This book was excellent. It is well paced, well researched, and gives a good picture into his character without it being "about" him. Chris Murphy has a great writing voice and analyzes the issue of violence and inequality as well as the lessons he has learned in his career. ( )

Is America destined to always be a violent nation? This sweeping history by U.S. senator Chris Murphy explores the origins of our violent impulses, the roots of our obsession with firearms, and the mythologies that prevent us from confronting our national crisis.

In many ways, the United States sets the pace for other nations to follow. Yet on the most important human concern--the need to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe from physical harm--America isn't a leader. We are disturbingly laggard. To confront this problem, we must first understand it. In this carefully researched and deeply emotional book, Senator Chris Murphy dissects our country's violence-filled history and the role that our unique obsession with firearms plays in this national epidemic.

Murphy tells the story of his profound personal transformation in the wake of the mass murder at Newtown, and his subsequent immersion in the complicated web of influences that drive American violence. Murphy comes to the conclusion that while America's relationship to violence is indeed unique, America is not inescapably violent. Even as he details the reasons we've tolerated so much bloodshed for so long, he explains that we have the power to change. Murphy takes on the familiar arguments, obliterates the stale talking points, and charts the way to a fresh, less polarized conversation about violence and the weapons that enable it--a conversation we urgently need in order to transform the national dialogue and save lives. ( )

Summary: A Connecticut Senator describes his own awakening to the scourge of gun violence after Newtown, and explores the causes and remedies for this uniquely American problem.

December 14, 2012 changed the course of newly minted Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy’s life. He was with his family about to catch the train to New York City when his aide called with the news of the terrible shooting at Sandy Hook. He made it to the scene waiting with the parents not reunited with their children. Their tragedy, and all the funerals, changed Murphy’s life, and gave him the greater purpose he had lacked, despite all his political success.

Another tragedy, one of which he learned later, but which had occurred two months earlier, while he was running for office, in nearby north Hartford, revealed the other side of gun violence. Young Shane Oliver, son of Pastor Sam Saylor. Shane was a promising young man, making a living repairing and flipping cars until a sale went bad and ended with Shane bleeding out in the street in his mother Janet’s arms. Sam became bitter. He’d buried other young men, but this was different. Janet went to a dark place. The couple came to Chris’s attention when Janet fought with a family member of the shooter during his arraignment.

And so began a journey of learning why so many mostly young men were dying on our nation’s streets, and what was behind mass shootings. It was a journey that took him into the roots of violence within us, into the biology of human violence, from brain structures to opposable thumbs, and why some particularly have a propensity for violence.

While violence is a human condition, the incidence of gun violence in the U.S. sets us apart from the world. Murphy looked both at mass shootings that continued to capture the headlines and empty nostrums of “thoughts and prayers” and the violence we ignore–the violence in our cities. He brings to light the more hidden violence of suicide, in which attempts end with death at far greater frequencies than by any other means. Sadly, the life that many guns are most likely to take are the lives of their owners, especially men in rural areas and others who are isolated.

He uncovers the fatal alignment of the arms industry and the National Rifle Association. He describes the resistance to common sense measures like universal background checks, extended to gun shows, that would make guns available to legitimate gun enthusiasts and others who have a legitimate need for them, while keeping it out of the hands of many who would do harm to self or others. He also tells the story of growing groups of mothers, of youth, and even some gun shops whose sales were used to terrible ends. He shows the interesting connection between reducing gun violence and criminal justice reform and other systemic interventions including President Bush’s PEPFAR program in Africa that not only reduced AIDS mortality rates, but also gun violence,

He ends with an account of his filibuster effort, a rarely used and seldom effective measure, to bring a background check bill to a vote. His effort failed, but he left his hearers and the readers of a story of someone at Sandy Hook who found something different than violence within–something he believes we all need to find to reduce this terrible scourge.

Murphy offers a moving narrative. Although he upholds the right to own guns, I don’t think he will convince the hard core that he isn’t after their guns. I don’t think all the stories, statistics, reasons and proposals will do that. The question is whether it will encourage hope and action with many who have stayed out of the fray. Will it persuade those in the middle, who are tired of the polarities that a both/and solution is possible–one that keeps guns out of the hands of many who would use them for lethal purposes while allowing law abiding citizens to own them. I also wonder if Murphy and his like will have the staying power of a Wilberforce to pursue this effort even if it takes a life time. I think that is what it will take.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. The opinions I have expressed are my own. ( )

In 1764, my sixth great-grandparents were murdered and scalped by Simon Girty and a group of Native Americans whose reign of terror was waged to scare settlers out of the Shenandoah Valley. The Rev. John Rhodes, a Swiss Brethren and a pacifist, was an early settler in the valley.

Unable to defend themselves, the community built underground cellars, but eventually they were converted by a visiting Baptist. One advantage of this change in faith was that they were allowed guns for self-protection.

Our immigrant ancestors employed guns for hunting game and to defend themselves against the people whose lands they stole. Guns were safeguards in far-flung lawless frontiers and they were needed by state militias before a centralized government created the first American army.

American has long embraced gun ownership. In The Violence Inside Us, Senator Chris Murphy notes that the Pilgrims required every man to have a gun.

Murphy's life was changed with the shooting of school children in Newtown. As a newly elected senator, he saw the pain close up. Gun violence became his bailiwick.

Our son was in junior high at the time of the Columbine shooting. A student at his school talked about bringing a gun to school. Our son insisted he stay home the next day. The threat was investigated and the student punished. But our son never again felt safe at school.

Years later, and many school shootings later, we still can't guarantee our children that they will be safe in their classrooms.

This passionate and well-thought out book addresses the central questions behind violence. Is it human nature to be violent? Why is America the most violent nation in the industrialized world? What can we do to alter the violence? Why are our political leaders loathe to pass legislation that protects innocent victims of gun violence? He looks beyond our borders to how America has taken violence abroad through war and weapons sales.

Carefully building an understanding of the use and misuse of guns as rooted in human nature and American society, Murphy argues for reasonable legislation, on which the majority of Americans agrees, and explains the forces that prevent that legislation from passing.

Murphy's personal transformation makes a connection and the stories he shares grabs you by the heart.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review. ( )