ONE NATION UNDER GUNS: How Gun Culture Distorts Our History and Threatens Our Democracy, by Dominic ErdozainWHAT WE’VE BECOME: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms, by Jonathan M. MetzlLast year, a friend from Brunei visited me in the United States. She is American but was raised in Sudan and has lived in Cambodia and Scotland, among other places. We were talking about the rise in anxiety among teenagers in America when another friend texted me; her daughter had just arrived home from school, where she’d spent the afternoon in lockdown. Are mass shootings, record suicides and endless homicides the new norm even for those of us who aren’t interested in accumulating arsenals? deliveryman knocks on Erdozain’s door, he dives for cover like a “shot fox.” As with the lockdown at my friend’s daughter’s school, the threat abates, but the emotional tremors linger.

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Persons: Dominic Erdozain, Jonathan M, Metzl, texted, she’d, “ They’re, Carol Anderson, Michael Waldman, Akhil Reed Amar, we’ve, You’re, deliveryman Locations: Brunei, United States, Sudan, Cambodia, Scotland, America