Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

It's already relatively easy to get a gun in America, but it's even easier to get a kit

to build your own without the trouble of a background check or the traceability of

a serial number. We look into the push to clamp down on these ghost guns.

And there was a time that bands could prove their countercultural credentials by picking a

controversial name. As sensibilities and sensitivities have changed, though, some groups are now

choosing to rebrand.

But first, it's now less than a month until Germany's elections and the situation is looking

ever more uncertain. The only sure thing is that the government will again be a coalition of parties.

During the campaign's first televised debate on Sunday, three leading candidates sparred.

Armin Lashit, the Chancellor candidate from Angola Merkel's Christian Democratic Union or

CDU party, went after Olaf Schultz, the candidate from the SPD, the Social Democrats,

about his co-seeing up to another party, Dylinka, way on the far left.

Mr Schultz battered away with characteristic pragmatism. His SPD party has been in a coalition

government with Mrs. Merkel's CDU since 2013.

We see the CDU co-ordinated as all other ways. I think that was good, too, just now,

at the meeting of the corona crisis.

Anna-Lena Baerbach of the third highest polling green party said the coalition considerations

would come down to a stance on the climate, and that the CDU simply wasn't green enough.

The question of climate protection, the next government has to set the heights for climate neutrality in

our land. Angola Merkel is the first post-war chancellor not to stand for re-election,

...