The Oh, Hello and welcome to Behind the News. My name is Doug Henwood. Just one

interview today with the estimable Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz whose book

loaded a disarming history of the Amendment, was published earlier this year by

City Lights books.

We'll discuss guns, white nationalism, and other engaging and related topics during our

47 minute conversation. Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz was born in Texas and grew up in Oklahoma.

She's lived in San Francisco more or less continuously since the early 1960s.

Roxanne was very active in the movements of the 60s about which she's written extensively

including some in this book loaded. Her work consists mainly of memoirs and

histories. Her previous work in indigenous peoples history of the United States

was published by Beacon in 2014.

Her memoirs include Outlaw Woman, published by City Lights in 2002, and Red Dirt, growing up

Oaky, first published by Verso in 1997.

She's a professor of America of ethnic studies at Cal State Hayward.

Loaded is a short book, but an extremely useful one for anyone trying to understand the American obsession with guns.

Like most things, history can do a lot of the work of explanation.

Guns were central to stealing Indian lands and enforcing slavery, not just by the army, but also by private citizens.

These concerns live on both an imagination and in modified form in practice today.

Here's Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz.

You open the book with an anecdote from your own past when you were involved with this radical group in New Orleans in the 70s and you guys were getting harassed by the cops and the clan and you decided to arm up and you

described briefly having a like a two-year love affair with guns. What was it

about guns that you found so almost erotically charged.

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