What will it take to prevent mass shootings?
To the Point
KCRW
4.4 • 583 Ratings
🗓️ 8 August 2019
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Will mass shootings become part of America’s background noise?
That’s an ugly prospect raised by the deaths of 34 people this week in Texas, Ohio and California. So, why are such atrocities on the rise?
President Trump and others blame video games and mental illness, but evidence shows otherwise. In fact, it appears there’s reason behind the madness. UCLA constitutional law professor Adam Winkler says, “I think that they are designed to create terror and to spread terror.”
There is, “A clear white, nationalist, terrorist ideology,” according to James Palmer of Foreign Policy. “Recruitment and radicalization of these young men is carried out through the Internet.” Beyond that,”When we see language like invasion being used by the President, being used by Fox News, this is the language that fuels the false and racist conspracy theories on which terrorism draws.”
Whatever the motive of mass shooters might be, it’s America’s gun culture that gives them the means to carry out their intentions. In the aftermath of the latest incidents, background checks, gun buybacks and red flags are proposed by Democratic candidates to run against Trump in next year’s elections.
All could be effective in different ways, but Winkler says that’s where political reality sets in: “Four hundred million. That’s the number of firearms in civilian circulation in America today, and any gun law that you adopt runs headlong into that number.”
Vanderbilt Professor Jonathan Metzl has a cautionary note about gun control. “A lot of fear for people on the right is that all of a sudden what happens at moments like this is that every gun owner is all of a sudden quoted as being a ‘mass shooter.’ It’s important to create some context about just what guns mean in their communities.”
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A tough and somber morning. We begin with new details that are emerging about this weekend's mass shootings in both El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio. |
| 0:09.2 | The cover of this morning's New York Times may say it best. One shooting massacre follows another, shaking a bewildered nation to its core. |
| 0:16.7 | There have been 255 mass shootings in the U.S. this year. |
| 0:20.5 | When you have the president from the highest moral office in our land |
| 0:23.4 | talking about invasions and infestations and shithole countries, he is responsible. |
| 0:28.7 | We are here tonight because we know that we cannot ease the pain of those families. |
| 0:37.3 | We're talking. We're okay. ease the pain of those families. |
| 0:44.2 | Do something, do something. Do something. |
| 0:49.3 | That was the crowd's demand of the governor of Ohio after this week's mass shooting in Dayton. |
| 0:55.4 | In El Paso, Texas, and Gilroy, California, and places across the country, many others are demanding action by their elected officials. Again, some 255 people have been gunned down |
| 1:02.1 | already this year in mass shootings. But while visiting Dayton, President Trump said there's |
| 1:07.2 | no appetite for a ban on assault weapons. He refused to commit himself to signing a national background check bill. |
| 1:14.8 | So what could be done? |
| 1:16.9 | And is it time for journalists, myself and others, |
| 1:20.1 | to change the standard formula for reporting atrocities like these? |
| 1:25.1 | Adam Linkler of UCLA, author of Gunfight, the Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in |
| 1:29.6 | America. We'll start with you. Thanks so much for having me, Warren. What is the one thing, |
| 1:35.7 | if there is one thing, that would be most effective that we could actually do now that would be |
| 1:42.5 | constitutional to reduce gun violence? |
| 1:46.7 | Well, I think there's, I wouldn't say just one thing. I think it's really a suite of things. |
| 1:51.1 | It's universal background checks to make sure everyone who purchases a firearm has to go through |
| 1:56.3 | a background check and know that they're trustworthy with a firearm. It's red flag laws like we're seeing |
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