As the mass shooting in Las Vegas lends a new urgency to the gun control debate, AirTalk discusses the legality and arguments surrounding the types of gun modifications allegedly used by Stephen Paddock on Sunday. We also dive into 37 new bills signed by Governor Brown; take a moment to remember the great Tom Petty; and more.
After Las Vegas shooting, a look at the controversy over gun modifications
As the country reflects on Sunday’s Las Vegas shooting, the issue of gun control has been brought to the fore.
It’s a topic that comes up every time there’s a shooting, and leads to a debate that has been going on in the U.S. for years. The difference this time? Gun modifications that may have been used by Stephen Paddock, who bashed out the hotel room windows on Mandalay Bay’s 32nd floor to kill at least 59 people and wound 500 on the last day of a country music festival.
Bump stocks can be used to make guns fire faster, which is becoming a point of contention in the ongoing gun discussion. So how do gun modifications work exactly and how accessible are they? And what will gun control advocates battle for in wake of the shooting?
Guests:
Frank Stoltze, KPCC correspondent covering criminal justice and public safety issues; he joins us from Las Vegas; he tweets @StoltzeFrankly
Michael Hammond, legislative counsel for the Gun Owners of America, a nonprofit gun owners rights organization
Avery W. Gardiner, co-president at the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence; a nonprofit gun control advocacy organization in Washington D.C.
Remembering rock icon Tom Petty
Rock musician Tom Petty has died, according to a statement issued by his longtime manager on behalf of the family.
Petty was 66.
The statement read:
"On behalf of the Tom Petty family we are devastated to announce the untimely death of of our father, husband, brother, leader and friend Tom Petty. He suffered cardiac arrest at his home in Malibu in the early hours of this morning and was taken to UCLA Medical Center but could not be revived. He died peacefully at 8:40pm PT surrounded by family, his bandmates and friends."
Petty, usually backed by his longtime band the Heartbreakers, was known for such hits as "Free Fallin,'" "Refugee" and "American Girl." The Gainesville, Florida native with the shaggy blond hair and gaunt features drew upon the Byrds, the Beatles and other musicians he loved while growing up in the 1960s. He was also a member of the impromptu supergroup the Traveling Wilburys, which included Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne.
To read the full article, click here.
What’s your favorite Tom Petty tune or memory? Call us at 866-893-5722.
Guest:
Mikael Wood, pop music critic for the LA Times; he tweets
Coastal Commission may relax LA City beach curfew
It’s a question heard often around Los Angeles: should people be allowed access to public beaches 24 hours a day?
In a settlement filed last week, the city of Los Angeles agreed to defend its midnight to 5 a.m. beach curfew, which has been in effect since 1988 for public safety and in the hopes of deterring crime. The first hearing in the process is on Thursday, where members of the public, government agencies and others are being invited to a public hearing with the city engineer and Public Works to weigh in on whether the curfew should be relaxed or continue to be enforced.
The city and the California Coastal Commission have sparred for years over who has ultimate jurisdiction over the 11 miles of coastline in the city, which include Will Rogers State Beach, Dockweiler Beach, and Venice Beach. Activists in Venice even sued the the city of Los Angeles over the curfew in 2015, arguing a right to public commons has existed since as far back as ancient Rome.
AirTalk reached out to the L.A. City Attorney’s Office for comment, but they said they could not comment on pending litigation.
Guests:
Mark Ryavec, president of the Venice Stakeholders’ Association, an organization dedicated to civic improvement in Venice Beach
Sara Wan, former commissioner on the California Coastal Commission and co-founder of the Western Alliance for Nature, a conservancy group
From horse racing to pedestrian crossing, Governor Brown lends his John Hancock to over 3 dozen bills
Governor Brown saw a productive start to October with the signing of 37 bills this past Monday.
The bills covered a range of issues, including – and feel free to breathe a sigh of relief – AB 390, a measure that makes crossing the street during the numbered countdown legal. Brown also approved five mental health bills, one of which provides funding to state counties for early psychosis and mood disorder detection and intervention services. AB 562, the bill created in response to state auditors’ accusations that the UC’s Office of the President interfered with its investigation, was also signed.
Interested in seeing what else passed Brown’s desk? You can find the comprehensive list of bills here.
Guest:
Ben Bradford, state government reporter for Capital Public Radio; he tweets
Gravitational waves: An inside look at Caltech scientist’s Nobel Prize in physics
Three physicists, Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish, and Kip S. Thorne, have won the 2017 Nobel Prize in physics, for their contributions to work that led to the observation of gravitational waves — something that happened for the first time in 2015.
Barish and Thorne worked at the California Institute of Technology in Southern California. Weiss taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Speaking of decades of trial and error that preceded their discovery, Weiss said Tuesday, "It's very, very exciting that it worked out in the end." Weiss spoke by phone to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, roughly one hour after he had been woken up by Secretary General Göran K. Hansson.
Read the full story here.
Guest:
Barry C. Barish, an emeritus professor of physics at Caltech, who has won the Nobel Prize in Physics this year along with Caltech’s Kip Thorne and MIT’s Rainer Weiss