In 1929, American newspapers carried sensational pictures of crumpled, dead bodies — victims of Al Capone's St. Valentine's Day Massacre. President Franklin Roosevelt then persuaded Congress to restrict access to machineguns favored by gangsters. Since then, there've been many more multiple shootings, but the result has more often been sympathy, rather than action. In the aftermath of last week's mass shooting, even gun control advocates concede that new legislation is already dead on arrival. But Second Amendment purists aren't getting far either by insisting that the Aurora theater would have been safer if every moviegoer had carried a gun. Is there some way to safeguard the Second Amendment at the same time protecting against gun violence? Is a presidential election year the best time or the worst time to come to terms with a deadly menace and a divided electorate?
Can We Talk about Gun Control?
Credits
Guests:
- Adam Winkler - professor of law at UCLA, and author of "Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America" - @adamwinkler
- Dan Gross - Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence - @bradybuzz
- Hubert Williams - National Law Enforcement Partnership to Prevent Gun Violence
- Richard Feldman - Independent Firearm Owners Association
- David Sirota - International Business Times - @davidsirota