Harel Shapira is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. In Basic Pistol, as well as his previous book, Waiting for José: The Minutemen's Pursuit of America, he uses long term ethnographic research to understand right wing politics and gun culture in contemporary America. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation as well as the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and his writing has been featured in The New York Times and The New Republic. In 2015 he was named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, and in 2021 a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study.