Red, Blue, and Brady

Send us Fan Mail The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (which  covers Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi) ruled on February 2, 2023 that the federal prohibition on gun possession for people subject to domestic violence restraining orders (DVROs) is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. This decision is especially egregious as very month, an average of 57 women are killed with a firearm by an in...

Send us Fan Mail Have you come across news headlines about incidents of road rage where a driver brandished a gun? It's a distressing thought, but how frequently do these incidents take place and should you be concerned? In this episode, we're joined by Dr. Megan O'Toole, Deputy Director of Research at Everytown , who breaks down the facts and sheds light on this issue. Additionally...

Send us Fan Mail In the five years since the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, many activists have stood up to fight back against gun violence, and gun lobby disinformation. One of those tireless advocates is Fred Guttenberg , whose two children were there that day. While his son, Jesse, survived, Fred's beautiful 14-year-old daughter Jamie was killed. Sin...

Send us Fan Mail Recent studies have shown that firearm suicidality rates are rising among Black youth . But why? And is this trend truly new? And, what can we all be doing to prevent this loss of life? Dr. Alfiee Breland Noble , founder of the AAKOMA Project which specializes in servicing the mental health needs of youth of color, and Aalayah Eastmond , Team ENOUGH founding member, and survivor o...

Send us Fan Mail  In the United States, over 90% of mass shootings are committed by men and boys . They're also predominantly the victims of gun violence . But why are men so tied to the vast majority of America's gun violence? Psychologist and author Dr. Ronald F. Levant , who specializes in the psychology of masculinity and gender (and who has a great new book out, The Tough Standard:...

Send us Fan Mail The gun lobby has been working for decades to drown out reputable research on guns and gun violence by funding disinformation. Devin L. Hughes , the co-founder and president of GVPedia , a non-profit organization that provides access to the largest publicly available gun study database and actively fights against misinformation about gun violence , knows this better than anyone. T...

Send us Fan Mail We've said it before and we'll say it again: gun violence is a public health crisis . It's an ongoing emergency that impacts more than just our physical safety, i t also impacts our mental and emotional health. Even if you haven't experienced gun violence firsthand, folks across America are struggling to deal with the trauma of being constantly under fire.  So...

Send us Fan Mail Donny Kashh is a lot of things — a creative director , a motivational speaker, a mental health advocate, an amputee — and a survivor of gun violence. On October 19, 2019, Donny survived being shot six times by an unknown man. The attack left Donny in a coma, and led to the removal of his left leg. In the aftermath (and while attempting to heal during a global pandemic), Donny stru...

Send us Fan Mail "More guns equal less crime" is perhaps one of the most pervasive myths in the United States ; the reality is, firearms simply don't make us safer. This false data has since been used as justification in any number of laws, and is frequency referenced in gun lobby rhetoric. It's also been used as the basis for other false (yet popular) claims, like the myth tha...

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Doreen Marshall of AFSP — the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention — is back in studio with hosts Kelly and JJ , this time answering your listener questions. Doreen brilliantly broke down how best to handle complicated situations like the following:  "I've recently lost my partner — how can I possibly handle the holidays?" "My child lost a friend to f...

Send us Fan Mail Firearm suicides account for more than half of all suicide deaths in the United States. We've talked at length on RBB about those losses, and how we can help prevent them, from storing firearms locked and unloaded to reaching out for help. But folks who have lost loved ones to suicide may also be reeling with being a survivor of suicide loss. To talk about how to talk about s...

Send us Fan Mail Akilah DaSilva was only 23 when he was shot and killed during the April 22, 2018 Waffle House shooting in Nashville, Tennessee. Akilah was at the Waffle House with his girlfriend Tia Waggoner and brother , Abede DaSilva . In the aftermath of the shooting, Akilah's family learned that the AR-15 used to kill him and three others had been unlawfully given to the shooter .  Akila...

Send us Fan Mail Gun violence in schools is a hard topic for parents and guardians to handle — but not talking about the reality of gun violence in the US isn't a solution . You, the listeners, have been writing in with your concerns, which included things like the following:  "If I bring up gun violence to my kids, aren’t I just making them more afraid?” "Should I play the news in...

Send us Fan Mail Does experiencing racism or discrimination make you more likely to buy a gun? Does being worried about being a target of hate make you more likely to carry a firearm with you? Evidence seems to suggest yes, as increased rates of hate crimes against members of the AAPI community in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic led to an unprecedented rise in Asian American gun ownership. To ex...

Send us Fan Mail The gun lobby is fond of a particular view of American history, one where firearms reigned supreme (and unregulated). However, that view of America's past is deeply distorted, as Dr. Robert Spitzer details in his new book  The Gun Dilemma: How History is Against Expanded Gun Rights . Dr. Spitzer joined host JJ to detail the ways in which courts — especially the Supreme Court...

Send us Fan Mail On the surface, the name Merchant Category Code (MCC) seems pretty dry. But a new MCC may be a powerful tool in preventing mass shootings, as well as other forms of gun violence. An MCC is an identifier used by banks to identify purchases made from candy stores to snowmobile retailers, and is used to spot transaction patterns and possible fraud. But as of this month, there is a ne...

Send us Fan Mail Many myths about youth suicide exist — from the belief that just talking about suicide will encourage harm, to there is no way to "stop" someone experiencing suicidality, to means not mattering, and beyond. Allowing these myths to be perpetuated is hazardous to young people, as over the past decade,  youth firearm suicide has reached its highest rate . And in particular,...

Send us Fan Mail More police officers die by suicide than are killed in the line of duty.  This high rate is concerning, especially as reported suicide rates of first responders are thought to be much lower than the reality. And when it comes to means, firearms are overwhelmingly used. Why are these rates so high? To find out, our three guests (who happen to have served over a combined 80 years in...

Send us Fan Mail Today, Richard Aborn   is president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City , a non-partisan non-profit organization, but in the 90s he was at the helm of the organization that would one day become known as Brady : Handgun Control Inc. His presidency saw vital changes in gun violence prevention — during his time from 1992 to 1996, the Brady Bill , the assault weapons ban...

Send us Fan Mail In 1994, then-President Bill Clinton signed the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act , commonly called the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which banned 19 assault weapons (and their copies) as well as other semi-automatic firearms with two or more specified features. That federal ban, however, expired on September 13, 2004. When it expired , assault weapons and...

Send us Fan Mail CEO, documentarian , activist , father ...and survivor. Oronde McClain was only ten when he was shot in the back of the head. In the decades that have followed, Oronde has dedicated himself to ending gun violence in his native Philadelphia. He joined hosts Kelly and JJ to detail the role that forgiveness has played in his healing, why he continues to be a gun violence prevention a...

Send us Fan Mail TaLeah Christine Harris was only 15 when she died. A vibrant young woman, she enjoyed art and fashion, but suffered from anxiety and depression. On April 30th, 1998, she gained access to an unsecured firearm — her father, law enforcement officer, Dennis Harris' duty weapon —and died of suicide. Since then Dennis and the whole Harris family have fought for suicide prevention a...

Send us Fan Mail TaLeah Christine Harris was only 15 when she died. A vibrant young woman, she enjoyed art and fashion, but suffered from anxiety and depression. On April 30th, 1998, she gained access to an unsecured firearm — her father, law enforcement officer, Dennis Harris' duty weapon —and died of suicide. In the years that followed, Dennis and the whole Harris family became committed ad...

Send us Fan Mail Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been in the news again, this time as he sits in court for the first of three defamation damages cases against him. The cases have been brought by some families who lost children and loved ones in the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. On December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, 26 people were killed including 20 students who were between six and sev...

Send us Fan Mail This summer has been one marked by mass shootings. Since Memorial Day of this year alone there have been 178 mass shootings, which have killed 165 people and injured 764 others . And as public fear increases, so too does misinformation and myth about mass murderers and mass shootings. To cut through the noise, and learn what may drive shooters, hosts Kelly and JJ are joined by Dr....