Speaker 1: Good morning, Peepsa and welcome to ook F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Daniel Moody, recording from the Home Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: this week, we experienced yet another mass shooting.
Speaker 2: There were almost two dozen.
Speaker 1: Victims of a mass shooting incident that took place in Maine.
Speaker 2: Maine is a place that.
Speaker 1: Has none of the laws that are in place to
Speaker 1: keep their citizens safe because you know, hunting and apparently
Speaker 1: you need an AR fifteen for that. There have been
Speaker 1: so many times when I turn on my microphone to
Speaker 1: share the news of another mass shooting. I've been doing
Speaker 1: this show for so long, and I don't even think
Speaker 1: I could count, honestly, the amount of times that I've
Speaker 1: turned on this MI like to say the same things
Speaker 1: over and over and over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: We've become concredibly numb to these targeted acts of domestic terrorism.
Speaker 1: That's what they are. That's not how the media reports it.
Speaker 1: But my friend jaredy eight Sexon said in an interview
Speaker 1: that you guys will listen to later this week, that's
Speaker 1: what these acts of violence are like. We like to
Speaker 1: think about terrorism in the form of bombs, in the
Speaker 1: form of you know, people in fatigues and ground fighting.
Speaker 1: We don't talk about the experience and the exposure to
Speaker 1: largely a white, male dominated group of people who are
Speaker 1: the ones that are picking up AR fifteen's, you know,
Speaker 1: the pins that the House Republicans saw fit to switch
Speaker 1: out their American flags for because they pledge their allegiance
Speaker 1: to a weapon of mass destruction and violence. That these
Speaker 1: acts that happen largely from people who subscribe to right
Speaker 1: wing ideology, people who harbor racist, anti Semitic, anti black,
Speaker 1: anti woman, anti LATINX. Just the list goes on and
Speaker 1: on sentiments, those sentiments that are fed to them by
Speaker 1: elected politicians. Their former president twice impeached white supremacist leader
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, a cadre right two hundred and twenty two
Speaker 1: Republicans in the House and all of the Republicans in
Speaker 1: the Senate, as well as being backed by multi billionaires
Speaker 1: who subscribe to a theory of violence and domination, oppression
Speaker 1: and power and greed. And so, I don't know what
Speaker 1: else there is to say write about this country. Its
Speaker 1: addiction to violence, its desire to ignore its founding and
Speaker 1: the repercussions thereof, It's inability to have any type of
Speaker 1: reflection to make any pivots and changes from the way
Speaker 1: that quote unquote things have been done, to do them better,
Speaker 1: to do them safer.
Speaker 2: There's no desire.
Speaker 1: And you know, for years now, I've had the great
Speaker 1: pleasure of chatting with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel,
Speaker 1: who has been and is one of these sounding voices
Speaker 1: major voices on gun reform, and in his new book though,
Speaker 1: which will be available and is available right now for
Speaker 1: pre order, so I urge you all to get a
Speaker 1: copy entitled what We've Become Living and Dying in a
Speaker 1: Country of Arms, Jonathan recognizes that maybe the way that
Speaker 1: gun reform advocates have been tackling this issue, maybe it's
Speaker 1: not working. Maybe we need a pivot, maybe we need
Speaker 1: a shift because there are so many, any more things
Speaker 1: at play than what meets the eye. That's what it
Speaker 1: means to be a good leader, to be able to
Speaker 1: look at what you've been doing and see whether or
Speaker 1: not it's been effective, and if it hasn't been effective
Speaker 1: to the extent that you have wanted it to be,
Speaker 1: then you have the courage to make a shift. You
Speaker 1: have the courage to say, let's try something else. That's
Speaker 1: not who America as a collective has ever been the
Speaker 1: masculine toxicity that is on display in our patriarchal society
Speaker 1: that hates women, the DNA of white supremacy that runs
Speaker 1: through the very soil and bodies of those people who
Speaker 1: call themselves Americans, because we refuse as a collective to
Speaker 1: address anything and march through life with the hubris and
Speaker 1: the ego that America alone can fix it. America is
Speaker 1: the best. America is number one, and the thing that
Speaker 1: we are number one in.
Speaker 2: Is got deaths.
Speaker 1: That's where we stand alone as a country. No one
Speaker 1: else has as bloody of an existence as America. Even
Speaker 1: right now as we watch war in real time, the
Speaker 1: deaths of thousands of fucking children that our own president
Speaker 1: doesn't even want to acknowledge why because then he would
Speaker 1: have to reckon with his fucking allegiance and the billions
Speaker 1: of dollars that have gone to perpetrate genocide. Because to
Speaker 1: recognize the lives lost of Palestinians, of Palestinian children, babies,
Speaker 1: would force a change in course and a change in action.
Speaker 1: So let's pretend. Let's continue with the lie, and then
Speaker 1: when when people don't take in the lie and ingest
Speaker 1: it with their own free will will force it down
Speaker 1: their throats. That's where we are. So this conversation that
Speaker 1: I have with Jonathan today talks about the need for pivot,
Speaker 1: talks about the need for a shift and why if
Speaker 1: we are to progress, we need to be examining our
Speaker 1: lives in the world through a place of expansion and
Speaker 1: not narrowness. Coming up next my conversation with our friend,
Speaker 1: our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel. Folks, you know
Speaker 1: that whenever I have the opportunity to speak with our friend,
Speaker 1: our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Mepzil, I am always thrilled,
Speaker 1: And this week was so honored to be invited Jonathan,
Speaker 1: to speak in front of your class at Vanderbilt. I
Speaker 1: want to give you the opportunity to tell folks what
Speaker 1: this particular the topic of this particular class was and
Speaker 1: what you were hoping to get out of it.
Speaker 3: So it's a new class we're teaching. This is actually
Speaker 3: the first semester and the title of the class is
Speaker 3: Guns in America, which is not as straightboard a topic
Speaker 3: as you might think. The kind of argument of the
Speaker 3: class is the way you define guns in America depends
Speaker 3: on the framework that you use to understand what the
Speaker 3: issue is or what the problem is. And so every
Speaker 3: week we're doing roughly a general topic. So we did
Speaker 3: guns and Politics, guns and Medicine, guns in the Law.
Speaker 3: We had one a week of guns and Crime, and
Speaker 3: we had a couple of officers from the Vanderbilt Police
Speaker 3: Force come in, and yesterday was Guns and the Media.
Speaker 3: And it was kind of typical of how we've been
Speaker 3: doing this in that if you, you know, if you
Speaker 3: look at guns in the media through for example, mainstream
Speaker 3: corporate media or something like that, you'll the question we
Speaker 3: ask is like when when do guns show up? And
Speaker 3: it's very often stories after mass shootings, understandably, and stories
Speaker 3: like the Supreme Court case we're having come up, but
Speaker 3: not much else beyond that for understandable reasons. But that's
Speaker 3: kind of what drives those markets. But if you look
Speaker 3: at other forms of media and expression, you do not
Speaker 3: only see that there are other ways of talking about guns,
Speaker 3: but that the issues and the voices are really different.
Speaker 3: And so guns and podcasts, for example, you can talk
Speaker 3: about guns and culture, guns and communities of color. So
Speaker 3: you were amazing and engaging and so present. It was
Speaker 3: just Honestly, I was just like, man, this is wonderful.
Speaker 3: You're so good because you were on zoom, but it
Speaker 3: was like you were with us in the room there.
Speaker 3: It was so nice. So we had you, and then
Speaker 3: we had Dwayne Bray who's from ESPN who actually writes
Speaker 3: about It's interesting he's with ESPN, but he writes about
Speaker 3: violence and communities of color, not linked to sports. And
Speaker 3: his main argument was we put we like, why are
Speaker 3: we putting this on the backs of athletes like Lebron
Speaker 3: James and Chris Paul and stuff like that when the
Speaker 3: issue is really every day that we lose if it's
Speaker 3: just athletes, and really this is a big, a bigger
Speaker 3: societal issue. And so it was interesting because he was
Speaker 3: rejecting like people said, shouldn't athletes be involved in social
Speaker 3: justice and he said, well yes and no, because if
Speaker 3: it's just them, it's just window dressing. And he also
Speaker 3: said it often is just black athletes that are speaking
Speaker 3: out and when did Tom Brady speak out about it?
Speaker 3: And stuff like that. So it was really it was
Speaker 3: quite interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought that what I thought of his initial
Speaker 1: opening I thought was really good. And it's a question
Speaker 1: I think that we ask often of artists and athletes,
Speaker 1: people with really big platforms, you know, to automatically we
Speaker 1: assume that they should be activists. And I think that
Speaker 1: being an activists should be a choice and not just
Speaker 1: a part of your profession because you happen to, you know,
Speaker 1: have millions of followers. And I think that we've seen
Speaker 1: that happen for better or for worse, when people are
Speaker 1: not informed, right, and they're and they're using their platforms
Speaker 1: and they have and they garner all this attention and
Speaker 1: then those that that are But I think to his point,
Speaker 1: you know, just recently, and I think you and I
Speaker 1: were having this conversation, I might have been having it
Speaker 1: with somebody else, you know. The n h the n
Speaker 1: h L, which is largely all white, majority white players
Speaker 1: in the in the Hockey League, recently had passed a
Speaker 1: policy that was going to disallow the players from being
Speaker 1: able to use the tape for their hockey sticks during
Speaker 1: their practices and the games. To show their allegiance to
Speaker 1: the LGBTQ community. There was going to be like they
Speaker 1: were going to change the policy and disallow them from
Speaker 1: using the tape, and several of the NHL players said, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I'll take the fine. And so because of that, they
Speaker 1: were just this week reverse that policy and allowed the
Speaker 1: players to do what they've been doing for the last
Speaker 1: ten years and so to show their allegiance and support
Speaker 1: to the LGBTQ community. So it is really important conversation
Speaker 1: to have, and I'm glad that you brought that to
Speaker 1: your students, and I was glad that I had the
Speaker 1: opportunity to give my perspective on, you know, on guns
Speaker 1: and the media and how we shift narrative.
Speaker 3: And it was I mean, let me just say about that,
Speaker 3: you know, I like what, for example, what's her name,
Speaker 3: Travis Kelsey's girlfriend is doing, which is she's not going
Speaker 3: She's not telling people to make up their minds. She's
Speaker 3: like getting people to register to vote and stuff. So
Speaker 3: tying it into actually real world stuff, I think is
Speaker 3: great because there are a lot of politicians, a lot
Speaker 3: of there are a lot of media people. I mean,
Speaker 3: there are a lot of entertainers who like, we probably
Speaker 3: don't want to know what they think, you know, we
Speaker 3: just want to enjoy it. But I like what she
Speaker 3: does too, because it's like register to vote. I'm not
Speaker 3: telling you who to vote for. I'm just saying register
Speaker 3: to vote, which I think is really really powerful. But
Speaker 3: you know, you were so good about talking about the
Speaker 3: voices that were left out of mainstream media and the
Speaker 3: perspectives of communities of color. I mean, we have a
Speaker 3: lot of football players in the class, and they all
Speaker 3: came up and they were like, Oh my god, I'm
Speaker 3: so glad, I'm so glad you said that, because nobody
Speaker 3: talks about like what it's like in our neighborhoods and
Speaker 3: stuff like that. That's not a story people ever hear. And
Speaker 3: so so yeah, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, It's been an interesting class because people come into
Speaker 3: a class like this thinking and we do a little
Speaker 3: bit of it, teaching them, you know, public health and
Speaker 3: research and all that kind of stuff, but it's really
Speaker 3: more like, how can you talk in a more complicated
Speaker 3: way about something that seems really polarized and obvious. People
Speaker 3: think they come to this knowing exactly position, and we
Speaker 3: try to kind of say, look, it's a little more
Speaker 3: complicated than that, so let's let's look under the hood
Speaker 3: a little bit. And then and then the last part
Speaker 3: of the classes we have them go out in the
Speaker 3: world and do activism projects. But we have a lot
Speaker 3: of students who own guns, a lot of students to
Speaker 3: carry guns for protection. You know, Tennessee is a place
Speaker 3: where there are a lot of guns. So it's not
Speaker 3: inherently a pro or anti gun class. It's really like,
Speaker 3: let's figure out, like what what this.
Speaker 1: All means, which is why I thought it was really great,
Speaker 1: you know, getting some of the questions and you know
Speaker 1: about and the nuance that the media lacks, because my
Speaker 1: assumption was just that that it wasn't just a you know,
Speaker 1: a liberal class with no guns and no gun ownership
Speaker 1: that you know, and that that's the beauty, you know, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: of your writing and the analysis that you do in
Speaker 1: the conversations that you have. And so I do want
Speaker 1: to switch gears to talk about what is coming up
Speaker 1: around your newest book, your latest book that won't drop
Speaker 1: until January. But you know, you're receiving some pushback from
Speaker 1: offering a pivot to a new path, and I think
Speaker 1: that that is I think I want you to share
Speaker 1: what's happening. Remind people of the title of the book,
Speaker 1: and are they able to pre order, because if so, folks,
Speaker 1: you should, but tell us what's happening right now?
Speaker 3: Okay, So my book is called What We've Become, Living
Speaker 3: and Dying in a Country of Arms, and it's a
Speaker 3: book about the Nashville waffle House mass shooting and tells
Speaker 3: the story of a very powerful, racially charged mass shooting
Speaker 3: that happened here in twenty eighteen. A naked white man
Speaker 3: went into a waffle house that was full of happy,
Speaker 3: partying young adults of color and shot killed four people
Speaker 3: and shot five others. And I really followed the case
Speaker 3: from before to during and after. And as I followed
Speaker 3: the case, I realize that the things I've been advocating
Speaker 3: for through my whole career, background checks, red flag laws,
Speaker 3: assault weapons bands, they're important. But I also become very critical,
Speaker 3: not just because they wouldn't have solved, they wouldn't have
Speaker 3: stopped this crime. But the reason they wouldn't have stopped
Speaker 3: the crime wasn't because of whether or not the policies
Speaker 3: were in effect. It was because the policies that I
Speaker 3: advocated for have no bigger theory of race, of political power,
Speaker 3: of all these things. And so the argument of the
Speaker 3: book I've been wrote it down in advance of what
Speaker 3: we were saying. My main argument is that civilian known
Speaker 3: guns cement conservative and racial power. It's not just a
Speaker 3: health issue, it's a political one, and the public health
Speaker 3: frame by itself cannot fully grasp or address that. I
Speaker 3: show the limitations of our approach that's facing public health,
Speaker 3: even though I support it, but I think we need
Speaker 3: broader strategies that are political and racial in nature going forward.
Speaker 3: To be clear, I really support everything I've done, but
Speaker 3: I also think we need to be much more politically
Speaker 3: and socially involved. And I just think that in a way,
Speaker 3: and I just show I trace the history in a
Speaker 3: way of the gun control movement, which I'm a part of,
Speaker 3: but I show how guns are metaphors for cementing power
Speaker 3: and if you don't have a theory of power to
Speaker 3: push back on that, like people armed civilians as a
Speaker 3: way to maintain racial hierarchies. They maintain they have civilian
Speaker 3: guns to make inevitable certain conservative policies, to have power
Speaker 3: over the judiciary, over the electorate. So even though I
Speaker 3: think guns are a public health issue, I also think
Speaker 3: that just calling it a public health issue, that frame
Speaker 3: I show historically was too small in a way. What
Speaker 3: I show is the story of the Nashville shooting was
Speaker 3: a story about whiteness and about gun power in the South,
Speaker 3: and about how the policies that would have stopped the
Speaker 3: shooting were never going to happen because of the hold
Speaker 3: that the NRA had on the courts. And so it's
Speaker 3: a story about judges, it's a story about race, it's
Speaker 3: a story about who codes as a as a criminal
Speaker 3: and who codes as a patriot and all these things.
Speaker 3: And so I'm getting a lot of pushback because I'm
Speaker 3: now being called just in early reads a sellout to
Speaker 3: liberalism in a way, because I'm not like there's you know,
Speaker 3: and I understand right, I'm part of the movement too.
Speaker 3: I think calling guns a public health issue is certainly important.
Speaker 3: But what I argue is that doctors and public health
Speaker 3: by themselves don't have the expertise for how do you
Speaker 3: change society, which has to do with understanding judges and
Speaker 3: power and all these other factors.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I, you know, when you
Speaker 1: brought this up up when I was speaking with the class, like,
Speaker 1: I was kind of shocked at the fact that you
Speaker 1: are receiving pushback from recognizing that.
Speaker 2: A pivot needs to be made.
Speaker 1: It's as if the movement leaders are just like, let's
Speaker 1: keep banging our heads against the wall doing the same
Speaker 1: thing and not getting any new results.
Speaker 2: And that's the definition of insanity.
Speaker 1: And so I'm like, you know, it doesn't to me,
Speaker 1: and you you know, answer this question.
Speaker 2: It doesn't to me.
Speaker 1: Sound like you're saying let's abandon this where we've been.
Speaker 1: It's saying we need a both. And the issue is
Speaker 1: bigger than just saying that guns are a public health issue.
Speaker 1: There are so many other factors that are contributing to
Speaker 1: this larger epidemic of gun violence, and so how do
Speaker 1: how do we tackle that?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Like, is it to me? Are you offering a both?
Speaker 1: And and why is that scene as problematic?
Speaker 3: Well, after the book comes out, I will be I
Speaker 3: will talk in detail about some of the pushback I've
Speaker 3: been getting. And I understand like we've built a new
Speaker 3: I mean, the gun control movement i'll call it, that
Speaker 3: is two decades old, and people feel really invested. But
Speaker 3: there also are some players that are just really invested
Speaker 3: in having a very particular narrative. And I'm not saying
Speaker 3: we should throw everything out. I'm saying, right, let's look
Speaker 3: at what the public health frame that surrounds gun safety.
Speaker 3: Let's look at that what the strengths of that frame are.
Speaker 3: But also it's important to look at what is what
Speaker 3: are the blind spots, because the blind spots are considerable
Speaker 3: and they're impactful. And I said, like, for example, without
Speaker 3: a theory of whiteness, you're not going to be able
Speaker 3: to talk to the majority of the people who own
Speaker 3: guns in places like Tennessee and stuff like that. In
Speaker 3: a way, So, so we have theories of health, but
Speaker 3: I think the pandemic made pretty clear that if we
Speaker 3: just assume that health is self evident, we get in
Speaker 3: trouble because health for a lot of people has to
Speaker 3: do with government and regulation and control and the opposite
Speaker 3: of freedom. And so I just argue that in a way,
Speaker 3: what happened in the pandemic was really it didn't come
Speaker 3: out of nowhere. It was actually a reflection of the
Speaker 3: tensions that had been building in the gun debate for
Speaker 3: twenty years, where public health was seen as the enemy
Speaker 3: of the people. And so I argue that, like, let's
Speaker 3: just look at how we got there. But I think
Speaker 3: the issue is I mean, I obviously stand by what
Speaker 3: I wrote, I stand by also dying of whiteness, but
Speaker 3: dying of whiteness. It was me, obviously writing to liberals saying,
Speaker 3: let me explain the other side to you, whereas here
Speaker 3: I'm writing to liberals, but I'm saying we need to
Speaker 3: look at ourselves a little bit right. And you know
Speaker 3: I'm not alone in this. There are people like David Hope,
Speaker 3: for example, is starting in a great new organization that's
Speaker 3: tied entirely to electoral politics. The Lancet had a big
Speaker 3: piece come out the other day that said that a
Speaker 3: health model is not enough, that we need to look
Speaker 3: at all these structural factors. In the end of my book,
Speaker 3: I say we need to focus on making communities safer.
Speaker 3: It can't just be about like regulating guns. I understand
Speaker 3: why those are the arguments we have, but what does
Speaker 3: it mean to invest in communities. There's all this research
Speaker 3: that putting in street lights and making more parks and
Speaker 3: more bike lanes, all those things actually reduce crime, and
Speaker 3: so we actually have to invest in communities. And I
Speaker 3: also explain why communities of color are potentially distrustful of
Speaker 3: the gun safety movement because the policies that they advocate.
Speaker 3: I'll give you an example, like red flag laws. You
Speaker 3: actually have to call the cops on your relative pretty
Speaker 3: much to get them to come take the gun and
Speaker 3: do an assessment background chat. You're asking people to enter
Speaker 3: their name into a database that prings people with a
Speaker 3: history of incarceration and arrest and so all these things
Speaker 3: are kind of you know, you understand, if you're like
Speaker 3: a person of color with a rest record, you're not
Speaker 3: going to want to buy a gun.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're I will I mean, I will
Speaker 1: say this as a as a as as a black
Speaker 1: woman that doesn't not have an arrest record in any issues,
Speaker 1: let me tell you something that, like, I'm not interested
Speaker 1: in entering my name into anybody's database. I'm not interested
Speaker 1: in doing, you know, in calling the cops. There there
Speaker 1: have been issues like in my neighborhood, which is largely white,
Speaker 1: and I, you know, choose not to call the cops
Speaker 1: if I don't have to, because I don't want to
Speaker 1: be the cause of violence, right. And so I think
Speaker 1: that you were the way that you are examining this
Speaker 1: and understanding and I kind of want to get back
Speaker 1: to what you said around a theory of whiteness. I
Speaker 1: think it's difficult to even express the ideas around a
Speaker 1: theory of whiteness when we are still trying to convince
Speaker 1: people that racism and white privilege and all of these
Speaker 1: other things actually exist. And so, Jonathan, you know, what
Speaker 1: do you see as like the biggest barrier to developing
Speaker 1: a strategy or expanding a strategy that you said is
Speaker 1: twenty years old.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know what I argue is we're using
Speaker 3: an old playbook, which is based on the assumption that,
Speaker 3: of course everybody's going to get vaccinated. You know, that's
Speaker 3: kind of the assumption everybody's going to work together for
Speaker 3: these seemingly universal aims. But I think we need a
Speaker 3: new public health that's much more engaged. I mean, this
Speaker 3: is already happening. I'm not the only person saying this,
Speaker 3: to be clear, but much more engaged with building building
Speaker 3: communal infrastructure that awards people collaborating with each other on
Speaker 3: local level. So that's kind of for me where the
Speaker 3: money is. And also doing what David is doing now,
Speaker 3: which is building political groups that can combat they can
Speaker 3: kind of speak to people on the ground and combat
Speaker 3: you know, being pro gun and pro n is a
Speaker 3: form of white identity. I'm not saying that in any
Speaker 3: way critically. Actually, I'm saying that that's just kind of
Speaker 3: a fact. And so if you say, like, hey, I'm
Speaker 3: a conservative American, but I actually think gun safety is
Speaker 3: a good thing, you're a trader to your side in
Speaker 3: a way. And so how do we combat that. It's
Speaker 3: not by trying to talk people out of what they're doing.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like figuring out what they're figuring out
Speaker 3: what drives them, and then answering that with things not
Speaker 3: that are important to me, but are important to them.
Speaker 3: And so I'm arguing that, you know, local investment, infrastructure.
Speaker 3: The whole last part of the book is about how
Speaker 3: can we create what I call a structural competency gun safety,
Speaker 3: This idea that basically it's kind of extrapolating from that
Speaker 3: idea of like more street lights and more parks reduced
Speaker 3: reduced gun crime. It's not about mandating individual behavior, which
Speaker 3: I think is important, But it's just that that model,
Speaker 3: as we saw on the pandemic, is going to be
Speaker 3: inherently polarizing just given the way our country is.
Speaker 1: And I mean, and you can't really have a conversation
Speaker 1: about more street lights and parks when you're not when
Speaker 1: you're not talking about why certain areas look the way
Speaker 1: that they do right and saying that you know why
Speaker 1: it's cities and governments invest in certain areas or we
Speaker 1: attribute everything back to your your the taxes, right, and
Speaker 1: so if you're if you're wealthier and you have a
Speaker 1: higher income, that is the basis of everything. And what
Speaker 1: and what we need as a society is to move
Speaker 1: away from that center and say, what is the basics
Speaker 1: that we all need regard list of how much money
Speaker 1: individually or community wide folks are bringing in, right that
Speaker 1: it benefits the whole. If we have communities that are walkable,
Speaker 1: that have clean air, that are safe with street lights,
Speaker 1: and are well tended to, that benefits the whole.
Speaker 3: And what I say is I just ask readers. Was
Speaker 3: framing guns as a public health issue? Which I support
Speaker 3: in many ways? Again I'm going to be giving disclaimers
Speaker 3: until the cows come home, I guess, But was framing
Speaker 3: guns as a political a public health issue? It was
Speaker 3: a moral argument, a data argument, an academic argument, and
Speaker 3: a mobilizing argument for a lot of people. But did
Speaker 3: it lead to us having the kind of power that
Speaker 3: impacted being able to mobilize the kind of resources you're
Speaker 3: talking about which then let us create street lights and
Speaker 3: parks and things like that. You actually have to win elections.
Speaker 3: You have to know how power works. So that I
Speaker 3: just feel like the coalition we built was not going
Speaker 3: to do that. We were always going to be, in
Speaker 3: effect a protest movement because we had no counterbalance to
Speaker 3: the to the n RA, which wasn't the case. Like
Speaker 3: with cigarettes and seat belts and all the other public
Speaker 3: health campaigns we've fought, we've actually brought corporate America to
Speaker 3: its knees in a way. But guns were a really
Speaker 3: different issue again because of the politics of race in America,
Speaker 3: and so the playbook we used for cigarettes was never
Speaker 3: going to work for guns. Yeah, and but but again
Speaker 3: we'll see how this goes.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I'm really honest in this book. I'm
Speaker 3: critiquing myself and even my own prior research, right, and
Speaker 3: so but I just feel like I started to write
Speaker 3: the book and I just thought like I can either
Speaker 3: write a book that I know is just going to
Speaker 3: be another book. I don't know. I just I really
Speaker 3: thought a lot about this, and I really thought like
Speaker 3: I just need to be really honest here, and it
Speaker 3: it feels risky. I don't know how it's going to
Speaker 3: turn out, but well, we'll see. But after it's published,
Speaker 3: I'll tell you that I've had some pretty crazy interactions already,
Speaker 3: have people saying I was selling out my own side,
Speaker 3: and that's not my goal. I'm trying to help my
Speaker 3: own side.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, Jonathan, you know that we're always here for you.
Speaker 1: People.
Speaker 3: But answer to your question, it's it's on Amazon already,
Speaker 3: what we've become, and and and also I'll be having
Speaker 3: a lot of events. In fact, maybe we could do
Speaker 3: a live event in New York if you want, because
Speaker 3: I'll be there right if it comes there, so cool.
Speaker 1: Would love to all right, friend, folks, pick up Jonathan.
Speaker 1: Pre order Jonathan's new book before it comes it comes
Speaker 1: to the shelves to make sure that you get your copy,
Speaker 1: and we will continue this conversation like we do every week.
Speaker 1: Appreciate you, my friend.
Speaker 3: Take care.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today, Dear friends on will
Speaker 1: g F as always Power to the people and to
Speaker 1: all the people.
Speaker 2: Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.