Thanks for all your great questions! I'll be checking in occasionally to answer any more that may arise. Author Ann Larabee will be answering questions about her book on Saturday, February 27, from 3-7pm. Below is a description of the book. Here is a link to an [excerpt from the book on Salon.] (http://www.salon.com/2015/08/02/how_to_build_a_nuclear_bomb_weve_demonized_books_but_are_we_any_safer/) And here is a panel of scholars (including Ann Larabee) talking about the history of terrorism.
Gun ownership rights are treated as sacred in America, but what happens when dissenters moved beyond firearm possession into the realm of high explosives? How should the state react? Ann Larabee's The Wrong Hands, a remarkable history of do-it-yourself weapons manuals from the late nineteenth century to the recent Boston Marathon bombing, traces how efforts to ferret out radicals willing to employ ever-more violent methods fueled the growth of the American security state. But over time, the government's increasingly forceful targeting of violent books and ideas-not the weapons themselves-threatened to undermine another core American right: free expression.
In the 1886 Haymarket Square bombing, a new form of revolutionary violence that had already made its mark in Europe arrived in the United States. At the subsequent trial, the judge allowed into evidence Johann Most's infamous The Science of Revolutionary Warfare, which allegedly served as a cookbook for the accused. Most's work was the first of a long line of explosive manuals relied on by radicals. By the 1960s, small publishers were drawing from publicly available US military sources to produce works that catered to a growing popular interest in DIY weapons making. The most famous was The Anarchist Cookbook (1971), which soon achieved legendary status-and a lasting presence in the courts. Even novels, such as William Pierce's The Turner Diaries, have served as evidence in prosecutions of right-wing radicals. More recently, websites explaining how to make all manner of weapons, including suicide vests, have proliferated.
The state's right to police such information has always hinged on whether the disseminators have legitimate First Amendment rights. Larabee ends with an analysis of the 1979 publication of instructions for making a nuclear weapon, which raises the ultimate question: should a society committed to free speech allow a manual for constructing such a weapon to disseminate freely? Both authoritative and eye-opening, The Wrong Hands will reshape our understanding of the history of radical violence and state repression in America.
Will/should courts view source code/blueprint for 3D printing a weapon differently than a DIY manual?
Forgive my ignorance of subreddit practices -- is this post intended as a place to post questions, or just an announcement of the AMA, and such a thread will appear later? Thanks.
This sounds interesting! I have a few.
Of the popular weapons manuals you've studied, which have been the most threatening - or potentially threatening - to human lives?
Many of these manuals have ideological content in addition to direct instructions related to weaponry. Johann Most's tract, if I'm remembering correctly, included arguments for his own particular brand of anarchism. The Turner Diaries is also notorious for it's hard-right, white supremacist politics. Were the average readers of popular weapons manuals interested in this political content, or did they just want the guns and bombs?
This is related to the last question - do we have a picture of what the average reader of this literature is like in modern times? Are they likely to be white and male, for example?
What's the story behind the Haymarket bombing? Why was it so, er, explosive?
When one thinks of mass bombings in the U.S., we tend to think of Oklahoma City and Haymarket, but the Bath school disaster was the largest mass murder at a school in US history. Did the perpetrator of that incident draw inspiration from any particular tract or set of writings, or do we know where he got his ideas from?
Is there evidence that any such manuals have actually been the direct technical source of violence and mayhem? I say "technical" to contrast it with "ideological" (i.e. McVeigh might have been politically inspired to violence by The Turner Diaries but did it actually give him technical information he didn't already know?).
When you say Anarchist's Cookbook became "legendary," do you mean in radical subcultures or with the general U.S. population? How did the media report on it? For that matter, how did the U.S. media handle the publication of nuclear bomb instructions?
Hi Ann, thanks for being here today.
I am not American and your subject matter is pretty much entirely new to me. What would you consider the basic "need to know" of your field that might help a newcomer begin their investigation?
How did government censorship play into the publication of these manuals?
Considering your work seems to mostly focus on terrorism, if the quote "a terrorist doesn't change the world, it is the reaction of the victims". What has been the most influential act of terrorism in the last 200 years or so?
What is your opinion on nuclear non-proliferation treaties? Is it an effective way a curbing the threat of nuclear terror?
How have these things been treated similarly to, or differently from, government attempts to crack down on martial arts practice?
This is a very broad question, but in your view is "freedom of expression" any different from "freedom to transmit information?"
I guess what I am asking is whether the intent of the disseminator matters at all? For instance, a weapon-making fanatic may take joy in publicly posting (or printing) their manual on the Internet, which is sort of a form of public expression.
However, is this any different from disseminating bomb-making information through private channels in a deliberate effort to avoid detection by the authorities? Is this still free expression?
Lastly, does "Freedom of Expression" also guarantee a right to privacy? For instance, would it rationale or fair to have an agreement like: "Citizens are free to disseminate bomb-making information, but they (and anyone who receives that information) should expect to be monitored by the FBI?" Or is this a slippery slope?
Thanks for the insightful, provocative, important text, Dr. Larabee! Is In the Wrong Hands available in an e-text/iBook/Kindle edition?
Is your book less about deriving a conclusion and more about simply laying out the history of events?
If you do come to a conclusion, was it that it was the government's failure to control the spread of these manuals that led to the deaths caused, for instance, by the boston bomber?
Do you mention cryptography? How things like the WW2 enigma cipher were argued to be military secrets/weapons, and how the government tried to exert control over crpytography/encryption?
Is it an american's first amendment right to watch a youtube video showing him exactly how to create a bomb to kill hundreds of people with commonly available things?
I mean, you can't practice medicine in the US without a license, but here's how your violent, paranoid neighbor can best use dupont products to explode things.