Location: USA

Of all the firearms in the world owned by private citizens for non-military purposes, half are in the United States of America. In number they exceed the country’s population: 393 million for 328 million people. This is no coincidence, nor a matter of market alone: it is rather a matter of tradition and Constitutional guarantee. It is the history of the Second Amendment, ratified in 1791 to reassure the inhabitants of the newly independent territories that their Federal Government could not, one day, abuse its authority over them. Two hundred and fifty years later, the Second Amendment is still entrenched in all aspects of American life and this book frames its current status through what are seen as four fundamental American values: Family, Freedom, Passion, Style.

Photographer Gabriele Galimberti has travelled to every corner of the United States, from New York City to Honolulu, to meet proud gun-owners, and to see their firearms collections. He has photographed people and guns in their homes and neighbourhoods, including locations where no one would expect to find such collections. These, often unsettling, portraits, along with the accompanying stories of the owners and their firearms which are based on interviews, provide an uncommon and unexpected insight into what today is really represented by the institution of the Second Amendment.

ABOUT GABRIELE GALIMBERTI

Gabriele Galimberti, born in 1977, is an Italian photographer who frequently lives on airplanes, and occasionally in Val di Chiana (Tuscany), where he was born and raised. He has spent the last few years working on long-term documentary photography projects around the world, some of which have become books, such as Toy Stories, In Her Kitchen, My Couch Is Your Couch and The Heavens.

Gabriele’s job consists mainly of telling the stories, through portraits and short stories, of people around the world, recounting their peculiarities and differences, the things they are proud of and the belongings with which they surround themselves; social media, in all its forms, is a fundamental part of the research needed to get in touch, discover and produce those stories. Gabriele committed to documentary photography after starting out as a commercial photographer, and after joining the artistic collective Riverboom, best known for its work entitled Switzerland Versus The World, successfully exhibited in festivals, magazines and art shows around the world.

Gabriele is currently traveling around the globe, working on both solo and shared projects, as well as on assignments for international magazines and newspapers such as National Geographic, The Sunday Times, Stern, Geo, Le Monde, La Repubblica and Marie Claire.

His pictures have been exhibited in shows worldwide, such as the well known Festival Images in Vevey, Switzerland, Le Rencontres de la Photographie (Arles) and the renowned V&A museum in London.