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Journalist Gladwell (Revenge of the Tipping Point, 2024) wanted to understand why the U.S. has more gun violence than any other country in the developed world. His eye-opening elucidation begins with an ER physician in Chicago who has lost 18 friends and his older brother to the gun epidemic. When the doctor asks a group of fourth-graders how many have lost loved ones to shootings, every child raises a hand. In his signature measured and clarifying style, Gladwell then draws on his research to disassemble key misunderstandings about and attitudes toward guns and bloodshed. He illuminates the context within which the Second Amendment was written and the ongoing debate over its intention, sharpens the blurred line between crime and violence, and parses assault-weapon bans in light of the fact that nearly 78 percent of mass shootings involve handguns. He presents staggering statistics regarding gun injuries and ponders the counterintuitive impact of improved medical treatment for such wounds and misapprehension regarding effective policing. At every turn in this arresting, informative, and invaluable inquiry, Gladwell reveals hidden realities and contrasts honest versus dishonest discourse.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A characteristically wide-ranging exploration of why the U.S. is such a deadly place. Gladwell, the well-published author of books about how the world works (e.g.,The Tipping Point, 2000), observes that people all over the world become enraged at their neighbors, have bad days, and so forth, but only in the U.S. do they resort so readily to “expressive” gun violence. That violence is made possible because it is altogether too easy to acquire guns—and that means guns of any sort, since, as he tabulates, 78% of mass shootings over the past half-century have been committed with handguns. Gladwell begins with what he characterizes as the bad-faith, “fundamentally dishonest” way that Americans talk about gun violence (“guns don’t kill people, people do”) and the Second Amendment. He rewrites the amendment’s text thus: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of slave-owners, the right of citizens of states like Virginia and South Carolina to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Gladwell goes on to discuss the differences between other developed nations and the U.S. “In 1975, when I was twelve years old, there were 701 recorded murders in all of Canada,” he writes of the country where he grew up. “In that same year, just in New York City, there were 1,645 homicides.” One researcher sagely remarks, “America is an early modern country in the guise of a rich country.” The U.S. spends five times as much on prisons as it does on policing, exactly the opposite of Europe. America’s prisons are thus overstuffed, mostly with people of color, while its police “are completely overwhelmed.” Fix that ratio, and begin talking honestly about guns—revisit the history of supposed Wild West towns, like Dodge City, where you “got out of Dodge” if you refused to stow your gun. All these things, Gladwell argues, are just a start. A lucid argument for rethinking our approach to firearms. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.