Red Flags Fly With the Announcement of Malcolm Gladwell’s Upcoming Book on ‘Gun Violence’

There are some red flag warnings [with the announcement of Malcolm Gladwell’s upcoming book] — we are talking about discussions of American gun violence, after all. I certainly can’t criticize a book I haven’t read, but here the framing of the book raises a couple of questions for me.

First, the epidemic/endemic distinction.

I don’t particularly like the rhetoric of “epidemic” that Pushkin Industries’ PR uses to promote the book. If they mean it’s “bad” or “too much,” fine. I agree. But suggesting it is “epidemic” unnecessarily inflames the issue, fostering misunderstanding and division.

I’m not an epidemiologist, but a basic understanding of diseases suggests that epidemics are about dramatic change in, and especially acceleration of, a problem. Think COVID-19 or a measles outbreak. This certainly does not apply to gun violence in the United States generally, particularly since 2021, when the overall rate of non-fatal shootings and gun deaths has been decreasing.

Rather than “epidemic,” I’ve argued that gun violence in America is better understood as “endemic.” It is consistently present but concentrated in particular regions, demographic groups, and behaviors. It’s a health disparity, not a spreading contagion.

As I wrote in “Understanding and Misunderstanding American Gun Culture and Violence,”

Rather than using the emotionally charged language of “epidemic,” it is more accurate and helpful to view gun violence in America as “endemic.” This means the problem “is consistently present but limited to a particular region.” If we add limited to particular demographic groups and behaviors to this definition, we can begin to understand how gun violence – like the violence that “has been ubiquitous in human history” – is socially organized and unequally distributed. It is a health disparity.

This isn’t just semantic. The framing shapes what interventions seem appropriate and how we understand the problem’s nature. Andrew Papachristos has documented the social networks of high-risk individuals where gun violence concentrates. Criminologists study “micro-geographic places”: particular street segments in particular neighborhoods, often called “hot spots.” Even suicide affects certain demographic groups dramatically more than others. According to the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, white men over 70 years of age have dramatically higher suicide rates.

I’m curious whether Gladwell will engage with this endemic nature of gun violence in his analysis, the marketing language notwithstanding.

 

— David Yamane in The Elephant in Gladwell’s Room