Commonwealth Club Of California Podcast

In the wake of the Parkland shooting in 2018, David Hogg and his classmates' rallying cry, #NeverAgain, echoed across the nation. Unfortunately, since that tragic event, countless other locations—the Tree of Life Synagogue, El Paso, Uvalde, Half Moon Bay and many more—have joined the heartbreaking list of mass shootings. For each of the past five years, the number of mass shootings in the United States has exceeded the number of days in the year. These tragic events have upended workplaces, schools, places of worship, communities and daily life nationwide, resulting in thousands of lives lost. In response to this epidemic, many politicians have provided little more than clichéd thoughts and prayers. In August 2023, California Attorney General Rob Bonta released a report on gun violence that revealed the stunning statistic that 140,000 gun deaths in the United States could have been prevented over the last 10 years had the rest of the country matched California’s firearm death rate. Leading the California Dep