The Trigger

April 9, 2018
In a timely book, screenwriter and businessman Patinkin (The Crippler: Cage Fighting and My Life on the Edge) tells stories of six very different Americans who have shot and in some cases killed people. They include a Chicago cop who killed a gun-wielding civilian who had shot a fellow patrolman, a teenage girl who shot her abusive father as he slept, and a military veteran who gravely wounded a family member while having delusions. Chapters on each include their histories, how they got access to guns, and the role of class and race in their stories. Patinkin offers no solutions and no generalizations, and includes no mass shooters—he selected his subjects for their “compelling” stories and for maximum variation in circumstances and regions. His decision to focus on shooters and not victims may strike some as morally questionable; the author writes: “we must endeavor to understand actions and motivations” of the “sentient, emotional human being who... pulled the trigger... if we are to improve the situation in America.” (He also plans to donate a portion of the book’s proceeds to victim-centered charities.) His narratives, each complex in its own thorny way, humanize shooters for those who, like Patinkin before he embarked on this project, have had no previous exposure to them as people.

May 15, 2018
A curious exercise in the annals of gun violence, highlighting the life stories of six who turned to the gun for a solution.When he conceived of this project, writes Chicago-based businessman and educator Patinkin (co-author: The Crippler, 2016), he wanted to "investigate unfamiliar life stories and thereby illuminate complicated social and cultural dynamics." He has partially succeeded in doing so, having turned up widely diverse stories ranging from a drug dealer to a calculating murderer to police officers who have killed in the pursuit of their work. There are not many commonalities apart from the fact that it is too easy to procure and use a gun in America--especially at moments when one is at the end of his or her tether. Early on Patinkin writes that this is not a sociological or political treatise, and that is surely the case; in most instances the shooter talks, and Patinkin constructs a narrative around it: "They talked about crazy Darryl and how Lester's gunshot must have scared the shit out of that cracker. It definitely was a weird situation"; "To solve all of his problems, and to collect the entirety of the life insurance benefit, he would have to murder not just his father, but his entire family"; "This internal inquisition played out for seconds that seemed like hours while Al kept his Sig Sauer 9mm leveled." Patinkin does layer the stories he has collected with observations on larger themes. For example, he takes a brief look at the Black Lives Matter movement in connection with his account of an officer-involved shooting. But in the absence of more thoroughgoing analysis, the social and cultural dynamics go essentially unexplored, limiting the value of this book to a set of testimonials from which one might frame an argument for, or even against, enhanced gun control.Anecdotal more than analytical but of some interest to students of crime and punishment.

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