One of the saddest things I’ve heard recently was not only that a 2-year old in Kentucky was shot dead by her 5-year old brother with a “Cricket” gun that he had gotten as a gift, but that their grandmother told a local TV station ‘It was god’s will. It was her time to go, I guess.’
The list of shootings that are described as “accidental” but are actually acts of extreme negligence goes on and on and on and on and on and on…. and so too many of them involve children too young to know better and certainly too young to be around these weapons of death.
Yesterday I explained that I hadn’t spent any time this weekend watching the NRA annual meeting – but Jon Stewart did!
When GottaLaff joined me in the second hour of today’s show, it turned into another edition of “Guns in the News” with these stories:
VIDEO: NRA convention speaker advises parents to store guns in kids’ rooms
VIDEO: Kill, baby, kill. No kidding, this is an ad for baby’s first rifle.
Baby’s First Gun: “My 4 1/2 year old daughter thought the ‘pink one’ was far superior…”
VIDEO: “We bought an assault rifle, or an Uzi, in a Babies R Us parking lot.”
But there is hope on the horizon! Just this morning, Politico tweeted this story about NH Sen. Kelly Ayotte possibly being shamed into writing an op-ed proclaiming her support for background checks, and moments later, Political Wire tweeted that AZ Sen. Jeff Flake was changing his tune as well.
Some of the nation’s best political cartoonists weighed in on the subject too. I received an email from Philip Seymour Hoffman during the show this morning with this video in it (which he narrated along with Julianne Moore):
It was put out by Mayors Against Illegal Guns – and they’re not giving up. In fact, put next Thursday morning on your calendar, as MAIG executive director Mark Glaze will join me that morning.
Today, we met a senatorial candidate from Kentucky who’s for sensible gun laws! Ed Marksberry is taking on Mitch McConnell, and he came on the show this morning to show us that there are good progressives in Kentucky! I hope you’ll listen to the interview to learn about him… To start, check out this video (and he even wrote the song!)
I think we’ll be hearing more from him – so follow him on twitter