The Way of the Gun

In this gripping tour de force of investigative reporting, an award-winning journalist travels through America and beyond to understand the brutal reality—and consequences—of a world in which twelve billion bullets are produced every year for almost a billion guns.

According to the United States Bureau of Justice, more than 4.5 million Americans became victims of gun crime between 2004 and 2013. With the highest global rate of gun ownership and gun imports and exports—not to mention the controversial Second Amendment—America is justifiably the focus of a growing gun debate. But the five hundred thousand people around the world killed by guns every year suggest that it is far from the only nation in the cultural, political, economic, and lethal grip of the gun. Over a hundred countries have their own firearm industries, and twenty nations recently saw children carrying guns into conflicts.

The Way of the Gun is a shocking, eye-opening exposé of the global gun ecosystem and its long-reaching impact. Traveling to America, the Middle East, South America, Africa, and Asia, veteran journalist Iain Overton meets murderers and law enforcement marksmen, gun fetishists and weapons smugglers, gun manufacturers and grieving relatives of victims. He unearths the sobering scale of the international gun economy, explaining the relationships between its legal and illegal players, and powerfully portrays its effects on health care, religion, law enforcement, politics, and, most of all, individuals.

Driven by firsthand research and objective reporting, The Way of the Gun is not a polemic. Overton, who works for the international nonprofit Action on Armed Violence but also hunts and once ran a gun club, eschews heated rhetoric for a compelling factual narrative that puts America’s unique relationship with guns into an international context—providing a sobering perspective on the arguments dividing our nation and, increasingly, the world.

Shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association Dagger Award for Nonfiction

Praise For The Way Of The Gun

“Every page is packed with emotional power and startling statistics. . . . A passionate mix of rhetoric and travelogue, Overton’s book takes the gun debate into impressive new territory.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Adventurous, ambitiously tracing the often devastating impact of guns around the world. . . . Punctuated with thoughtful discussions on issues from the Second Amendment to the US Constitution to women’s attitudes toward guns . . . contains moments of great poignancy.”—Financial Times

“Riveting . . . poignant. . . . This book is more than just facts, it’s insight and revelation on a very human level.”—Independent

“Shocking. . . . Overton has supped full of horrors and is not reticent about sharing them.”—Newsweek

“Gripping reportage that’s as disturbing as it is enlightening . . . without—crucially—lapsing into an antigun diatribe.”—GQ Magazine