Steve Israel’s New Book “Big Guns” to Release

By Dondre Lemon
Staff Writer

Former congressman, Steve Israel, chairman of the LIU Global Institute, has written a new novel, “Big Guns,” that will be released by Simon and Schuster on April 17. According to Simon and Schuster, “Steele brings in the big guns of American politics to defeat Lois: political consultants, Super PACs, and celebrities. Soon, thousands of pro-gun and anti-gun partisans descend on Asabogue, along with an assortment of heavily armed right wing militias and the national news media. Bucolic Asabogue becomes a tinderbox.”

“After every act of gun violence the number one question in America is, why doesn’t Congress do something about it? I wanted to tell the story from the inside. The fealty of so many members of Congress to the gun lobby. The gun lobby’s fealty to gun manufacturers. The manufacturers fealty to their profits. The absurd arguments and hypocrisy I witnessed. It’s all in ‘Big Guns,’” Israel said.

The book is intended for “anyone who likes to laugh at the absurdity of some members of Congress, and anyone who wants a satiric behind the scenes view of why Congress does so little about the issue of gun violence,” Israel said.

The recent mass shootings in Parkland, Florida, Las Vegas, and at the Pulse nightclub have sparked a national debate about gun violence. “After finishing my first comic novel about politics, ‘The Global War on Morris,’ I wanted the second to be about the power of the gun lobby,” Israel said. “I wanted to explain from the inside why Congress offers thoughts and prayers but no laws after every shooting. I didn’t have a story until a real life experience broke: when a small city in Georgia responded to a tragic gun shooting at Sandy Hook with the dumbest law I’d ever heard of: requiring citizens to carry guns. I took the premise and brought it to the US Congress. At the time it seemed so absurd. Now it’s almost a presidential talking point. It’s life imitating art imitating life,” Israel said.