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ED: If you’re just tuning in, this is BackStory, and we’re talking today about the history of gun ownership in the United States.

BRIAN: When it comes to citizens who own guns, the United States is the most well-armed nation on our planet. But over the past 50 years, the percentage of armed households has been steadily going down. Today, the majority of guns are owned by people with more than one of them. Meaning, that where there’s one gun, there’s likely to be more.

ED: And as you can imagine, nowhere is that truer than at gun shows. Tables and tables full of all kinds of weapons, from the Civil War relics to brand new semi-automatics. In our home state of Virginia, you can find one taking place, pretty much, every weekend. And so last weekend we sent our 20th Century Guy, Brian here, to check out a big show taking place in Richmond. Brian, let’s hear your report.

BRIAN: OK, Ed. When I walked in I was just overwhelmed by the number of firearms. Basically, every kind of gun that a person could carry. But you know me. No sooner did I start talking to people, then I started asking them about the past, and I found the perfect codependent there, in my interest in the past.

His name was Terry Ellis. He grew up on a farm where he hunted quail. And wouldn’t you know it, Ed, he was standing in front of a table loaded, if you will, with firearms from the 19th century. May I ask you what brought you to the Richmond Gun Show, today?

TERRY ELLIS: Well, I have are interested in the old double barrels. The craftsmen that were making guns in the late 1800s and early 1900s. And they’re hard to find anywhere else, in any quantities. You see, this guy’s got probably 40.

BRIAN: And how many of these gun shows have you been to over the years?

TERRY ELLIS: Hundreds.

BRIAN: Hundreds?

TERRY ELLIS: Hundreds.

BRIAN: When is the first gun show that you went to?

TERRY ELLIS: Probably I was 20.

BRIAN: Really?

TERRY ELLIS: And I’m in my 60s.

BRIAN: You’re in your 60s. You don’t look a day over 55. So how have things changed?

TERRY ELLIS: Primarily, there are a lot more military-style weapons. More weapons for home defense. Much more so in the last 10 or 15 years. But the increase has also increased the number of people who attend.

BRIAN: Right. So this is more crowded than 20 years ago?

TERRY ELLIS: Oh, yes.

BRIAN: And about that kind of people, I mean, some people have said there are more women then there used to be.

TERRY ELLIS: More women and more younger people.

BRIAN: More younger people.

TERRY ELLIS: And more people, really, into these military-style assault weapons. It’s taken over a large percentage of the tables at a gun show.

BRIAN: Does that make you less eager to go?

TERRY ELLIS: I am not into assault weapons or pistols. I own a couple of pistols. And I can understand if there’s a market. If the public wants that, that’s what they’re going to provide them with. And that’s the young people who want those things. The young adults, in the 20s and teens, are into the assault weapons.

BRIAN: That’s Terry Ellis, from Southampton County, Virginia. hosts, it seems like when I went to that gun show back in November, I stumbled upon what, right now, is the core of the debate over gun control. And I’d just be curious to hear your thoughts about this.

ED: You know, it’s striking, this great arming of the household, of the home, is happening against a background of a historic decline in violent crime.

PETER: Isn’t that interesting?

ED: If this were a phenomenon of the 1960s and ’70s, when violent crime seem to be rampant, there would be a more immediate explanation for this. As it is, we may be living through one of the safest periods in American history now.

PETER: That’s true. But, Brian, the first thing your interlocutor said, he mentioned home defense, that that was the big thing. And it seems to me that word home is crucial here. The word home, of course, is invoked by nationalists all the time, to refer to us inclusively.

But there’s a tension between that home, the National home, Homeland Security, and the homes that are private homes, or domestic spaces that we need to protect. So it’s within the very idea of home, itself, and what needs to be defended. What’s the ultimate value for us? Is it the nation? Or is our little nation in our own home?

BRIAN: But I think on a larger, cultural level, between homeland and home is neighborhood. And what I got at this show was the overwhelming sense of the idealized neighborhood, great homogeneity, great consensus on basic, moral, religious, and political values.

And that sense, perhaps false, of comfort that you get from the neighborhood reassures each of these gun holders that what they’re doing is first of all safe. And secondly, to make them feel that they are part of the solution, not part of the problem. It’s this kind of well-armed neighborhood that is going to save this country.

PETER: I love that idea of the neighborhood, Brian. And it suggests the historical appeal of the idea of the Minutemen, the militia, because that’s the embodied, armed neighborhood. You’re not, then, the lone wolf out there facing a danger from all sides. It’s you and your neighbors united in your commitment to defending you’re families.

BRIAN: That’s where we’re going to have to leave things today. But we’re eager to hear your thoughts at backstoryradio.org. Don’t be a stranger.

ED: Today’s episode of BackStory was produced by Nell Boeshenstein, Jess Engebretson, Chioke I’Anson, Eric Mennel, Allison Quantz.

PETER: Jamal Milner is our Technical Director. Allen Chen is our intern. Our Senior Producer is Tony Field. BackStory’s executive producer is Andrew Wyndham.

[MUSIC – GUSTER, “BARREL OF A GUN”]

BRIAN: Major support for BackStory is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, the University of Virginia, Weinstein Properties, an anonymous donor, and the History Channel. History made every day.

FEMALE VOICE: Peter Onuf and Brian Balogh are Professors in the University of Virginia’s Corcoran Department of History. Ed Ayers is President and Professor of History at the University of Richmond. BackStory was created by Andrew Windham for the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.