Hatred, Race and Guns and the mass shooting in Charleston

Guests: Paul Barrett, Jack Glaser, & Mary Kelly Tyler

Once again, the country has been rocked by another senseless act of violence allegedly perpetrated by a single man with a gun. Speaking about the mass shooting of nine people at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday, President Obama expressed his grief and frustration saying “once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun”. How do we make sense of the killing of innocent people attending Bible study? Today on Radio Times we’ll explore the culture of violence, hatred, and race that motivated this massacre and what it says about our values as a nation. We’re joined by PAUL BARRETT, author of Glock: The Rise of an American Gun, JACK GLASER, Associate Professor and Associate Dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley and author of Suspect Race: Causes and Consequences of Racial Profiling, and MARK KELLY TYLER, Pastor of Mother Bethel African American Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia.