WEBVTT - External Exam - Mass Shooting Expert, Dr. Jonathan Metzl 0:00:04.720 --> 0:00:12.079 Mother Knows Death presents External Exams with Nicole and Jimmy. 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:20.160 Every week on Mother Knows Death, we will be doing 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:24.240 an external exam and we will be interviewing various experts. 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:28.520 Last week, Maria and I discussed the mass shooting that 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:32.559 was in Maine that killed eighteen people and injured thirteen people, 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:37.080 as well as days later there was another potential mass 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:40.200 shooting that did not happen because they found the mass 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:44.440 shooter had he killed himself, but he was found with 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:50.800 multiple ammunition rifles, handguns, IEDs et Cetera, an amusement park 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:56.280 in Colorado. So unfortunately, mass shootings have become a frequent 0:00:56.360 --> 0:01:00.160 topic that comes up all the time in my I 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:03.520 feel to anyway, And today we're going to be with 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:07.920 doctor Jonathan Metzel and he's a leading expert in the 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:12.399 forefront of movement of advocating for gun reform as a 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:17.480 matter of public health. And this coming January thirtieth, twenty 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:20.920 twenty four, he's coming out with a new book that's 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:23.560 available for pre order right now, so make sure you 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:25.479 get that. I'm actually going to talk to him about 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:28.959 him sending me an advanced copy hopefully, and it's called 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:32.560 What we've become living and dying in a country of arms. 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:36.160 Welcome to the show. It's so nice to meet you. 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:37.400 Thank you so much. 0:01:37.480 --> 0:01:39.720 I'm so glad to be here having this conversation. 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:43.039 This It's just really an honor to have you. You're 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:45.399 so accomplished, so that we're just going to go through 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:47.760 some things and get to know you a little bit 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:49.960 better in your thoughts on this, because I know that 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:54.440 this is a huge fear of mind just being an American. 0:01:55.160 --> 0:02:02.040 So there's been multiple explanations about gun violence in as 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:05.880 far as it could be from mental health issues, it 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:10.240 could be from playing video games, it could be from 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:14.120 the gun laws, and then the guns themselves social media. 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:18.920 But these things are also present in other countries as well. 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:23.519 Most other countries have access to social media, firearms, etc. 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:28.519 So what is it about gun violence and mass shootings 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:32.440 that is specific to the United States. I'm asking you 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:35.160 because we have a lot of people that listen from 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:37.920 other countries that might not be as familiar. 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:41.239 Well, first let me just say I'll say two things 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:43.079 in answer. I think it's a great starting question. 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:44.799 The first is just to. 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:48.560 Recognize how often the charts the United States is in 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:51.760 terms of gun ownership and also in terms of shootings. 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:56.760 So we are just completely on an island by ourselves. 0:02:56.760 --> 0:02:57.079 Really. 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:00.640 We have a Second Amendment obviously in this in this country, 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:05.160 in our constitution that tells people, you know, there's a 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:08.800 right to bear arms. But what that Second Amendment means 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:11.280 has been a topic of great debate. And so before 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:15.680 like the nineteen eighties, individual people couldn't own guns. That 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:19.120 the idea was basically guns are for the police or 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:24.000 military or safety officers, etc. And there was a shift 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:26.880 that started in the nineteen eighties where we reinterpreted the 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:30.960 Second Amendment to mean it was a push by the 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:35.480 NRA and conservative politicians and you know, all the people 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:38.280 we kind of know now, but it was totally out 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:40.280 of the blue in the eighties. People thought that was nuts, 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:46.680 but basically a push to say that a militia a 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:50.280 person has the same rights as a militia. And it 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:55.080 led to a push where we increasingly allowed private citizens 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:57.800 to own guns. And I mean we could always kind 0:03:57.800 --> 0:03:59.960 of own guns for hunting and stuff, but to carry them. 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:02.720 And so what we've seen in this country really since 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:08.400 the eighties is just an absolute gold rush for gun 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:12.080 companies of sales to private people, and we've gone from 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:16.360 relatively normal gun ownership rates, you know, people who hunted 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:19.760 or had their musket from their grandfather or something. 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:25.279 Now we have more than one gun per person in 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:25.840 this country. 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:27.640 We have about three hundred and thirty million people in 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:29.760 the country, and we have about four hundred and fifty 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:33.919 million civilian owned guns. So there's no other country that 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:37.479 has as many guns as we do. And with guns 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:41.000 come shootings, and so we also are way off the 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:47.719 charts in terms of civilian shootings, anything from homicide to 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:52.560 suicide to mass shootings, partner violence, accidental shootings. We have 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:56.000 probably now over fifty thousand gun deaths a year in 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:59.039 the in our country, and so it's important for people 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:00.960 who are not in the United it States just to 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:05.080 recognize really how abnormal that is. I mean, there are 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:09.080 places that there are militaries and war and things like that, 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:12.800 but we're talking about like people owning guns, carrying guns, 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:16.120 shooting each other in daily life. So point number one 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:18.640 is that, and then point number two is just an intro. 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:22.520 Is It's really important also to note the mass shootings 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:26.520 are terrifying, and mass shootings are becoming much more common. 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:28.919 We used to have less than one mass shooting a 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:32.960 day in twenty eighteen, and now we have almost two 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:35.640 mass shootings a day in this country. But by far, 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:38.120 the most gun death in this country is gun suicide. 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:39.040 It's not even close. 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:42.800 And so like a couple of years ago, I had 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:47.680 a book come out forty five thousand gun deaths in 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:50.479 this country, twenty eight or twenty nine were gun suicide. 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:53.479 So it's also really important to note that most gun 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:55.880 death is gun suicide, which for me, is much more 0:05:56.400 --> 0:06:00.560 preventable than mass shootings in some ways. I think those 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:03.920 are two jumping off statistical points that we might talk about. 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:07.120 And I'm happy to say more about what you asked 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:10.880 about mental illness and video games and stuff like that, 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:12.520 but I just think to be on the ground of 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:14.960 like just how weird the United States is a good 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:15.799 jumping off point. 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:19.800 Okay, Yeah, I definitely wanted to talk I want to 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:21.840 talk about all that other stuff too, but we'll get 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:24.080 to that. We'll get to that a little bit later. 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:27.040 But you were just saying how mass shootings are just 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:31.360 so scary, which I agree. They're one of my biggest fears, 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:34.840 to be honest with you, and I feel like it's 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:37.440 almost getting to the point where it's Groundhog's Day. It's 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:40.480 like you turn on the news and there's a shooting. 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:43.039 Now I couldn't even name all of them that even 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:45.880 happened this year, just because it just happened so frequently. 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:49.720 And my first initial reaction is is that I get 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:52.680 really upset, and then I watched the news like crazy, 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:56.479 or look at it online for the first day, just 0:06:56.520 --> 0:06:59.760 to be like, who was it, what happened, who died? 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:03.240 You know, all the questions that people have, and then 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:06.359 it's just like the same stuff keeps happening. It's like 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:10.120 the lawmakers put out their tweets and say thoughts and prayers, 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:12.640 and then one side blames the other side, the other 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:16.200 side blames the other side, and then within forty eight hours, 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:20.000 it's like it's like nothing happened. And I feel like, 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:23.320 do you feel like Americans have almost some kind of 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:29.120 level of like PTSD when it comes to gun violence 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:32.840 as far as not even just directly being involved with it, 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:35.560 but just hearing about this stuff every single day on 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:36.040 the news. 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:39.800 Yeah, No, I completely agree with that. It's it's called habituation. 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:44.680 We've habituated this and in the you know, even fifteen 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:48.720 years ago, or think back to when we had you know, 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:55.880 this early mass shootings Parkland or you know, the school 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:59.480 in Colorado, like all those early mass shootings, we would 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:02.120 talk about it for months, and now a lot of 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:05.680 research shows that this trend that you're talking about, which 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:07.760 I talk about. That's kind of the theme of my 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:10.840 book What We've Become that's coming out in January, is 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:14.160 I talk about how we've come to. I don't want 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:16.840 to say normalize it, because it's not normal, but there's 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:19.080 an arc. I tell the story in the book of 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:22.840 the Nashville waffle house mass shooting in twenty eighteen, and 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:25.400 what I show is that there's a really predictable pattern 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:30.600 where there's shock, trauma, fear that ripples outwards. People who 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:33.600 are not in the city or immediate affect it also 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:39.520 feel an emotional response to it, and unfortunately it lasts 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:44.600 four days. People are shocked, they're horrified, they call for action, 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:48.640 they feel helpless, and they then the next thing happens 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:51.440 or something. So our cycle of this stuff, You're exactly right, 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:56.800 it's not four days for people who were affected personally, right, 0:08:57.040 --> 0:08:58.920 they're living with this for the rest of our lives. 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:01.840 But because they're so many of these stories that just 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:05.320 feel exactly the same. I mean they literally they just 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:09.360 feel so similar that in a way, our response is 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:12.480 there's almost a pattern of it where and you can 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:16.839 follow it in news stories also, you know, two days 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:19.679 is the peak, three days is the where it starts 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:24.079 to go down, And within the fifth day, we've unfortunately 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:27.000 moved on to the next headline. And so what I 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:29.559 ask is, what does that do to our psyche as 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:32.880 a country, as people if we're seeing these horrible things 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:37.880 and we're in a way moving on in not really 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:40.160 moving on. But what I say is that's what people 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:42.839 do in war, and so we are living with a 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:44.240 kind of PTSD right now. 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:48.839 It's really crazy because in my lifetime, like I grew 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:52.880 up in the eighties, and I mean maybe my parents 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:55.880 kept me sheltered or whatever, I don't know, but I 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:59.360 didn't hear about any kind of mass shooting until the 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:02.760 first one that you spoke of, which was Columbine in 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:06.839 nineteen ninety nine. That was And I know that that 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:10.480 kind of coincides with like when around when nine to 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:13.720 eleven happened and the whole like twenty four hour news 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:16.400 cycle thing started because I don't think that that was 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:21.720 really happening prior to nine to eleven, that there was 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:23.880 like channels that just had the news on all day. 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:26.480 If there were, I don't, I'm not really sure how 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:32.320 popular it was. But also the Internet as well, like 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:35.720 kind of came out around that time too. So I 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:38.040 guess my question for you as far as that is, 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:42.120 how much of the blame of this, I guess do 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:45.640 you put on not only just the news media but 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:50.440 also social media, because these people not only have this 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:53.720 platform where they're able to like discuss their crazy thoughts 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:58.640 with each other, and that in itself is a problem, 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:02.839 but also you have the news that kind of makes 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:06.880 these people like famous, and has there been any kind 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:09.319 of like studies on that stuff. 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:10.280 Yeah. 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:12.520 I mean the hard part is, so I can argue 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:15.480 both sides of this, honestly, because on one hand, you're 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:17.400 absolutely right, when you grew up in the eighties, this 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:22.360 wasn't really happening. Our first kind of quote unquote mass 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:25.360 shooting was in the nineteen forties a guy who had 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:30.000 come back from from late nineteen forties of World War two, guy, 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:33.000 which I talk about in the book. But in terms 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:38.520 of the phenomenon that you're describing. That starts really with Columbine. 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:43.880 It's the advent of the Internet, but it's also the 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:48.920 accessibility of guns that civilians couldn't get before. And so 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:50.960 the fact that it was a lot easier to get 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:55.280 semi automatic weapons, particularly in the early twenty first century 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:57.800 when people started to get is very easy to get 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:02.480 an AR fifteen, whichhip average person couldn't get. And so 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:05.280 the US isn't like there are there are just as 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:08.400 the same number of attacks in other countries. But if 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:10.560 you look at like the news in the UK or 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:14.240 India or something like that, it's like crazed person attack 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:16.480 somebody with a hammer or with a knife or with 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:19.840 a machete. It's it's horrible, but it doesn't have the 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:22.320 same body count. And so part of what we started 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:28.080 seeing was number one, access to firearms. Number two, as 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:32.160 you're suggesting, a very strong copycat phenomenon where people, I mean, 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:35.600 just because we're so normalized to this stuff, it's hard 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:38.640 to get in the news. It's you know, it's just 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:40.680 there's it's like, oh, what are you. 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:41.000 Going to do? 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:43.760 That's worse than the horrible thing we just had two 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:46.960 days ago. And so there's a copycat phenomenon. So it's 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:47.880 all these things kind. 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:48.760 Of together. 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:53.040 That really, I think, really have created this thing that 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:55.520 I don't know, I'm curious about your sense. I mean, 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:57.440 for me, it just feels out of control, right because 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:04.560 it's like access to guys, a political gridlock, and it 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:09.000 just I don't know, just the repetition of this is honestly, 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:10.240 the word is just exhausting. 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:12.120 It's exhausting right to have to live like this. 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:16.640 I think this is this like this. Similarly, I'm going 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:18.920 to give you as actually nothing to do with guns. 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:23.040 But we have this highway in near Philadelphia that only 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:25.960 has two lanes going in and out of it, right, 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:29.880 and it was created I don't even know when it 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:33.520 was created years ago when my when my parents were little. 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:37.520 But they basically say they can't they can't make the 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:40.280 highway any bigger because of the way the mountain. The 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:45.280 mountain is, it goes around in just different different ways 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:47.600 that they can't make the way any bigger. So they 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:51.840 just kind of instead of really trying to fix the problem, 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:55.160 they've just ignored it. Since you know, the nineteen fifties 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:58.560 and now and now here we are with double the 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:02.000 population and the problems still there because I think they 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:04.720 just feel so overwhelmed by it they don't know how 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:06.560 to fix it, so they just kind of like hope 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:10.200 it'll go away or something. Yeah, I feel the same 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:13.120 way about the gun thing, Like, especially when you're talking 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:15.800 about in the eighties when they really could have like 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:19.560 nipped that and got it under control. But even when 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:22.440 they did recognize it was a problem, it was definitely 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:25.320 in the nineties, right, and then why are we letting 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:28.160 decades go on and on and not doing anything at 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:31.960 all to kind of like reel it in a little bit, 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:34.440 you know what I mean? And yeah, totally it's exhausting. 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:36.920 No, it does feel like that mountain that you can't move. 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:39.760 I mean, it's it's interesting, like we're having this conversation 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:44.720 on a Monday. Tomorrow, the Supreme Court's going to hear 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:49.240 a case about whether someone accused of domestic abuse has 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:51.240 has a Second Amendment right to guns. 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:55.760 So it's it's just it's just almost pathetic. 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:58.240 Really honestly where we are right now and what could 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:00.280 have been done. I mean, it's interesting to know, like 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:03.960 right now, you know, it's it's hard right now to 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:05.960 think about what can be done because it's really a 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:10.040 numbers game. Right now, there are millions and millions and 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:13.120 millions of gun owners who never fire their guns, and 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:15.600 so how are you going to Like the gun owner 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:17.760 who I interview a lot, would say, how are you 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:20.480 going to restrict my access to my AR fifteen which 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:23.160 I use for sports shooting or I really like owning. 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:26.200 And it's true, we have like tens of millions of 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:30.280 AR fifteens in ownership right now. And one person commits 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:32.840 a mass shooting, and they'll say, well, does that mean 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:36.320 we should restrict AR fifteens to everyone because of that 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:40.200 one person, and that the answer easily would have been 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:43.840 yes twenty years ago. But now there are so many 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:47.280 AAR fifteens in circulation that even if you restricted AAR fifteens, 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:51.000 there's there's just way too many of them out there 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:54.240 that you know that that it's just going to be 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:58.320 hard to get them all back, honestly. And then this 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:02.520 you mentioned mentioned almost before, or for people who don't know, 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:06.080 I'm a psychiatrist and a sociologist, and so a lot 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:08.520 of my work looks at mental illness and gun violence, 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:11.760 and what I argue is that it's again a numbers 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:15.200 game because the dramatic majority of people with mental illness 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:18.560 don't hurt anybody else. In fact, people with diagnosed mental 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:20.840 illness are much more likely to be the victims of 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:24.440 violence than the perpetrators of violence. And so how do 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:27.840 you pick that one person who's going to do this 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:31.000 horrible thing out of the hundreds of millions of people 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:33.560 who are diagnosed with mental illness. It's just, you know, 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:36.640 I think you're exactly right to say when this thing 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:39.200 first started, we could have nipped it in the bud, 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:42.640 the way we do with any other consumer product that 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:45.680 kills people. But now I think part of the hopelessness 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:48.880 isn't just that it keeps happening, which it does. It's 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:52.040 also that it just feels like, what can we do 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:54.600 at this point? With so many guns and so many shootings, 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:57.000 It just feels like it, you know, That's what I 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:00.680 argue in the book, These mass shootings become constitution of 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:02.840 who we are, Like it's this is just what we 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:04.760 have to put up with to be Americans right now, 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:07.520 which is kind of depressing, but I think might as 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:08.439 well be honest about it. 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:09.720 As a starting point. 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:13.360 It is and and you know, I I grew up 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:17.359 in a family with guns. My grandfather hunted, taught my 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:22.160 brother and it was never a it was never used 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:25.040 in any kind of a negative way. They they locked 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:29.640 them up responsibly, legally purchased everything else. So I'm always 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:32.480 I'm always torn, and of course I'm torn to take 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:36.399 away guns because of what you said that you're not 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:38.919 take you can't get rid of them. And I actually 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:42.240 would feel more comfortable to have have guns knowing that 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:45.400 other ones are out there, because I know that that 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:48.280 we would just have it for safety purposes, you know, 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:53.040 not to go do anything. And another point that you 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:56.359 made is is how draining it is to live like this, 0:17:56.520 --> 0:18:00.240 And honestly, like it's really affected me so much much 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:04.480 so that I had my middle daughter. I had her 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:09.280 in school in preschool, and it was in twenty eighteen, 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:14.159 and on the day after Valentine's Day in twenty and eighteen, 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:16.880 which so happens to be the day after the Parkland shooting, 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:21.040 the school had a function that was like, oh, let 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:25.080 the kid's family come to school like grandparents, sisters, brothers, whatever. 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:27.760 And I went to the school and the door was 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:31.679 just wide open, like anybody could have walked in, and 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:34.879 it just it sent me down this rabbit hole of 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:38.359 like this is going to happen at this school, my 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:41.040 kid's gonna get shot, blah blah blah. And I decided 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:43.440 to take my kid out of school, and I homeschooled 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:47.000 my kids for like two or three years before I 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:49.160 was like, what the hell am I doing? I need 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:52.439 to put my kids in school. But it's it's like 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:55.600 such a big fear of mine. So do you have 0:18:55.640 --> 0:19:00.080 any advice to people that like it? Like, it's never personal, 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:03.000 happened to me, but it affects me so much that 0:19:03.119 --> 0:19:08.400 it like actually made making me make huge decisions in 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:08.960 my life. 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:11.159 As far as I mean, this is to me the 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:16.080 definition of terrorism, honestly, that terrorism makes us feel unsafe 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:21.320 in places that should be avenues of daily life. Right, 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:26.480 And that's easy if we think about someone somewhere else 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:28.399 in the world or a suicide bomber or something. But 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:32.120 think about what you're saying, right, afraid to send your 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:34.720 own kids to school. I mean, what's the role of society. 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:38.280 It's to keep people safe. That's that's why we join 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:42.760 together in civilizations, is to keep people safe. And you know, 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:45.720 for some people, including people I interview for my book, 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:48.800 they say well, I feel safe, I'm if I'm carrying 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:50.840 my air fifteen all the time, or they want to 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:55.280 be armed all the time. And so for some people, 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:59.720 their notion of safety is just for me, it's it's 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:02.480 really again exhausting, because to be on guard all the 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:06.480 time that somebody's gonna potentially shoot you in the grocery 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:10.640 store or when you're out bowling like in Maine earlier, 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:13.800 or you know, sending your kids like it's just I 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:17.280 don't know. At a certain point, that kind of hypervigilance 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:20.720 really has a real psychological effect on people. It really does, 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:23.320 and certainly it has a massive effect on people who 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:28.080 are caught in this. But just the trauma of being 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:30.639 a fear all the time and of mistrusting other people, 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:34.000 it's to me. To me, it's I mean, we'll see 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:35.760 what how this goes. But in the book, I argue 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:38.800 that everything that happened in the pandemic, where everybody split 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:41.760 apart in a million different pieces, it was predicated on 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:44.040 the divisions we'd already set up in the gun debate, 0:20:44.080 --> 0:20:47.320 where people's idea. I mean, I don't ever interview people 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:48.720 who say, like I don't want to be safe, I 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:51.520 want to be unsafe. But people's idea of what it 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:54.800 means to be safe is so different really in regard 0:20:54.840 --> 0:21:00.080 to their relationship to guns, and so it's a know, 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:01.959 how do how do we put that back together? I 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:03.480 know that was your question for me, but I'm just 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:04.199 mirroring that. 0:21:04.200 --> 0:21:05.080 That's a really hard press. 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:07.399 It's an interesting point that you bring up, because my 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:12.080 next question was going to be about like this, like 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:17.159 safety in school in general, and I just told you 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:20.600 that my biggest fear is that is my is something 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:24.959 like that happening at my kids' school. But me personally, 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:27.959 I would almost feel better if there was like a 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:30.199 cop there that had a gun. I don't know, like 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:32.600 I know that a lot of people are against that, 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:37.080 but I do have this sense of just because I 0:21:37.119 --> 0:21:39.520 grew up around it and know people that are like 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:43.800 responsible with it, that would protect you kind of. And 0:21:44.480 --> 0:21:47.680 I mean, like the president has people protecting him with guns. 0:21:47.800 --> 0:21:52.520 Banks have people protecting the bank with guns. So and 0:21:52.560 --> 0:21:54.800 that's money that's not your child. You know that you're 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:58.480 not your child, So I I kind of it might 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:00.240 sound silly for me to say. 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:02.600 That sounds like at all, No, it sounds really deep 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:06.880 and honest, right, I mean, I totally agree. Again, you 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:09.480 shouldn't have to live in a society where you send 0:22:09.480 --> 0:22:12.119 your kids to school and worry if they're going to 0:22:12.160 --> 0:22:16.320 come home. And and I agree with you that that's 0:22:16.400 --> 0:22:19.520 kind of where we're at. Like it's it's it's it's 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:22.719 naive to say, oh, let's just buy up back all 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:25.240 the guns. You know, that's not the world we live in. 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:27.560 And so that is going to be in the back 0:22:27.600 --> 0:22:30.320 of people's mind stuff like this happens, and that's going 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:32.119 to be in the in the back of their minds. 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:36.280