess the efficacy and impact of these approaches.

Chicago: Loyola University Chicago, Center for Criminal Justice Research, Policy and Practice, 2021. 33p.

By Peter Andrew Gregory

This dissertation analyzes the relationships between four state gun laws—universal background checks, waiting periods, may-issue permitting, and violent misdemeanor prohibitions—and firearm homicide and suicide rates among Blacks and Whites in the United States. Using eighteen years of publicly available data, the study examined relationships employing a generalized difference-in-difference linear regression model with fixed effects for states and years. The results indicate that state gun laws in the United States frequently affect mortality rates among Blacks and Whites in different ways. Waiting periods, for example, are associated with large reductions in firearm homicide rates among Blacks but not Whites; may-issue permitting is associated with moderate reductions in firearm homicide rates among Whites but not among Blacks. The study also identifies several statistically significant interactive effects between gun laws and factors such as poverty, police presence, and the density of federally licensed firearm dealers. The dissertation concludes by discussing the value of these findings for informing both public policy and scholarly research in policy analysis and public administration. Most importantly, I argue that policymakers and gun violence researchers must increase their efforts to frame and analyze gun violence in the United States through the lens of social equity.

Blacksburg, VA: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2022, 164p.

By Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

According to the most recently available data, the retail gun dealers responsible for selling the majority of crime guns are a fraction of the total gun industry: about 90% of guns recovered by law enforcement are traced back to just five percent of licensed firearms dealers. Gun tracing enables law enforcement to identify the gun dealers with poor business practices responsible for diverting guns from the regulated market to the criminal market. However, the federal government's oversight of these dealers is limited. From October 2016 to October 2017, federal agents inspected only 11,000 of the more than 130,000 federal firearms licensees ("FFLs") in the United States — and cited over half the inspected FFLs for violations — yet revoked the licenses of less than one percent of them. The key takeaway: The federal government does not adequately ensure that the country's hundreds of thousands of FFLs sell guns lawfully and appropriately. Significant progress against gun trafficking and gun crime will be made only if local and state officials take action. Brady is proud to release "Combating Crime Guns: A Supply-Side Approach," a report that is intended to help state and local elected officials better understand:

• The issue of crime guns;

• The supply-side approach to gun violence prevention; and

• The various ways a supply-side approach may be implemented at the local level of government.

Washington DC: Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, 2021. 25p.

By Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

America’s deadliest shootings are those we rarely discuss: Over half of all gun deaths are suicides. On average, 64 people die of gun suicide each day in America — more than firearm murders and unintentional shootings combined. Firearms are by far the most lethal method of suicide. Amid the backdrop of COVID-19 and record-breaking gun sales, unsecured firearms in gun-owning households risk an increase in suicide. This report analyzes the relationship between firearms and suicide to provide tangible solutions for policymakers, community organizers, and more to prevent gun suicide and save lives by focusing on:

• Communities uniquely impacted by firearm suicide, including youth and teens, men, Alaskan Native, American Indian, and Black youth, military-connected and LGBTQ+ communities, and more

• Policy solutions, including extreme risk laws, waiting periods, and child access prevention laws

• Public health solutions, including lethal means safety and awareness of safe storage options, like: trigger locks, lock boxes, gun vaults, safes, off-site storage, and “asking to save lives"

Washington, DC: Brady United Against Gun Violence, 2021.

By The Giffords Law Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center

“Stand your ground” laws do not deter crime—in fact, they drive up homicides in states where they are enacted. Since 2005, a majority of states have enacted laws that make it easier to get away with murder. These laws distort the usual standard for self-defense by allowing people to use lethal force even if they could have avoided violence by stepping away from a confrontation. Research has shown that these laws lead to more killing and exacerbate systemic racism. Giffords Law Center and the SPLC Action Fund jointly released a new report, “Stand Your Ground” Kills: How These NRA-Backed Laws Promote Racist Violence, analyzing the failure of Stand Your Ground policies.Stand Your Ground does not offer the promised reductions in crime that the NRA and other proponents promised it would; in fact, Stand Your Ground laws have been proven to increase homicide rates and have been called a “low-cost license to kill” by the American Bar Association.

Giffords Law Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center, 2022. 22p.