The Violence Inside Us: A Brief History of an Ongoing American Tragedy

Poverty, racial animosity, and, above all, guns are to blame for America’s “morbid circus of human carnage,” argues this wonky but fervent debut. Murphy, a U.S. senator from Connecticut, attributes America’s history of bloodshed to strife between ethnic and immigrant groups, the legacy of slavery, economic desperation in inner cities, and sky-high gun ownership rates that push murder rates far above those in other developed nations. He also indicts U.S. interventionism, including drone strikes and support for Saudi Arabia’s bombing of Yemen, for spreading violence overseas. The book is partly a brief for gun control measures, including universal background checks and a ban on assault rifles; in support of these policy proposals, Murphy features studies tying homicide rates to changes in firearms laws, as well as emotional scenes in which he comforts parents of children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre and by shootings in inner-city Hartford. Some of his arguments are slightly misleading, as when he writes that a Justice Department report found that “poor white Americans are actually more likely to be involved in violent crime... than poor African-Americans”; the report concludes that poor whites are likelier to be victimized by crime, not “involved in” it. Still, Murphy makes a solid case for common-sense gun regulation. Agent: Jennifer Joel, ICM Partners. (Jan.)