Red, Blue, and Brady

Send us Fan Mail Though only 35, Scott Beigel left a lasting legacy with the thousands of children he directly impacted as a beloved teacher, cross country coach, and camp counselor, one who perpetually "made school fun." Yet, in very "Scott fashion," he had made it clear before his death that he never wanted to be thought of as a hero. Nevertheless, Scott was already a humble...

Send us Fan Mail Early in the afternoon on April 16, 2017 -- Easter Sunday -- 74 year old Robert Godwin Sr . went out to collect cans in the Glenville neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. Shortly after beginning his routine walk home, Robert was confronted, shot, and murdered by a stranger. Compounding on the senseless horror, the shooter filmed and livestreamed the murder , uploading the footage to F...

Send us Fan Mail Kris West, a firearms instructor and gun safety advocate, returns to the podcast to join hosts Kelly and JJ for a conversation on concealed carry (the practice of carrying a firearm in public in a concealed manner): namely,  why some folks might practice concealed carry, and how people, particularly those working to prevent gun violence,  can better understand concealed carry and...

Send us Fan Mail Black and brown communities impacted by gun violence have been fighting for their own gun violence interventions for decades, with thousands of unknown advocates dedicating themselves to community-focused solutions . These community activists often work tirelessly to end gun violence, despite outsiders often misunderstanding both gun violence at a local level and the communities e...

Send us Fan Mail Gun violence in America never takes a vacation, unfortunately, but hosts Kelly and JJ sometimes do -- which is why today's episode is straight from the vault! Consistently ranked as a favorite by our listeners, Kirsten Englund's story did not end with her murder at the hands of a disturbed man wielding an illegally-purchased firearm; Brady's legal team would not all...

Send us Fan Mail Gun ownership in the US has changed, and with it, how that ownership is viewed and studied. One person studying those changes -- and a participant in them -- is sociologist and gun owner Dr. David Yamane . Dr. Yamane, author of the book Concealed Carry Revolution: Expanding the Right to Bear Arms in America and the blogs Gun Culture 2.0 and Gun Curious , joined hosts Kelly and JJ...

Send us Fan Mail The part firearms have played in the story of the United States is far greater than any mere chronicling of all things Second Amendment could hope to reveal, as historian and author Dr. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz explains in her book " Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment." Together with  hosts Kelly and JJ ,  Dunbar-Ortiz discusses the origins and intents of fi...

Send us Fan Mail Many Americans have long regarded the Second Amendment as a particularly bright example of their nation's dedication to the principles of liberty; the right to own and use firearms is often tied closely in our culture to the preservation and enjoyment of other freedoms, such as speech and religion, which are so linked to the very idea of the United States that thinking of one...

Send us Fan Mail The filibuster has a complex history and an even more complicated present, having become an instrument of partisan gridlock which allows a minority of the Senate's members to halt the chamber's progress -- inaction which often has major implications for gun violence prevention . To discuss what the filibuster is, what it means for Americans and gun violence prevention, a...

Send us Fan Mail Patience Murray survived the Pulse nightclub shooting, and her stirring rendition of her poem " the Guilt of Being Alive is Heavy " made her go viral as both a writer and a survivor. In the years that followed, Patience continued to produce work as a survivor activist, writing the book  Survive Then Live: The Patience Carter Story , hosting a podcast , being in an Emmy-...

Send us Fan Mail On June 12, 2016, young women Patience Murray (then Patience Carter),  Tiara Parker , and Akyra Murray went to the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, for a fun girls night. Together the friends danced until the early morning hours, kicking off Patience's  first trip outside of her native Philadelphia. Tragically, the joy of that evening was cut short when a gunman attacked...

Send us Fan Mail Mass shootings account for only  0.2% of firearm deaths in the US a year -- but their impact is large, deeply traumatizing survivors, their communities, and the country as a whole. How do we, as a nation, try to prevent these mass shootings? And what commonalities exist between not just these shootings, but the shooters themselves? To find out, host JJ is joined by Dr. Jillian Pet...

Send us Fan Mail Most Americans are familiar with the National Rifle Association (NRA), as it is one of the most visible and powerful special interest groups in the US. On this podcast we've discussed numerous times that the NRA -- and NRA backed politicians -- have weakened existing gun laws or trompered over new, life-saving legislation. But how does the NRA manage to run such a powerful gr...

Send us Fan Mail Darien was a charismatic, kind, 25-year-old athlete who was in the process of getting her master’s degree  when she was shot during a home invasion. 51 days after being shot in the hand and leg, Darien died from her injuries. Police quickly recovered the murder weapon, but Darien’s parents Wayne and Judi Richardson were horrified when they found out that the gun could not be trace...

Send us Fan Mail On the 4th, U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez of the Southern District of California  overturned California’s over 30 year ban on assault weapons , saying the state’s law was unconstitutional and that prohibiting such firearms for decades was “a failed experiment.” This decision was a huge blow to gun violence prevention advocates, who were shocked when in his ruling Judge Benitez...

Send us Fan Mail Tom and Caren Teves ' eldest son Alex was killed at the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater shooting in July of 2012 while shielding his girlfriend, Amanda . That shooting left 12 people dead and 70 injured, but in the long days of media coverage that followed, attention was largely focused on the profile of the shooter -- not on the acts of heroism done by people like Alex, or t...

Send us Fan Mail In 2017, Brady took the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to court to obtain inspection reports of gun industry businesses that violated firearms laws. This litigation resulted in the ATF delivering 50,000 pages of reports detailing inspections of over 2,000 gun dealers between July 2015 and June 2017. These documents tell a disturbing story. In this v...

Send us Fan Mail In the US, 1 in 5 women report experiencing severe physical violence from an intimate partner during their lifetime. Terrifyingly, when guns are introduced into that terrorism, the risk of serious death and injury only increases, with the American Journal of Public Health reporting that in domestic violence situations the risk of death is five times greater when a gun is present....

Send us Fan Mail As we've often detailed on this podcast, while we may not always agree when debating about gun violence and the ways to solve it,  having the conversation itself is vital. Preventing that robust discourse is the fact that, despite the work of many activists, a divide exists within the gun violence prevention movement between responsible gun owners and gun violence prevention...

Send us Fan Mail On the 29th of April, 2021, a variety of survivors and members from the Time Is Now Coalition gathered together to hold their own State of the Union address on the national mall in Washington DC, calling out to elected officials to pass gun control legislation in the U.S. Senate. The coalition, made up of over 80 gun violence prevention groups, have all gathered together to collec...

Send us Fan Mail Since March 16, a day marked with shootings across Atlanta spas, there have been over 45 mass shootings in the United States. You, our listeners, reached out to  Kelly and JJ to ask how to talk to the young people in your lives about these mass shootings, and gun violence more broadly. To best answer your questions, we reached out to the great Nancy Kislin , LCSW, MFT, who has bee...

Send us Fan Mail According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been over 147 mass shootings in America this year.* These mass shootings account for only a tiny percentage of the United State's gun deaths, but nevertheless tend to dominate our news cycles. Two contradictory situations have developed overtime: while many have argued that Americans have become desensitized to the horror of m...

Send us Fan Mail In Children Under Fire: An American Crisis , John Woodrow Cox lays out the myths surrounding gun violence in the United States as it pertains to children. By exploring the stories of a handful of American children, Cox explains how  “children who are killed or maimed dominate headlines, but they represent only a fraction of the problem in the United States, where not thousands, bu...

Send us Fan Mail In 2010, Christen McGinnes felt she had "hit rock bottom and kept going." On October 22, 2010, she pointed her long-owned .357 revolver at her head, and pulled the trigger. Thankfully, Christen survived, and now i s a devoted volunteer and advocate fighting for gun violence prevention . Suicide by gun comprises the largest portion of gun deaths in America: over 23,000 Am...

Send us Fan Mail When is a gun not a gun? Ghost guns are unserialized and untraceable firearms that can be bought online and assembled at home. They are often sold through "ghost gun kits," which include all of the parts and often the equipment necessary to build these weapons at home. These kits are widely available and can be purchased by anyone, including prohibited purchasers, domest...