Malcolm Gladwell Talks Gun Violence in America

Cascade PBS Ideas Festival

The Revisionist History podcast host discusses America's firearms problem - and reasons to be optimistic about it - with a trauma surgeon and an activist.

Acclaimed author Malcolm Gladwell explores all things overlooked and misunderstood in his podcast, Revisionist History. He recently produced a six-part series about what we get wrong about gun violence in America.

As part of the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival in early May, Gladwell revisited that conversation with Dr. Babak Sarani, a trauma surgeon from Washington, D.C., and David Hogg, co-founder of March for Our Lives. Gladwell asked them, based on their individual expertise, why so many people are dying from gunshots in the U.S. and how we might prevent it.

In this episode of the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival podcast, the three discuss gun-violence data, from the number of suicides by firearm to the number of gunshots per victim. They explore the impact of gun-control measures such as red-flag laws, the fraught politics around guns and the role of the Supreme Court. Hogg and Sarani also share what immediate changes each believe could truly make a difference.

This conversation was recorded on May 4, 2024.

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Credits

Host: Paris Jackson

Producer: Isaac Kaplan-Woolner

Event producers: Jake Newman, Anne O'Dowd

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