Richard North Patterson says that BALANCE OF POWER marks the end of his Kerry Kilcannon trilogy, which began with NO SAFE PLACE and continued with PROTECT AND DEFEND. Each volume in the trilogy has concerned a political/social issue of some import. NO SAFE PLACE and PROTECT AND DEFEND dealt with abortion, and BALANCE OF POWER concerns Kilcannon's efforts to implement what is presented as reasonable gun control measures.
Patterson is, from all indications, a decent and honorable man. He goes to great lengths in the Afterword to ensure readers that he is not a dispassionate observer or commentator; he even lists his numerous memberships in gun control advocacy groups. In a similar spirit, I will note that I am a life member of the National Rifle Association and a passionate advocate of the right to bear arms in the interest of self-defense.
I found myself in sharp disagreement with Patterson on many issues, including trigger locks (which I see as a leading cause of negligent misfires), so-called "smart guns" (which to me is a theoretical and technological impossibility) and Patterson's characterization of the National Rifle Association through the vehicle of the fictitious Sons of the Second Amendment as the tail that wags the dog of the firearms industry.
Most of all, however, from where I sit BALANCE OF POWER is misleading in its proposition concerning the alleged scarcity of gun control laws. There are currently over 67,000 laws regulating the sale, ownership and use of firearms in the United States. It is also noteworthy that on October 3, 2003, eleven days before BALANCE OF POWER was published, a Center for Disease Control review of these laws, including mandatory waiting periods and bans on certain weapons, found no proof that such measures reduce firearm violence.
However, Patterson is quick to point out that BALANCE OF POWER is a work of fiction. Accordingly, how does it stand when judged on that merit? We