A Revealing Look at America’s Favorite Lethal Accessory

According to Tom Diaz of the Violence Policy Center, more people in the United States die every year from gun-related incidents than have been killed in all terrorist attacks worldwide since the 1960s.

The tragedy in Newtown last Friday has ignited a lot of thoughts, ideas and feelings about assault weapons in many Americans over the past week, myself included. The magnitude of the issue’s importance is undeniable.

Of all of the things I’ve heard, seen and read in the media over the last week, the interview Terry Gross conducted with Tom Diaz on NPR’s Fresh Air (“Assault-Style Weapons in the Civilian Market”), which aired yesterday, is by far the sanest and most intelligent, sobering, revealing and enlightening conversation I’ve heard on the subject.

Tom Diaz, senior analyst for the Violence Policy Center and the author of Making A Killing: The Business of Guns in America. — Tom Diaz, senior analyst for the Violence Policy Center and the author of *Making A Killing: The Business of Guns in America*.

Tom Diaz is a senior analyst for the Violence Policy Center and the author of Making A Killing: The Business of Guns in America and the forthcoming book The Last Gun. Born into a military family, Diaz was a gun man from an early age in the Boy Scouts all the way through his adult career as a practicing attorney, a journalist, a member of a small think tank in Washington studying terrorism and international organized crime and a card-carrying member of the NRA. While serving on “the Hill,” what he learned about the predatory American gun industry converted him from an NRA partisan to a gun control advocate.

In the interview, Diaz not only turns the lights on about the assault weapons market in the U.S., he practically blows off the roof. He not only reveals alarming facts about the legal and commercial impact of the gun market, but he also eloquently explores the cultural and social ramifications.

I realize this deviates from my regularly scheduled programming, but I find it too important to ignore, especially now. I hope you find the interview at least half as eye-opening as I did.

Listen here:

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