#1493 Marketing, Messaging and Mass Shootings

Air Date 6/4/2022

Today we take a look at some of the obvious steps we need to take to reduce gun violence in the United States, debunk some of the favored propaganda supporting unfettered gun ownership and explore the origins of how Gun Culture™ was invented by corporations as the frontier era need for guns began to vanish pushing them to convert guns from tools that were needed but not loved into items that were loved though no longer needed.

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Transcript

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SHOW NOTES

Ch. 1: Igor Volsky on Ending Gun Violence - CounterSpin - Air Date 5-27-22

We revisit some conversations about gun violence and gun culture this week on the show. In March of last year we spoke with Igor Volsky, executive director of Guns Down America

Ch. 2: NRA's "Good Guy With A Gun" Theory Failed In Real Time In Uvalde - All In with Chris Hayes - Air Date 5-27-22

In addition to the police response being an unfathomable failure, it is also proof that the ‘good guy with a gun’ theory doesn't work.

Ch. 3: Jordan Klepper Debunks The "Good Guy with a Gun" Argument - The Daily Show - Air Date 12-11-15

Jordan Klepper sets out to determine the likelihood of another gun owner stopping an active shooter.

Ch. 4: The Second Amendment Isn't About Killing Politicians or Overthrowing Democracy - The Thom Hartmann Program - Air Date 5-31-22

The far-right wants you to think the Second Amendment is about average Americans taking up arms against a tyrannical government. But none of that is true... The real history of the second amendment is far more interesting and unsettling.

Ch. 5: Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger speaking to Charlayne Hunter-Gault - PBS NewsHour - Air Date 12-16-1991

Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger speaking to Charlayne Hunter-Gault, PBS News Hours, 12/16/1991

Ch. 6: How the Gun Industry Used Marketing to Change a Culture - Letters and Politics - Air Date 8-7-19

Today, we are in conversation with Pamela Haag about American gun culture and its influence on policy and gun market. Guest: Pamela Haag is an award-winning nonfiction writer, essayist, cultural commentator, and historian.

Ch. 7: Mass Shootings: American Exceptionalism of the Worst Kind - Breaking the Sound Barrier by Amy Goodman - Air Date 5-26-22

“Together we rise,” reads the motto on a wall of the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The school serves about 600 students in the second thru fourth grades. Over ninety percent are Latinx.

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MEMBERS-ONLY BONUS CLIP(S)

Ch. 8: Rightwing Media's Increasingly Goofy, Hyper-Militarized Non-Solutions to Mass Shootings - Citations Needed - Air Date 5-27-22

In this public News Brief, we discuss the phoned-in, cynical response by Republicans to mass shooting and how they've devolved into a dark, meta self-parody.

Ch. 9: A History of the 2nd Amendment, Gun Control, & the Rise of the NRA - Letters and Politics - Air Date 5-25-22

Guest: Robert J. Spitzer is Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Political Science Department at the State University of New York, College at Cortland. He is the author of 15 books including Guns across America: Reconciling Gun Rules and Rights.

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FINAL COMMENTS

Ch. 10: Final comments on the bonus episode in which we explain the cultural foundations of capitalism, guns and beyond

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MUSIC (Blue Dot Sessions)

SHOW IMAGE:

Description: A pencil sketch of a larger-than-life hand gun on the shoulders of a weary man, in the image of Jesus carrying the cross. He stands in a pool of red blood.

Credit: “Gun Culture” by Christopher Dombres, Flickr | Public Domain | Changes: Cropped

 

Produced by Jay! Tomlinson

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