In 1996 Emory University's Michael A. Bellesiles, published an article in the Journal of American History: "The Origins of Gun Culture in the United States, 1760-1865." His provocative argument was that there were nowhere near as many guns in early America as people had previously assumed and that American gun culture was born in the lead up to the Civil War. To prove his thesis, Bellesiles pointed to low counts of guns in probate records, gun censuses, militia muster records, and homicide accounts. While his article caused some debate, it received wide praise and eventfully served as the basis for Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture (2000) publish with Knopf.

Upon publication Arming America received rave reviews from some of the academy's most respected figures and the only early negative reviews were from conservative or libertarian voices. Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture would go on to win the Bancroft Prize, the highest honor for historians of American history. But criticism continued to mount, and more and more scholars began to investigate the claims being made by Bellesiles and the numbers he offered. As criticism increased and charges of scholarly misconduct were made, Emory University conducted an internal inquiry into Bellesiles's integrity, appointing an independent investigative committee composed of three leading academic historians from outside Emory. The investigation agreed with his critics that Arming America had serious problems within its thesis, and called into question both its quality and veracity.

In 2002, the trustees of Columbia University rescinded Arming America's Bancroft Prize. Alfred A. Knopf did not renew Bellesiles' contract, and the National Endowment for the Humanities withdrew its name from a fellowship that the Newberry Library had granted Bellesiles. Bellesiles issued a statement on October 25, 2002, announcing the resignation of his professorship at Emory by year's end.

In 2003, Bellesiles released the second edition of Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture with Soft Skull Press and a response booklet to his critics, Weighed in an Even Balance. James Lindgren recounted much of the Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture saga and the criticisms against it in his article "Fall From Grace."
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Joyce Lee Malcolm is the Patrick Henry Professor of Constitutional Law and the Second Amendment Joyce Lee Malcolm is a historian and constitutional scholar active in the area of constitutional history, focusing on the development of individual rights in Great Britain and America. She is the author of eight books, most recently The Tragedy of Benedict Arnold: An American Life. Professor Malcolm has written many books and articles on gun control, the Second Amendment, and individual rights. Her work, To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right, was cited several times in the recent U.S. Supreme Court opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller. She was also one of the first critics of Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture.