Lethal Passage: The Story of a Gun

by Erik Larson Narrated by Richard Poe

Overview

This devastating book illuminates America's gun culture -- its manufacturers, dealers, buffs, and propagandists -- but also offers concrete solutions to our national epidemic of death by firearm. It 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." The result is a book that can -- and should -- save lives, and that has already become an essential text in the gun-control debate.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Wall Street Journal reporter Larson has written a new afterword to this timely study of American gun culture.

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.

Newsday

Should be required reading.

From the Publisher

"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

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171053703
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	06/17/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

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