30: This is a Tool Designed to End Human Life

JJ is joined by Jon Lowy, Chief Counsel and Vice President of Legal at Brady, and Kyleanne Hunter, who in addition to her work as VP of programs for Brady, is a US Marine Corps combat veteran who served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as an AH-1W “Super Cobra” attack pilot. Together, we're talking assault weapons: what they are, how they got banned, and what's going on with them now. 

Then, JJ explains the strange case of the bouncy chair turned semi-automatic rifle, and salutes a great gun violence prevention hero. 

Today, you'll learn: 

• What an assault weapon is; 
• What’s the difference between an automatic, and semiautomatic, weapon;
• What's an assault weapons ban;
• What happened to the assault weapons ban; 
• Why assault weapons are often used in mass shootings; 
• and why most Americans support an assault weapons ban. 

Also, why can't JJ have a tiger?!

Finally, we answer the important question of what can people do if they’re concerned about assault weapons.

Some of the links mentioned in this episode :
Bloody Hands
Demand a ban on assault weapons
The Brady Plan

Transcript

Brady music: 0:08

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JJ: 0:08

Hey everybody. This is the legal disclaimer where we tell you that the views, thoughts, and opinions shared on this podcast belong solely to the person talking to you right now, and not necessarily Brady, or Brady's affiliates. Please note this podcast does contain discussions of violence that some people may find disturbing. It's okay. We find it disturbing, too!

Brady music: 0:42

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JJ: 0:42

Welcome back everybody to"Red, Blue and Brady," the podcast dedicated to telling you all about gun violence and, more importantly, how to actually prevent it. Today I am covering something that comes up a lot when I tell people I work in gun violence prevention. It's normally the first thing, actually, that comes up. Assault weapons--you know, what are they? Weren't they banned? Are they actually a problem? So to answer all of these questions, I'm talking with Jon Lowy and Kyleanne Hunter about all these questions and more. Now Lowy is of course the VP of Legal here at Brady and Chief Counsel. He has joined us for some amazing podcasts, if I do say so myself; quite recently he might even be taking over that hashtag replace JP thing that Christian's been pushing. Now, Ky as well has been on the podcast a few times, but she's got the leg up from Lowy in that I've known her longer. She's an old friend, who is of course the VP of Programs here at Brady. In both cases their CVs are way too long and way more impressive than mine. So I'm a little starstruck, once I get over being a little tongue tied by people who are far more impressive than I am, and who give me a lot of, you know, imposter syndrome, we're moving on to our"Unbelievable, But!" Segment where we cover the strange case of the bouncy chair turned semiautomatic rifle. After we finish horrifying shoppers everywhere, we're going to turn to a great new gun violence prevention hero.

Brady music: 2:08

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JJ: 2:08

So Lowy, even though you've been on the podcast a bunch and just recently, would you mind introducing yourself to all of our new listeners?

Lowy: 2:15

Sure. Jon Lowy, VP of Legal and Chief Counsel at Brady.

JJ: 2:19

We mention on other podcasts that you're belovedly called Lowy.

Lowy: 2:23

No, I like it. It's like a Brazilian soccer player. It just has the single name.

JJ: 2:28

So someone else who goes by a nickname a lot on this podcast because I am way too comfortable with my guests, Ky Hunter!

: 2:36

Hi, it's Ky Hunter again.

JJ: 2:38

Do you want to introduce yourself fully?

: 2:40

Hi, I'm Ky Hunter, Vice President of Programs at Brady and a Marine Corps combat veteran, which will be very applicable for today's topic.

JJ: 2:48

And thank you so much for coming on today. And we are talking about actually I think a pretty serious but pretty hard to understand for some people topic, which is assault weapons. And I think that's, so, that's a huge thing for me that I wanted to be really clear on is that, you know, what is the difference between an assault weapon, you know, in that definition. And then also, you know, what is this whole, it's an automatic, it's a semiautomatic, this matters. Is this just a rhetorical difference or is this, this that?

Ky: 3:20

So there's a little bit of both. Um, you know, there's legal definitions that have been used, uh, quite a bit to to discuss these and define these things under law. And then there's practical definitions and differences that have both meaningful differences in regards to how guns function and how you shoot them and also meaningful differences into the different situations in which they're employed for which aren't necessarily always the same thing. So something very basic with a difference from a functional capacity. We were talking about semiautomatic versus automatic and in very layman's terms, the difference being a automatic weapon, when you pull down the trigger, bullets will just keep coming out until you run out of them. A semiautomatic weapon. You have to keep pulling the trigger every time you want the bullet to come out, until really the rate of fire is how fast can you actually pull the trigger. But that's a different from something that's essentially a, a bolt action rifle, which every time you pull the trigger or the actual bolt of the weapon has to reset. You know, a semiautomatic does that automatically. So you can literally just pull the trigger, pull the trigger, pull the trigger as many times as absolutely quickly as you possibly can versus a bolt action where it's limited by the speed of the bolt actually resetting before another projectile can, can come out. So there are some technical differences, um, fully automatic weapons and, and Lowy knows the firearms much better than I do, but they are very, very heavily regulated under the national firearms act and are very, very, very difficult to get into civilian hands. Uh, because of that they are not outright banned. They are just very, very hard and you actually have to take a lot of tests and requirements and licenses and all of those to own them. And that's not a bad thing because they're pretty dangerous. If you think like, you know, I'm sure most people have seen action movies--

JJ: 5:15

I picture Rambo--

Ky: 5:15

Yeah literally spraying--

Ky and JJ: 5:15

[unitelligable, speaking over one another].

Ky: 5:15

We're both dancing--

JJ: 5:15

Yeah, a machine gun shimmy.

Ky: 5:22

Yes.

JJ: 5:23

And I'm sure Lowy will get very like disconcerted--mechnine gun shimmy going on in here.

Ky: 5:26

It's not directed at you, Lowy, I promise. Uh, but the, the semiautomatic weapons aren't regulated. There's still, anyone can get their hands on them. And they still have a effective, incredibly, incredibly high rate of fire. I mean, one of the things, especially the more modern AR 15 variants, um, they don't jam. They don't, like, you-- It's really operator error. If something goes wrong, it's not mechanical error per say. So, so they're super reliable and just think how quickly you can like move your finger back and forth.

JJ: 5:57

They have a clicking, it's like clicking a mouse.

Ky: 5:59

How fast can you click a mouse? Like they have such a light trigger pull as well. And again, these are things that are all...characteristics that make these guns like much better as a combat tool.

JJ: 6:10

And so legally, you know what, what is an assault we apon?

Lowy: 6:15

Well, I mean an assault weapon really is what the legislature says it is. I mean, it, it's, you know, it's a term of art and it's defined, it was defined by Congress for the 10 years of the federal assault weapon ban and defined by state legislatures in different ways. And essentially all these definitions have some components about them. They say that if a, if a gun has certain sorts of components and it lists them, if you have either one of them or in some laws, two of them, it's an assault weapon. And those components are always the sort of things that are not in your conventional handgun. Theyre certainly not your conventional hunting rifle or shotgun. And there are things that are designed to make the weapon very effective for an offensive attack or a mass attack but are of little to no value if not counterproductive for conventional self-defense or hunting use. You know? And so cause when we're debating assault weapons, we're debating, you know, whether we should, you know, pass a assault weapon ban. And, and again, you know, you look to the law...And also an misconception about it is, you know, the gun lobby folks will a lot of times say that's sort of a nasty term that gun violence prevention people put on these weapons that are actually innocent. And that's not true. I mean there's actually evidence that the gun industry used the term assault weapons as a marketing device.

Ky: 8:02

I mean I, and, and Lowy is much better to speak to the constitutionality and these things, all o f, all of that. But you know, from a opinion, I think it's been a p ure marketing ploy by the, the gun lobby. Y ou're, they market these things as sporting rifles, not as an assault weapon, they're weapons of war. They're, t hey're profit makers. They're really easy to produce, especially because they're already making similar bodied weapons for the military. So they've got, when you look at l ike from a m ass production standpoint, it's something t hat's already at the factory. Y eah, it's easy. It's pretty small modifications that they actually have to make to put them in the civilian market. Essentially it's removing the fully automatic or three round burst characteristics for them. Otherwise they're virtually the same. So it's cheap for them to produce and it's a great m oney m aker. You know, t he, these things are marketed. It's kind of a whole new market of the, like, macho want-to-be-soldier type that these guns can be marketed to.

JJ: 8:58

And that's a big thing on your end, Ky. I feel like that's something uoui're comfortable, saying that they're a weapon of war, because you've used them in war. At the very least, you were trained to use them in war.

Ky: 9:10

You being in combat, it has all of these characteristics that you want. It's light. The ammunition is that is is light--the by five, six round, which is what these are going to typically fire is incredibly light. It's small, so the gun's lighter and easier to carry. You can carry more ammo for the same way that you can carry less ammo with some of the bigger guns, you can shoot them incredibly quickly. Uh, some of these other things that... Sort of characterize these weapon, they talk about the accessories around them. Newer things like flash suppressors and forward grips. You know, these are the things that look sort of like a honeycomb cages. You see like around that you can put your hand on and that's literally so you have a pistol grip for your hand that you're shooting with. That makes it a lot easier to just hold on and maneuver and shoot these things. And then you have a forward grip that acts as a, so you can imagine if a guns being shot over and over and over again, the barrel is going to get really, really hot. These forward grips literally allow you to hold onto it for as long as you're shooting it over and over and over and over again. And, and so that's, that's one of the things, the ability to accessorize them with a, a forward grip, which also looks like a sort of pistol grip up front so you can hold them like in tandem. Makes it easier. Think sort of how the, like the Navy Seal type movies when they're coming in urban areas and they've got the gun up and they're holding it by two vertical, um, you know, vertical grips so it's easier to move around and get around corners and see...These are all things that are really good and we want our good guys with a gun to have these things.

JJ: 10:47

Well, if that were real.

Ky: 10:48

If that were real right, I mean, our good guys with a gun, I. E. our military, our soldiers who are out fighting wars and out SWAT teams, our FBI guys who are going on raids of drug cartels. I mean the these, these are the types of characteristics that you're like, yes, it makes sense for these people who are highly trained with very specialized missions that involve killing the bad guys. You know, this is literally their job. That makes sense. But those same things have made these weapons incredibly attractive to people who want to go kill as many Americans as quickly as possible, usually in in tight confined areas. And is that really something that American civilians need?

JJ: 11:34

It's like the worst infomercial ever.

Ky: 11:36

Yeah, that's pretty much what...

JJ: 11:38

Yeah, it' s like the worst holiday commercial that you could've possibly done just there. That's okay. I still, I still love you, but I, that's sort of the thing for me is that we do hear a lot as someone who works now in GVP... One of the things I think people in, in the gun violence prevention movement hear a lot is the gun lobby being very dismissive of people who will call a assault weapon, a weapon of war. But what I'm hearing from you and what I'm hearing from you Lowy, overwhelmingly, is that it is most clearly a weapon of war.

Ky: 12:07

That's why this platform was designed, this platform was literally designed off of a RFP by the department of defense. And then, you know, they, they realized that they can, uh, you know, have a...money if it comes from the civilian market.

JJ: 12:24

Yeah. And so, well, which then I think brings up the fact that we used to have a ban in the United States and now we no longer do. And--

Lowy: 12:34

Yeah, that's exactly it.

JJ: 12:35

And I guess I'm very curious about that, about what the initial assault weapons, not initial, what the elder assault weapons ban did. And then how, how does a ban just lapse? How does a ban just go away?

Lowy: 12:51

Um, well, first off it's important to know about the federal assault weapons ban. And a lot of, some, but not all of the, the state bands that are on the books now is the federal one also included a ban on large pasty magazines. So you couldn't have a a, or you couldn't sell a new, you know, 30 round magazine or you didn't see magazine things like 50 or a hundred grand magazines because that's, that's a very important attribute. And there are some who say that, uh, banning the high-capacity magazine actually may be more effective than the, the assault weapon itself and there's dispute on that. But, but it's certainly extremely important part of this conversation. I mean, the reason that the assault weapon ban lapse was just basically legislative compromise. I mean, it's not usual that you have a federal law with a expiration date. Um, you know, you can't think of other laws that we have that, that, uh, just lasts a limited amount of time. It was just, you know, a legislative compromise that, you know, at the time, I guess that the thought was that's all they, uh, Congress had the votes for was to have it over a 10 year period. And what we've seen is a huge difference. I mean, it, it made a big difference. In the decade before the federal assault weapon ban lapsed, there were 11 gun massacres, which are defined as uh, six or more people being killed, resulting in 95 deaths. Decade after the assault weapon ban, there were 36 gun massacre, so over three times and 402 deaths--over four times, uh, the deaths. So I mean, and that's inter-, that's pretty extraordinary. Uh, particularly given that there's going to be even more of a positive effect if the ban, uh, you know, stays on the books for longer because...People hung on to their assault weapons even during the ban, even though that, that there'd be less and less of that. So I mean in, in short, there are hundreds of people you know who have been killed since the ban lapsed that would be alive today if we continued to have a federal assault weapon ban.

JJ: 15:26

And that is just, it's, it's wild to me, one, because as you point out, it's rare for a law to just have, I guess a sunset age associated with it. But then I think there's this presumption that because there was an assault weapons ban, all of the assault weapons went away. When that is not true at all.

Lowy: 15:45

Yeah. And also, you know, what happened was right before the assault weapon ban went into effect, uh, the industry tried to, the gun industry tried to essentially flood the market, uh, with assault weapons. Uh, and certainly with high capacity magazines. And they just cranked out a ton of them so they could get them out there. You know, before the ban and, fear sells in the gun industry, it's one of the things that's most effective, if not the most effective marketing device for the gun industry. So, you know,"they're coming for your assault weapons. They're coming for your high capacity magazines," is, is a great way to move product. But in this case, the product they're moving were, you know, weapons of war.

Ky: 16:34

Yeah. This, um, it's when you, the, these, these weapons clearly have a purpose. They have a, they have a purpose in our military. They have a purpose in, in very specialty units for our, our law enforcement. I won't lie, they're fun to shoot. Yes. Shooting guns is fun. Shooting these guns is fun. There, there's not a real legitimate, meaningful civilian purpose other than they're fun to shoot. And the, the risks, when we think about any sort of regulations, laws, policies, we have to look at the risk reward side of these things. The risks that they pose far outweigh any material benefits that they actually provide.

JJ: 17:19

And yet this is something that there is a whole industry devoted to pushing and saying, you have to have these that you--

Lowy: 17:26

Yeah, or, or you or you have a right to have them. And, and you know, I mean it's worth saying, you know, I actually, I have friends of mine who are gun owners who have assault weapons and they like to...and I a sk them, you know, what do you do with that? And they have many other guns and they have a handgun to protect their house and they have conventional hunting rifles, go hunting. T hey've all sorts of things. The assault weapon they want because it's fun to shoot. I mean, I think that's important because those are legitimate, law abiding, assault weapon owners and the ones that I know anyway, even though they think it's fun to shoot, and they like it and they s pent a lot of money on it, pretty sure they would be happy to give up their assault weapon if it would prevent, you know, even one mass shooting. And that's significant because, you know, these are t he, t he, the law abiding people and they don't need it. They want it. They like it. I'm not saying that they're dangerous, but you know, it's something that they, they can do what they actually feel they need guns for with conventional firearms.

JJ: 18:40

Yeah. The, there are lots of things that are fun that I would like to have, but that are not safe to have. You know, I'm not allowed to keep a tiger in my apartment in Woodbridge. Be pretty fun, but,***laughs***

Lowy: 18:52

Right. And even, even if maybe you are a person who actually could keep the tiger safely, I mean, that's not an argument for allowing everyone to have tigers. It's the question of, you know, is, is this going to endanger and you know, result in deaths overall?

JJ: 19:13

Yeah. It's the safety of my neighbors and not just me.

Ky: 19:16

I mean, look, I, I would love to have a Cobra...Cobras are, cobras are awesome. And actually if I want to take some of these arguments that probably it's extreme of, of existence here is um, you know, where cobras would probably be better to like defend myself from a tyrannical government then either--

JJ: 19:37

You're not referring to the uh--

Ky: 19:39

Oh no, no snake kind.

JJ: 19:41

Just cause I want a tiger and I'm not allowed to have that tiger. Cause apparently it might eat my neighbor's but.... And you want a cobra, super--

Ky: 19:48

Super Cobra attack helicopter. Yes, I would love to have one of those, but I, I can't--

JJ: 19:53

We can even put my tiger on it! Not allowed.

Ky: 19:55

Yes, I could carry your tiger and my super Cobra attack helicopter, but we're not allowed to have these things. And they're for good reason because the, the risk to the general population outweighs the benefits that I might get because it's really fun and it actually could defend me. You know, these things. And, and so I look at these and I also think about the, the amount of training that we have in the military before we're ever allowed to fire these, these guns. And I know I've talked about this before on this podcast, you know, just the amount of time that we actually have to spend doing this.

: 20:30

If bears repeating, you didn't just walk into a Bass Pro Shop.

Ky: 20:32

No, it's, yeah, it didn't just walk in and buy one. You know, we carried this weapon around for months before we were ever able to actually fire it. We had to be able to fully clean it. We had to know everything about the way it worked. We had to know its velocity, we had to know rounds per minute, we had to know the, the rate of fire. We, you know, all of these exactly.

JJ: 20:56

Take it apart, put it back together again---

Ky: 20:57

Blindfolded, you know, like the whole...Everything. And we also had to very fully understand that this is a tool designed to take human life. And that was very fully drilled into us before we were ever allowed to pull a trigger, shooting a piece of paper. You know, like, these are things and if you are going to be in a position that you have this, uh, you, you have, you have this tool at your disposal, you need to know exactly what it's going to do in the end. You know, it's capable of so much destruction so quickly. We can't afford as a society to have such a cavalier attitude about something like this. And it really, really worries me that we do.

JJ: 21:42

Well, and what gets me is that we know that an assault weapons ban when it was present, that it was effective.

Ky: 21:48

Yes. Yeah. So when we, we see this as a, um, when we saw the assault weapons ban in place, the, the effectiveness are really twofold that we saw. One was a reduction in crime involving assault weapons. Um, these are, these were crimes that were pretty horrific. Uh, they accounted for quite a few deaths of law enforcement agencies as well. And so we just saw a reduction in those sort of crimes but more for when we had mass shootings. And this is really one of those things that unique characteristic about the assault weapon is its ability to carry a high capacity magazine as well as being able to shoot over and over and over again. So now when you have a magazine that has 50, or even a hundred and some of the cases we've seen rounds in it and you can keep firing over and over and over again, like we can just get a lot more bullets out. Um, you saw an, and looking at the, the studies vary in the, in the percentages, but, um, significant for all of them, reduction in the number of injuries or deaths that occur. And that's, that's related to the fact that these guns are particularly and uniquely lethal. And so it, and it didn't, uh, that didn't stop anybody from having a gun to protect themselves from an intruder. It didn't stop anyone from going to the range and shooting or going hunting or any, any of those things, you know. And in fact, a, a, what we call assault weapons would be a pretty lousy gun for home defense.'Cause these are guns that, remember going back to, they were designed for Vietnam, they were designed to shoot through an enemy's helmet and be able to hit them in the brain. You know, like that same velocity is going to shoot through your wall.

JJ: 23:27

Lowy, you talk about how they're, they'd be terrible for hunting for similar reasons.

Ky: 23:31

Yes. There, there really isn't a great purpose for these except to kill people as many people as easily and as quickly as possible.

JJ: 23:40

So we have lots of Americans including gun owners supporting an assault ban. We have a history showing that when the assault weapons ban was present, it helped.

Lowy: 23:50

Correct.

JJ: 23:51

Yes. So if we have those two things, why don't we have a ban now?

Lowy: 23:57

Well, I mean, like we don't have, you know, universal background checks and, and you know, a lot of other popular and effective legislation--

JJ: 24:05

Yeah. This might be an unfair question.

Lowy: 24:07

Yeah, I mean it, well, we know the answer. I mean, it's, it's, uh, members of Congress who are beholden to the gun lobby and often bankrolled by the gun lobby. And you know, assault weapons is a very, very clear, uh, you know, financial issue for the gun industry. I mean, that is money out of their pockets. If you stop selling assault weapons. And by the way, it's, you know, the money that they get from, you know, the Sandy Hook killer or the Las Vegas killer is, you know, just as good for them as the money they get from my friend who likes to go out in the desert and shoot cans with an assault weapon.

JJ: 24:50

And then finally, you know, as, as a lawyer, and I'm sure you hate getting asked questions that start that way.

Lowy: 24:58

****laughs*** I love, I love getting that question***laughs***

JJ: 24:59

Well sure, if you're at a dinner party, you don't want"as a lawyer, Lowy," but you know, as a lawyer what, um, you think about assault weapons and the constitutional ability to ban them. Is this a violation of the second amendment? If I ban an assault weapons?

Lowy: 25:17

Well, I mean, absolutely not. And I think this should be one of the easiest second amendment questions. I mean, one, because the Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia vs Heller, uh, specifically said that the second amendment does not entitle you to any weapon. And it particularly talked about M16s, which were that sort of military predecessor of the assault weapons that we have. Um, so I mean, this was the Hustice Scalia's majority opinion, you know...embraced the concept that didn't talk about assault weapons, but it certainly embraced the concept that assault weapons bans would be constitutional. And you know, the right that the Scalia majority said was protected by the second amendment is a right of law abiding, responsible citizens to have a gun in the home for self defense. So if you have, uh, the ability to buy, you know, any number of conventional handguns, rifles, shotguns, you can enjoy your second amendment right. I mean, you don't have a constitutional right to, you know, high capacity magazines or barrel shrouds or, uh, any other feature in an assault weapon. So, again, it should be an easy call. And, uh, and, you know, basically the issue, even if, even if there was some sort of second amendment right to assault weapons, the issue before a court would be, does the state or the federal government have a compelling interest in banning them or restricting them to military and law enforcement? And there's no question, I mean, just the, the statistics that I talked about, the effect on reducing mass killings, that alone is more than a compelling reason to support. And so up there.

JJ: 27:24

What about states that have sort of stepped in and tried to create a stop gap with having their own bans? Are they, I mean, I suppose they're allowed to do that because they've done it, but how, how does that work within this?

Lowy: 27:38

Well, I mean, they certainly can. And there, there are more and more of them, more and more states that have enacted assault weapons bans and, and you know, they're, they're effective. Um, like every state law, you know, the effect is limited because you can then go to another state and buy your assult weapons and bring it across the border. But even so, you know, they have been effective.

JJ: 28:02

And then as--again, I keep doing this to you as a lawyer,***laughs***but also, you know, as a human being--

Lowy: 28:10

Well those are different things!***laughs***

JJ: 28:10

Oh well yes. Very separate. When you think about assault weapons, I know that you've mentioned sort of the gun lobby's interest and keeping them from being banned, but what do you, what do you think is the motivation is behind it? Do you think it's just to avoid a ban? Do you think it's just all economic based or--

Lowy: 28:29

You know, I, I mean I think again, I think it's, it's not very different from gun lobby opposition to universally almost every gun law, which is in my view, number one, economic. I mean, gun lobbies, political positions are almost always in, probably always, uh, in line with what's in the financial interest of the gun industry. Um, but then also there's a slippery slope problem, which, uh, you know, they will say, you know,"if they take away assault weapons, next thing they'll become an after every other gun." That, that's bogus. That's just not true. And there's never been an effort like that in American history or anything close to that. Um, I think what they're, the real slippery slope that they're afraid of is when you enact laws like this, the American people see they work and they see they save lives and they see that they're safer. And also by the way, they see that if they're law abiding, people who want guns can still have them. So nobody is taking away their guns. And that's very scary for them because when people begin to that, then they will support more and more gun laws because they will save more lives. And also by the way, they will not take away, you know, conventional guns from responsible people can use it.

JJ: 29:54

And then, so beyond sending out a thought and prayers tweet, what can people do if they're concerned about assault weapons?

Ky: 30:01

So, I mean, the most important thing to do is to go to our website, Brady United and look at all of our information on assault weapons. And it'll give you the, sort of state of the country right now in terms of w here assault weapons bans of various sorts and high-capacity magazine bans stay, u m, i n different states as well as efforts right now on a, on a federal level. So that's number one. I t's just k ind o f get involved to get yourself more educated on the actual state of this in our country at the moment. The next thing is to, you'll contact your legislators. Um, t here is, there, there are various different, u h, i terations of assault weapons ban at the state and the federal level, um that would be incredibly important for, for you to support. The most important thing for all of us to do first and foremost is to show up. Yo u k n ow, it's, it's easy for us to sit and share tweets or to give a--

JJ: 30:53

I'm guilty of it too--

Ky: 30:53

Yes.Every one of us are, u m, you know, to give a sad, sad emoji, uh, when you see another one of these things happen, but we really need to, to be there. U m, we saw it in the 2018 election. We saw it in the recent Supreme Court cases. W e're, we're seeing it on the Hill and in state l egislatures e very d ay. You know, there's power in numbers.

Lowy: 31:15

So, well first, you know, one thing that did happen positive after, uh, Sandy Hook, o-one, they were, uh, States did enact assault weapon bans and Connecticut beefed up their gun laws and, and so certainly a lot of positive things did happen even though Congress did not take action. Uh, I mean, another positive thing was some extremely bright lawyers, led by Josh Koskoff, uh, great, uh, trial lawyer in Connecticut, brought a lawsuit against the assault weapon manufacturer and ultimately won in the Connecticut Supreme Court where the court held that his case could proceed against the assault manufacturer, uh, under the theory essentially that the marketing of assault weapons, which is really sort of, uh, of this particular assault weapon, which was really focused on, uh, it was highly foreseeable that it was going to attract and, uh, basically cater to people who were potential mass killers, like the Sandy hook killer and that the manufacturer at, could be held liable for that under, uh, Connecticut statutory law. And that was a very tough battle over many years and involves them, uh, very creative and extraordinary lawyering. And so that we'll see what happens at case we certainly support them and have helped them. But even with what the victory that they got and the Connecticut Supreme court, that was a very, very important legal victory, which will have repercussions, positive repercussions around the country. And so, you know, that's really a testament to, to what lawyers can do. Um, yeah, and that's, that's extremely important. So yes, a major kudos to Josh and his team.

JJ: 33:16

Yeah, we actually, we have the images that were used to market that particular weapon that we--went send them out on tweets and we'll have them link to this episode and they're quite horrifying.

: 33:26

Maybe that's a good place for us to end today since we're running short on time, on the horrifying nature of all of this. And I'm so thankful to have colleagues like the two of you to come on and talk about these things that are hard, that I'm worried about handling well a nd, and, making me seem much better at my job t han I am. So thank you so, so much.

Brady music: 33:48

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JJ: 33:48

And now it's time for our"unbelievable story" of the week. This week a woman stopped at Goodwill for a last minute baby shower gift. Now I think we've all been there, or at least I have, you know, desperately searching for like a home goods or a card store on a way to a party that you RSVP'd to when you were feeling social. But now you're not feeling social, so you regret saying you would go but you can't cancel anymore because then people will worry. Maybe this is just me. Anyway, it happens. But what doesn't typically happen is having the present you purchase be opened only to discover that inside the box there is a gun. Yeah, that happened. So basically a woman walked into her local Goodwill and found a baby Einstein bouncer that appeared, you know, brand new in the box and these things are normally like over a hundred bucks. So when she saw it was for 9.99 she was like, steal. Done. Unfortunately when the parents to be open, the gift they got, not a bouncer, but a loaded Mossberg 715 T semiautomatic rifle and the accompanying ammunition. They called police, who after inspecting the gun and checking the parents IDs for any felonies, told the couple they could keep it, at first. Eventually officers came back and picked up the firearm to try to figure out who the original owner was. So reminder, don't. Hide. Your. Guns. Especially not in a box you give to Goodwill. Lock them up! That's a much better plan.

Brady music: 35:10

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JJ: 35:14

This week's GVP hero is brought to us by Jesse P of Alexandria, Virginia. So, close to me! Jesse said, and I quote,"I really think you should give GDP hero this week to the Newtown Foundation and their vigil." Jesse, I live to serve you sir. So for hosting an emotional yet super uplifting vigil and remembrance of all those we have lost to gun violence, this week's GVP hero is Newtown Foundation, Newtown Action Alliance, and all of the many advocates who helped put the annual visual for all victims of gun violence together. As we said today, as we near the seventh anniversary of the Sandy Hook school shooting Newtown, Connecticut, we were reminded of how ending gun violence is an uphill battle, but one that is worth fighting for each and every day.

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JJ: 36:03

Thanks for listening. As always, Brady's lifesaving work in congress, the courts, and communities across the country is made possible thanks to...who? Thanks to you! For more information on Brady or how to get involved in the fight against gun violence, please like and subscribe to the podcast, get in touch with us online at bradyunited.org or find us on social at@bradybuzz. Be brave and remember, take action, not sides.

Brady music: 36:29

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Disclaimer: 36:43

℗&©2019 Red, Blue, and Brady.

Speaker 5: 36:51

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