Rethinking How to Reduce Gun Violence

Coming up on today’s show:

• Authorities with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) have said that 12 devices known as “bump fire stocks” were found in gunman Stephen Paddock’s hotel room and used in order to allow him to fire off bullets at a much faster rate. Amber Phillips, reporter for The Fix at the Washington Post, explains why some members of Congress are calling for them to be banned. And Republican Congressman Tom Cole, who has not yet lent full support to a ban on bump stocks, joins The Takeaway to describe where he stands on the issue.

• Congressman Darren Soto, representative for Florida’s 9th district, just returned from a trip to the Puerto Rico. He returns to The Takeaway to discuss what he saw, and how Congress should respond to the destruction on the island. 

• Unrest continues to simmer following Sunday’s independence referendum in Catalonia. The Catalan President says Catalonia plans to declare independence from Spain in a matter of days, and thousands of people are protesting police violence during the vote. Becquer Seguin, assistant professor of Iberian studies at Johns Hopkins University, weighs in on the path forward for Catalonia. 

• In Southeast Asia, a new strain of malaria is showing resistance to commonly used antimalarial drugs. Already more than 200 million people are infected by malaria every year. Irene Koek, acting U.S, global malaria coordinator with the President’s Malaria Initiative, discusses the potential health crisis that could occur if this superbug were to spread beyond the Mekong Delta. 

• As civil war rages in Yemen, the country’s cholera epidemic and food scarcity issues continue to worsen. In the midst of this humanitarian crisis, tens of thousands of public sector health workers have not been paid in about a year. Tankred Stoebe, the former president of Doctors Without Borders in Germany, recently returned from Yemen and he joins The Takeaway to discuss the situation on the ground. 

• After a mass shooting, the resounding call from the public is to examine gun control. But what if mass shootings are not the best way to understand and respond to gun violence? Maggie Koerth-Baker, senior science writer for FiveThirtyEight, explains how mass shootings are different from other gun deaths in this country.

This episode is hosted by Todd Zwillich.