So Scherer is now an expert on gun control and related issues, as well as the economy, politics and other issues?

I'm a Canadian and I am so grateful our culture doesn't embrace gun culture. It's my feeling that until Americans are willing to go deeper into understanding the violence that lies just below the surface in their way of seeing each other nothing will change. As Chris Hedges wrote today about what is happening in Egypt it is about the stories people take into themselves that determine how they see the world around and react. Within the "American Dream" is a huge dark psychological shadow of me against you to get ahead which condones violence to achieve its ends. The sickness/mental illness that comes from a soulless pursuit of material wealth and power is taking over your country. Until Americans can change their national mythology/story about who they are and how to live with each other it is only going to get worse. It is so sad can you not stand back and see it?

Revelatory........on point!..................in yr debt,.....50yr wbai listener.....Ramparts reader

Black on Black Crime = more prisons
White on White Crime = change the laws

Check out info about the Deacons of Defense, African Americans who organized themselves in Louisiana for self defense, who were hired by the Rev Martin Luther King Jr. to protect people. His stance on armed self-defense was more nuanced than some would have us believe today.

Great show with Robert Scheer who always has such clear insights. His responses to the callers reciting the usual defenses for gun ownership really cut through the murky gun ideology that is held even by liberals. I suspect that the U.S. romance with guns is rooted in racial fear.

Please stop with the good home bull snot.whites need to get away from this myth. nothing good about any white man! Gun control is a cop out.lets talk about why white men are flipping the hell out & killing innocent people!

80% of people who shoot and get shot know each other.
Which says that, if you own a firearm, you or someone you know is 8 times more likely to get shot than fol;ks who don't own a gun.
Why apologize? A gun nut is a gun nut.

Bob Scheer was today the epitome of an old left windbag. His disparagement of Robbie Osman and the info he presented regarding blacks in the South in the '60s using guns to protect themselves against the KKK and other white vigilantes was absolutely appalling. Sorry, but Osman presented historical facts he and Mario Savio encountered while participating in the MIssissippi summer of voter registration in 1964.
There's another important bit of history around the voting drive in the black communities that involves guns: In Louisiana the Deacons for Defense also took up arms against the Klan. As people are constantly using Martin Luther King, Jr. and his philosophy of nonviolence to back up their calls for gun control, it should be noted that he in fact hired the Deacons to protect the young people who participated in the voting drive. He was nowhere nearly as opposed to guns as people would like to think! The entire book about the Deacons for Defense can be downloaded here:

http://archive.org/details/aaaaarg-5689

It's not immediately apparent where the download link is. This is the direct link to the download:

http://aaaaarg.org/sites/a.aaaarg.org/files/textz/Hill-Lance-Deacons-Def...

Furthermore, Scheer's disparaging of Martin Lee's info and his all-out defense of ruling elite representative John Kerry demonstrates he's become a part of the status quo he pretends to still be railing against.

Philip and Robert, Please before disparaging Martin A. Lee's "The Beast Reawakens" as conspiracy theory I recommend reading his books, evaluating his sources and then having him on your show. I believe Flashpoints and Project Censored both had him on discussing his new book on the war on cannabis, "Smoke Signals...". Excellent shows.
(Side note: I'd love to see Project Censored get a daily or weekend show on KPFA.)