Illegal Guns / Surviving Hurricanes in Puerto Rico
On the Monday September 25th, 2017 edition of WITF’s Smart Talk:
Americans are divided on how to deal with gun violence. Some blame the firearm industry and lax gun laws for flooding the market with high-powered, high-capacity weapons. Others contend people are the problem and that guns are tools of preservation protected by the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution and that it is alternately the fault of popular culture or personal responsibility that creates violent criminals.
The issue becomes further clouded when guns illegally change hands and end up in possession of people who are not allowed by law to have firearms or they drop off the radar and go into circulation as unregistered guns.
Ed Mahon is an investigative reporter with the York Daily Record. This week the YDR is publishing a three-part series on the impact illegal guns are having in York County. Mahon appears on Monday’s Smart Talk to describe his findings and the YDR’s analysis of illegal guns in the county.
Ed Mahon – investigative reporter, York Daily Record
Also, the people of Puerto Rico are still reeling after Hurricane Maria knocked out all of the power on the island last week. Maria came on the heels of Hurricane Irma. Some Puerto Ricans living on the mainland of the U.S. still haven’t heard from family members.
On Monday’s program, we’ll hear from Hector Valdez, a producer at Spanish-language radio station WLCH in Lancaster about his family in Puerto Rico and efforts being made to get aid to those impacted by the storm.
emails
– Sadly, in the case of guns, what was good for 1776 is not good for 2017. There’s now a huge problem of how to get the guns off of the street, and as the gentleman from New Zealand so aptly noted, those guns are not in the hands of folks who will just give them up. As a great many of these illegal guns are in the hands of those who ply the drug trade, perhaps it would make sense to take the drugs out of the equation by becoming the safe keeper of them. If the drug trade has nothing to sell, and nothing to protect, it no longer needs the guns. Just a thought. – John, Pequea
