Newsom’s Gun Control Amendment Is the Most Important Idea in U.S. Politics

A Violent Country Desperately Needs Constitutional Protection to Fight This Epidemic. How Serious Is the Governor?

Gavin Newsom’s new campaign for a 28th Amendment is the most important political idea in the country today.

But you wouldn’t know that from reading media reports following the California governor’s proposal to enshrine four popular gun control measures in a new federal constitutional amendment.

Instead, political opponents dismissed Newsom’s proposal as at best a waste of time, and at worst a dereliction of gubernatorial duty. Reporters called it a mere tactic in his rhetorical and legal war with the red states. Republicans labeled it a distraction from his job running California. …

by Joe Mathews | June 20, 2023

An altar to the victims of the Monterey Park shooting. Flowers, candles, small pictuers, and notes fill the table. Above the altar are three larger photos of three different victims, framed with flowers.

What Mourning Looks Like in Monterey Park

Bound by a Culture of Welcoming ‘Immigrants and Lost Ones,’ a Community Comes Together in the Wake of a Mass Shooting

by Wendy Cheng | March 2, 2023

On a radiantly sunny afternoon in late January, I visited the parking lot of Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park. It had been less than a week since a …

Our Favorite Events of 2021

New Ideas, a New Home, and a New Hybrid Event Format Connected Us With Angelenos—and Audiences Around the World

December 22, 2021

Over 18 years and 650 events since we hosted our inaugural Zócalo event in 2003, Zócalo Public Square remains as fiercely committed as ever to bringing people together around ideas. …

Why Hawai‘i Has America’s Lowest Rates of Gun Violence

It's a Combination of Relative Prosperity, Isolation, Unique Culture—and Tough Laws

by Colin Moore | July 31, 2018

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 …

Professor, Get Your Gun

Dealing With Threatening Students Used to Be Hard. In Today's Era of Gun Rights, It's Frightening

By Jervey Tervalon | October 3, 2016

Now that Texas’ “campus carry” law, that bit of cowboy legislation that empowers everyone over 21 with a concealed handgun license to carry a pistol into a public university classroom …

gun violence