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Re: Arming America



Charlie Mutschler wrote:

Have any of the archivists out there in the ether been keeping up with
the developing discussion over the Michael Bellesiles book, *Arming
America,* and the way archives and archivists have been involved in
scholarship and the criticism of scholarship

Well, Peter beat me to the reply button, but perhaps I can make up it in the
quality of my response.

As Peter noted, he and I have been discussing this book between ourselves
for over a year.

I read the book and was impressed enough by it to review it for the East
Texas Historical Journal.  My last sentence read "Readers wanting to know
the history of guns in the United States cannot ignore this work-neither can
they fully rely upon it."

Oddly enough, Bellesiles is catching the most flack for the use (or,
perhaps, pretended use) of probate (or estate) records and yet his purported
findings pretty much coincide with what I've observed from nearly 30 years
worth of reading Texas probate records.  As I said in my review "[I have]
noted that Texas estate records rarely include guns even when other sources
show that the deceased died armed to the teeth."

Considering Bellesiles' political agenda I am not surprised that *Arming
America* has undergone the most intense scrutiny of any revisionist history
since *Time on the Cross.*  What does surprise me, however, is that
courthouses across the country have not been stampeded by historians and
graduate students wanting to test out his findings in their own communities.


Paul R. Scott
Records Management Officer
Harris County, TX

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