Robyn Thomas is the executive director of the San Francisco-based Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Before participating in a panel on how to break the deadlock in the gun debate, she talked in the Zócalo green room about how to gift a 3-year-old, the South African obsession with nicknames, and why her job offers no easy answers.
The debate over gun rights is so contentious in America that it often seems the two sides are speaking different languages. The fight continues, bitterly—and yet nothing seems to change. …
Six years ago, my husband Mark retired from the Los Angeles Police Department. After 37 years as a police officer, he still possessed three guns, which are safely locked away …
After I retired as a Stockton police captain in 2003, I decided to become involved in new sorts of activities that would help people, particularly youth. I first got on …
In this state, our fictions are often better teachers than the truth.
The most significant California film in years is Fruitvale Station, based on the shooting death of a 22-year-old …
Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet by Finn Brunton
The nutshell: University of Michigan information scholar Brunton uses spam as a window into the history of the Internet, providing insight …
Every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control, 33,000 Americans die from violence linked to guns. Massacres like the February shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have become …
The debate over gun rights is so contentious in America that it often seems the two sides are speaking different languages. The fight continues, bitterly—and yet nothing seems to change. …
The phone call from Betty Friedan caught me by surprise. The surprise was not that the feminist icon called me. We were friends. It was that she called to order …
Sometimes a tragedy is so awful that it changes the national debate. The 1996 Dunblane school shooting in Scotland, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, and the 2011 Norwegian …
