AN AMERICAN EPIDEMIC: The Invention of the Way of Killing The groundbreaking investigative book explaining why America leads the world in gun violence — and how we can still stop it.
Why does the United States suffer gun violence deaths at a rate found only in the world's poorest, most unstable nations? An American Epidemic is the urgent, meticulously researched answer — a sweeping work of investigative journalism and narrative nonfiction that traces America's gun violence crisis back to its true origins: not mystery, not fate, but a "way of killing" that was invented, marketed, and defended, one legal decision and one marketing campaign at a time.
From a trauma bay in Washington, D.C., to a shooting range in North Carolina, from the segregated streets of Chicago's South Side to a plantation house in Alabama, and back to a 17th-century English courtroom that still shapes Second Amendment law today, this book connects the dots that most gun control books and gun rights books miss. It is not a partisan argument. It is a factual reckoning — grounded in public health research, legal history, and firsthand interviews with gunshot survivors, trauma surgeons, and law enforcement — that reframes America's gun violence epidemic as a solvable public health crisis, not an unsolvable cultural inevitability.
Inside, you'll discover:
How a 1686 English court case still influences modern Second Amendment interpretation and concealed carry laws
The real history of slave patrols, Black Codes, and armed white vigilantism — and their direct link to today's gun culture
How the NRA and the firearms industry manufactured demand for the AR-15 and rewrote constitutional law in a single generation
Why European police call American police training and gun laws "baffling" — and what other wealthy nations did differently after their own mass shootings
The public health interventions already proven to reduce gun violence in American cities right now
One gunshot survivor's raw, unforgettable account of what resilience actually costs
Perfect for readers who loved: Evicted, The New Jim Crow, Just Mercy, Say Nothing, Bowling for Columbine, or anyone searching for the best gun violence books, best true crime and social justice nonfiction, American history books 2026, best investigative journalism books, or books about American gun culture and mass shootings in America.
Timely, provocative, and deeply human, An American Epidemic arrives at a moment when gun violence prevention, Second Amendment rights, school shootings, community violence intervention, and criminal justice reform dominate the national conversation. This is essential reading for anyone trying to understand the gun control debate, American exceptionalism, public health policy, racial justice history, and the politics of the NRA and gun lobby — not through talking points, but through rigorous, sourced, character-driven storytelling.
Whether you're a policy wonk, a true crime and social issues reader, a book club searching for your next nonfiction pick, a student of American history, or simply someone who has watched the news after another mass shooting and asked "why does this keep happening in America" — this book gives you the answer no cable news segment ever will.
An American Epidemic doesn't just diagnose America's gun violence crisis. It shows, with historical precision and moral clarity, the path we've refused to take to end it.
Read it. Talk about it. Then ask your book club, your city council, and your representatives the question this book makes impossible to avoid: if other countries solved this, why haven't we?
