Red, Blue, and Brady

This week, Brady called on the Ohio House of Representatives’ Criminal Justice Committee to vote against H.B. 381, a “Stand Your Ground” law which would allow individuals to use lethal force in public spaces by removing their “duty to retreat.” This bill would empower individuals to use lethal force even in confrontations that could end peacefully. Stand Your Ground laws were thrust into the national spotlight after the 2012 shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin and continue to be controversial. To talk about what these laws are, how they’ve developed, and their history of use against people of color, host JJ is joined by Kelly Sampson, legal counsel at Brady, and Dr. Caroline Light, an author and historian whose work focuses on America’s fascination with “castle doctrine”-style legislation.

Mentioned in this podcast:

• Stand Your Ground: A History of America's Love Affair with Lethal Self-Defense (Beacon Press)
• Ahmaud Arbery Shooting Ignites Fight to Repeal ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws (the Trace)
• Brady Calls on Ohio Lawmakers (Brady)

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For more information on Brady, follow us on social media @Bradybuzz or visit our website at bradyunited.org.

Full transcripts and bibliographies of this episode are available at bradyunited.org/podcast.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255. 
Music provided by: David “Drumcrazie” Curby
Special thanks to Hogan Lovells for their long-standing legal support 
℗&©2019 Red, Blue, and Brady

Ghost guns — constructed firearms that lack serial numbers or other identifying markings — have been gaining popularity over the last decade. These weapons, which are typically made of plastic and allow users to bypass background checks and registration regulations, are assembled from kits that can be purchased online, providing an easy way of obtaining firearms for people with criminal records. For example, if you are banned from owning guns in a state with universal background checks, you won’t be able to walk into a store and purchase a gun — but, if you order the parts for that gun online and assemble it yourself, it’s likely that nobody will know.

US law allows for the creation and possession of these ghost guns for personal use, while pre-assembled firearms made available for sale or distribution must bear their maker's markings and unique serial numbers. Furthermore, as per the 1968 Gun Control Act, a federal license is required to manufacture them.

However, the Act provided an exemption for people who make their own firearms for personal use, and the 1993 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which established the federal background check system, included a similar allowance for homemade weapons. To put it plainly, it’s perfectly legal for Americans to build their own untraceable, unregistered firearms.

To understand why weapons of this nature present such a threat to public safety, host JJ is joined by Steve Lindley, ghost gun expert and Brady Program Manager, and Kyleanne Hunter, Brady's VP of Programs.

Mentioned in this podcast:

• Tell the ATF to take action on ghost guns (Brady)
• What are ghost guns? (Brady)
• Ghost guns: the DIY firearms (60 Minutes)
• I made an untraceable AR-15 (Wired)

RBB listeners get a free quote with ADT today by clicking here!

For more information on Brady, follow us on social media @Bradybuzz or visit our website at bradyunited.org.

Full transcripts and bibliographies of this episode are available at bradyunited.org/podcast.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255. 
Music provided by: David “Drumcrazie” Curby
Special thanks to Hogan Lovells for their long-standing legal support 
℗&©2019 Red, Blue, and Brady

Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs) allow families or law enforcement officers to petition a court to temporarily restrict a person’s access to guns. The petitioner must submit evidence that this person is a danger to themselves or others. ERPOs save lives, allowing the people who are most likely to notice when a loved one or community member becomes a danger to take concrete steps to disarm them.

The nation’s first ERPO law was passed in 1999 in Connecticut, in response to a mass shooting at the state’s lottery headquarters that left four people dead. ERPOs otherwise sat largely ignored legislatively until 2014, when a young man in Isla Vista, California, committed a string of shootings that left six people dead and more than a dozen injured. Many of the victims were students at the nearby University of California, Santa Barbara. Prior to the shooting, the gunman displayed concerning behavior, prompting a welfare check from police; however, because he had not violated any laws, authorities took no action to disarm him. Following advocacy led by Brady California, lawmakers passed California's ERPO law by the end of the year.

ERPOs again rose to national attention following the mass shooting at Parkland, Florida in 2018. Over the next 12 months, nearly a dozen states followed suit with California, with similar laws going into effect in Nevada and Colorado in the early days of 2020. Nevertheless, misinformation about ERPOs persists.

To get to what ERPOs actually are, and how they are used to save lives, JJ is joined by Kelly Sampson, legal counsel at Brady, and Raul Campillo, a San Diego prosecutor, deputy attorney, and member of the city's GVRO unit.

Mentioned in this podcast:

• Extreme Risk Protection Orders (Brady)
• What is a Gun Violence Restraining Order? (City of San Diego)
• Extreme Risk Protection Orders Work (Giffords)

For more information on Brady, follow us on social media @Bradybuzz or visit our website at bradyunited.org.

Full transcripts and bibliographies of this episode are available at bradyunited.org/podcast.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255. 
Music provided by: David “Drumcrazie” Curby
Special thanks to Hogan Lovells for their long-standing legal support ℗&©2019 Red, Blue, and Brady

The insurrectionist idea — that armed citizens have the ultimate right to take matters into their own hands and take up arms against whatever they define as an oppressive government — was once a fringe one. In 2020, however, the idea has been promoted and popularized by the gun lobby and its allies in the far-right movement. Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, joins JJ and Christian Heyne, Brady’s VP of Policy, to talk about how insurrectionism threatens democracy, how Trump's rhetoric is directing a vigilante army through his Twitter feed and press conferences, why racism is present in all of this, and why voting is so important. 

Mentioned in this podcast:

• Guns, Democracy, and the Insurrectionist Idea (University of Michigan Press)
• President Trump's Private Insurrection Army (NY Daily News)
• The Insurrectionism Timeline (Coalition to Stop Gun Violence) 

RBB listeners get a free quote with ADT today by clicking here!

For more information on Brady, follow us on social media @Bradybuzz or visit our website at bradyunited.org.

Full transcripts and bibliographies of this episode are available at bradyunited.org/podcast.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255. 
Music provided by: David “Drumcrazie” Curby
Special thanks to Hogan Lovells for their long-standing legal support 
℗&©2019 Red, Blue, and Brady

On the evening of May 14, 1970, dozens of police officers, responding to reports of rioting and unrest, descended on the Jackson State campus in Jackson, Mississippi, armed with not just their standard service weapons but shotguns and submachine guns as well. Equipped more like soldiers than police and accompanied by an armored vehicle the city, these men, all of whom were white, approached a crowd of students, all of whom were black, and without cause or provocation barraged the young men and women with 28 straight seconds of gunfire, injuring 12 and killing 2.

Though it occurred not even two weeks after the infamous Kent State shooting, Americans do not remember the massacre at Jackson State nearly as well, if at all — a fact possibly related to the former's victims being white northerners and the latter's being black southerners. To discuss the Jackson State shootings and how race is involved in both revealing and concealing the event, JJ welcomes aboard Kelly Sampson, Brady legal counsel; Cordy Galligan, Brady's Vice President of Communications; and Dr. Nancy Bristow, Chair of the History Department at the University of Puget Sound and author of Steeped in the Blood of Racism: Black Power, Law and Order, and the 1970 Shootings at Jackson State College.

Mentioned in this podcast:

• Memories of the Jackson State Shooting, 50 years ago (Clarion Ledger)
• Gibbs, Green Shooting (Jackson State)
• Remembering the Jackson State Shooting (the Nation)
• 50 Years After the Jackson State Killings, America's Crisis of Racial Injustice Continues—and Shows the Danger of Forgetting (Time)

For more information on Brady, follow us on social @Bradybuzz, or via our website at bradyunited.org. Full transcripts and bibliography available at bradyunited.org/podcast.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255. 
Music provided by: David “Drumcrazie” Curby
Special thanks to Hogan Lovells, for their long standing legal support 
℗&©2019 Red, Blue, and Brady

Support the show (https://www.bradyunited.org/donate)

20 years ago, on May 14, 2000, downtown Washington D.C. watched as the Million Mom March became the largest non-violent protest in the history of the National Mall, birthplace of many of the nation's greatest political demonstrations. Over 750,000 people, the majority of them women, came together on that Sunday to call for the end of gun violence, and across the country many thousands more gathered in smaller — but no less spirited — groups, bringing the total number of participants into seven figures and making the Million Mom March true to its name.

In the 20 years since, Marchers have carried across the country the torch of activism they lit that Sunday afternoon as they stood, unified and purposeful, in the shadow of the nation's monuments to its greatest people and events, and wherever the Marchers have brought that torch — to counties, to states, to the halls of Congress — they have helped bring to pass gun safety laws ensuring that tomorrow will be safer than today.

In 2001, the Million Mom March merged with Brady, and the work the Marchers began continued to grow and be realized as they labored alongside Jim and Sarah Brady's activists to end the public health epidemic that is gun violence. The two groups became one, and as one they worked tirelessly to reduce — from 21 to zero — the number of children and adults shot each day in American cities and towns.

In this episode celebrating the 20th anniversary of the March, our host JJ welcomes three women to the show who are each as knowledgeable about gun violence prevention as they are committed to its ideals: Kris Brown, Brady's president, who was a participant of the Million Mom March; Dana Sanchez-Quist, a member of the Brady State Executive Committee; Shikha Hamilton, Brady National Chapter Organizing and Chapter Development Manager; and Donna Dees-Thomases, visionary founder of the Million Mom March and the dream of a safer future that it continues to represent.

Mentioned in this podcast:

• the 20th Anniversary of the Million Mom March (Brady)
• the Legacy of the Million Mom March (Medium)
• Five Awake Documentary (Hollywood Reporter)
• ASK to End Family Fire (Brady)

For more information on Brady, follow us on social @Bradybuzz, or via our website at bradyunited.org. Full transcripts and bibliography available at bradyunited.org/podcast.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255. 
Music provided by: David “Drumcrazie” Curby
Special thanks to Hogan Lovells, for their long standing legal support 
℗&©2019 Red, Blue, and Brady

Daphne Frias is a 22-year-old organizer from West Harlem, New York.She is a nationally acclaimed activist within the movement to prevent gun violence, the New York state director of March for Our Lives, a delegate at the United Nations Youth Climate Summit, and she just began med school. Daphne is a great, tough young person, who was kind enough to join host JJ to talk about the intersection of coronavirus, disability, and gun violence.

Mentioned in this podcast:

• Gun violence, disability, and recovery (Journal of Disability)
• Higher COVID-19 Incidence in Minority Communities (AARP)
• Shootings Are a Glaring Exception to the Coronavirus Crime Drop (the Trace)

For more information on Brady, follow us on social @Bradybuzz, or via our website at bradyunited.org. Full transcripts and bibliography available at bradyunited.org/podcast.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255. 
Music provided by: David “Drumcrazie” Curby
Special thanks to Hogan Lovells, for their long standing legal support 
℗&©2019 Red, Blue, and Brady

In early 2020, DC native Tia Bell launched the T.R.I.G.G.E.R. Project (True Reasons I Grabbed the Gun Evolved in Risks Project), a gun violence prevention program. The T.R.I.G.G.E.R. Project aims to change the normalcy of gun violence within communities of color. The initiative incorporates film, empowerment programs, education, and development initiatives. Tia joins host JJ  to talk about why authentically telling the untold stories of everyday gun violence users to all walks of life is so important, and how-to bring compassion for young people who feel invisible.

Mentioned in this podcast:
TRIGGER Project Aims to End Gun Violence (Howard University)
AIM (TRIGGER Project)
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Quiz (American Society for the Positive Care of Children)

For more information on Brady, follow us on social @Bradybuzz, or via our website at bradyunited.org. Full transcripts and bibliography available at bradyunited.org/podcast.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255. 
Music provided by: David “Drumcrazie” Curby
Special thanks to Hogan Lovells, for their long standing legal support 
℗&©2019 Red, Blue, and Brady

The coronavirus pandemic has led to a rise in reported xenophobic and racist attacks on members of the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. Today, we continue our discussion on how incidents of hate crimes against the AAPI community are up, as is fear within the community that firearms will be used against them.

To talk about the duel threats of xenophobia and guns to the AAPI community, host JJ and Kelly Sampson  are joined by Dr. Russel Jeung, Chair and Professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University. Together, we discuss why rhetoric and guns has the potential to be just as--if not more so--dangerous than a virus. 

Mentioned in this podcast:

• Stop AAPI Hate (A3PCON)
• STOP AAPI HATE Reporting Center (Chinese for Affirmative Action)
• New Trump Attack Ad Appears to Suggest Gary Locke is a Chinese Official (Seattle Times)
• "They look at me and think I'm some kind of virus": What it's like to be Asian during the coronavirus pandemic (USA Today)

For more information on Brady, follow us on social @Bradybuzz, or via our website at bradyunited.org. Full transcripts and bibliography available at bradyunited.org/podcast.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255. 
Music provided by: David “Drumcrazie” Curby
Special thanks to Hogan Lovells, for their long standing legal support 
℗&©2019 Red, Blue, and Brady

One of the disturbing responses to the COVID-19 pandemic as been xenophobic and racist attacks on members of the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. Incidents of hate crimes have created an atmosphere of discrimination and fear. As a result, many media outlets have reported on members of the AAPI community purchasing firearms.

To talk about the threat xenophobia, and these firearms, pose to the AAPI community, host JJ and Kelly Sampson are joined by David Inoue of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL). Together, we discuss why guns are not the solution to COVID-19 related hate crimes.

Mentioned in this podcast:

• COVID-19 and Xenophobia (JACL)
• The Murder of Vincent Chin (ABC)
• Stop AAPI Hate (A3PCON)
• Blaming the Victim During a Time of Vulnerability (Washington Post)

For more information on Brady, follow us on social @Bradybuzz, or via our website at bradyunited.org. Full transcripts and bibliography available at bradyunited.org/podcast.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255. 
Music provided by: David “Drumcrazie” Curby
Special thanks to Hogan Lovells, for their long standing legal support 
℗&©2019 Red, Blue, and Brady

Support the show (https://www.bradyunited.org/donate)