Guns: A Civil Disagreement Part Two

The Unspeakeasy With Meghan Daum

Meghan Daum

Society & Culture

4.7 • 855 Ratings

🗓️ 4 July 2022

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week's episode is the second of a two part series about guns in America, a conversation between two people with very different feelings about the issue. Melanie Jeffcoat is an actor, filmmaker and gun control activist who lives in Alabama. Jon Godfrey is a retired law enforcement officer who's a staunch defender of the Second Amendment and lives in upstate New York. In 2018 they were part of Guns: An American Conversation, a collaboration between TIME Magazine and a consortium of local media outlets that brought together 21 people with wide ranging views on gun control for a two-day discussion. Despite their opposing views, Jon and Melanie developed a friendship that has transcended their differences, though they still do plenty of arguing. In this final half of this interivew, Jon explains what those who aren't "gun people" don't understand about guns and Melanie and Meghan both admit there's a lot they don't understand. He and Melanie also talk about their overall sense of personal safety in the world and how they handle concerns like home invasion. Jon explains why he often carries a firearm and what he sees as the uses of owning assault style guns. Melanie reflects on a shooting that occurred at her high school when she was a student and wonders how much worse things would have been if the shooter had used an AR-15 instead of a pistol. Finally, Jon and Melanie talk about what sorts of legislative compromises might be possible on guns and what they think lawmakers could learn from them if they only asked.

Guest Bios:

Melanie Jeffcoat received her MFA in Acting from the Professional Actor Training Program at the University of Washington in Seattle and has worked around the country in theater and film. Her acting credits include "All My Children," "Ordinary Joe" and "The Wonder Years." Her producing, directing and writing credits include "Man in the Glass: The Dale Brown Story," "Gip," and Open Secret," which won the Audience Choice Award at the 2010 Politics on Film Festival in Washington, D.C. Melanie is co-founder of Chaotic Good Improv in Birmingham, Alabama and is a volunteer with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. She lives near Birmingham, Alabama

Jon Godfrey worked in law enforcement for several decades, serving as Deputy County Sheriff in Pottawatomie County, Kansas, a criminal investigator in Kansas and Chief of Police for the US Dept. Of Veterans Affairs Police Service in Syracuse, New York. A retired army veteran, he lives in a rural area outside Syracuse, New York.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It is getting easier and easier to kill more people faster.
0:07.0	And I guess my question for you, John, is would you have a problem with, I know you would
0:15.0	say you would not agree to a ban on AR-15s and assault weapons, but an age limit at the very least,
0:22.2	because these seem to consistently be kids under 21, 18, 19 years old, 17 years old.
0:29.1	New York just raised the law to 21.
0:31.5	It was one of the things the governor did besides strengthening the red flag law.
0:35.3	And what do you feel about that?
0:37.1	I'm torn between that, and I'll tell you why.
0:40.4	You have, again, mass shootings are not as prevalent as the media would make them out to be,
0:47.3	but one is too many.
0:49.3	One child dying is too many.
0:51.5	But the other side of that is you can't punish everyone in America for someone's
0:59.4	criminal behavior. Welcome to the unspeakable podcast. I'm your host, Megan Dowm. Last week,
1:06.7	you heard part one of a conversation about guns in America. My guests were Melanie Jeffcoat,
1:13.0	who's a gun control activist who lives in Alabama, and John Godfrey, a gun owner who lives in
1:19.0	upstate New York. This week is part two of that conversation, but before we get to that,
1:24.4	I have a number of items of business that I'll try to tell you about
1:28.1	as quickly as possible.
1:30.3	The first is that I have a new podcast, a second podcast.
1:35.0	That's one in addition to this one.
1:37.5	I'm co-hosting it with Sarah Hader, who was a guest on The Unspeakable last month.
1:43.0	We had such a fun time that we decided to start
	...

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