Why the Winchester Rifle Heiress Built Herself a Haunted Mansion

Ghosts and Guilt Compelled the Wealthy Widow to Build San Jose’s Winchester Mystery House

Once the United States’ largest private residence and the most expensive to build, today you could almost miss it. The Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California, sits between the eight lanes of the I-280 freeway, a mobile home park, and the remains of a space age Century 23 movie theater. The world has changed around it, but the mansion remains stubbornly and defiantly what it always was.

Each time I visit the Mystery House I try to envision what this space must have looked like to the …

By Pamela Haag | July 5, 2016

How the NRA Made Florida the “Gunshine State”

Decades Before the Orlando Shooting, Lobbyists in the State Helped Redefine Americans’ Constitutional Right to Bear Arms

David Cole | June 16, 2016

Ever since the brutal mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando in the early morning hours on June 12, Florida has become the focus of nationwide concerns about easy …

America Is No Longer Gun-Shy About Gun Control

Even If Congress Hasn’t Really Tightened Federal Firearm Laws, the NRA Has Lost Its Chokehold on the Debate

By Adam Winkler | January 25, 2016

When President Barack Obama announced he would not campaign for or endorse any candidate that doesn’t support stricter gun laws, it was another marker in a sea change in the …

Do You Take Your Coffee With Sugar, Milk, or Guns?

In My Search of the Origins of Our Daily Elixir, I Kept Encountering Armed Men

By Murray Carpenter | January 7, 2016

One morning a few years ago, I met a coffee grower in an upscale apartment complex at the edge of Guatemala City. He drove a Toyota Sequoia customized as a …

Why a 30-Second Gun Fight in 1881 Still Captures Our Imaginations

The O.K. Corral Is a Human-Sized, Emotionally Satisfying Revenge Drama That Affirms Our Thirst for Justice

By Mary Doria Russell | October 13, 2015

On October 26, 1881, nine armed men faced one another in a vacant lot near a livery stable in the silver-mining boomtown of Tombstone, Arizona. Four sworn officers intended to …

How a Single Gunman Interrupted Ottawa’s Peace

Canada Is Small Enough That One Act of Violence Shook the Nation’s Culture of Openness

by Mat Crisp | November 5, 2014

Two weeks ago, I was sitting in a Starbucks not far from work texting my boss back and fourth about the upcoming Christmas season. I work as the Music Director …

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