Guns

Host Ira Glass reads an ad from American Handgunner. People who love guns and people who hate them have a hard time seeing eye to eye, but this ad bridges the gap. As this week's show does. Hopefully. (4 minutes)

Geoffrey Canada, author of the book Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence in America, talks about what it's like to carry a gun. He also talks about what poor neighborhoods in New York were like before the proliferation of handguns among young people.  When he grew up in the South Bronx, kids had fistfights in a very formal arrangement with formal rules that everyone lived by. He reads from his book and talks with Ira. (10 minutes)

Two people who've nearly died in gun battles describe what it's like, getting shot at. They draw opposite conclusions from their near death experiences. Mike Robbins, a Chicago police officer, became an advocate of handgun controls. Suzanna Hupp, a chiropractor, became an important advocate of changing Texas law to allow concealed handguns. (12 minutes)