How Florida Became Gun Paradise

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

The New Yorker

Barack, Washington, Wickenden, News, Obama, Politics, Wnyc, Lizza, President

4.3 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 5 March 2018

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

A national conversation about gun control is gaining ground after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida. But in the days just after the shooting Florida legislators voted against even debating gun control. The unwillingness of politicians across the country to address the crisis is rooted in the lobbying efforts of the National Rifle Association, and in Florida the N.R.A.’s voice is a particularly powerful one. Marion Hammer is responsible for some of the state’s most extreme gun laws, like concealed carry, which went on to be copied by many other states. Mike Spies recently profiled Hammer for The New Yorker, and he joins the staff writer Evan Osnos to discuss how she became an untouchable figure in Florida, writing laws and giving orders at the highest levels of government. But the high schoolers who survived the Parkland shooting, Spies thinks, may be Hammer’s nightmare.

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1:11.7	I'm Dorothy Wickenden. On today's Politics and More podcast, the New Yorkers Evan Osnos talks to Mike Spees, a staff writer at The Trace, a non-profit organization that reports on gun violence in America.
1:26.1	Spees recently wrote a piece in The New Yorker about Marion Hammer, an NRA lobbyist who
1:31.1	developed some of the nation's most controversial gun laws.
1:37.2	After the horrific shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, survivors traveled to
1:42.7	Tallahassee to ask lawmakers, to demand of them that they
1:46.5	take action on guns. They came away deeply frustrated because Florida has in place some of the most
1:52.5	pro-gun laws in the nation, laws that would have seemed surprising, even unthinkable, a generation
1:57.7	ago. Mike Spees has spent more than a year looking at guns and politics in Florida.
2:04.0	He works for the Trace,
2:05.2	which is a non-profit news organization
	...

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