American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15 presents the epic history of America’s most controversial weapon. In the 1950s, an obsessive firearms designer named Eugene Stoner invented the AR-15 rifle in a California garage. High-minded and patriotic, Stoner sought to devise a lightweight, easy-to-use weapon that could replace the M1s touted by soldiers in World War II. What he did create was a lethal handheld icon of the American century. In American Gun, the veteran Wall Street Journal reporters Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson track the AR-15 from inception to ubiquity. How did the same gun represent the essence of freedom to millions of Americans and the essence of evil to millions more? To answer this question, McWhirter and Elinson follow Stoner—the American Kalashnikov—as he struggled mightily to win support for his invention, which under the name M16 would become standard equipment in Vietnam. Shunned by gun owners at first, the rifle’s popularity would take off thanks to a renegade band of small-time gun makers. And in the 2000s, it would become the weapon of choice for mass shooters, prompting widespread calls for proscription even as the gun industry embraced it as a financial savior. Writing with fairness and compassion, McWhirter and Elinson explore America’s gun culture, revealing the deep appeal of the AR-15, the awful havoc it wreaks, and the politics of reducing its toll. The result is a moral history of contemporary America’s love affair with technology, freedom, and weaponry. A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
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American Gun is an engrossing read. It is both a revealing biography and a thorough autopsy of a historical figure that resides in millions of American homes: the AR-15 rifle. Created in a garage but worshipped as if born in a manger, the AR-15 has become destructive weapon of choice in many mass killings and a source of heartbreak that gnaws at the souls of millions of Americans every day. Through exhaustive research and superb writing, Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson haven’t missed an important moment in the life of this weapon—and they answer the question: what would the inventor of the AR-15 think about the monstrous ways it is being used today?
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Hank Klibanoff, Pulitzer Prize–winning co-author of The Race Beat