RALEIGH – Campbell Law School Professor Gregory Wallace is featured in a chapter in best-selling author and podcaster Malcolm Gladwell’s newest book, “The American Way of Killing: The Invention of an Epidemic, which was released Sept. 29.
The book, which investigates the roots and persistence of America’s gun‑violence epidemic, puts into print the podcast series Gladwell produced on “Guns” after his visit to Campbell Law in 2023. It explores why the United States, despite being wealthy, educated and technologically advanced, experiences homicide rates far higher than peer nations. Gladwell frames this as an “American peculiarity,” examining historical, cultural, legal and social factors. Drawing on original interviews, archival and social science research, and his trademark insight, Gladwell approaches the American paradox through a series of stories.
Professor Wallace is featured in the book’s first chapter entitled “A Shooting Lesson.” Professor Wallace took Gladwell to a local shooting range for target practice.
Gladwell also mentioned Professor Wallace in an interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN on Sept. 28, which can be found here. The title of the episode is “Malcolm Gladwell on How Both Sides of Gun Debate Traffic in Dishonesties.” Gladwell’s interview starts at the 36:30 minute mark. “I went out and shot an assault rifle with this wonderful guy named Greg Wallace in North Carolina and he gave me a tutorial on assault rifles,” Gladwell told Cooper. “It’s a sacred cow for progressives in this country that we need to ban assault rifles. If you look at legislation to ban assault rifles, it doesn’t ban assault rifles, it bans a series of cosmetic attachments … but the rifle itself isn’t banned.”
Gladwell is the author of eight New York Times bestsellers, including “The Tipping Point,” “Blink,” “Outliers,” “What the Dog Saw” and “David and Goliath.” He is also the co-founder of Pushkin Industries, an audio content company that produces the podcasts “Revisionist History,” which reconsiders things both overlooked and misunderstood, and Broken Record, where he, Rick Rubin, and Bruce Headlam interview musicians across a wide range of genres. Gladwell has been included in the TIME 100 Most Influential People list and touted as one of Foreign Policy’s Top Global Thinkers.
The six-part podcast series that featured Professor Wallace aired weekly on Gladwell’s “Revisionist History” podcast in 2023. Professor Wallace was featured in Part 3, entitled “Guns Part 3: A Shooting Lesson,” which aired on Sept. 14, 2023. To listen, visit pushkin.fm/plus.
Gladwell, who refers to himself as Pushkin on the podcast, states, “We’re going to the heart of America’s gun violence crisis. Six episodes, some weird, some whimsical, some heartbreaking, some angry, because so much of what Americans tend to believe about guns and assault rifles and mass shootings is actually wrong. We talk about TV westerns, about a crime in a little town in rural Alabama, about the nuttiness of the Supreme Court, about the assassination of Robert Kennedy.”
Professor Wallace was interviewed by Gladwell at the law school, where they discussed the features and operation of “assault weapons,” such as the widely-popular AR-15 semiautomatic rifle. Professor Wallace and Gladwell then went to a nearby shooting range so that Gladwell could experience what it is like to actually fire the AR-15. Professor Wallace described Gladwell as an “inquisitive, engaging person . . . whose effort to counter various misconceptions about ‘assault weapons’ in this podcast is as welcome as it is effective.”
Professor Wallace teaches constitutional law and is a nationally-recognized authority on firearms and the Second Amendment and co-author of Nicholas J. Johnson, et al., “Firearms Law and the Second Amendment” (Aspen 4th ed. 2026), a law school textbook and treatise. He is a Fellow at the University of Wyoming College of Law Firearms Research Center. He has published two law review articles on “assault weapons”—“Assault Weapon” Lethality, 88 Tenn. L. Rev. 1 (2020), and “Assault Weapon” Myths, 43 So. Ill. U. L.J. 193 (2018)—and has co-authored with David B. Kopel two shorter articles on “assault weapons” published by The Volokh Conspiracy, “How Powerful are AR Rifles?” and “AR Rifle Ammunition Is Less Powerful Than Most Other Rifle Ammunition.” He has filed several amicus briefs in the United States Supreme Court and various federal appellate courts in cases involving “assault weapon” bans, including an amicus brief recently filed on behalf of ballistics experts and Second Amendment law professors in the major case challenging such bans the Supreme Court will hear this term. He has hands-on experience with AR-15s and other firearms as a competitive and recreational shooter.
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Since its founding in 1976, Campbell Law School has developed lawyers who possess moral conviction, social compassion, and professional competence, and who view the law as a calling to serve others. Among its accolades, the school has been recognized by the American Bar Association (ABA) as having the nation’s top Professionalism Program and by the American Academy of Trial Lawyers for having the nation’s best Trial Advocacy Program. Campbell Law boasts more than 5,000 alumni, who make their home in nearly all 50 states and beyond. In 2026, Campbell Law is celebrating 50 years of graduating legal leaders and 17 years of being located in a state-of-the-art facility in the heart of North Carolina’s Capital City.