308 - Ghost Guns: Untraceable DIY Firearms
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 3 May 2021
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ghost guns are firearms that can be made at home from kits or 3D printed parts. They're unregulated and untraceable, meaning no background check is required to purchase them. Dr. Alex McCourt, a public health lawyer with the Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Prevention and Policy, talks with Stephanie Desmon about why these guns are so dangerous, what we know and don't know about their use in violent crimes, and Biden's proposal for ATF regulation.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Season 3, a Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. |
| 0:12.3 | I'm Josh Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement, and a former secretary of Maryland's Health Department. |
| 0:19.6 | Our goal is to bring scientific evidence |
| 0:22.4 | and experience to the public health news of the day through informative interviews with scientists, |
| 0:27.8 | community leaders, policy experts, public health officials, clinicians, and more. If you have ideas |
| 0:34.4 | or questions for us to cover, please email us at public health question at jh.h.edu. |
| 0:41.1 | That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:47.2 | Hi, I'm Lindsay Smith Rogers, producer of public health on call. |
| 0:50.6 | Today, Stephanie Desmond talks to Alex McCourt, a gun policy researcher at Johns Hopkins, |
| 0:56.4 | about ghost guns, untraceable guns that come in easy to assemble do-it-yourself kits that are being |
| 1:02.9 | used in crimes and would appear to be record numbers. Let's listen. Alex McCourt, thanks so much for |
| 1:09.5 | joining me. Thank you so much for having me. |
| 1:11.6 | Excited to be here. |
| 1:12.6 | So I've been hearing about these things called ghost guns. |
| 1:17.6 | I know that President Biden wants us to crack down on them. |
| 1:21.6 | And I'm wondering if you could please tell us all what a ghost gun is. |
| 1:24.6 | Sure. |
| 1:25.6 | So this is a thing that it's pretty new and a lot of people don't really understand it yet. |
| 1:32.0 | These are just like typical guns, your traditional gun. |
| 1:36.6 | They function in the same way. |
| 1:38.9 | They can be just as lethal. |
| 1:40.5 | They're used in all sorts of crime and violence and even self-harm. The main difference |
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