To the editor: Malcolm Gladwell will get quite a bit proper in his new e book, however his competition that assault weapons are not any deadlier than handguns — and that banning these weapons of conflict is a waste of time — doesn’t line up with the facts (“Malcolm Gladwell thinks everything you know about gun violence is probably wrong,” Oct. 27).
Contemplate ammunition. Assault weapons sometimes hearth bullets that may journey as much as four times faster than the most typical handgun caliber, which makes the bodily harm far worse.
Or take into account how assault weapons are designed. These rifles can settle for 100-round magazines, double the biggest handgun journal.
Or take into account the equipment. Assault weapons might be personalized with an array of lethal add-ons, together with bump shares, which flip assault rifles into machine weapons.
Given these components, it’s no shock that the ten highest-casualty U.S. mass shootings from 2016-2025 involved an assault weapon. There’s additionally sturdy proof that banning assault weapons works. One study discovered that if the federal ban of 1994-2004 remained in impact by way of 2022, 38 public mass shootings might have been prevented.
Gladwell is true about this a lot: Banning assault weapons alone gained’t resolve America’s gun violence disaster. That’s why the gun security motion can also be preventing for background checks on all gun gross sales, safe storage necessities and different common sense legal guidelines. That being mentioned, banning assault weapons would deprive mass shooters of their most devastating software, and reassure each American who can not enter a public place with out checking for the exits.
John Feinblatt, New York Metropolis
This author is president of Everytown for Gun Security, a nonprofit that advocates for gun violence prevention.
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To the editor: Gladwell is appropriate that violence is a scourge, and we have to take it severely. His prescription to easily rent extra police, nevertheless, is improper. This outdated technique has been tried again and again, from Richard Nixon’s surge in federal regulation enforcement funding to Invoice Clinton’s 1994 crime bill that put 100,000 extra police on the streets.
We’ve got realized quite a bit within the intervening a long time about what works to forestall crime and break its cycle — efficient, accountable policing alongside community-based crime prevention packages. Baltimore is a shining instance. Town’s community violence intervention program deserves important credit score for its crime decline, whereas Baltimore police have elevated arrests for severe violent crimes and improved murder clearance rates with out elevating the general arrest charge.
Gladwell’s name for extra police displays both the lazy, standard political knowledge of years passed by or ignorance of the rising proof about what makes communities safer.
Insha Rahman, Brooklyn
This author is president of the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit that advocates for felony justice reform.
