On the day I meet Steve Pierce, his forehead is raw and glistening from just having been blasted by liquid nitrogen, treatment for the skin cancer which seems to ail virtually every old sun-blasted rancher like him. “Feels like just about the world’s worst ice cream headache,” he complains.

Exclusive: An excerpt from Guy Lawson's new book, Arms and the Dudes: How Three Stoners from Miami Beach Became the Most Unlikely Gunrunners in History. In the summer of 2006, the war in Afghanistan was going badly. The Bush Administration's surge of troops to Iraq had left few resources t...

Three years ago I walked out of my house and put a .32 pistol to my head.” Jared Allen, a property manager from Idaho, chokes up as he tells this story, a tear running down his weathered face. Jared didn’t kill himself that day. He fell to the ground and begged the Lord for help, and soon, his...