Latest / Apple News Today / Why we don’t really know how many guns are in America

Transcript

Why we don’t really know how many guns are in America · Apple News Today

• 0:00
  [MUSIC FADES IN]
• 0:01
  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Friday, March 17th. I'm Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." On today's show, as life expectancy rises, should the age of retirement rise too, the hotline helping Russian soldiers surrender in Ukraine, and putting a dollar value to decades' worth of household chores.
• 0:02
  [MUSIC FADES OUT]
• 0:03
  But first, how many guns are in the United States? How many guns are in your town, or on your block? You might be surprised to learn no one really knows.
• 0:04
  Jennifer Mascia: So we don't have gun registration in the United States. Other countries do. A gun comes from a manufacturer, and it is tracked all the way to the buyer. We don't have that here.
• 0:05
  Jennifer Mascia is a senior news writer at "The Trace," a newsroom that focuses on covering gun violence in America.
• 0:06
  Mascia: Our laws have always been pretty liberal on that. We track machine guns, short-barreled rifles, silencers, but not handguns, rifles, shotguns.
• 0:07
  Part of the problem is we're not keeping an accurate count of how many guns we make right from the start. Roughly 30 percent of active licensed gunmakers didn't file manufacturing reports to the federal government between 2016 and 2020. And the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives doesn't track 3D-printed guns and most guns assembled from kits. Still, Mascia dug into the numbers that are available, pulling from a lot of sources.
• 0:08
  Mascia: So I added up manufacturing and imports, subtracted exports, and I came up with: There have been 465 million guns produced and sent to federally licensed dealers and disposed of in commerce within that calendar year since 1899. So that's how many guns; 465 million have flooded the marketplace.
• 0:09
  One expert told "The Trace," after you subtract the number of guns that get confiscated, illegally exported or broken, you're looking at an estimated 352 million guns that are likely in circulation today. That's more guns than there are people in this country. And some experts say this estimate is probably on the low side.
• 0:10
  Without this data or knowing how many guns are in any given neighborhood, gun violence researchers say it's really difficult to come up with effective policy. Just this week, President Biden passed an executive order to increase the number of buyers who have to submit background checks if they want a gun. It's an incremental move that comes as Republican and Democratic lawmakers are still divided on taking new actions to reduce gun violence. Researchers have consistently found more guns means more gun deaths, and Mascia saw that same connection in her own data reporting. It's worth checking out her coverage in "The Trace" for yourself.
• 0:11
  [PENSIVE MUSIC]
• 0:12
  [MUSIC FADES OUT]
• 0:13
  A brief update now on the state of the U.S. financial system. A group of eleven of the country's largest banks are coming together to inject funds into First Republic Bank, which was on the brink of collapse. The 30-billion-dollar lifeline was coordinated by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and bank executives. It's being called an extraordinary effort to show support and resilience and stop spreading panic following recent bank failures.
• 0:14
  "The Wall Street Journal" explains it this way: Some of these big banks got an influx of billions of deposits from midsize lenders over the past week, after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. Now several of them are effectively giving back some of the money they raked in.
• 0:15
  You can read more about it on the Apple News app.
• 0:16
  [TENSE MUSIC]
• 0:17
  [MUSIC FADES OUT]
• 0:18
  French President Emmanuel Macron is reckoning with the fallout of a bold and highly unpopular move yesterday: raising the legal retirement age from 62 to 64.
• 0:19
  He says this is necessary to keep the pension system financially viable as life expectancy rises. Macron did it using executive power; he side-stepped parliament. And members of parliament were furious they didn't get a say.
• 0:20
  [START THE TELEGRAPH ARCHIVAL CLIP]
• 0:21
  Élisabeth Borne: [SPEAKING IN FRENCH]
• 0:22
  [PARLIAMENT MEMBERS BOOING]
• 0:23
  [END THE TELEGRAPH ARCHIVAL CLIP]
• 0:24
  A lot of people in France are upset, too. They've been protesting this bill since January. Labor unions organized marches and mass strikes that shut down transit, schools, trash collection. For many people, this fight over retirement age comes down to work-life balance philosophies and what we owe ourselves after decades on the job. Here's what the leader of France's main teachers union told the "BBC" last week.
• 0:25
  [START BBC ARCHIVAL CLIP]
• 0:26
  Grégory Bekhtari: The real debate is about a healthy life expectancy. And this is not rising, okay. What we want is a period of time for people out of work when they can do whatever they want. And they won't worry about how much they will make and if they can live a decent life. And that's the matter. That's the point here.
• 0:27
  [END BBC ARCHIVAL CLIP]
• 0:28
  Some version of this debate about retirement is happening here in the United States. Nikki Haley, who announced she is running for president, recently proposed raising the retirement age for people who are now in their 20s to better match life expectancy for their generation.
• 0:29
  "USA Today" recently ran a fact-check on a misleading social media post that got a lot of traction. It claimed that 156 House Republicans voted to raise the retirement age to 70. That's not true. What did happen was a conservative committee floated the idea of raising the retirement age to 70 back in 2022, but that proposal was never voted on.
• 0:30
  Still, with people generally living longer and pension programs running out of money, this debate will likely need to move from a hypothetical realm to a reality in many countries. In fact, just this week, the country with one of the lowest retirement ages in the world showed signs that it's considering a change. In China, currently, 60 is the retirement age for men, 55 for women in white-collar jobs, and 50 for women who work in factories.
• 0:31
  [PENSIVE MUSIC]
• 0:32
  [MUSIC FADES OUT]
• 0:33
  There's been a lot of big news this week related to the war in Ukraine. Notably, Poland became the first NATO country to pledge giving fighter jets to Ukraine. That was announced yesterday. Intense fighting continues around the eastern city of Bakhmut. And next week, Chinese President Xi Jinping will travel to Russia for the first time since the war began, in what's being seen as a show of support for Moscow.
• 0:34
  As the fighting continues, Ukrainians are banking on waning support for the war among Russians who've been sent to fight on the frontlines. And they're trying to make it as easy as possible for Russians to wave the white flag. As easy as a phone call.
• 0:35
  [START LOS ANGELES TIMES ARCHIVAL CLIP]
• 0:36
  Ukrainian Hotline Worker: [SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN]
• 0:37
  Russian Soldier: [SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN]
• 0:38
  [END LOS ANGELES TIMES ARCHIVAL CLIP]
• 0:39
  This is what you hear when you dial up the so-called "I Want to Live" hotline, operated by Ukraine's military. It's a surrender line. The operator in Ukraine is giving step-by-step instructions to a Russian soldier who wants to quit.
• 0:40
  The "Los Angeles Times" explains how it works. The people who answer the phones are all active-duty Ukrainian military with backgrounds in psychology, which helps them screen for the differences between potential bad actors and people who genuinely want to surrender. They give clear and concise instructions on what to do to send the surrender signal on the battlefield, like pointing your gun to the ground or literally pointing your tank in the opposite direction. And they're told their identities won't be revealed as voluntary surrenderers.
• 0:41
  For security reasons, Ukrainian officials haven't shared how many people they've helped through the hotline, and the voices in the audio you're hearing are distorted, but millions of people from Russian territory have visited a companion website with instructions on how to contact the hotline.
• 0:42
  In one exchange obtained by the "L.A. Times," a Russian soldier asks the operator if he'll be filmed while he's surrendering.
• 0:43
  [START LOS ANGELES TIMES ARCHIVAL CLIP]
• 0:44
  Russian Soldier: [SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN]
• 0:45
  Ukrainian Hotline Worker: [SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN]
• 0:46
  [END LOS ANGELES TIMES ARCHIVAL CLIP]
• 0:47
  She reassures him, no, he will not.
• 0:48
  At this crucial juncture in the war, Ukrainian officials hope that this hotline program will serve two purposes: remove as many Russian soldiers from the battlefield as possible and lead more Russians to question the role that they've been asked to play.
• 0:49
  [INTRIGUING MUSIC]
• 0:50
  [MUSIC FADES OUT]
• 0:51
  If you had to put a price, a dollar amount, on 25 years' worth of housework, what number would you land on? Okay, hold onto that number in your head while I tell you this. A judge in a divorce case in Spain recently determined that it was worth the equivalent of just over 200 grand.
• 0:52
  "The Miami Herald" has this story, which struck a chord with a lot of people because it calls attention to traditionally unpaid labor. In this divorce settlement in Spain, a woman argued that her ex-husband owed her money because she spent years taking care of their family and home while he worked and grew his businesses. She said, in spite of having signed a prenup that shielded her husband from having to share his money, she was owed unpaid wages for housework.
• 0:53
  The judge ultimately agreed with her. The settlement was calculated based on the minimum monthly wage during the time she was married. "The Miami Herald" quoted one comment from social media that seemed to sum up a lot of people's reactions: "Good for her, but that seems low for 25 years."
• 0:54
  [MUSIC FADES IN]
• 0:55
  You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
• 0:56
  And make sure to check out our interview show, "In Conversation." This week, we'll explain everything we know to date about Havana Syndrome, the series of mysterious health incidents that's affected some of America's best spies and diplomats.
• 0:57
  [START APPLE NEWS IN CONVERSATION CLIP]
• 0:58
  Podcast Guest: I was at the top physical, psychological, emotional place I could’ve ever been in my life. And within six months, I was a zombie and nonfunctional as a human being.
• 0:59
  [END APPLE NEWS IN CONVERSATION CLIP]
• 1:00
  We speak to the reporters behind "Havana Syndrome," a podcast from "VICE World News," about their search for answers.
• 1:01
  If you’re listening to us in the Apple News app right now, that episode of "In Conversation" is queued up to play for you next. So enjoy your weekend, and I’ll be back with the news on Monday.
• 1:02
  [MUSIC FADES OUT]