Lethal Passage : How the Travels of a Single Handgun Expose the Roots of America's Gun Crisis
- Book Review,
by ERIK LARSON
From Publishers Weekly
In this valiant, innovative, effective and timely study, Wall Street Journal reporter Larson considers the case of Nicholas Elliot, 16, who went on a shooting rampage on December 16, 1988, in the Virginia religious high school he attended, leaving one teacher dead. The author concentrates not on the teenager, however, but on the gun he fired, a semiautomatic Cobray M-11/9. Larson uses the pistol to explore the history of America's love for guns and to show how firearms manufacturers, dealers, book and magazine publishers, aided by the "paranoid, Constitution-thumping" National Rifle Association and the media, all bear responsibility for the culture of "non-responsibility" concerning guns. He concludes by proposing a five-part omnibus law, the Life and Liberty Preservation Act, which, he persuasively argues, would close most of the loopholes in current legislation. Author tour. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In this work, Larson interweaves the story of a boy and his gun (a 16-year-old who kills one teacher and wounds another with a member of the infamous MAC-10 family) with a study of the causes and effects of our gun-happy society. He admits that he has no problem with using handguns for sport or even as a last line of self-defense. But he goes on to propose a model bill calling for sweeping changes in laws governing the distribution, sale, and design of firearms. It's a pity that, by producing a reasonably balanced account of an incendiary subject, Larson will probably alienate both the pro- and antigun camps, and his bill, as he acknowledges, "doesn't have a chance in hell of being passed." Highly recommended nonetheless. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/93.- Jim Burns, Ottumwa, Ia.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Larson's text consists of two interwoven strands. One is the story of the day 16-year-old Nicholas Elliot brought his gun to school and murdered a teacher, wounded another, and would have wreaked far more carnage had not his very first ammunition clip (he was carrying hundreds of rounds) jammed. The other relates Larson's discoveries about the gun trade and its regulation as he tracked the course by which the gun, a nasty semiautomatic, came to Elliot. This strand begins and ends in U.S. culture, first exposing historic myths about guns to which most U.S. citizens credulously subscribe (the Old West myth, various self-defense myths, etc.) and then the myths vended by the NRA, the gun-oriented press, and the entertainment media. In between these cultural poles, Larson discusses the near fly-by-night manufacturer of Elliot's weapon; the dealer who sold it to him through the boy's uncle; and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the federal agency charged with monitoring illegal gun transactions. Larson's journey discloses a commercial system shot through with venality, social irresponsibility, and ingrained bad habits of skirting legality--one that badly needs the comprehensive regulation he proposes but, he concedes, "doesn't have a chance in hell of being passed." Why? Because, he ruefully concludes, we still are willing "to stand back and allow the gunslingers of America free play while the rest of us cower under the new tyranny of the gun." The last time Crown put some push behind a Wall Street Journal reporter's effort, the book was Susan Faludi's Backlash (1991). This is at least as important a book. Ray Olson
From Kirkus Reviews
A frightening tour through America's gun culture by way of a single weapon--a semiautomatic hailed by its manufacturer as ``the gun that made the `80s roar,'' and a single criminal--a troubled Virginia teenager who used the gun in a terrifying rampage. In December 1988, hoping to retaliate against a taunting class bully, 16-year-old Nicholas Elliot walked into his Virginia Beach high school and ended up murdering one teacher, grievously wounding another, and was only prevented from wreaking havoc by jammed cartridges. Wall Street Journal reporter Larson (The Naked Consumer, 1992) is after more than just an In Cold Blood-style narrative of a crime and its punishment. He outlines, painstakingly and chillingly, how the Cobray M-11/9, a weapon originally designed for battlefield use, ended up, like so many other guns across the country, falling into the wrong hands. How could the number of handguns grow so exponentially in America, from 16 million in 1960 to almost 67 million in 1989? The popular culture has fanned interest in them, from westerns that created the mystique of the American rifleman to media accounts of shooting sprees and movies and TV episodes that have boosted sales of exotic weapons. But Larson also finds ``a de facto conspiracy of gun dealers, manufacturers, marketers, gun writers, and federal regulators'' that have fed the huge demand. In the course of his research, Larson attended gun shows, visited a self-defense class that teaches women how to shoot, applied for and received a federal gun dealer's license, and interviewed a mail-order merchant of how-to guides to murder and the owner of the gun shop later found guilty of negligence in selling the handgun. He describes how the hard- core leadership of the National Rifle Association continues to hold sway over a more moderate rank and file and explains the workings of the toothless agency designated to enforce the nation's few gun laws, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (e.g., gun purchase records remain in the hands of gun dealers, who can obstruct the work of ATF agents). An urgent and, after the Long Island Railroad massacre, sadly timely wake-up call to stop America's ``new tyranny'' of gun violence. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
"Larson takes us past the absurd myths, past the numbing statistics, and into the face of reality.... Journalism at its highest."
-- Los Angeles Times Book Review
"An artful slice of the story of what may be the greatest shame we as a nation have tried... to hide from ourselves.... Fascinating." -- Chicago Sun-Times
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Review
"Larson takes us past the absurd myths, past the numbing statistics, and into the face of reality.... Journalism at its highest."
-- Los Angeles Times Book Review
"An artful slice of the story of what may be the greatest shame we as a nation have tried... to hide from ourselves.... Fascinating." -- Chicago Sun-Times
From the Trade Paperback edition.
From the Inside Flap
This devastating book begins with an account of a crime that is by now almost commonplace: on December 16, 1988, sixteen-year-old Nicholas Elliot walked into his Virginia high school with a Cobray M-11/9 and several hundred rounds of ammunition tucked in his backpack. By day's end, he had killed one teacher and severely wounded another.
In Lethal Passage Erik Larson shows us how a disturbed teenager was able to buy a weapon advertised as "the gun that made the eighties roar." In so doing, he not only illuminates America's gun culture -- its manufacturers, dealers, buffs, and propagandists -- but also offers concrete solutions to our national epidemic of death by firearm. The result is a book that can -- and should -- save lives, and that has already become an essential text in the gun-control debate.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
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