Red, Blue, and Brady

Send us Fan Mail Why do folks support things that go against their best interests, or sometimes even harm them? For example, we know that most firearm suicides in the US are white men living in rural communities ; and yet, that demographic votes against many polices that may help curb the number of gun suicide deaths.  Why is there that disconnect? What factors into that decision making? To try to...

Send us Fan Mail What is a firearm? Is a gun just a weapon, or is it also a symbol of freedom? A mark of masculinity? A token of white supremacy? Just a tool? Or can a gun be all that and more, depending on the wielder? Anthropologist Brandon Hunter-Pazzara joins hosts Kelly and JJ to discuss how guns can have "social lives"— how they can be transformed into a multitude of identities and...

Send us Fan Mail While discussions of white supremacy (the belief that the United States was, and should, remain a mostly white country) have been increasingly discussed, there has been a part of the equation we haven't really touched on: the role white women have played in protecting and perpetuating white supremacist hatred. While white nationalist groups may be dominated by hypermasculine,...

Send us Fan Mail This week, an armed man, making anti-Semitic statements , entered the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas , while members celebrated Shabbat morning services. What followed was a t en-hour hostage crisis   that thankfully ended when Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker threw a chair at the gunman, and the congregants were able to run to safety.  But this terrifying att...

Send us Fan Mail For the last few years, the term " QAnon " has been trending , and for a frightening reason: the conspiracy theory has been tied to increasingly violent acts. As we've seen in the news, QAnon tears apart families , impacts governmental processes , and is a danger to public safety . While those in gun violence prevention may be familiar with QAnon due to its adherent...

Send us Fan Mail The first month and a half of 2021 was heartbreaking for Jamie Raskin , U.S. Representative for Maryland's 8th congressional district. . On December 31st, 2020, h is son Tommy Raskin tragically died by suicide after a long battle with depression. Only seven days later, Tommy's father arrived at the Capitol to play his part in certifying the results of the recent presiden...

Send us Fan Mail On January 6, 2021, the United States Capitol was attacked by supporters of Donald Trump, who sought to overturn his loss in the 2020 American presidential election. The mob assaulted police officers, vandalized property, and looted the building .  But to think that the January 6 U.S. Capitol attack was just an one-off peculiarity would be a grave mistake. The forces that gave ris...

Send us Fan Mail Senator Chris Murphy and Team Enough Executive Council member Simone Paradis have very different lives: To start with, she's a college student, and he's a member of one of the most powerful bodies in the United States.  What they have in common, though, is that both were drafted into the gun violence prevention movement on December 14, 2012, when an armed gunman killed 2...

Send us Fan Mail Senator Chris Murphy and Team Enough Executive Council member Simone Paradis have very different lives: To start with, she's a college student, and he's a member of one of the most powerful bodies in the United States. What they have in common, though, is that both were drafted into the gun violence prevention movement on December 14, 2012, when an armed gunman killed 26...

Send us Fan Mail On November 30, 2021, four students at Oxford High School in Oxford Township, Michigan, were shot and killed by a classmate. Their names were Tate Myre, 16; Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Hana St Juliana, 14; and Justin Shilling, 17. 8 additional students, teachers, and staff members were injured. Horrifically, i t was just one of the 676 mass shootings in 2021. In the days that followed th...

Send us Fan Mail Every day in the US, about 17 veterans die by suicide, and 12 of those 17 veterans (68%) die from a self-inflicted firearm injury. These veterans leave behind a large community of family, friends, and colleagues who are left with big, painful questions. To discuss how to better understand this loss, how to help the bereaved with their grief, and to prevent other suicides, hosts  K...

Send us Fan Mail Ethan Song was 15 . He had just had his braces removed, and had plans for the future that he outlined to his mother:  to go to college, to join the army, to get married, and to have seven children. His family and friends knew of other plans of Ethan's -- from eating the best sushi in the world with his dad to continuing to rescue abandoned dogs. But Ethan never got to see tho...

Send us Fan Mail Every day, 316 people are shot in the United States. Of those, 106 are killed. But Americans aren't great at dealing with grief . As a result, major questions survivors of gun violence have -- "what is the "right" way to grieve after a shooting?"; "how can I best give support to those I love after a shooting?"; "how are communities supposed...

Send us Fan Mail Grief is complex, and personal -- but sadly for many who have lost loved ones to gun violence, their loss is made public. How do you deal with grief when your loss is national news? When the reason you are in  mourning is trending on twitter?  Hosts Kelly and JJ are joined by survivors Andy Parker and Simone Paradis to discuss their own experiences with grief, how to deal with you...

Send us Fan Mail 100 people a day die from gun violence in the US. They leave behind hundreds of family, friends, and community members, who then have to try to answer terrible questions like: "how do I go on without my loved one?"; "what is life going to be like now?"; and "how do I support the folks in my life who are hurting?". To discuss how the answers to these q...

Send us Fan Mail America’s deadliest shootings are the ones we rarely talk about: Over half of all gun deaths are suicides. This crisis has an outsized impact on the veteran community, with 63 veterans dying by suicide each day. But veterans from across the country are uniting to address this crisis by practicing and promoting safe firearm storage . This Veteran's Day, to discuss suicide prev...

Send us Fan Mail Private planes. Thousand dollar suits. Yachts. Russian spies. And a lie -- that the solution to gun violence was just "a good guy with a gun." A one time nonprofit group meant to encourage marksmanship and sports shooting, by the new millennium the National Rifle Association (NRA) had become " a powerful lobbyist organization that maintained an iron hold on gun legi...

Send us Fan Mail On the 18th of January 1984,  Dr. Malcolm H. Kerr,  president of the American University of Beirut, was assassinated on campus .  The gunmen were never caught. Now, 37 years later, Dr. Kerr's son -- former award-and-title-winning National Basketball Association (NBA) player, and current head  coach of the Golden State Warriors -- Steve Kerr, remains a gun violence prevention...

Send us Fan Mail In the final episode of season two, Brady's VP of Policy , Christian Heyne , joins host JJ , to discuss how policies either prevent gun violence and reduce racial inequities— or exacerbate both—that is why we must reckon with racism’s role in gun violence as we craft solutions today. Then, JJ is joined by co-host Kelly Sampson and the Pulitzer-prize winning historian Heather...

Send us Fan Mail This week, the shooter who killed 17 students and faculty members and injured 17 others in the deadliest shooting at a high school in US history plead guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder. The plea comes more than three and a half years after the Valentine's Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. As a result of th...

Send us Fan Mail In our second special  birthday episode, host JJ is joined by Joan Peterson , a longtime Brady chapter member and leader, who became a gun violence prevention and domestic violence activist after her sister, Barbara Lund , was murdered. Barbara and her boyfriend, former Iowa state legislator Kevin Kelly, were killed by Lund's estranged husband. Together, they detail why domes...

Send us Fan Mail In this special birthday episode, Legal Counsel and Director of Programs Joshua Scharff details why he thinks so-called "gun truthers" — hoaxers —are deeply troubling, while reviewing a past episode with Fred Guttenberg and Andy Parker. In this episode, host JJ is also joined by Fred Guttenberg and Andy Parker , two fathers who, after losing their beloved daughters Jaime...

Send us Fan Mail How can we have better conversations with those we disagree with -- or, at the very least, think we disagree with? How can gun owners and non-gun owners, all of whom support gun violence prevention, bridge the gaps in their understanding? And, at the end of the day, how do we let people know we love them? To answer all these questions and more, hosts Kelly and JJ are joined by hos...

Send us Fan Mail Journalist Wendi Winters was only 65 when she was killed when a gunman attacked the offices of the Capital Gazette on June 28, 2018 .  It was one of the deadliest attacks on journalists in American history. In the days that followed, stories of Wendi's heroism spread -- not just her actions in charging the shooter to protect her colleagues -- but her lifetime of service to he...

Send us Fan Mail In the past 50 years, the National Rifle Association (NRA) evolved from being a nonpartisan hunting and sport shooting enthusiasts’ organization to a political and lobbying powerhouse. The NRA's work has had a huge impact on not just American gun culture, but on American policy and legislation related to gun violence prevention .  To trace that evolution, and it's impact...