Welcome to the Bullwork Podcast. I'm Mona Charen, host of another Bullwork Podcast called

Bag to Differ and I'm sitting in for Charlie Sykes today. To comb through the events on

this Wednesday, I'm delighted to be joined by associate editor and columnist at Real

Clear Politics, AB Stoddard. Good morning, AB. Good morning, Mona. It's great to be with you.

Thanks so much. So I hope you had a great July 4th. Unfortunately for too many Americans, it was,

I mean, it's not enough to say Mard. I mean, it was destroyed by gunfire in mass shootings in

three or four different cities in Fort Worth, in Washington DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia,

in Philadelphia, five people were killed by a gunman who was wearing a bulletproof vest. The

victims included a two-year-old boy and a 13-year-old boy. That just seems to be part of the American

holiday scene these days, something that we should never, never, never get used to. And so

without dwelling on this too much, AB, I just think we should pause for a second to have a word

about the political implications because the Democratic Party seems a little bit in my judgment,

and I'd be curious what you think. They seem a little too reluctant to seize on this issue of

safety, of gun violence as something that they can succeed with. I mean, they're snakebid. They

tried to make gun control an issue back in the 90s and early 2000s, and it didn't work for them,

and they seem afraid of it, but it feels to me as if when you look at polling and when you look at

the nature of these mass shootings, that there's much more of an openness now to measures that would at

least restrict certain kinds of guns. What do you think? Well, I want to give credit to the president

who does come out each time after sometimes bunches, collections of mass shootings in the same time

and call upon Congress to act. But you're right, there was a trajectory of

hesitance during the height of the power of the NRA, in the 90s and the early 2000s,

from Democrats to take this issue on. That has changed a lot, but not enough, in that it is a

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