ABSTRACT
In this chapter, as a means to assess the ongoing, complex, and intertwined histories of communication and security, I examine securitizing speech acts concerning weapons. I argue that speech acts that grant, restrict, and prohibit the possession of weapons enact a type of transformative access that alters reality for particular populations by determining who may legally and knowledgeably possess guns, and thereby creates both security and insecurity, or in/security, for particular populations. A historical series of reinterpretations of the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment by the U.S. Supreme Court and state gun-control laws exemplify how granting legal access to guns has helped to create in/security, for instance for the political struggles of African Americans and the contemporary culture of mass shootings.
