#1409 The Change We Want and Deserve (Gun Violence)
Best of the Left - Leftist Perspectives on Progressive Politics, News, Culture, Economics and Democracy
Jay Tomlinson
4.5 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 3 April 2021
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Air Date 4/03/2021
Today we take a look at the need for reform to our gun laws through the lens of the recent mass shootings. Support for various reform measures reaches as high as 90% approval in the US, making it one of the most stark examples of our broken, unresponsive, undemocratic government.
Be part of the show! Leave us a message at 202-999-3991 or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com
MEMBERSHIP, Gift Memberships and Donations! (Get AD FREE Shows & Bonus Content)
REFER-O-MATIC! Sign up, share widely, get rewards. It's that easy!
Want to advertise/sponsor the show? Details -> advertisecast.com/BestoftheLeft
SHOW NOTES
NBC News' Jacob Ward takes a look at the impact the coronavirus pandemic had on mass shootings and gun violence to see how those trends might change now that states begin to lift Covid-19 restrictions.
As gun violence flares up once again in this country, Republicans are quick to change the subject while gun apologists roll out their standard response to calls for reform: now is not the time.
Ch. 3: The gun solution we're not talking about - Vox - Air Date 9-11-19
Universal background checks won't fix America's gun crisis. But there's something else that might.
Rachel Maddow looks back on how Joe Manchin, with Pat Toomey, in the wake of the Sandy Hook gun massacre, supplanted President Obama's call for universal background checks
Gun safety advocate Fred Guttenberg, who lost his daughter Jamie in the Parkland school shooting, expresses his frustration with the lack of gun safety legislation, and calls to end the hold the NRA has on Republicans.
Ch. 6: Igor Volsky on Ending Gun Violence - CounterSpin - Air Date 3-26-21
This week on CounterSpin: If you look, you can find reminders that the Second Amendment was forged, distressingly, with the aim of preserving “slave patrol” militias in the South. And that courts consistently interpreted it as meaning a “collective” right
Ch. 7: Can You Look At The Carnage Of Gun Violence? - The Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 3-24-21
Could you look at the mangled bodies of Americans murdered by gun violence without demanding that guns stop being so available?
Ch. 8: Ban Assault Weapons Now - Breaking the Sound Barrier by Amy Goodman - Air Date 3-25-21
The massacres in Boulder, Colorado, with ten killed, and in metro Atlanta, with eight killed, are just two more instances of senseless gun violence enabled by the NRA.
MEMBERS-ONLY BONUS CLIP(S)
Ch. 9: A Look Back at Colorado's History of Mass Shootings - The Takeaway - Air Date 3-26-21
A Look Back at Colorado's History of Mass Shootings
This week, a gunman in Boulder, Colorado killed ten people while they were shopping in a local grocery store.
Lt. Joe Kenda (ret.) was a detective with the Colorado Springs Police Department for twenty years. During that time, he solved 356 of the 387 murder cases he investigated.
VOICEMAILS
Ch. 11: Maintaining beliefs and cognitive dissonance - Nick from California
FINAL COMMENTS
Ch. 12: Final comments on the cognitive biases related to aquiring new information
TAKE ACTION!
MFOL Aid and Alliance - A resource sharing program that will distribute nearly $500k to support anti-violence work led by BIPOC youth organizations and activists on the ground. Directly supporting communities most impacted by gun violence and decentering whiteness in the movement.
MFOL Policy Demands for Biden-Harris Administration
EDUCATE YOURSELF & SHARE
Violence Against Women Act Runs Into GOP Objections on Guns and Trans Rights (Mother Jones)
$5 Billion For Violence Prevention Is Tucked Into Biden Infrastructure Plan (NPR)
Can New Gun Violence Research Find a Path Around the Political Stalemate? (NY Times)
Written by BOTL Communications Director Amanda Hoffman
MUSIC (Blue Dot Sessions):
- Opening Theme: Loving Acoustic Instrumental by John Douglas Orr
- Voicemail Music: Low Key Lost Feeling Electro by Alex Stinnent
- Activism Music: This Fickle World by Theo Bard
- Closing Music: Upbeat Laid Back Indie Rock by Alex Stinnent
SHOW IMAGE:
Description: Young woman holds a sign at a rally that has the crossed-out words "Thoughts and Prayers." Underneath, it says "REFORM."
Credit: "March for Our Lives, NYC" by mathiaswasik, Flickr | License | Changes: cropped
Produced by Jay! Tomlinson
Visit us at BestOfTheLeft.com
Check out the BotL iOS/Android App in the App Stores!
Follow at Twitter.com/BestOfTheLeft
Like at Facebook.com/BestOfTheLeft
Contact me directly at Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to this episode of the award winning best of the left podcast in which we shall |
| 0:07.0 | learn about the need for reform to our gun laws through the lens of the recent mass shootings, |
| 0:12.6 | of course, but also through the fact that support for various reform measures reaches as high |
| 0:18.2 | as 90% approval in the U.S., making it one of the most stark examples of our broken, |
| 0:25.2 | unresponsive non-democratic government. Clips today are from NBC News Now, the late show |
| 0:32.8 | with Stephen Colbert, Vox, the Rachel Maddo show, Deadline, Counter-Spin, the Tom Hartman program, |
| 0:40.2 | breaking the sound barrier with Amy Goodman, the takeaway and the Chonsey-Devega show. |
| 0:46.2 | The shootings in Atlanta and Boulder are part of a specific category of violence that experts |
| 0:57.2 | had hoped we had left behind during the pandemic. There were only two public mass killings of strangers |
| 1:03.7 | in 2020, both before major lockdowns. That's down from 9 in 2019 and 10 in 2018, according |
| 1:12.0 | to an associated press study. The pandemic seems to have slowed these shootings down, and |
| 1:17.7 | that makes sense, because FBI data found that most such attacks happen in places that we |
| 1:22.3 | have not been gathering during the outbreak. And with that slowdown came another effect. |
| 1:28.3 | Criminologists have shown that one shooting often inspires another, as the perpetrators |
| 1:33.4 | strive for notoriety. The pandemic seems to have broken that cycle for a while, but don't |
| 1:39.3 | be misled. The narrow way that some defined public mass shootings obscures the fact that 2020 |
| 1:46.4 | saw an incredible uptick in gun violence. In fact, if we define mass shootings instead |
| 1:51.6 | as four or more people injured, but not necessarily killed, 2020 had the most mass shootings in |
| 1:57.8 | years. Comparing countries can be difficult when we're talking about mass shootings, because |
| 2:02.7 | one event in a small country can skew the data. But even when you look at large, continent-sized |
| 2:09.0 | populations, the US still stands alone on this issue. What sets the US apart? Well, the |
| 2:15.9 | big factor is gun ownership. The estimate is that as of 2017, Americans already owned |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jay Tomlinson, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Jay Tomlinson and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.