When It Comes to Gun Control, Will ‘Baby Steps’ Fix Anything?

Sway

In the wake of the fatal shooting of 19 schoolchildren and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday, supporters of gun control are renewing calls for the government to act. But in a bid to negotiate a bipartisan consensus, the Democratic majority leader, Chuck Schumer, has signaled that there will not be an imminent vote on gun control legislation in the Senate. And the journalists Nicholas Kristof and Frank Smyth don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing.

“If anything, this could be a wake-up call — to have a restart of the conversation, to rethink how to approach it,” Smyth says.

In this episode of “Sway,” Kara Swisher talks to Smyth, the author of “The NRA: The Unauthorized History,” and Kristof, a former Times Opinion columnist who has written extensively about the policies needed to end America’s gun violence epidemic. The three dig into how the gun lobby has used ideology to distract America from better policies. They examine potential reforms, from a mandatory national gun registry to an increased minimum age. And they contemplate how liberal proponents of gun control can actually make progress.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more information for all episodes at nytimes.com/sway, and you can find Kara on Twitter @karaswisher.