What We've Become - Living and Dying in a Country of Arms

Jonathan M. Metzl has long been the forefront of a movement advocating for American gun reform as a matter of public health but in 2018 a racially charged mass shooting in Nashville led him on a path towards recognising the limitations of biomedical frameworks for fully diagnosing or treating the complexities of American gun politics. In What We've Become, Metzl looks at the cycle in which mass shootings lead to shock, horror, calls for action, and, ultimately, political gridlock, he explores what happens when violence is normalised as an acceptable trade-off for freedom. What We've Become points to mass shootings as a symptom of America's unresolved national conflicts, and sets out a path of alliance forging, racial reckoning and political power brokering that America must take to put things right.

About the author

Jonathan M. Metzl is the Frederick B. Rentschler II professor of sociology and psychiatry and the director of the Department of Medicine, Health, and Society at Vanderbilt University. The award-winning author of Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America’s Heartland and other books, he hails from Kansas City, Missouri, and lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Product details

• Authors: Jonathan M Metzl, Jonathan M. Metzl
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 18.11.2025
• EAN: 9781324117667
• ISBN: 978-1-324-11766-7
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories; Human Rights, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy / Social Policy, Society & culture: general, Human rights & civil liberties law, LAW / Civil Rights, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Civil Rights, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Violence in Society, Violence in society, Society and culture: general, Civil rights & citizenship, Human rights, civil rights, Central / national / federal government policies, Law: Human rights and civil liberties, Violence and abuse in society, Central government policies