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Legal and public policies concerning youth gun violence tend to rely heavily on crime reports, survey data, and statistical methods. Rarely is attention given to the young voices belonging to those who carry high-powered semiautomatic handguns. In Language of the Gun, Bernard E. Harcourt recounts in-depth interviews with youths detained at an all-malecorrectional facility, exploring how they talk about guns and what meanings they ascribe to them in a broader attempt to understand some of the assumptions implicit in current handgun policies. In the process, Harcourt redraws the relationships among empirical research, law, and public policy.Home to over 150 repeat offenders ranging in age from twelve to seventeen, the Catalina Mountain School is made up of a particular stratum of boys—those who have committed the most offenses but will still be released upon reaching adulthood. In an effort to understand the symbolic and emotional language of guns and gun carrying, Harcourt interviewed dozens of these incarcerated Catalina boys. What do these youths see in guns? What draws them to handguns? Why do some of them carry and others not? For Harcourt, their often surprising answers unveil many of the presuppositions that influence our laws and policies.
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language of the gun language of the gun youth, crime, and public policy bernard e. harcourt The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London Bernard E. Harcourt is professor of law at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Illusion of Order: The False Promise of Broken Windows Policing, and the editor of and a contributor to Guns, Crime, and Punishment in America. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2006 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2006 Printed in the United States of America 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 1 2 3 4 5 isbn: 0-226-31608-4 (cloth) isbn: 0-226-31609-2 (paper) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Harcourt, Bernard E., 1963– Language of the gun : youth, crime, and public policy / Bernard E. Harcourt. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-226-31608-4 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn 0-226-31609-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Juvenile delinquents—Arizona—Tucson—Attitudes. 2. Firearms—Social aspects. 3. Youth and violence. 4. Firearms and crime. 5. Firearms ownership—United States. 6. Gun control— United States. 7. Catalina Mountain School. 8. Social sciences— Philosophy. I. Title. hv9105.a68h37 2006 303.6′0835—dc22 2005016383 ⬁ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1992. For Mia Ruyter and our children, Isadora and Léonard contents Preface ix part one. a semiotic of the gun 1 1 Catalina Mountain School, Tucson, Arizona 3 2 A Road Map of the Catalina Interviews 13 3 Symbolic Dimensions and Primary Meanings 31 4 Three Clusters of Primary Meanings 57 5 Placing the Clusters in Practice Contexts 73 6 The Sensual, Moral, and Political Dimensions of Guns 94 part two. exploring methodological sensibilities 105 7 Sartre and the Phenomenological Gaze 111 8 Lévi-Strauss and the Structural Map 125 9 Bourdieu and Practice Theory 145 10 Butler and the Performative 157 11 Embracing the Paradigm of Dirty Hands 167 part three. mapping law and public policy 175 12 A Genealogy of the Youth Gun Field 179 13 The Landscape of Law and Public Policy 193 14 Leaps of Faith in Levitt and Bourgois 219 15 Making Ethical Choices in L