As noted at the top of today’s BradCast, our show changed about five different times right up until air, as we attempted to keep up with busy news events on the ground following the Labor Day weekend.
First up, Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Kentucky Clerk who was jailed before the weekend after defying court orders to issue marriage licenses was released [PDF] by the Federal Judge who had found her in contempt last week. Waiting for her with a hero’s welcome was a crowd of hundreds fomented by former Arkansas Governor turned GOP Presidential candidate turned Fox ‘News’ host turned GOP Presidential candidate again turned desperately disingenuous opportunist Mike Huckabee.
But what Huckabee failed to note in his defense of Davis — as do most of the media covering what’s going on down there — is that Davis was sent to jail not for refusing to defy her own conscience as her supporters claim, but for refusing to allow others who disagreed with her in her own office from acting and following their own conscience…not to mention the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution.
Next up today: As the carnage of gun violence continues from coat to coast following the recent, live on-air shootings in Roanoke, Virginia (include another mass shooting at a school here in California and the critical injury of one of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s top legal staffers), we speak to author David Hemenway about solutions, as detailed in his book Private Guns, Public Health
“People from around the world come and they just cannot understand why the United States allows this to happen — compared to all the other first world countries and high income countries — that we are allowing so many Americans to be killed,” Hemenway tells me while explaining how our epidemic of gun violence must be regarded as an issue of public health. “First we have to admit we have a problem, and the numbers are just overwhelming.”
While he concedes that, no matter what we do, “we are going to have lots and lots of guns in the Unites States,” they can and should be made safer. “One of the analogies we make in public health is in the motor vehicle area,” Hemenway explains. “Fatalities per mile driven in the United States have fallen over 85% because the cars are so much better, and the roads are so much better. Yes, we ought to look at the individuals [perpetrating the violence] but we can do so much more, so much more cost-effectively, if we also look at the system. Let’s make a system where it’s hard to make errors, hard to behave inappropriately, and then when still some people do, let’s make it that nobody dies.”
“For example, we’d like manufacturers to do a better job about making child-proof guns — which they made 100 years ago — to make it harder for kids to unintentionally kill themselves. We can say ‘You know, it’s the kid’s fault, it’s the parent’s fault, it’s somebody’s fault fault fault,’ or we can solve the problem, which is make it so that when you take out the magazine the gun won’t fire. It’s not rocket science.”
Hemenway, Professor of Health Policy and Director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, offers other common sense solutions, including the need for better data collection, currently made scarce by both legislation and intimidation by gun proponents. “Whenever there’s a motor vehicle death, we get 150 pieces of information collected consistently and comparably. We want to get good data on the number of guns in households in each state, but the Center for Disease Control is afraid to ask questions about that because they’ll get beaten up by Congress.”
He also discusses a number of myths from opponents of gun safety laws, including the claim that women need guns to protect themselves from predators and the notion that households are safer with a gun to protect the occupants. “Only about a third of households have guns,” Hemenway tells me. “And the two-thirds that don’t have guns, turns out they are much, much safer than the one third that does.”
Also on today’s busy broadcast: Breaking news from the Freddie Gray killing in Baltimore; Breaking news on the Iran Deal from U.S. Senate Democrats; and more…
So cough.. cough.. Guns are bad! How do we protect the Disabled and Elderly from Gangs or Tyranny? How come it’s ok for Obama to send GUNs to Amir to have an Arab Spring and take down a dictator? So someone half-a-world away can Bear Arms. But it’s wrong for Jim Bob to own a Firearm and shoot squirrels with his .22? He should own a Musket! So it’s ok to define Firearms as long as it’s outdated tech. But you can’t do the same with marriage, but you do!
And if anyone think’s I’m a shill from Breitbart.com you’re wrong. I don’t trust BB. One article they published was about Toby Keith’s “Bar” not allowing people with guns. I supported TK. READ ANY GUN owner’s manual, drinking or getting drunk with a GUN is Illegal! It’s TK’s business he can run it the way he wants. But I do recommend Law Enforcement to drink, tea, or soda in a bar. If allowed by the owner. No responsible Gun owner, drinks and shoots! Just like Drunk Driving. I think the Public Health Crisis is Commonsense. Not those evil guns! So go ahead give all those Arab Spring friends some nice AK-47’s but call “Gun Rights” supporters Hicks etc. A Double Standard is a Double Standard. When it comes to Gun Rights or Same-Sex Marriage! One is Written in the Constitution and is the 2ed Amendment. The other isn’t there but you try to “Fudge” it up and create things that are non-existent! So instead of pointing a Finger at Kim Davis. You should point it at yourselves! You “redefine” what Shall Not Be Infringed means regarding the 2ed Amendment. And want more gun laws! Yet you get upset about Voter ID laws? Hypocritical… So lets add more steps for ownership of GUNS but complain that the GOP is suppressing votes! How come you’re not fighting to make guns easier to get a hold of, the way you show up to the voting polls? If we don’t need to see ID’s and do background checks on Voters, why the HELL do we need it for guns? On one scale of the spectrum, Big Brother aka Uncle Sam gets to be a perv and know what Gun owners are up to. But that same Gov. doesn’t have the right to verify where you live and know if you’re a legal resident or alien? How illogical! Just another fruity Double Standard that makes no sense. BTW people who own Guns fill out lots of paper-work etc. etc. It’s easier to get a Voter ID than it is to own a Firearm. And that is 100% Truth!
Sigh…
The mind is a terrible thing to waste. But now there seems to be a competition to produce pollution.
The self-styled mainstream press is, far too often, self-absorbed and self-satisfied and negligent in regard to informing the public. And they aid and abet politicians who pander.
Thus, we do not debate whether the glass is half full or half empty. Instead, we argue over the composition of water, the looks of the waiter or waitress, and the tie of the maà®tre d’.