The American Way of Killing: What Malcolm Gladwell Misses

The Book Brief Project · Oct 22, 2026 · 14m · transcript

What if America's homicide rate reveals as much about its ability to save lives as its failure to prevent violence?

In The American Way of Killing, Malcolm Gladwell examines the laws, institutions, historical assumptions and political choices that have made lethal violence an enduring feature of American life. But some of the book's most revealing evidence points toward a conclusion its author never fully confronts.

Gladwell moves from Chicago's emergency rooms to the history of the Second Amendment, from debates over assault weapons to the streets of nineteenth-century Dodge City. Along the…