years responded to flat sales by producing increasingly deadly guns. But the gun culture—centered on a device that enables lethal violence — is not part of the right’s "culture of death." He has also pointed to the way the NRA and gun industry use violent movies and images of death to promote firearms, claiming that the NRA's National Firearms Museum exhibits weapons used in notorious on-screen murders. He claims the NRA promoted concealed carry laws to help sell additional smaller firearms to people. He has been the backing behind the campaign to ban rifles chambered in .50 BMG. Diaz is known for his public policy stances that eschew the incremental political approach taken by others in the gun control community, such as Americans for Gun Safety and the American Hunters and Shooters Association. For example, Diaz openly stated that the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban would not have any impact on violent crime statistics and that it only affected cosmetic features on semi-automatic firearms. Works Making a Killing: The Business of Guns in America (1999) Lighting Out of Lebanon: Hezbollah Terrorists on American Soil (2006) No Boundaries: Transnational Latino Gangs and American Law Enforcement (2011). About the rise of American street gangs, notably MS-13 and the 18th Street gang The Last Gun: How Changes in the Gun Industry Are Killing Americans and What It Will Take to Stop It (2013) References External links Gunning for a New Life A Biographical Article on Tom Diaz Appearances on C-SPAN Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American gun control activists University of Florida alumni Georgetown University Law Center alumni American lawyers Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs