Reporting on Guns from Texas
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 31 May 2022
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Following the shooting in Uvalde, we talked to a Texas reporter who has covered mass shootings for five years. The Lone Star state remains a GOP strong-hold, which means Texas Republicans tailor their messaging and legislation to avoid being primaried from the right. This impacts how gun laws are written and how mental health is instead elevated, leaving both underserved.
Guest: Lauren McGaughy, investigative reporter, the Dallas Morning News.
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Transcript
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| 0:36.5 | Talking to Lauren McGahi, maybe realize exactly where we are with the epidemic of gun violence |
| 0:43.2 | in this country. Lauren reports for the Dallas Morning News. I caught up with her as she was |
| 0:48.4 | preparing to cover the National Rifle Association Convention in Houston last week. Before that, |
| 0:54.4 | she'd been covering Uval Day school shooting. And when I asked her exactly how many math shootings |
| 0:59.6 | should report it on in the last few years, she had a list. There was the one at a Southern |
| 1:05.5 | Lynn Springs Church in 2017. There was the 2018 Santa Fe High School shooting. And then I was |
| 1:13.0 | in a shooting, a mass shooting in New Orleans in 2013. And I ended up writing something more personal |
| 1:24.4 | off of that. But I wasn't I was there so it wasn't really like I was meant to be covering it. |
| 1:32.1 | I feel like just the fact that you have covered two or three bin and one, it just seems to |
| 1:38.9 | I don't know, to me it just points out how how common these have become. Yeah, I think sometimes |
| 1:46.5 | here in Texas it feels even more common. I mean we have to remind ourselves that the state is so huge. |
| 1:54.5 | But we've had five, six depending on how you define them since 2015. And it had been a while |
| 2:05.1 | since we'd had one. So it this one in so many ways just hit extra hard. |
| 2:12.1 | Lauren and her colleagues even created a map of every mass shooting in Texas since 1966. |
| 2:19.6 | There were shootings at churches, restaurants, even a roller rink. It feels kind of impossible |
| 2:25.8 | in a moment like this not to look to political leaders for some kind of change. What does |
... |
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