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This week’s mass shooting of elementary schoolers in Texas (just 10 days after a racially motivated mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store) has reignited the gun debate in Washington, D.C., and around the country. But the political disagreements over guns and their appropriate role in American society are as insoluble as ever.
Meanwhile, Oklahoma becomes the first state to try to ban all abortions, as the nation awaits the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case it is expected to use to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.
And on Capitol Hill, lawmakers criticize the FDA for its handling of the infant formula shortage, rekindling a debate over whether food should be regulated by a separate agency.
This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of KHN, Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico, Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, and Rachana Pradhan of KHN.
Among the takeaways from this week’s episode:
Although much of the nation has been riveted by the May 24 shooting in Uvalde, Texas, thousands of Americans are killed each year in gun violence that doesn’t make headlines. More than half of those deaths are suicides and many others result from isolated shootings.Despite an epidemic of gun violence, the regulation of guns in the U.S. has declined in the past couple of decades. Not only did the federal assault weapons ban expire, but many states have moved to make guns easier to purchase and own.Since the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colorado, in 1999, an entire generation has come of age with the prospect of violence hitting their schools. The oldest of those people are sending their own children to schools where shooting dri …