Demand for Bullets: Shooting Up

NPR’s Planet Money recently discussed how there has been an increased demand for ammunition, yet prices have not correspondingly increased.  Here is the introduction to the story: 

Sales of guns and ammunition rose after President Obama took office in 2008, and they went through the roof starting late last year, when a school shooting led to a push for new gun control measures. That’s led to a prolonged ammunition shortage, even with manufacturers running at full capacity.

A gun owner in Florida told me he has had a hard time finding .380 ammo for a small handgun for the past six months. Customers at Bob’s Little Sport Shop in southern New Jersey told me it’s hard to find ammo for some rifles and for the popular 9 mm. Even .22 rounds, the small ones, have been hard to come by.

An economics textbook would say this shouldn’t happen. It would say that Bob Viden, who has run the shop for almost 50 years, should respond to the increase in demand by raising prices. And some stores and online sellers have done just that. But, Viden told me, “We don’t want to do that. We want to be fair.”

Daily Show: Gun Control in Australia v. US

Daily Show correspondent John Oliver discusses “political suicide” and “impossibility” of gun control. Oliver’s two part segment compares gun control in Australia versus gun control in the United States.  Part I can be found here.  Part II is here.  

Boston Bombings Coverage: The Ugly

Yesterday’s post featured Part II of our three-part series “Boston Bombings Coverage: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.”  Part II, “The Bad,” was Jon Stewart’s satire of CNN’s embarrassing Boston bombings blunder.   Part I, “The Good,” featured  Fareed Zakaria’s shrewd take on the Boston bombings.  Today’s post discusses another Jon Stewart clip and “The Ugly”–Fox News contributors falling over themselves to shred the Constitution in wake of the Boston Bombings. 

 

 

Daily Show on Second Amendment Hypocrisy

In the wake of terrorism in Boston, Jon Stewart chronicles Congressional Second Amendment hypocrisy.  Legislators who were unwilling to  curtail the Second Amendment in order to combat the scourge of violence in our inner cities (which has caused nearly a million American deaths since 1970) were more than willing to sacrifice other Constitutional liberties in order to combat terrorism (which has caused approximately 3,400 deaths since 1980). 

Remembering…or More Importanly… Not Forgetting Sandy Hook

Last Sunday night on 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley interviewed the families of Newtown victims.  Although the Newtown families have been successful in pushing for comprehensive gun control measures in Connecticut (which were  signed into law  last Thursday),  they face Republican opposition in the Senate.  Republican lawmakers, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), have vowed to filibuster any gun control bills that are introduced to the Senate.  Yesterday, President Obama spoke in Newtown to make what Politico calls a “last gun control push.”  The President stated that a gun control filibuster is just “not right.”

Demographics of Gun Violence

Washington Post reporter Dan Keating recently wrote an article describing the victims of gun violence.  Keating found that the victims of gun homicide in the United States are overwhelmingly black men, while the victims of gun suicide are overwhelmingly white men.  Keaten discusses his article on Talk of the Nation (30:19) along with Mark Rosenberg, epidemiologist and president and CEO, The Task Force for Global Health. 

The Ethics of Gun Control

On the Philosophy Bites podcast, philosopher Jeff McMahan discusses the morality of gun control with David Edmonds (19:07).   Essentially, the premise of the podcast is whether the Second Amendment would be established if we were starting a society from scratch.  Although McMahan argues in favor of gun control, at times I found his discussion so academic that it seemed like it was more of an argument against philosophy.  However, the podcast is worth listening to since it is an interesting take on the gun control debate because it questions the very soundness of the Second Amendment.  

This American Life: Where Guns and Gangs Come From

Part II of This American Life‘s look at Harper High School.

This story has six acts.

• Act One: “The Eyewitnesses” (discusses the psychological toll of witnesses gun violence first hand, 10 mins)
• Act Two: “Your Name Written On Me” (explores the origin of a Chicago gang, 15 mins)
• Act Three: “Get Your Gun” (teenagers explain where the get their guns, 6 mins)
• Act Four: “Devonte, Part Two” (aftermath of 14 year old who accidentally shoots his brother, 8 mins)
• Act Five: “Reverse Turnaround Backflip” (principal discusses balancing budget cuts in inner-city school, 7 mins)
• Act Six: “We Are Harper High School” (chronicles how schools in other cities struggle with gun violence, 3 mins)

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/488/harper-high-school-part-two (63 mins total)

https://slacearchive.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/this-american-life-everything-you-know-about-gangs-is-wrong-part-i/ (Part I)