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Speaker 1: Mother Knows Death presents External Exams with Nicole and Jimmy.

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Speaker 1: Every week on Mother Knows Death, we will be doing

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Speaker 1: an external exam and we will be interviewing various experts.

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Speaker 1: Last week, Maria and I discussed the mass shooting that

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Speaker 1: was in Maine that killed eighteen people and injured thirteen people,

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Speaker 1: as well as days later there was another potential mass

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Speaker 1: shooting that did not happen because they found the mass

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Speaker 1: shooter had he killed himself, but he was found with

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Speaker 1: multiple ammunition rifles, handguns, IEDs et Cetera, an amusement park

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Speaker 1: in Colorado. So unfortunately, mass shootings have become a frequent

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Speaker 1: topic that comes up all the time in my I

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Speaker 1: feel to anyway, And today we're going to be with

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Speaker 1: doctor Jonathan Metzel and he's a leading expert in the

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Speaker 1: forefront of movement of advocating for gun reform as a

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Speaker 1: matter of public health. And this coming January thirtieth, twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty four, he's coming out with a new book that's

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Speaker 1: available for pre order right now, so make sure you

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Speaker 1: get that. I'm actually going to talk to him about

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Speaker 1: him sending me an advanced copy hopefully, and it's called

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Speaker 1: What we've become living and dying in a country of arms.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. It's so nice to meet you.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much.

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Speaker 3: I'm so glad to be here having this conversation.

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Speaker 1: This It's just really an honor to have you. You're

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Speaker 1: so accomplished, so that we're just going to go through

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Speaker 1: some things and get to know you a little bit

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Speaker 1: better in your thoughts on this, because I know that

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Speaker 1: this is a huge fear of mind just being an American.

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Speaker 1: So there's been multiple explanations about gun violence in as

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Speaker 1: far as it could be from mental health issues, it

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Speaker 1: could be from playing video games, it could be from

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Speaker 1: the gun laws, and then the guns themselves social media.

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Speaker 1: But these things are also present in other countries as well.

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Speaker 1: Most other countries have access to social media, firearms, etc.

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Speaker 1: So what is it about gun violence and mass shootings

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Speaker 1: that is specific to the United States. I'm asking you

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Speaker 1: because we have a lot of people that listen from

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Speaker 1: other countries that might not be as familiar.

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Speaker 3: Well, first let me just say I'll say two things

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Speaker 3: in answer. I think it's a great starting question.

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Speaker 2: The first is just to.

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Speaker 3: Recognize how often the charts the United States is in

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Speaker 3: terms of gun ownership and also in terms of shootings.

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Speaker 3: So we are just completely on an island by ourselves.

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Speaker 2: Really.

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Speaker 3: We have a Second Amendment obviously in this in this country,

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Speaker 3: in our constitution that tells people, you know, there's a

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Speaker 3: right to bear arms. But what that Second Amendment means

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Speaker 3: has been a topic of great debate. And so before

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Speaker 3: like the nineteen eighties, individual people couldn't own guns. That

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Speaker 3: the idea was basically guns are for the police or

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Speaker 3: military or safety officers, etc. And there was a shift

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Speaker 3: that started in the nineteen eighties where we reinterpreted the

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Speaker 3: Second Amendment to mean it was a push by the

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Speaker 3: NRA and conservative politicians and you know, all the people

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Speaker 3: we kind of know now, but it was totally out

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Speaker 3: of the blue in the eighties. People thought that was nuts,

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Speaker 3: but basically a push to say that a militia a

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Speaker 3: person has the same rights as a militia. And it

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Speaker 3: led to a push where we increasingly allowed private citizens

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Speaker 3: to own guns. And I mean we could always kind

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Speaker 3: of own guns for hunting and stuff, but to carry them.

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Speaker 3: And so what we've seen in this country really since

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Speaker 3: the eighties is just an absolute gold rush for gun

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Speaker 3: companies of sales to private people, and we've gone from

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Speaker 3: relatively normal gun ownership rates, you know, people who hunted

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Speaker 3: or had their musket from their grandfather or something.

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Speaker 2: Now we have more than one gun per person in

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Speaker 2: this country.

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Speaker 3: We have about three hundred and thirty million people in

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Speaker 3: the country, and we have about four hundred and fifty

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Speaker 3: million civilian owned guns. So there's no other country that

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Speaker 3: has as many guns as we do. And with guns

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Speaker 3: come shootings, and so we also are way off the

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Speaker 3: charts in terms of civilian shootings, anything from homicide to

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Speaker 3: suicide to mass shootings, partner violence, accidental shootings. We have

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Speaker 3: probably now over fifty thousand gun deaths a year in

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Speaker 3: the in our country, and so it's important for people

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Speaker 3: who are not in the United it States just to

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Speaker 3: recognize really how abnormal that is. I mean, there are

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Speaker 3: places that there are militaries and war and things like that,

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Speaker 3: but we're talking about like people owning guns, carrying guns,

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Speaker 3: shooting each other in daily life. So point number one

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Speaker 3: is that, and then point number two is just an intro.

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Speaker 3: Is It's really important also to note the mass shootings

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Speaker 3: are terrifying, and mass shootings are becoming much more common.

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Speaker 3: We used to have less than one mass shooting a

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Speaker 3: day in twenty eighteen, and now we have almost two

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Speaker 3: mass shootings a day in this country. But by far,

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Speaker 3: the most gun death in this country is gun suicide.

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Speaker 2: It's not even close.

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Speaker 3: And so like a couple of years ago, I had

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Speaker 3: a book come out forty five thousand gun deaths in

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Speaker 3: this country, twenty eight or twenty nine were gun suicide.

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Speaker 3: So it's also really important to note that most gun

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Speaker 3: death is gun suicide, which for me, is much more

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Speaker 3: preventable than mass shootings in some ways. I think those

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Speaker 3: are two jumping off statistical points that we might talk about.

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Speaker 3: And I'm happy to say more about what you asked

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Speaker 3: about mental illness and video games and stuff like that,

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Speaker 3: but I just think to be on the ground of

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Speaker 3: like just how weird the United States is a good

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Speaker 3: jumping off point.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, I definitely wanted to talk I want to

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Speaker 1: talk about all that other stuff too, but we'll get

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Speaker 1: to that. We'll get to that a little bit later.

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Speaker 1: But you were just saying how mass shootings are just

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Speaker 1: so scary, which I agree. They're one of my biggest fears,

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Speaker 1: to be honest with you, and I feel like it's

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Speaker 1: almost getting to the point where it's Groundhog's Day. It's

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Speaker 1: like you turn on the news and there's a shooting.

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Speaker 1: Now I couldn't even name all of them that even

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Speaker 1: happened this year, just because it just happened so frequently.

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Speaker 1: And my first initial reaction is is that I get

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Speaker 1: really upset, and then I watched the news like crazy,

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Speaker 1: or look at it online for the first day, just

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Speaker 1: to be like, who was it, what happened, who died?

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Speaker 1: You know, all the questions that people have, and then

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Speaker 1: it's just like the same stuff keeps happening. It's like

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Speaker 1: the lawmakers put out their tweets and say thoughts and prayers,

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Speaker 1: and then one side blames the other side, the other

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Speaker 1: side blames the other side, and then within forty eight hours,

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Speaker 1: it's like it's like nothing happened. And I feel like,

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Speaker 1: do you feel like Americans have almost some kind of

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Speaker 1: level of like PTSD when it comes to gun violence

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Speaker 1: as far as not even just directly being involved with it,

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Speaker 1: but just hearing about this stuff every single day on

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Speaker 1: the news.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I completely agree with that. It's it's called habituation.

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Speaker 3: We've habituated this and in the you know, even fifteen

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Speaker 3: years ago, or think back to when we had you know,

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Speaker 3: this early mass shootings Parkland or you know, the school

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Speaker 3: in Colorado, like all those early mass shootings, we would

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Speaker 3: talk about it for months, and now a lot of

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Speaker 3: research shows that this trend that you're talking about, which

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Speaker 3: I talk about. That's kind of the theme of my

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Speaker 3: book What We've Become that's coming out in January, is

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Speaker 3: I talk about how we've come to. I don't want

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Speaker 3: to say normalize it, because it's not normal, but there's

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Speaker 3: an arc. I tell the story in the book of

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Speaker 3: the Nashville waffle house mass shooting in twenty eighteen, and

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Speaker 3: what I show is that there's a really predictable pattern

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Speaker 3: where there's shock, trauma, fear that ripples outwards. People who

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Speaker 3: are not in the city or immediate affect it also

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Speaker 3: feel an emotional response to it, and unfortunately it lasts

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Speaker 3: four days. People are shocked, they're horrified, they call for action,

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Speaker 3: they feel helpless, and they then the next thing happens

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Speaker 3: or something. So our cycle of this stuff, You're exactly right,

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Speaker 3: it's not four days for people who were affected personally, right,

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Speaker 3: they're living with this for the rest of our lives.

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Speaker 3: But because they're so many of these stories that just

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Speaker 3: feel exactly the same. I mean they literally they just

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Speaker 3: feel so similar that in a way, our response is

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Speaker 3: there's almost a pattern of it where and you can

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Speaker 3: follow it in news stories also, you know, two days

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Speaker 3: is the peak, three days is the where it starts

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Speaker 3: to go down, And within the fifth day, we've unfortunately

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Speaker 3: moved on to the next headline. And so what I

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Speaker 3: ask is, what does that do to our psyche as

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Speaker 3: a country, as people if we're seeing these horrible things

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Speaker 3: and we're in a way moving on in not really

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Speaker 3: moving on. But what I say is that's what people

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Speaker 3: do in war, and so we are living with a

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Speaker 3: kind of PTSD right now.

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Speaker 1: It's really crazy because in my lifetime, like I grew

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Speaker 1: up in the eighties, and I mean maybe my parents

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Speaker 1: kept me sheltered or whatever, I don't know, but I

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Speaker 1: didn't hear about any kind of mass shooting until the

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Speaker 1: first one that you spoke of, which was Columbine in

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine. That was And I know that that

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Speaker 1: kind of coincides with like when around when nine to

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Speaker 1: eleven happened and the whole like twenty four hour news

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Speaker 1: cycle thing started because I don't think that that was

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Speaker 1: really happening prior to nine to eleven, that there was

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Speaker 1: like channels that just had the news on all day.

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Speaker 1: If there were, I don't, I'm not really sure how

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Speaker 1: popular it was. But also the Internet as well, like

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Speaker 1: kind of came out around that time too. So I

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Speaker 1: guess my question for you as far as that is,

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Speaker 1: how much of the blame of this, I guess do

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Speaker 1: you put on not only just the news media but

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Speaker 1: also social media, because these people not only have this

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Speaker 1: platform where they're able to like discuss their crazy thoughts

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Speaker 1: with each other, and that in itself is a problem,

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Speaker 1: but also you have the news that kind of makes

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Speaker 1: these people like famous, and has there been any kind

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Speaker 1: of like studies on that stuff.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I mean the hard part is, so I can argue

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Speaker 3: both sides of this, honestly, because on one hand, you're

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Speaker 3: absolutely right, when you grew up in the eighties, this

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Speaker 3: wasn't really happening. Our first kind of quote unquote mass

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Speaker 3: shooting was in the nineteen forties a guy who had

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Speaker 3: come back from from late nineteen forties of World War two, guy,

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Speaker 3: which I talk about in the book. But in terms

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Speaker 3: of the phenomenon that you're describing. That starts really with Columbine.

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Speaker 3: It's the advent of the Internet, but it's also the

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Speaker 3: accessibility of guns that civilians couldn't get before. And so

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Speaker 3: the fact that it was a lot easier to get

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Speaker 3: semi automatic weapons, particularly in the early twenty first century

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Speaker 3: when people started to get is very easy to get

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Speaker 3: an AR fifteen, whichhip average person couldn't get. And so

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Speaker 3: the US isn't like there are there are just as

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Speaker 3: the same number of attacks in other countries. But if

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Speaker 3: you look at like the news in the UK or

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Speaker 3: India or something like that, it's like crazed person attack

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Speaker 3: somebody with a hammer or with a knife or with

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Speaker 3: a machete. It's it's horrible, but it doesn't have the

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Speaker 3: same body count. And so part of what we started

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Speaker 3: seeing was number one, access to firearms. Number two, as

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Speaker 3: you're suggesting, a very strong copycat phenomenon where people, I mean,

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Speaker 3: just because we're so normalized to this stuff, it's hard

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Speaker 3: to get in the news. It's you know, it's just

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Speaker 3: there's it's like, oh, what are you.

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Speaker 2: Going to do?

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Speaker 3: That's worse than the horrible thing we just had two

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Speaker 3: days ago. And so there's a copycat phenomenon. So it's

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Speaker 3: all these things kind.

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Speaker 2: Of together.

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Speaker 3: That really, I think, really have created this thing that

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Speaker 3: I don't know, I'm curious about your sense. I mean,

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Speaker 3: for me, it just feels out of control, right because

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Speaker 3: it's like access to guys, a political gridlock, and it

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Speaker 3: just I don't know, just the repetition of this is honestly,

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Speaker 3: the word is just exhausting.

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Speaker 2: It's exhausting right to have to live like this.

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Speaker 1: I think this is this like this. Similarly, I'm going

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Speaker 1: to give you as actually nothing to do with guns.

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Speaker 1: But we have this highway in near Philadelphia that only

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Speaker 1: has two lanes going in and out of it, right,

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Speaker 1: and it was created I don't even know when it

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Speaker 1: was created years ago when my when my parents were little.

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Speaker 1: But they basically say they can't they can't make the

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Speaker 1: highway any bigger because of the way the mountain. The

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Speaker 1: mountain is, it goes around in just different different ways

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Speaker 1: that they can't make the way any bigger. So they

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Speaker 1: just kind of instead of really trying to fix the problem,

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Speaker 1: they've just ignored it. Since you know, the nineteen fifties

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Speaker 1: and now and now here we are with double the

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Speaker 1: population and the problems still there because I think they

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Speaker 1: just feel so overwhelmed by it they don't know how

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Speaker 1: to fix it, so they just kind of like hope

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Speaker 1: it'll go away or something. Yeah, I feel the same

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Speaker 1: way about the gun thing, Like, especially when you're talking

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Speaker 1: about in the eighties when they really could have like

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Speaker 1: nipped that and got it under control. But even when

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Speaker 1: they did recognize it was a problem, it was definitely

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Speaker 1: in the nineties, right, and then why are we letting

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Speaker 1: decades go on and on and not doing anything at

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Speaker 1: all to kind of like reel it in a little bit,

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Speaker 1: you know what I mean? And yeah, totally it's exhausting.

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Speaker 3: No, it does feel like that mountain that you can't move.

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Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's interesting, like we're having this conversation

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Speaker 3: on a Monday. Tomorrow, the Supreme Court's going to hear

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Speaker 3: a case about whether someone accused of domestic abuse has

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Speaker 3: has a Second Amendment right to guns.

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Speaker 2: So it's it's just it's just almost pathetic.

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Speaker 3: Really honestly where we are right now and what could

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Speaker 3: have been done. I mean, it's interesting to know, like

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Speaker 3: right now, you know, it's it's hard right now to

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Speaker 3: think about what can be done because it's really a

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Speaker 3: numbers game. Right now, there are millions and millions and

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Speaker 3: millions of gun owners who never fire their guns, and

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Speaker 3: so how are you going to Like the gun owner

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Speaker 3: who I interview a lot, would say, how are you

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Speaker 3: going to restrict my access to my AR fifteen which

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Speaker 3: I use for sports shooting or I really like owning.

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Speaker 3: And it's true, we have like tens of millions of

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Speaker 3: AR fifteens in ownership right now. And one person commits

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Speaker 3: a mass shooting, and they'll say, well, does that mean

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Speaker 3: we should restrict AR fifteens to everyone because of that

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Speaker 3: one person, and that the answer easily would have been

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Speaker 3: yes twenty years ago. But now there are so many

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Speaker 3: AAR fifteens in circulation that even if you restricted AAR fifteens,

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Speaker 3: there's there's just way too many of them out there

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Speaker 3: that you know that that it's just going to be

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Speaker 3: hard to get them all back, honestly. And then this

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Speaker 3: you mentioned mentioned almost before, or for people who don't know,

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Speaker 3: I'm a psychiatrist and a sociologist, and so a lot

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Speaker 3: of my work looks at mental illness and gun violence,

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Speaker 3: and what I argue is that it's again a numbers

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Speaker 3: game because the dramatic majority of people with mental illness

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Speaker 3: don't hurt anybody else. In fact, people with diagnosed mental

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Speaker 3: illness are much more likely to be the victims of

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Speaker 3: violence than the perpetrators of violence. And so how do

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Speaker 3: you pick that one person who's going to do this

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Speaker 3: horrible thing out of the hundreds of millions of people

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Speaker 3: who are diagnosed with mental illness. It's just, you know,

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Speaker 3: I think you're exactly right to say when this thing

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Speaker 3: first started, we could have nipped it in the bud,

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Speaker 3: the way we do with any other consumer product that

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Speaker 3: kills people. But now I think part of the hopelessness

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Speaker 3: isn't just that it keeps happening, which it does. It's

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Speaker 3: also that it just feels like, what can we do

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Speaker 3: at this point? With so many guns and so many shootings,

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Speaker 3: It just feels like it, you know, That's what I

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Speaker 3: argue in the book, These mass shootings become constitution of

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Speaker 3: who we are, Like it's this is just what we

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Speaker 3: have to put up with to be Americans right now,

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Speaker 3: which is kind of depressing, but I think might as

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Speaker 3: well be honest about it.

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Speaker 2: As a starting point.

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Speaker 1: It is and and you know, I I grew up

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Speaker 1: in a family with guns. My grandfather hunted, taught my

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Speaker 1: brother and it was never a it was never used

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Speaker 1: in any kind of a negative way. They they locked

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Speaker 1: them up responsibly, legally purchased everything else. So I'm always

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Speaker 1: I'm always torn, and of course I'm torn to take

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Speaker 1: away guns because of what you said that you're not

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Speaker 1: take you can't get rid of them. And I actually

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Speaker 1: would feel more comfortable to have have guns knowing that

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Speaker 1: other ones are out there, because I know that that

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Speaker 1: we would just have it for safety purposes, you know,

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Speaker 1: not to go do anything. And another point that you

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Speaker 1: made is is how draining it is to live like this,

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Speaker 1: And honestly, like it's really affected me so much much

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Speaker 1: so that I had my middle daughter. I had her

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Speaker 1: in school in preschool, and it was in twenty eighteen,

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Speaker 1: and on the day after Valentine's Day in twenty and eighteen,

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Speaker 1: which so happens to be the day after the Parkland shooting,

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Speaker 1: the school had a function that was like, oh, let

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Speaker 1: the kid's family come to school like grandparents, sisters, brothers, whatever.

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Speaker 1: And I went to the school and the door was

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Speaker 1: just wide open, like anybody could have walked in, and

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Speaker 1: it just it sent me down this rabbit hole of

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Speaker 1: like this is going to happen at this school, my

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Speaker 1: kid's gonna get shot, blah blah blah. And I decided

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Speaker 1: to take my kid out of school, and I homeschooled

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Speaker 1: my kids for like two or three years before I

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Speaker 1: was like, what the hell am I doing? I need

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Speaker 1: to put my kids in school. But it's it's like

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Speaker 1: such a big fear of mine. So do you have

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Speaker 1: any advice to people that like it? Like, it's never personal,

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Speaker 1: happened to me, but it affects me so much that

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Speaker 1: it like actually made making me make huge decisions in

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Speaker 1: my life.

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Speaker 3: As far as I mean, this is to me the

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Speaker 3: definition of terrorism, honestly, that terrorism makes us feel unsafe

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Speaker 3: in places that should be avenues of daily life. Right,

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Speaker 3: And that's easy if we think about someone somewhere else

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Speaker 3: in the world or a suicide bomber or something. But

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Speaker 3: think about what you're saying, right, afraid to send your

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Speaker 3: own kids to school. I mean, what's the role of society.

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Speaker 3: It's to keep people safe. That's that's why we join

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Speaker 3: together in civilizations, is to keep people safe. And you know,

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Speaker 3: for some people, including people I interview for my book,

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Speaker 3: they say well, I feel safe, I'm if I'm carrying

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Speaker 3: my air fifteen all the time, or they want to

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Speaker 3: be armed all the time. And so for some people,

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Speaker 3: their notion of safety is just for me, it's it's

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Speaker 3: really again exhausting, because to be on guard all the

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Speaker 3: time that somebody's gonna potentially shoot you in the grocery

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Speaker 3: store or when you're out bowling like in Maine earlier,

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Speaker 3: or you know, sending your kids like it's just I

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Speaker 3: don't know. At a certain point, that kind of hypervigilance

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Speaker 3: really has a real psychological effect on people. It really does,

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Speaker 3: and certainly it has a massive effect on people who

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Speaker 3: are caught in this. But just the trauma of being

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Speaker 3: a fear all the time and of mistrusting other people,

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Speaker 3: it's to me. To me, it's I mean, we'll see

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Speaker 3: what how this goes. But in the book, I argue

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Speaker 3: that everything that happened in the pandemic, where everybody split

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Speaker 3: apart in a million different pieces, it was predicated on

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Speaker 3: the divisions we'd already set up in the gun debate,

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Speaker 3: where people's idea. I mean, I don't ever interview people

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Speaker 3: who say, like I don't want to be safe, I

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Speaker 3: want to be unsafe. But people's idea of what it

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Speaker 3: means to be safe is so different really in regard

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Speaker 3: to their relationship to guns, and so it's a know,

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Speaker 3: how do how do we put that back together? I

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Speaker 3: know that was your question for me, but I'm just

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Speaker 3: mirroring that.

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Speaker 2: That's a really hard press.

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Speaker 1: It's an interesting point that you bring up, because my

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Speaker 1: next question was going to be about like this, like

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Speaker 1: safety in school in general, and I just told you

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Speaker 1: that my biggest fear is that is my is something

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Speaker 1: like that happening at my kids' school. But me personally,

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Speaker 1: I would almost feel better if there was like a

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Speaker 1: cop there that had a gun. I don't know, like

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Speaker 1: I know that a lot of people are against that,

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Speaker 1: but I do have this sense of just because I

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Speaker 1: grew up around it and know people that are like

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Speaker 1: responsible with it, that would protect you kind of. And

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Speaker 1: I mean, like the president has people protecting him with guns.

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Speaker 1: Banks have people protecting the bank with guns. So and

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Speaker 1: that's money that's not your child. You know that you're

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Speaker 1: not your child, So I I kind of it might

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Speaker 1: sound silly for me to say.

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Speaker 3: That sounds like at all, No, it sounds really deep

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Speaker 3: and honest, right, I mean, I totally agree. Again, you

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Speaker 3: shouldn't have to live in a society where you send

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Speaker 3: your kids to school and worry if they're going to

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Speaker 3: come home. And and I agree with you that that's

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Speaker 3: kind of where we're at. Like it's it's it's it's

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Speaker 3: naive to say, oh, let's just buy up back all

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Speaker 3: the guns. You know, that's not the world we live in.

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Speaker 3: And so that is going to be in the back

399
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Speaker 3: of people's mind stuff like this happens, and that's going

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Speaker 3: to be in the in the back of their minds.

401
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Speaker 3: And so, I mean, I it's not like I'm some

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Speaker 3: gun grabbing liberal who whatever.

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Speaker 2: Like I mean, I have a lot.

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Speaker 3: Of complex opinion opinions about this having started for a

405
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Speaker 3: long time. But my dad was in the Air Force.

406
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Speaker 3: I was born on an Air Force base. Like I've

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Speaker 3: been around different forms of weapons different times in my life.

408
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Speaker 2: But but it's just it's just.

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Speaker 3: I guess the two questions are, number one, what does

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Speaker 3: that do to us if every time we send our

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Speaker 3: kids out in the world, we're worried this is going

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Speaker 3: to happen to them? And then number two is if

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Speaker 3: we protect schools really well, there's just going to be

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Speaker 3: some other target. I mean, look at what happened in

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Speaker 3: Maine where people were playing cornhole, Like I mean, you

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Speaker 3: just can't protect every single thing. I mean, that sounds

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Speaker 3: like a military zone. And so in a way, for me,

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Speaker 3: it's got to involve some kind of coming together. What

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Speaker 3: I argue in the book, and this is where I

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Speaker 3: think the book's going to be controversial. I argue that

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Speaker 3: we're too far gone to mandate behavior. I think the

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Speaker 3: pandemic for me, taught me that in a way, like

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Speaker 3: I can tell you what I think a good health

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Speaker 3: policy is. I think it's important to wear a mask

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Speaker 3: and get a vaccine. And I have plenty of friends

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Speaker 3: and colleagues who feel completely different, and I can't make

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Speaker 3: a policy that makes them wear a mask. And we're

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Speaker 3: almost at that point with guns where I think there

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Speaker 3: should be background checks. I think there should be, you know,

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Speaker 3: I honestly think there should be an assault weapons ban.

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Speaker 3: But I also know my policy is not going to

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Speaker 3: work on a lot of my friends here who are

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Speaker 3: ardent gun I mean, I'm in Tennessee. I know you

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Speaker 3: know a lot of people who care a lot about guns,

435
00:24:14,400 --> 00:24:16,480
Speaker 3: and so I think we really need to focus in

436
00:24:16,520 --> 00:24:18,840
Speaker 3: addition to finding the right policies, I argue that we

437
00:24:18,880 --> 00:24:21,600
Speaker 3: need to really go back to basics and think about

438
00:24:21,600 --> 00:24:24,399
Speaker 3: what it makes for us, what makes us feel safe

439
00:24:24,400 --> 00:24:27,359
Speaker 3: in a community. How can we make communities safe really

440
00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:31,840
Speaker 3: build build communities that where people don't fear each other.

441
00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:34,600
Speaker 3: Which sounds kind of naive, but I just I've become

442
00:24:34,680 --> 00:24:37,959
Speaker 3: almost a structuralist doing this work. I started off being like,

443
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:41,479
Speaker 3: a we need policies that control things, and I actually

444
00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:44,320
Speaker 3: don't feel that way anymore. I feel like, what makes

445
00:24:44,320 --> 00:24:47,000
Speaker 3: you feel safe? What makes the school feel safe? Well,

446
00:24:47,760 --> 00:24:49,879
Speaker 3: I mean that's the question. What makes the school feel safe?

447
00:24:49,920 --> 00:24:54,280
Speaker 3: Maybe it's having an arm guard, but it's also you know,

448
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:59,320
Speaker 3: the neighborhood, the lighting, the parks, the fact that you

449
00:24:59,400 --> 00:25:02,080
Speaker 3: know your neighbors. Like, we need to kind of reinvest

450
00:25:02,200 --> 00:25:04,840
Speaker 3: in our communities in a way. So that's kind of

451
00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:06,760
Speaker 3: where I'm coming down on these issues right now. But

452
00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:09,520
Speaker 3: it's it's an I mean, I'm a doctor, but I'm

453
00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:13,720
Speaker 3: kind of feeling like the policies of controlling other people's

454
00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:18,320
Speaker 3: behaviors that might have worked in the cigarettes or seatbelts,

455
00:25:18,400 --> 00:25:20,280
Speaker 3: but we're not there now.

456
00:25:21,200 --> 00:25:23,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that this is a good point

457
00:25:23,240 --> 00:25:27,840
Speaker 1: you're bringing up because I think, like my whole feeling

458
00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:31,440
Speaker 1: is like, if you're going to do the two worst

459
00:25:31,520 --> 00:25:35,040
Speaker 1: things ever, which is like commit the worst crime ever

460
00:25:35,520 --> 00:25:41,120
Speaker 1: murder and both legally and morally, like you're not going

461
00:25:41,160 --> 00:25:44,479
Speaker 1: to follow any gun laws. You're just not You're not

462
00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:48,080
Speaker 1: gonna You're not going to care. And there are a

463
00:25:48,119 --> 00:25:50,760
Speaker 1: lot of gun laws in place, but like Maine is

464
00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:54,000
Speaker 1: a perfect example. I mean, this is just one that

465
00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:57,439
Speaker 1: happened this week or not last week, whatever. Of like,

466
00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:01,680
Speaker 1: these laws, they don't don't help all the time. There's

467
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:05,960
Speaker 1: a lot of gray area and they're not followed, and

468
00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:10,600
Speaker 1: so just making more laws necessarily isn't going to make

469
00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:12,159
Speaker 1: things better.

470
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:16,159
Speaker 3: Well, the one caveat though, I will say again is

471
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:22,160
Speaker 3: mass shootings are what gets our attention, but we could

472
00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:26,360
Speaker 3: dramatically cut gun death in this country. I mean, I'm

473
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:27,439
Speaker 3: not against all laws.

474
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:29,760
Speaker 2: I think that.

475
00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:36,520
Speaker 3: Like partner violence, for example, like the Supreme Court case tomorrow,

476
00:26:36,880 --> 00:26:39,440
Speaker 3: I sure hope they come down and say that someone

477
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:42,639
Speaker 3: with a restraining order does not have a right to

478
00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:47,880
Speaker 3: gun because we know really clearly from data that if

479
00:26:47,920 --> 00:26:50,640
Speaker 3: someone has been abusive to their partner in the past,

480
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:52,520
Speaker 3: they're going to do it again in the future. I

481
00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:54,320
Speaker 3: don't think that person should have a gun. I don't

482
00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:58,160
Speaker 3: think people should be able to drink and carry weapons

483
00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:01,120
Speaker 3: the same way that we don't let people drink and drive.

484
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:02,359
Speaker 3: I mean, there's a ton of I mean, I have

485
00:27:02,400 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 3: a whole list of things I talk about in the book,

486
00:27:05,160 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 3: and I think that, you know, we could really cut

487
00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:16,639
Speaker 3: dramatically guns, suicide, partner violence, certain kinds of homicide, accidental shootings.

488
00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:21,680
Speaker 3: So it's not like we're just going to keep going forever.

489
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:23,600
Speaker 3: I mean, I do think there are things we can do.

490
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:27,440
Speaker 3: The hard part about this, though, is that mass shootings

491
00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:31,280
Speaker 3: for understandable reasons are what are the most terrifying, and

492
00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:34,040
Speaker 3: by far those are the hardest kinds of shootings to

493
00:27:34,320 --> 00:27:37,320
Speaker 3: predict or to prevent. I mean, we heard it in

494
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:40,680
Speaker 3: Maine that everybody said, I can't believe it happened here,

495
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:45,199
Speaker 3: But everybody in Maine probably has a gun. So the

496
00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:49,720
Speaker 3: fact that somebody just snapped one day is really it's

497
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:52,000
Speaker 3: much harder to predict that. But I still think we

498
00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:55,480
Speaker 3: could dramatically cut gun death if we really got serious

499
00:27:55,480 --> 00:27:58,440
Speaker 3: about stopping the other kinds of shootings that are much more,

500
00:27:58,800 --> 00:27:59,680
Speaker 3: much more patterned.

501
00:28:00,840 --> 00:28:05,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think a big issue is, which I'm semi

502
00:28:05,600 --> 00:28:10,480
Speaker 1: familiar with, the whole buying a gun situation throughout the country.

503
00:28:10,520 --> 00:28:13,000
Speaker 1: It's just so different from state to state. I feel

504
00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 1: like it's kind of weird how the variation. I live

505
00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:18,800
Speaker 1: in New Jersey.

506
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:20,199
Speaker 3: I I.

507
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:24,719
Speaker 1: Think that our laws are pretty good. You have to

508
00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:26,760
Speaker 1: kind of like if you want to you have to

509
00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:28,840
Speaker 1: wait a little while if you want to get something,

510
00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:32,280
Speaker 1: it's not as easy. But in Pennsylvania, which is literally

511
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:35,520
Speaker 1: ten minutes away from where I'm at right now, you

512
00:28:35,560 --> 00:28:38,560
Speaker 1: could just go. You could just walk in a store

513
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:41,479
Speaker 1: and buy a gun. Right But I don't know if

514
00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:44,120
Speaker 1: there's been any studies done with states with like stricter

515
00:28:44,280 --> 00:28:47,600
Speaker 1: laws like that versus yep. And it does it show

516
00:28:47,680 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 1: that there's a decrease in No.

517
00:28:52,160 --> 00:28:54,680
Speaker 3: The problem is some of the words the safest place

518
00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 3: to be statistically for a mass shooting is to be

519
00:28:58,160 --> 00:29:00,680
Speaker 3: in a state with the kind of laws. New Jersey

520
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:03,680
Speaker 3: is a great example. New Jersey excellent leadership in this

521
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:05,960
Speaker 3: area for a couple of reasons. I mean, it's got

522
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:09,840
Speaker 3: great laws, but it's also the Rutgers as a gun

523
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:12,920
Speaker 3: safety center, So a lot of research about keeping people safe.

524
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:16,320
Speaker 3: If you live in a state that has tight gun

525
00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 3: laws relatively, I mean for US standards, and you're surrounded

526
00:29:21,040 --> 00:29:24,360
Speaker 3: by other states that have tight gun laws, your rate

527
00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:28,360
Speaker 3: of mass shooting is a lot lower. So New York

528
00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:31,760
Speaker 3: is surrounded by Connecticut and New Jersey, for example, its

529
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:33,840
Speaker 3: rates of this kind of stuff are a lot lower

530
00:29:34,320 --> 00:29:38,960
Speaker 3: than Tennessee. Or I wrote my book about the waffle

531
00:29:38,960 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 3: House mass shooting, and the mass shooter was in Illinois

532
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 3: and drove to just drove across state lines, and he

533
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:52,400
Speaker 3: went from being an illegal gun owner to being a

534
00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:55,880
Speaker 3: legal gun owner literally by driving thirty five minutes across

535
00:29:55,920 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 3: state lines. And so until we have like a national policy,

536
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:03,480
Speaker 3: it's just going to be this patchwork thing. So you're

537
00:30:03,520 --> 00:30:06,840
Speaker 3: definitely safer to be in a state that has tight

538
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:09,960
Speaker 3: gun laws, especially if you're surrounded by other states.

539
00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:10,680
Speaker 2: That have tight gun laws.

540
00:30:12,040 --> 00:30:14,720
Speaker 3: And you would just think, in an ideal world, we

541
00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:16,960
Speaker 3: would learn from the places that have fewer mass shootings

542
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:19,200
Speaker 3: and enact those laws. Like I don't see why that's

543
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:20,440
Speaker 3: so hard, but apparently it is.

544
00:30:21,520 --> 00:30:24,360
Speaker 1: It's also weird that there's not that you don't have

545
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:27,560
Speaker 1: to get some kind some kind of training, Like if

546
00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 1: you want to drive a car, you have to take

547
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:32,719
Speaker 1: a driver's license test just so you can show that

548
00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:36,840
Speaker 1: you could basically operate the vehicle. Not that it prevents

549
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 1: most people from just sucking at driving or whatever, but like, well,

550
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:44,120
Speaker 1: at least it's like you check the box, and like

551
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:47,000
Speaker 1: people have to do a written test and a driving

552
00:30:47,040 --> 00:30:52,080
Speaker 1: test to show that they have some competency, right, Like, I.

553
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:53,920
Speaker 3: Mean, I can give you a full list, I'll just

554
00:30:53,920 --> 00:30:56,320
Speaker 3: give you four examples of what we should be doing

555
00:30:56,840 --> 00:30:59,120
Speaker 3: and what we are doing that are exactly in line

556
00:30:59,120 --> 00:31:03,800
Speaker 3: with that. So training with a firearm to get a

557
00:31:03,880 --> 00:31:07,840
Speaker 3: license or a permit or anything like that, is people

558
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:11,640
Speaker 3: are less likely to have to shoot a gun if

559
00:31:11,680 --> 00:31:13,920
Speaker 3: they've been trained how to use that gun. And that's

560
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:17,520
Speaker 3: true in countries where people, for example, have military service

561
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:21,680
Speaker 3: and then they have guns as civilians. It's true in

562
00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:25,240
Speaker 3: the United States as well. And so what are we doing, Well,

563
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:25,920
Speaker 3: we're doing.

564
00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:26,880
Speaker 2: Exactly the opposite.

565
00:31:26,880 --> 00:31:30,440
Speaker 3: We are letting people just go into wherever, Walmart or

566
00:31:30,480 --> 00:31:32,680
Speaker 3: whatever and buy an air fifteen, go to a gun show,

567
00:31:32,800 --> 00:31:37,520
Speaker 3: go online. So there's been a dramatic push. Tennessee is

568
00:31:37,560 --> 00:31:40,400
Speaker 3: a great example. There used to be a significant training

569
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:43,880
Speaker 3: requirement and now there's barely anything, and so you can

570
00:31:43,920 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 3: basically just buy a gun with no training. People have

571
00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:50,920
Speaker 3: what's called permitless carry. Now you don't need to permit

572
00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 3: all these things. And so we've done the opposite of that. Alcohol.

573
00:31:56,360 --> 00:31:58,840
Speaker 3: If alcohol is present, and there's an argument, there's about

574
00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:02,720
Speaker 3: a five to seven times greater chance that a gun

575
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:06,160
Speaker 3: is going to be fired in anger. So you would

576
00:32:06,240 --> 00:32:10,160
Speaker 3: think you wouldn't have guns in bars, but instead, in

577
00:32:10,240 --> 00:32:12,920
Speaker 3: Nashville we're right now you can carry a loaded gun

578
00:32:12,960 --> 00:32:17,880
Speaker 3: into pretty much any bar in town. So but what

579
00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:20,160
Speaker 3: do we're letting guns in bars? If somebody has a

580
00:32:20,240 --> 00:32:24,680
Speaker 3: history of domestic abuse, they're more likely to shoot their partner,

581
00:32:24,680 --> 00:32:28,040
Speaker 3: you would think those people shouldn't have guns. But yet

582
00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:31,560
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court tomorrow is hearing whether domestic abusers can

583
00:32:31,600 --> 00:32:33,440
Speaker 3: have guns. And I can just go down this full

584
00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:35,920
Speaker 3: list of what we should be doing and what we

585
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 3: are doing, and in pretty much every case, we're doing

586
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:40,040
Speaker 3: the wrong thing as a country. So this is where

587
00:32:40,080 --> 00:32:42,440
Speaker 3: I think politics, we need to change our politics.

588
00:32:42,960 --> 00:32:46,440
Speaker 1: I think it's the bar thing is interesting because for me,

589
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:51,040
Speaker 1: it's like, obviously they shouldn't let someone go into a

590
00:32:51,080 --> 00:32:56,600
Speaker 1: bar with a gun. But then if you're like Let's

591
00:32:56,640 --> 00:33:01,040
Speaker 1: say I'm out to dinner with my husband and we

592
00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:04,800
Speaker 1: go to the restaurant. Like the guy that comes in

593
00:33:04,840 --> 00:33:09,360
Speaker 1: the bar that wants to shoot people, is he's not

594
00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 1: reading the sign out front that says don't carry your

595
00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:16,200
Speaker 1: gun in. And then maybe like my husband, who's a

596
00:33:16,280 --> 00:33:21,520
Speaker 1: responsible gun holder that would protect not only us but

597
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 1: people in the restaurant, then wouldn't have it because he

598
00:33:25,760 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 1: was told not to have it, You know what I mean?

599
00:33:28,960 --> 00:33:32,360
Speaker 1: And I know that that I know that that's not probable,

600
00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:36,960
Speaker 1: but you do hear sometimes that armed citizens are taken out.

601
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:42,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, people, should I give you the uplifting, supportive counterpoint

602
00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:48,280
Speaker 3: or the real world depressing counterpoints? I mean, okay, the

603
00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:52,080
Speaker 3: uplifting counterpoint is I hope you have a lovely dinner

604
00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:59,680
Speaker 3: with your husband. The depressing counterpoint is twofold number one. Unfortunately,

605
00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:03,160
Speaker 3: if somebody and data shows this again defensive gun use,

606
00:34:03,800 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 3: just given the speed through which semi automatic bullets fly,

607
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:11,640
Speaker 3: if somebody's coming in with a plan, it's it's much

608
00:34:11,719 --> 00:34:15,040
Speaker 3: better to have no guns somewhere, because the thought that

609
00:34:15,080 --> 00:34:17,080
Speaker 3: somebody's going to whip out a gun in a in

610
00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:20,680
Speaker 3: a restaurant in the time that it takes for them

611
00:34:20,719 --> 00:34:23,640
Speaker 3: to just understand what is happening while somebody else has had,

612
00:34:24,160 --> 00:34:26,839
Speaker 3: you know, ten years planning this crime or something like that.

613
00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:29,040
Speaker 3: It's just data is not that great. You're much more

614
00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:33,200
Speaker 3: likely to shoot some other you know, boy patrons and

615
00:34:33,200 --> 00:34:36,279
Speaker 3: stuff like that. But we've got a history. I mean,

616
00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:38,799
Speaker 3: if you look at like Dodge City, Kansas, and the

617
00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:41,759
Speaker 3: wild West or the ok Corral or all these saloons,

618
00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:44,720
Speaker 3: you always had to check your gun with the sheriff

619
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:46,920
Speaker 3: before you went even into the saloon and like the

620
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:49,239
Speaker 3: old frontier days. So it's not like we don't have

621
00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:51,040
Speaker 3: any history of that. In fact, the whole history of

622
00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 3: guns in this country has been let's check, let's check

623
00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:58,520
Speaker 3: them at the door, even if we let people have guns.

624
00:34:58,640 --> 00:35:01,959
Speaker 3: And so I don't know we somehow forgot that along

625
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:02,319
Speaker 3: the way.

626
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:06,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. It is crazy how the law could

627
00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:11,560
Speaker 1: have been misinterpreted or whatever happened that now we've gotten

628
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:15,319
Speaker 1: to this point and it is you just sit there,

629
00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:18,399
Speaker 1: you hear and I know that you have this thing

630
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:20,839
Speaker 1: that both sides have to come together to come up

631
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:25,640
Speaker 1: with a resolution because it's not clearly like it's not working,

632
00:35:25,680 --> 00:35:28,879
Speaker 1: and they're just so extreme on both sides like get

633
00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:31,440
Speaker 1: rid of the guns, or like it's not a problem

634
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:33,920
Speaker 1: with the guns at all, And you're like, come on,

635
00:35:34,280 --> 00:35:36,520
Speaker 1: if you talk to any person in the world, they'll

636
00:35:36,600 --> 00:35:40,839
Speaker 1: say it something needs to be done, Like nobody's cool

637
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:42,200
Speaker 1: with what's happening right now.

638
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:44,879
Speaker 3: But I mean that's part of the issue, is that

639
00:35:45,760 --> 00:35:49,680
Speaker 3: I really feel like the average person could figure out

640
00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:51,840
Speaker 3: a solution to this. It's actually not that hard. I

641
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:56,239
Speaker 3: mean literally every other country in the world, you know,

642
00:35:56,280 --> 00:35:59,560
Speaker 3: I've studied guns in Israel obviously right now very contested

643
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:04,600
Speaker 3: position part of the world, but I've studied gun laws

644
00:36:04,640 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 3: because Israel has before all what's happening now. Everybody is

645
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:11,920
Speaker 3: trained in a gun in the military, but they have

646
00:36:12,960 --> 00:36:17,000
Speaker 3: very very small rates of like mass shootings and stuff

647
00:36:17,040 --> 00:36:20,560
Speaker 3: like that, because everybody gets training, and to just carry

648
00:36:20,560 --> 00:36:23,120
Speaker 3: a gun to public you have to be above age

649
00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:28,319
Speaker 3: thirty or forty for some people, even places. On My

650
00:36:28,360 --> 00:36:30,480
Speaker 3: point is just even where there are a lot of guns,

651
00:36:31,239 --> 00:36:32,960
Speaker 3: they don't have the problem we do, which is just

652
00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:35,719
Speaker 3: anybody can have a gun, and so it's not that hard.

653
00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:38,520
Speaker 3: We just have to figure out what every other country

654
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:43,560
Speaker 3: in the world except ours has done. But the problem is,

655
00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:46,760
Speaker 3: even though like I would say probably eighty five percent

656
00:36:46,800 --> 00:36:50,960
Speaker 3: of people agree on background checks and red flag laws

657
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:53,600
Speaker 3: all these things. But the problem is our political system

658
00:36:54,040 --> 00:36:56,279
Speaker 3: does not let the average person get in the room

659
00:36:56,360 --> 00:36:58,200
Speaker 3: with somebody who doesn't agree with them and just figure

660
00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:02,600
Speaker 3: out a solution. Our political system really rewards these extreme positions.

661
00:37:02,640 --> 00:37:05,680
Speaker 3: And so it's not just a health problem, it's really

662
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:07,440
Speaker 3: how are we going to change our politics? And I

663
00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:09,520
Speaker 3: think that's underneath a lot of this stuff.

664
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:12,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that could be said about a lot.

665
00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:14,080
Speaker 3: Of different everything else.

666
00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:15,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, get those.

667
00:37:15,120 --> 00:37:18,880
Speaker 1: Guns, all right? So I sent you are a psychiatrist

668
00:37:19,120 --> 00:37:21,840
Speaker 1: and psychologist or psychiatrists.

669
00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:25,880
Speaker 3: I'm a psychiatrist and a sociologist. Yeah, I direct a

670
00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:27,480
Speaker 3: department at Vanderbilt.

671
00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:31,360
Speaker 1: That's awesome. So this is like a question I have

672
00:37:31,480 --> 00:37:36,960
Speaker 1: for the kids. I guess I don't talk. I'm pretty

673
00:37:37,040 --> 00:37:39,640
Speaker 1: I talk to my kids about like everything except this

674
00:37:39,719 --> 00:37:42,560
Speaker 1: because I don't want them to be scared. I kind

675
00:37:42,560 --> 00:37:45,200
Speaker 1: of want your advice on this. Like, they definitely do

676
00:37:45,280 --> 00:37:49,799
Speaker 1: these drills at school, but I asked them. I tried,

677
00:37:49,880 --> 00:37:52,839
Speaker 1: because they're at nine and ten years old, So I say, like, well,

678
00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:55,320
Speaker 1: what are they doing it for? Oh, in case the

679
00:37:55,360 --> 00:37:59,560
Speaker 1: bad person comes to school? They don't specifically mention that,

680
00:38:00,239 --> 00:38:06,160
Speaker 1: and they don't know about the one that happened in Texas.

681
00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:10,480
Speaker 1: I actually like shut the news off for six months

682
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:13,520
Speaker 1: after that because I just was like, I can't function

683
00:38:13,719 --> 00:38:16,960
Speaker 1: Like it was bad, but so I don't I don't

684
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:18,880
Speaker 1: say anything to the kids. But then I'm like, am

685
00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:21,680
Speaker 1: I doing them a disservice by not saying it to them?

686
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:25,960
Speaker 1: Because if it does happen, they would just be completely unprepared.

687
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:29,439
Speaker 1: Whereas I heard some things that even though I tried

688
00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:31,480
Speaker 1: to avoid coverage of the other school, I heard some

689
00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:34,640
Speaker 1: things about kids pretending to play dead and this and that,

690
00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:37,279
Speaker 1: and and I'm like, should I tell my kids this?

691
00:38:37,560 --> 00:38:39,680
Speaker 1: Like or is that gonna Yeah.

692
00:38:39,520 --> 00:38:40,360
Speaker 2: There's there's got it.

693
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:43,040
Speaker 3: I mean, in a way, it's such a hard topic,

694
00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:46,000
Speaker 3: right because your kids are going to read you. I mean,

695
00:38:46,160 --> 00:38:47,879
Speaker 3: just because you're not going to talk about where your kids.

696
00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:51,880
Speaker 3: Your kids are pretty smart about reading. You know, Mom's

697
00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:54,719
Speaker 3: not exactly telling us the whole story right here. And

698
00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:58,840
Speaker 3: then because of every all, you're not their only information

699
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:01,640
Speaker 3: source unfortunately, so they're going to hear about it from

700
00:39:01,719 --> 00:39:05,000
Speaker 3: other people too, And so I do think it's important

701
00:39:05,040 --> 00:39:07,960
Speaker 3: to like talk about it in a supportive way, but

702
00:39:08,160 --> 00:39:10,600
Speaker 3: not like freak kids out as much as possible, if

703
00:39:10,640 --> 00:39:15,759
Speaker 3: that if that's possible. But I do think that, you

704
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:17,880
Speaker 3: know it, It is part of why my book is

705
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:20,719
Speaker 3: called What We've Become, because we're like robbing kids of

706
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:24,200
Speaker 3: their childhood by telling them, oh, go to school, but also,

707
00:39:24,680 --> 00:39:28,040
Speaker 3: you know, get into the you know, hide behind the

708
00:39:28,239 --> 00:39:31,480
Speaker 3: door of this horrible thing happens. But I do think

709
00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:36,279
Speaker 3: that I do think that increasingly, you know, especially if

710
00:39:36,320 --> 00:39:39,200
Speaker 3: they're bringing it up, I think it's important to say, like,

711
00:39:39,280 --> 00:39:41,239
Speaker 3: our goal is to keep you safe and all that

712
00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:43,239
Speaker 3: kind of stuff, but let's talk about it. So I

713
00:39:43,280 --> 00:39:46,400
Speaker 3: do think that some degree of openness, if they start

714
00:39:46,400 --> 00:39:48,160
Speaker 3: the conversation, can can be helpful.

715
00:39:48,560 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 1: Yeah that's good. That's good advice. All right. So before

716
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:53,759
Speaker 1: we wrap things up, I just want to know a

717
00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:57,759
Speaker 1: little bit about you. How how did you become I'm

718
00:39:57,760 --> 00:40:00,680
Speaker 1: really interested for people who might want to go to

719
00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:03,880
Speaker 1: school for this kind of stuff or who were interested

720
00:40:03,880 --> 00:40:09,160
Speaker 1: in this what what originally did you go to school

721
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:12,160
Speaker 1: for and how did it lead you down this road

722
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:16,880
Speaker 1: of becoming an expert of mass shootings and gun violence.

723
00:40:17,080 --> 00:40:17,319
Speaker 2: Yeah?

724
00:40:17,320 --> 00:40:20,160
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, in terms of my professional history, I

725
00:40:20,160 --> 00:40:25,520
Speaker 3: went to med school first, and I did internship residency

726
00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:29,239
Speaker 3: fellowship in psychiatry and neurology. So I totally trained as

727
00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:32,799
Speaker 3: a psychiatrist first, but I was always interested in kind

728
00:40:32,800 --> 00:40:38,160
Speaker 3: of politics the real world, and so I went back

729
00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:40,520
Speaker 3: to school and don't do this at home, but I

730
00:40:40,560 --> 00:40:45,120
Speaker 3: got a PhD in sociology while I was working in

731
00:40:45,160 --> 00:40:48,600
Speaker 3: psychers for a long time, and I became a professor

732
00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:52,240
Speaker 3: who studies kind of the relationship between really mental illness

733
00:40:52,239 --> 00:40:56,800
Speaker 3: and politics and race. And so I had a book

734
00:40:56,960 --> 00:41:00,160
Speaker 3: come out, gosh, about ten years ago now called The

735
00:41:00,200 --> 00:41:04,760
Speaker 3: Protest Psychosis that looked at the over diagnosis of schizophrenia

736
00:41:04,800 --> 00:41:07,480
Speaker 3: in black men, and I kind of told the cultural

737
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:10,240
Speaker 3: story of why I thought that happened in the United States,

738
00:41:10,280 --> 00:41:14,520
Speaker 3: which was part psychiatry, part sociology, part reading about mental

739
00:41:14,520 --> 00:41:18,000
Speaker 3: illness and stuff. And after that book came out, just

740
00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:21,239
Speaker 3: every time there was a mass shooting, I'd get ten

741
00:41:21,239 --> 00:41:24,160
Speaker 3: thousand calls from media about was mental illness the cause

742
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:28,440
Speaker 3: of this mass shooting? And all my research shows that

743
00:41:28,440 --> 00:41:31,880
Speaker 3: that's actually not the case. That even though certain of

744
00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:35,759
Speaker 3: course shooters suffer from symptoms of mental illness, that there

745
00:41:35,760 --> 00:41:40,640
Speaker 3: are all these other stories about race access to guns, politics,

746
00:41:40,680 --> 00:41:43,520
Speaker 3: all these other bigger stories that we don't tell when

747
00:41:43,520 --> 00:41:46,960
Speaker 3: we say mental illness caused a mass shooting. And so

748
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:52,880
Speaker 3: I just kept getting these calls from media, and I thought, man,

749
00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:55,279
Speaker 3: there must be something here. So I really started to

750
00:41:55,320 --> 00:41:57,920
Speaker 3: devote pretty much all my time now to looking at

751
00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:03,120
Speaker 3: questions of mental illness and mass shooting. And ironically, I've shifted,

752
00:42:03,160 --> 00:42:05,200
Speaker 3: as you can hear in my answers here. I used

753
00:42:05,200 --> 00:42:08,279
Speaker 3: to be like, we need better policies, and now I'm

754
00:42:08,280 --> 00:42:12,359
Speaker 3: a total structuralist, and I've gone to argue that, you know,

755
00:42:12,600 --> 00:42:16,560
Speaker 3: my model now is there's all this research, for example,

756
00:42:16,640 --> 00:42:20,560
Speaker 3: that shows that neighborhoods with better street lights and more

757
00:42:20,600 --> 00:42:24,000
Speaker 3: parks have fewer shootings. And so instead of trying to

758
00:42:24,040 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 3: like mandate behavior, like let's fix the street lights and

759
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:30,840
Speaker 3: build parks and make people feel safer so that somebody

760
00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:33,360
Speaker 3: walking around with a gun seems out of place. And

761
00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:35,840
Speaker 3: so for me, I've gone from somebody who was a

762
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:39,239
Speaker 3: total policy person to somebody who's like almost like an

763
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:43,560
Speaker 3: urban structuralist now, where I think we need to like

764
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:46,160
Speaker 3: rebuild connections with each other in a way.

765
00:42:46,920 --> 00:42:50,160
Speaker 1: That's really cool. And I think that your work is

766
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:52,759
Speaker 1: just is really important right now, just because this is

767
00:42:52,760 --> 00:42:56,360
Speaker 1: such a hot topic. And like the guy in Maine,

768
00:42:56,680 --> 00:42:59,560
Speaker 1: he had he was here, he probably had some kind

769
00:42:59,560 --> 00:43:03,840
Speaker 1: of schizophrenia or something. He was having psychosis. But but

770
00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:07,319
Speaker 1: like you don't really hear that that often with the shooters,

771
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:10,160
Speaker 1: because the other the other kid, the younger kid that

772
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:13,600
Speaker 1: was in Colorado that they found dead, that they said

773
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:16,520
Speaker 1: he was probably going to commit some kind of mass

774
00:43:16,520 --> 00:43:20,719
Speaker 1: shooting with all the stuff he had. He had not

775
00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:23,960
Speaker 1: even like a parking ticket. He had the cleanest record,

776
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:27,839
Speaker 1: no history of anything shocking, they said. I think they

777
00:43:27,840 --> 00:43:29,799
Speaker 1: were saying that he played like call of duty at night.

778
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:33,200
Speaker 1: But like so doa thousands or millions of other people

779
00:43:33,239 --> 00:43:37,720
Speaker 1: that it's not a problem. So it is interesting because

780
00:43:38,800 --> 00:43:42,279
Speaker 1: I mean, all one sense, you say, okay, if you're

781
00:43:42,280 --> 00:43:43,759
Speaker 1: going to go in and shoot like a bunch of

782
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:47,560
Speaker 1: kids or something wrong with you, right, yeah, But that's

783
00:43:47,719 --> 00:43:50,960
Speaker 1: not the same as as like a mental illness, like

784
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:53,440
Speaker 1: like a bipolar or schizophrenia.

785
00:43:54,080 --> 00:43:58,440
Speaker 3: And again, people with those illnesses are much there's nothing

786
00:43:58,440 --> 00:44:02,479
Speaker 3: in any psychiatric diagnosis where the symptom is attacking somebody else,

787
00:44:03,640 --> 00:44:07,160
Speaker 3: So they're much more likely to get beat up themselves

788
00:44:07,239 --> 00:44:11,560
Speaker 3: than to attack somebody else. There's nothing predictive about psychiatric diagnosis.

789
00:44:12,080 --> 00:44:13,400
Speaker 2: But I do have this theory.

790
00:44:13,480 --> 00:44:15,719
Speaker 3: I've never tested it, but I do feel like if

791
00:44:15,800 --> 00:44:21,760
Speaker 3: we did policies that impacted the other kinds of shootings

792
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:23,600
Speaker 3: we've talked about that, I bet we would have fewer

793
00:44:23,640 --> 00:44:26,600
Speaker 3: mass shootings. Other's if we made if we've made it

794
00:44:26,719 --> 00:44:30,680
Speaker 3: much safer for domestic abuse and gun suicide and all

795
00:44:30,680 --> 00:44:32,799
Speaker 3: these other if we just did that, I bet we

796
00:44:32,800 --> 00:44:35,879
Speaker 3: would have less mass shooting as well. So that's really

797
00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:38,080
Speaker 3: not a health decision, that's a political decision. I hope,

798
00:44:38,520 --> 00:44:40,440
Speaker 3: I hope tomorrow the Supreme Court does the right thing.

799
00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:43,200
Speaker 3: But it's sad that that's that's how low the bar

800
00:44:43,360 --> 00:44:46,040
Speaker 3: is that we're debating if somebody who's like beaten their

801
00:44:46,080 --> 00:44:47,520
Speaker 3: spouse should have a weapon.

802
00:44:47,560 --> 00:44:48,799
Speaker 2: But that's kind of where we are.

803
00:44:49,160 --> 00:44:52,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's you know, we've been covering the news

804
00:44:52,000 --> 00:44:54,520
Speaker 1: stories every week and it's like I read it all

805
00:44:54,560 --> 00:44:59,560
Speaker 1: the time. It's so scary because you can't even you can't.

806
00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:01,799
Speaker 1: All you do is get this piece of paper that's

807
00:45:01,840 --> 00:45:05,960
Speaker 1: a restraining order. Like that's that's really scary that you

808
00:45:06,040 --> 00:45:08,520
Speaker 1: have to that anybody has to live like that you

809
00:45:08,520 --> 00:45:13,319
Speaker 1: know what, So you have this book coming out in January,

810
00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:16,920
Speaker 1: and are you working? So that's done obviously, you're just

811
00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:19,560
Speaker 1: kind of waiting for that to happen. My book came

812
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:20,759
Speaker 1: out last year, so it was like.

813
00:45:20,920 --> 00:45:23,080
Speaker 2: Oh great, I saw that. Yeah, I saw that.

814
00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:23,760
Speaker 3: That's great.

815
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:27,680
Speaker 1: But what are you working when anything else? Or you're

816
00:45:27,719 --> 00:45:30,280
Speaker 1: just kind of like chilling right now till the book

817
00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:30,759
Speaker 1: comes out.

818
00:45:31,160 --> 00:45:32,400
Speaker 2: Well, I have two books.

819
00:45:32,440 --> 00:45:34,360
Speaker 3: So I had a book called Dying of Whiteness that

820
00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:38,520
Speaker 3: came out in twenty nineteen, okay, and that's getting reissued

821
00:45:38,560 --> 00:45:41,080
Speaker 3: in February. So there's a new version of Dying of

822
00:45:41,080 --> 00:45:44,600
Speaker 3: Whiteness that's coming out, and the new book, the new book,

823
00:45:44,719 --> 00:45:47,280
Speaker 3: What We've Become is also is coming.

824
00:45:47,040 --> 00:45:49,440
Speaker 2: Out in January. And then I don't know.

825
00:45:49,520 --> 00:45:51,200
Speaker 3: I want society to figure it out so I can

826
00:45:51,200 --> 00:45:54,440
Speaker 3: write a book about like music or sports or something like.

827
00:45:55,080 --> 00:45:57,319
Speaker 3: You know, I'm as tired as the next first said.

828
00:45:57,320 --> 00:45:59,160
Speaker 3: So I hope we figured this out because I would

829
00:45:59,200 --> 00:46:00,640
Speaker 3: like to write a cheerful look after this.

830
00:46:01,239 --> 00:46:03,720
Speaker 1: I know, right, it gets so depressing after a while.

831
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:07,160
Speaker 1: It's just like, but I mean, you're you're so pleasant

832
00:46:07,160 --> 00:46:09,160
Speaker 1: to talk to, So thank you so much for coming

833
00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:12,560
Speaker 1: on to Honor, where could anybody do you have a

834
00:46:12,600 --> 00:46:15,080
Speaker 1: website or social media that people could follow you?

835
00:46:15,160 --> 00:46:19,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm I'm I'm on It's Jonathanmeetzel dot com. J

836
00:46:19,880 --> 00:46:21,480
Speaker 3: O N A t H A n M E t

837
00:46:21,640 --> 00:46:25,400
Speaker 3: z l dot com has all my information there and

838
00:46:25,440 --> 00:46:28,680
Speaker 3: then I'm usually a Twitter person, but for this interview,

839
00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:32,520
Speaker 3: I I've just joined Instagram, so you can probably find

840
00:46:32,560 --> 00:46:36,440
Speaker 3: me there because so so so yeah, but yeah, just

841
00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:38,200
Speaker 3: on my website you can find all the stuff.

842
00:46:38,560 --> 00:46:42,160
Speaker 1: All right, Awesome, we'll put we'll link everything in the

843
00:46:42,200 --> 00:46:46,760
Speaker 1: podcast and everything and on Instagram, so we'll definitely shout

844
00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:49,600
Speaker 1: you out because we want people to check out your stuff. Great,

845
00:46:49,640 --> 00:46:52,479
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for comming. Thanks so much, my honor.

846
00:46:52,520 --> 00:46:53,480
Speaker 2: Thank you, great conversation.

847
00:46:56,880 --> 00:47:00,160
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Mother nos Death as A's

848
00:47:00,200 --> 00:47:04,400
Speaker 1: a reminder my training is as a pathologist's assistant. I

849
00:47:04,440 --> 00:47:07,880
Speaker 1: have a master's level education and specialize in anatomy and

850
00:47:07,920 --> 00:47:11,560
Speaker 1: pathology education. I am not a doctor and I have

851
00:47:11,600 --> 00:47:15,360
Speaker 1: not diagnosed or treated anyone dead or alive without the

852
00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:20,680
Speaker 1: assistance of a licensed medical doctor. This show, my website,

853
00:47:20,760 --> 00:47:24,120
Speaker 1: and social media accounts are designed to educate and inform

854
00:47:24,200 --> 00:47:28,440
Speaker 1: people based on my experience working in pathology so they

855
00:47:28,440 --> 00:47:31,880
Speaker 1: can make healthier decisions regarding their life and well being.

856
00:47:33,000 --> 00:47:35,880
Speaker 1: Always remember that science is changing every day and the

857
00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:39,160
Speaker 1: opinions expressed in this episode are based on my knowledge

858
00:47:39,239 --> 00:47:42,880
Speaker 1: of those subjects at the time of publication. If you

859
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:46,800
Speaker 1: are having a medical problem, have a medical question, or

860
00:47:47,000 --> 00:47:51,240
Speaker 1: having a medical emergency, please contact your physician or visit

861
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:56,360
Speaker 1: an urgent care center, emergency room, or hospital. Please rate, review,

862
00:47:56,480 --> 00:48:00,840
Speaker 1: and subscribe to Mother Knows Death on Apple, Spotify, YouTube,

863
00:48:01,120 --> 00:48:13,399
Speaker 1: or anywhere you get podcasts. Thanks