Guns in America

King of the gun beat and founder of The Reload Stephen Gutowski joins Sarah and Steve to ...

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King of the gun beat and founder of The Reload Stephen Gutowski joins Sarah and Steve to talk about all things gun related on today’s episode. The topic of guns induces plenty of passion, and comes with plenty of stereotypes and myths. Stephen, Sarah, and Steve talk about all of that, plus gun culture in America, the politics of guns, the NRA, and more. Stick around to the end to hear what Stephen thinks action movies are getting things wrong about guns.

Show Notes:

–Subscribe to The Reload

–Gun ownership rising

–Gallup historical polling on guns

–We’re out of ammo

–Stephen’s piece for The Dispatch

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Comments (27)
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  1. Avatar photo
    Tammydd

    On Wednesday, the Dispatch crew does a podcast focusing on the rapid rise in violent crime around the country in the past year. And on Friday, they talk to a guy who tells us how gun ownership has risen rapidly in the past year. And no one asks if the two might be related? Even when the guest talks about how the number of gun-related murders had skyrocketed in the same year that gun ownership skyrocketed? It's always hard to prove causation/correlation issues, but shouldn't they at least be contemplated?

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    Rajeev

    I have nothing against guns but if you are someone unlawfully breaking into houses via the chimney on a specific date in December, maybe you'd avoid houses like Sarah's that had the guns ready to take out intruders even those planning on leaving gifts under a tree.

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    David Burke

    What a great talk. This guy was fantastic and made you two ask fantastic questions in turn.

    I have been a subscriber since the first few weeks and to be honest, with Jonah and Crenshaw and you two with Roy, I felt a real mudslide occurring.

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    ed74siasl

    This is more of an AO question, and I heard the language there as well:
    How is "common use," or " commonly owned" not regarded as totally circular reasoning?
    It's exactly saying you can't ban because it's not banned.
    It is VERY easy to see
    1) Enough gun-nuts and gun-nut panderers and I-should-be-allowed-to drive-on-the-sidewalk-if-no-one-is-walking-there Libertarians get into Congress and the SCOTUS to get the National Firearms Act repealed, overturned or modified.
    2) Fully automatic weapon sales would be astronomical.
    3) Now they're common.
    So it's unconstitutional to ban them?
    Doesn't work at all.

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    Guffia

    This was a great discussion. I also want to point out this episode of The Weeds from a Liew months ago about the policy implications of gun violence, and how it’s much more valuable as a demagoguing opportunity than a target rich policy environment: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/is-gun-violence-fixable/id1042433083?i=1000514170571

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    Cornelius O’Brien

    Some very good discussion about gun rights and politics, and the train wreck that is the NRA today. I grate at the unchallenged assertion that the core purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to arm the people against government tyranny. It's core purpose is to prevent the disarmament of the people of the various states as a bulwark against against federal tyranny. It is not directly to preserve a mere individual right to keep and bear arms. In this regard, I think MacDonald was wrongly decided. This is one right that should not have been incorporated because incorporation changes its essential purpose.

    Broad individual rights to possess firearms are found in most of the state constitutions. I'm not sure if/ why there hasn't been broader efforts to enforce those rights, nor why defenders of federalism don't give more deference to the states on this one issue. It may be that state constitutions can't restrict a core right to keep and bear arms because that is one of the rights reserved to the people in the 9th and 10th amendments. This I believe would be a better legal framework to resolve those issues but, the courts never invoke those two because they're loath to 'legislate from the bench'. The Constitution gives them that power to declare the reserved rights of the states and people.

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  7. linda

    I think your tolerance for gun ownership is regional. I live in the west and unless you are a recent arrival from some major city in the east you grew up with guns. My grandma taught her grandkids to shoot. She was from a family of German immigrants who took claims in south central Idaho. She taught us in an area just north of Seattle back in the day when you could shoot guns in an rural/quickly coming suburban area. The young ones started out with a light weight pellet rifle that if you hit the target a bell would ring. As you progressed you could shoot the .22. I was a pretty good shot at 9 but one of my sister's was Annie Oakley.
    Today 3 of my family members (that I know of) always carry. One is a timber cruiser and one does remodels in rich and poor areas. If you camp in the wilderness areas every is armed because if you aren't you are stupid.
    If you are from NY, NJ and environs you just don't get this or just maybe you aren't given a choice.

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  8. Tom (Inadvertent Obfuscation)

    Thank you, Stephen Gutowski! That was a refreshingly different take on gun ownership in America.

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  9. El Peligroso

    I enjoyed the podcast as usual but I think the argument (sometimes made on TD) that the Constitution is in great need of another amendment regarding gun rights needs to gain a lot more traction. The 2nd Amendment is just too vague now in the 21st century. Any ideas on how to do this? As a proud happy gun owner I’m not losing sleep over the “Biden’s gonna take my guns just like Obama did” tactic but the SCOTUS can only do so much with what we have; especially with the extremes: D- No Guns! R- a gun in the hand of every man, woman and child. (Please indulge with the over-simplification). Also: I wonder how late that “vented spleen” dude is going to stay up waiting for the libtard Democrats’ heads to blow off in the comments.

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      Kmregan7

      the "vented spleen guy" will just copy and paste it somewhere else.....he's a troll.

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      1. El Peligroso

        Everyone needs a hobby ;-)

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  10. IamJACKSventedSPLEEN

    The best thing about this podcast is watching Democrats, who usually troll the comments section for the anti-Trump stuff here, heads blow off because of this installment. So entertaining.

    Gun violence is a symptom of living in a free, but violent society. Mass shootings are a rare, horrible byproduct of that freedom. Deal with it.

    Also, most violent gun deaths in the US happen in deep blue cities, with young black men shooting and killing each other almost hourly. But random, relatively infrequent, mass shootings get all the attention. Why?

    Because they fit the media narrative of random, deadly, violence, committed by whites, instead of the real issues which are lawlessness, a poverty of culture, and respect for lives in the black community. Also, enforcement of gun laws in these cities, if done aggressively, would put huge numbers of black men in jail for a LONG LONG time - and so no socialist pol in a large city wants to be guilty of the next round of mass incarceration. Right? Imagine Comrade DeBlasio, Eric Garcetti, or the racist Lori Lightfoot cracking down on black men en masse for gun possession or trafficking. It's laughable on its face.

    So, it's easier to try to take guns away from law abiding people every time a twisted, white, loner, that the FBI already knew about - shoots up a workplace or a school, because it makes liberals feel better about themselves.

    Every time. Black lives matter, right?

    Right...

    :) So entertaining.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Mudskipper

      Looks like you had to watch some reruns of the The Rifleman for your entertainment. So sorry.

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    2. DJ

      Yes it's like when I see something funny on the internet my first instinct is to write a long comment attacking my perceived enemies about how entertained I am.

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