Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to will Gate f Daily
Speaker 1: with me your girl, Danielle Moody recording a live from
Speaker 1: the Brooklyn Cilarium. You know, folks, I've recorded my normal
Speaker 1: interview with our friend in house, doctor doctor Jonathan Metzel,
Speaker 1: and I got to tell you that when I finished
Speaker 1: the interview with him, I was thoroughly depressed. Not because
Speaker 1: I find Jonathan depressing, but because I'm just wondering how
Speaker 1: many times we're going to be talking about the same things,
Speaker 1: and recognizing that the only thing that our politicians are
Speaker 1: offering us as we experience multiple pandemics, as we are
Speaker 1: forced to live through trauma, and all that they offer
Speaker 1: thoughts and prayers. Today's conversation with Jonathan is about the
Speaker 1: fact that this week in Michigan, once again, multiple schools
Speaker 1: across the state are closed. Multiple middle schools and elementary
Speaker 1: schools are closed. Why is that because of copycat threats
Speaker 1: of gun violence, of massacres taking place at these schools,
Speaker 1: and so they've shut down. Now, what's funny to me
Speaker 1: is that these are the same people who, if the
Speaker 1: school was shutting down because of COVID, would be flipping out,
Speaker 1: turning over deaths at school board meetings because their children
Speaker 1: are forced to wear a mask and that is traumatizing,
Speaker 1: you know, to protect them from a virus that is
Speaker 1: killed over eight hundred thousand Americans. At this point. The
Speaker 1: area that Oxford High School is in, Jonathan Will tell
Speaker 1: us later in the show, is the reddest of red States.
Speaker 1: You're talking about gun country, USA, And there's a petition
Speaker 1: right now out in order to make the schools go
Speaker 1: virtual until the new year. And I'm thinking to myself,
Speaker 1: that's just kicking the can down the road. What happens
Speaker 1: in the new year. We also thought that, you know,
Speaker 1: we wouldn't see any mass shootings. Are here of them
Speaker 1: during twenty twenty? Will it comes to come to find out,
Speaker 1: according to the New York Times, is that there was
Speaker 1: over six hundred mass shootings that took place in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: It was just that the news which is too busy
Speaker 1: covering the other pandemic being COVID nineteen that was ravaging
Speaker 1: our country, as opposed to the fact that, you know,
Speaker 1: gun purchases were at a record high in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: in this country. That gun stores were made to be essential, right,
Speaker 1: so we need toilet paper Purerell Clorox wipes and a
Speaker 1: nine millimeter. But that is America and what is troubling
Speaker 1: me today so much is the trauma that is being
Speaker 1: inflicted on the nation's children, and no one seems to
Speaker 1: give a fuck. I want us to think about today,
Speaker 1: if you have kids, if you don't have kids, think
Speaker 1: about yourself when you were in middle school and high
Speaker 1: school during your most vulnerable time. Hormones are changing your
Speaker 1: figuring out who you are, how you fit in was
Speaker 1: enough anxiety? Right? We often watch movies and read, you know,
Speaker 1: young adult novels on teen angst. We'll think about what
Speaker 1: we're actually putting teens through in the twenty first century.
Speaker 1: Where we don't do fire drills anymore, we do active
Speaker 1: shooter drills. Where we're not sending our kids to school
Speaker 1: with regular backpacks. Some of them are going to school
Speaker 1: with bulletproof backpacks. Where we're requiring student athletes to turn
Speaker 1: into some type of superhero to protect their classmates and
Speaker 1: lose their life in the process. Where we're shutting down
Speaker 1: schools because of threats of copycat violence. But then once
Speaker 1: we get the AOK, we're sending those kids back and
Speaker 1: telling them what the coast is clear, everything is safe,
Speaker 1: and then we expect them to be able to take
Speaker 1: in their normal curriculum and just act as if all
Speaker 1: is okay. You know, one of the things about this
Speaker 1: new century is that we've had more open conversation about
Speaker 1: mental health. I mean, just think about what we saw
Speaker 1: over the summer with the Summer Olympics and Simone Biles
Speaker 1: talking about mental health and saying that she's taking herself
Speaker 1: out of competition because her mind isn't together. We saw
Speaker 1: that with Naomi Osaka. We've seen that with other athletes
Speaker 1: like Michael Phelps talking about depression and anxiety right and
Speaker 1: now being an ambassador for therapy and mental health. But
Speaker 1: we're not having that same conversation about what happens to
Speaker 1: a generation generations at this point since Columbine of children
Speaker 1: that no no other reality. While according to US News
Speaker 1: and World Report, suicide attempts among teenagers are up damn
Speaker 1: near fifty percent in this country, you would think that
Speaker 1: that would be something that we would all regards of party,
Speaker 1: regardless of geographic origin, would be rallying around. Except we
Speaker 1: have turned our children into political pawns and footballs. You
Speaker 1: have the GOP tweeting out during the Scotus hearings on
Speaker 1: abortion on the abortion case in Mississippi, that they are
Speaker 1: pro life and they are the pro life party, where
Speaker 1: when you have the Lauren Boberts of the world and
Speaker 1: others posing with their children with ar fifteens. Meanwhile, for
Speaker 1: the first time, we're seeing the parents of Ethan Crumbly
Speaker 1: be charged with four counts of manslaughter each for the
Speaker 1: fact that they just left a loaded weapon in their
Speaker 1: house with the child that they knew wasn't fucking right.
Speaker 1: But they made jokes much in the same way that
Speaker 1: Lauren Bobert had a big fucking smile on her face
Speaker 1: while her children are holding guns that are bigger than
Speaker 1: they are, just a week after a mass shooting at
Speaker 1: a high school that claimed the lives of four goddamn kids.
Speaker 1: But that shit is normal. Wrap your mind around what
Speaker 1: it would have looked like if one of the black
Speaker 1: members of Congress, one of the latinxt members of Congress,
Speaker 1: we're posing with ar fifteens in front of their religious symbols.
Speaker 1: It would look like, righte some type of recruiter video.
Speaker 1: It would look like some type of cult like shit.
Speaker 1: That's what we would say, because we only criminalize and
Speaker 1: penalize and question the pathology of people of color in
Speaker 1: this country, But we don't talk about the pathology of
Speaker 1: white violence in this country and how it is not
Speaker 1: only tolerated, but fucking celebrated. That was a goddamn member
Speaker 1: of Chris She has no business being one, because she's
Speaker 1: about as smart as a fucking empty bucket. But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, the outrage was mild, just
Speaker 1: like the outrage is tepid in response to what it
Speaker 1: is that we are asking our nation's children to participate
Speaker 1: in day after day. You know, I gotta think that
Speaker 1: during quarantine during twenty twenty, when the majority of the
Speaker 1: nation's schools were closed, that some parents were breathing a
Speaker 1: sense of relief. And why would that be, well, because
Speaker 1: they don't have to look at their phone and worry
Speaker 1: about the breaking news and wondering if the next shooting
Speaker 1: was coming to a neighborhood and a school near by them,
Speaker 1: because that's the kind of trauma that parents and caregivers
Speaker 1: deal with as well. We don't give a fuck about
Speaker 1: kids in this country, and that is obvious because in
Speaker 1: one of the wealthiest nations, as we love to say it,
Speaker 1: over and over again. Child poverty and hunger is at
Speaker 1: an all time fucking high. That we're sending kids to
Speaker 1: school and teaching them how to evade predators rather than
Speaker 1: taking away the weapons that predators use. I am so
Speaker 1: sick to death of hearing where public opinion is. And
Speaker 1: you'll hear me with the conversation with Jonathan. Does it
Speaker 1: matter anymore? Seventy percent of the public is against this
Speaker 1: and ninety percent of the public is for x Y
Speaker 1: and c our politicians don't give a fuck about where
Speaker 1: public sentiment lies. If they did, we would have had
Speaker 1: gun protection laws in Columbine, right. It wouldn't have taken
Speaker 1: over twenty years of mass shootings, the martyring of a
Speaker 1: classroom of elementary school children, and still no goddamn action.
Speaker 1: We don't care about kids. We show more outrage for
Speaker 1: teaching Tony Morrison in school. We show more outrage for
Speaker 1: teaching them about the truth of the founding of this nation,
Speaker 1: which doesn't even fucking happen in K through twelve. Then
Speaker 1: we do about the fact that we are traumatizing generations
Speaker 1: of children with gun violence. You know, these kids. When
Speaker 1: I was reading the report about the increase in suicide attempts,
Speaker 1: particularly among young girls, and I'm thinking to myself, how
Speaker 1: is this happening? Why is this happening? And I thought
Speaker 1: about in the early aughts when there was a spat
Speaker 1: of high profiled suicides of lgbt Q plus a youth
Speaker 1: that were being bullied in schools, and the response to
Speaker 1: that was celebrities to create a campaign. The Trevor Project
Speaker 1: helped created this campaign, It gets Better, right to be
Speaker 1: a campaign of positivity from adult LGBTQ people who are saying,
Speaker 1: you can get through this tough time, you will make
Speaker 1: it through to the other side, that there is another side.
Speaker 1: And I keep thinking about that campaign now because I
Speaker 1: think there is no way to tell children, all children,
Speaker 1: regardless of their orientation or gender identity, that it gets better.
Speaker 1: This is why they are a suicide. These kids are
Speaker 1: looking around and the anxiety that they have, the PTSD,
Speaker 1: that they have adults who are supposed to be in charge,
Speaker 1: not adulting and definitely not taking charge of any of
Speaker 1: the major issues that they are going to be inheriting
Speaker 1: young people that have absolutely no power and no say
Speaker 1: in the direction that this country takes and are just
Speaker 1: sider it literally sitting ducks and they're looking around and
Speaker 1: they're saying, does it get better? Because what I'm seeing
Speaker 1: is that things are getting tremendously fucking worse. Where do
Speaker 1: we point to and tell them, oh, when you're an
Speaker 1: adult and you're in charge, you know things will be
Speaker 1: better then, or my hope is with the youth, it's not.
Speaker 1: We are giving them a country and a planet that
Speaker 1: is ravaged by client I'm a change right that is
Speaker 1: so aggressive, so aggressive right now that for the last
Speaker 1: two fucking years, we've had more century once in a century,
Speaker 1: historic storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, fires, than ever before, but
Speaker 1: we take no action on it. We have racial uprisings,
Speaker 1: white supremas arming themselves, shooting people in the street and
Speaker 1: walking around free afterwards, not convicted, but we're telling them, no,
Speaker 1: you're safe, things will be good. We have gun drills
Speaker 1: in elementary schools and we're telling kids, don't worry. This
Speaker 1: is the greatest nation in the world. How how is
Speaker 1: it the greatest nation in the world when we are
Speaker 1: back to book burning. That's our defiance and not looking
Speaker 1: at what is really going on with our kids and
Speaker 1: how we really should be protecting them. I am sick
Speaker 1: to death, sick to death, and honestly, I must say
Speaker 1: that parents have got to be some of the most
Speaker 1: hopeful people on the planet, because I, for one, couldn't
Speaker 1: imagine what it is like to be bringing children into
Speaker 1: the world right now, to be rearing them in the
Speaker 1: hopes that they inherit something better. When you know, good, God,
Speaker 1: damn well, the amount of anxiety and stress you have
Speaker 1: right now about how rapidly our country is declining. It
Speaker 1: is a disgrace where we are. It is a pure,
Speaker 1: pure disgrace. This should be a bipartisan issue. We should
Speaker 1: care about the future generations. But every single act or
Speaker 1: inaction that we make tells us where we care, tells
Speaker 1: us where we are. I'm worried, folks. I am so
Speaker 1: scared for the future. And I can't imagine what it's
Speaker 1: like to be ten eleven, to be a teenager when
Speaker 1: you should have little care in the world right you
Speaker 1: should be playing and having fun and exploring, and instead
Speaker 1: you're learning how to barricade yourself in your classroom, you
Speaker 1: learn how to do army crawls on your school grounds.
Speaker 1: This is America, this is who we are, and this
Speaker 1: is nothing to pound on your chest. And be proud of.
Speaker 1: We should be ashamed every single one of us. Coming
Speaker 1: up next is my conversation with our in house doctor,
Speaker 1: doctor Jonathan Metzel. Folks, you know that when we have
Speaker 1: our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel join us on
Speaker 1: Woke Wednesdays, we unpack so much the thing that is
Speaker 1: troubling me Jonathan, as it does each and every week,
Speaker 1: but particularly this week is America's obsession with guns. It's
Speaker 1: been what has it been over a week maybe two
Speaker 1: weeks at this point since the shooting at Oxford, Michigan
Speaker 1: High School. And again there are several schools, middle schools
Speaker 1: in particular, that are out this week because of threats
Speaker 1: of copycat gun violence. And we're thinking that this shit
Speaker 1: is totally normal, that it's completely normal that we would
Speaker 1: tell our middle schoolers that, oh, there's you're not home
Speaker 1: from school because of snow, You're not home from school
Speaker 1: because of you know, a teacher workday. You're home from
Speaker 1: school because there's a threat that somebody's going to come
Speaker 1: in and shoot it up. And so whenever that threat
Speaker 1: is lived in, I want you to feel comfortable going
Speaker 1: back into school. And that's the norm that we have
Speaker 1: allowed our kids to become accustomed to what are your
Speaker 1: thoughts on where we are right now? And that I
Speaker 1: think that is this the first time that we're seeing
Speaker 1: this kind of level of copycat threats because I don't
Speaker 1: remember post other school shootings neighboring schools being shut down
Speaker 1: because of a consistent perceived threat. Well, there's a ton
Speaker 1: to unpack there. I mean, first, in terms of the
Speaker 1: Oxford schools, the you know, the horrible, tragic irony is that,
Speaker 1: of course the masterings themselves are copycat phenomenon very often.
Speaker 1: That's why for a while there they stopped publishing the
Speaker 1: name of the shooter. They stopped publicizing it was a
Speaker 1: kind of unsuccessful attempt to say, if we don't glorify
Speaker 1: these shooters, maybe they won't there won't be copycats. But
Speaker 1: that wasn't a very successful strategy for a bunch of reasons,
Speaker 1: largely because social media is there and you're not going
Speaker 1: to be able to stop it anyway, but also because
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's really just the horrific nature of
Speaker 1: the crime more than the name of the shooter. And
Speaker 1: especially now it's such a tense moment, there's so much anger,
Speaker 1: so much frustration, and so many darn guns around, um,
Speaker 1: and and so in a way, it's just a very
Speaker 1: volatile moment, and so the you know, I don't think
Speaker 1: people who study this are very prized by the by
Speaker 1: the copycat. We've seen this a lot. The you know,
Speaker 1: the weird thing in Oxford is now there's a petition
Speaker 1: going around because there are so many threats, and there
Speaker 1: are threats toward middle schoolers, threats toward kindergarten. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's really sick stuff, um, that there's a big petition
Speaker 1: going around in Oxford to have school be all virtual
Speaker 1: until after January, until the beginning of January m basically saying, man,
Speaker 1: we don't know what what threat is real and people
Speaker 1: of course feel so traumatized and so vulnerable. But it's
Speaker 1: just ironic because you know, this is like rural wide
Speaker 1: America gun country. I guarantee you if they said there's
Speaker 1: a petition to go virtual because of the covid um
Speaker 1: stuff that that that people would say, oh, forget it, man,
Speaker 1: we'll bring our kids back into school. But it's really
Speaker 1: it's interesting that that the gun, the gun issue, fear
Speaker 1: of guns is now having people there support the idea
Speaker 1: of having kids not go into school. So you know it,
Speaker 1: it just shows you that we're having kind of overlapping
Speaker 1: pandemics in a way right now, you know it. It's
Speaker 1: so disturbing to me that I mean, one, I just
Speaker 1: you know, Jonathan, for the first time in a while,
Speaker 1: right when I'm seeing the fact that these schools are
Speaker 1: still are closed or are closing, and that the threats
Speaker 1: are middle schoolers and and elementary school children, right, which
Speaker 1: is hearkening back to Newtown? Right, And you know the
Speaker 1: fact that I recognize then that if we're going to
Speaker 1: do nothing about classrooms of first and kindergarteners and first
Speaker 1: graders being mowed down by an AAR fifteen, if we
Speaker 1: didn't do anything about gun violence, then um, we're not
Speaker 1: going to do anything. And so here we now fast forward.
Speaker 1: How many years has it been. It's been what five
Speaker 1: or six years since since Newtown happened at the kind
Speaker 1: of towards the end of the Obama presidency. And you know,
Speaker 1: I am I'm at a loss for the fact that
Speaker 1: these parents will protest your kids not wearing a mask
Speaker 1: because they think that that's going to traumatize them. You're
Speaker 1: going to traumatize my child. It's child abuse, to have
Speaker 1: them wear a mask in school all day to protect
Speaker 1: them against a virus that is killed now over eight
Speaker 1: hundred thousand Americans. Right, But there's no protest for the
Speaker 1: fact that I don't want my kids to have to
Speaker 1: go to school under duress and post traumatic stress disorder
Speaker 1: and the threat of violence because one of their classmates
Speaker 1: or not one of their classmates, just like an armed
Speaker 1: shooter rolls up into the school. There's no protest there,
Speaker 1: there's no outrage. So tell me more about this petition
Speaker 1: and if it has any real legs in the way
Speaker 1: that let's say, you know, protecting our children from a
Speaker 1: Pulletzer Prize winner like Tony Morrison, the late Tony Morrison
Speaker 1: garnered a petition. I mean honestly, when I started reading
Speaker 1: about that, so I felt bad for kids. You know,
Speaker 1: kids are getting kids are being used as as political
Speaker 1: pawns right now and in all these different ways, and
Speaker 1: the issues are real. I mean, imagine being a kid
Speaker 1: just during the pandemic with COVID and all that stuff
Speaker 1: that's scary and dangerous enough, and then all of these
Speaker 1: debates about what does it mean to be in school
Speaker 1: and all these politics. So my first thought when I
Speaker 1: saw the petition was, man, just you know, we need
Speaker 1: to do a better job with our kids right now.
Speaker 1: And I haven't really gone into detail about how how
Speaker 1: much how much this petition is going to make a difference,
Speaker 1: so it'll see. It was just reported literally just before
Speaker 1: we recorded this segment today, so we'll have to see
Speaker 1: what happens. But it is just it just made me think,
Speaker 1: like how vulnerable people are right now in a way,
Speaker 1: And again, this is an area, this is a part
Speaker 1: of Michigan where there are an awful lot of guns,
Speaker 1: and people would not be thinking in any critical way
Speaker 1: about the threat that guns posed. But again I think
Speaker 1: I think it just shows you that when a mass
Speaker 1: shooting impacts your community, or your kids school, or your environment,
Speaker 1: just how much that can change to a profound sense
Speaker 1: of vulnerability. So we'll have to see what happens. I
Speaker 1: do think it's important to note that this case against
Speaker 1: the parents is a pretty important case, and so if
Speaker 1: something comes out of this horrible tragedy, I mean, we've
Speaker 1: been trying this for a very long time, but if
Speaker 1: something comes out of this that suggests that parents are
Speaker 1: responsible for the armed actions of their children, that would
Speaker 1: actually be a step forward, because we've failed in that
Speaker 1: regards lots of different times and so and so, you know,
Speaker 1: we'll have to see what happens. So the parents are
Speaker 1: expected back in court this week and each of them
Speaker 1: are facing I think four counts of manslaughter for the
Speaker 1: four students that were murdered in cold blood by Ethan Crumbly.
Speaker 1: And you know, I look at the videos of the parents.
Speaker 1: I read the text messages between Ethan Crumbly and his mother.
Speaker 1: Don't get caught l ol about looking up ammunition as
Speaker 1: he's sitting in the classroom, and you know, and everyone
Speaker 1: clutching their pearls in the mainstream media, how could these parents?
Speaker 1: How could these parents? And then last week Congresswoman Lauren
Speaker 1: Bobert post a picture with four of her children with
Speaker 1: guns that are bigger than they are, in front of
Speaker 1: a Christmas tree. And so how is it that we
Speaker 1: look to the Crumbles and say, these people are deranged?
Speaker 1: How could they buy a gun for their child? And
Speaker 1: you have a sitting member of Congress that is posing
Speaker 1: a week after yeah, well actually there were two. There
Speaker 1: was the congressman from Kentucky I think posted like two
Speaker 1: days after with his whole family with a R fifteens also,
Speaker 1: And so I mean I've been tracking this, as you know,
Speaker 1: for quite some time, and the just the horrible bad taste.
Speaker 1: So there were actually two two congress people who posted
Speaker 1: family pictures with guns right afterwards, and Bobert's was a
Speaker 1: response to another congressman from Kentucky who also had posted
Speaker 1: with with semi automatic weapons for his family. And so
Speaker 1: on one hand, it's horrible and cruel and bad taste
Speaker 1: and just horrible timing. It shows just how tone deaf
Speaker 1: and you know, for a lot of people out of
Speaker 1: touch that these that this is. But it's also representative
Speaker 1: of the logic in many parts of America where no
Speaker 1: matter the trauma or the effect, the answer always is
Speaker 1: more guns. And this idea of you know, you're not
Speaker 1: going to take the guns away from me. Guns represent
Speaker 1: my freedom and liberty, all these kinds of things. And
Speaker 1: so it's a performance that is meant that The Atlantic
Speaker 1: had a good piece on this. It's a performs that's
Speaker 1: meant to stir liberal outrage and liberal fear about the
Speaker 1: irrationality of this. Now again, Oxford School District in Michigan
Speaker 1: is very far from a liberal progressive multicultural school district.
Speaker 1: This is red state Michigan in a certain kind of way.
Speaker 1: And so the people that they were trolling were you know,
Speaker 1: you would think their own their own people in a way.
Speaker 1: But it does show about this role of like, you know,
Speaker 1: this debate. We often get into this tug of war
Speaker 1: after mass shootings where it's like, oh, we need more
Speaker 1: gun control. Oh you're not going to pry my guns
Speaker 1: out of my hands. Let me show you how important
Speaker 1: my gun is. All this kind of thing. So it's
Speaker 1: a kind of performance that happens after these and again
Speaker 1: the people who are caught in the middle are kids
Speaker 1: in schools and victims and families. And so I don't
Speaker 1: know when I saw that. When I saw that this
Speaker 1: Bobert and the other thing, I just thought, you know, God,
Speaker 1: it's just the cruelty is just imaginable. Yeah, it's so
Speaker 1: you know, it's so disgusting. And I wonder, I wonder, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: if if these parents, right, they've already been charged, if
Speaker 1: they are actually convicted, if this is going to really
Speaker 1: change anything, right, Because you know, Michigan, we talked about
Speaker 1: this a couple of weeks ago. Michigan is a state
Speaker 1: that doesn't have, you know, laws around how you're supposed
Speaker 1: to lock up your firearms, right, so you can leave
Speaker 1: it on the kitchen table, you can you know, put
Speaker 1: it in a in the side table in your bedroom,
Speaker 1: and and that's your prerogative and right. And I'm just like,
Speaker 1: how is it that doing the fucking bare minimum right
Speaker 1: locking your gun up the very bare minimum, maybe leaving
Speaker 1: it unloaded, putting the gun in one place to ammunition
Speaker 1: in another, and having them both under lock and key, Like,
Speaker 1: how is that not something that is just law? I
Speaker 1: feel very strongly that this is actually something that people
Speaker 1: agree on, but it's just like the Capitol riot, people
Speaker 1: can't admit in public that they actually agree. And so
Speaker 1: we learned this week, for example, that Fox News was mortified,
Speaker 1: horrified of the January sixth insurrection, but they couldn't admit
Speaker 1: it publicly. Even Sean Hannity was, you know, terrified, but
Speaker 1: he couldn't say it publicly. And in a way that's
Speaker 1: similar to these kind of common sense laws. And why
Speaker 1: do I say that. I say that because I've got
Speaker 1: a lot of on the ground experience trying to help
Speaker 1: pass legislation in this regard, and I've seen what happened.
Speaker 1: We had a bill in Tennessee about ten years ago
Speaker 1: called mcayley's Law. What happened was, I think a seven
Speaker 1: or eight year old kid had picked up at his parents,
Speaker 1: I think his father's firearm which was just left laying
Speaker 1: around the house, gotten an argument with another kid, and
Speaker 1: shot and killed like an eight year old girl, I
Speaker 1: think eight or nine year old girl. And people were mortified.
Speaker 1: It was a very similar story to what we're seeing here.
Speaker 1: And people started saying, how could who's responsible here? How
Speaker 1: could a father just leave an AAR fifteen loaded and
Speaker 1: unlocked laying around for a kid to pick up and
Speaker 1: then shoot another kid. And obviously that it was a murder,
Speaker 1: but also the shooter is, you know, ruined for life,
Speaker 1: the families ruined for life. And so the issue was
Speaker 1: let's make parents responsible for storing their guns, and in
Speaker 1: our case, it had complete bipartisan support. The day before
Speaker 1: the bill, there was a hearing and everybody's like, man,
Speaker 1: this is you know, I don't care where you stand,
Speaker 1: this is exactly what we need. In that night, the
Speaker 1: NA flew in. It was like um, you know, um
Speaker 1: air con one or something. A whole blaneload full of
Speaker 1: lobbyists who showed up in the you know, the courthouse
Speaker 1: before and started saying, if you're going to vote against,
Speaker 1: if you're going to vote for any kind of gun legislation,
Speaker 1: we're going to make sure you never get elected or
Speaker 1: hold up public office again. And people got scared. And
Speaker 1: the day the vote was held, only Democrats voted to
Speaker 1: support this gun safe ledge safety legislation, and all the
Speaker 1: Republicans change their vote and voted against it because of
Speaker 1: fear of the NRA. So this fear of public intimidation,
Speaker 1: lost humiliation, career ending, which is exactly what Trump plays on.
Speaker 1: Also with all this other stuff, is something that is
Speaker 1: it's like a short circuit in our democracy in a
Speaker 1: particular way. People can't say what they mean. And again,
Speaker 1: the reason I say that is because I really do
Speaker 1: feel like there's a tremendous amount of public support for guns,
Speaker 1: for kind of common sense guns storage laws. It's just
Speaker 1: that given the political wins, there's a cost for people
Speaker 1: who will say so publicly. So, Jonathan, doesn't matter that
Speaker 1: the public actually cares. Now, doesn't matter that we continue
Speaker 1: to say, you know, seventy seven percent or ninety percent
Speaker 1: of the public you know, is for X, Y, and
Speaker 1: Z when it doesn't sway any of the politicians. So
Speaker 1: if we don't give a damn about where the public
Speaker 1: falls anymore, pretty much on any issue, we could we
Speaker 1: could be having the same conversation about abortion right And again,
Speaker 1: these are the same people, And so I appreciate you
Speaker 1: saying earlier like there is an overlap here. There's a
Speaker 1: then diagram to be putting up right now. If we'd
Speaker 1: no longer give a damn about the public's opinion and
Speaker 1: where they fall, then how do we fight Well, the
Speaker 1: Republicans have done this very well. But first is that
Speaker 1: the power for all of this is in the judiciary.
Speaker 1: And you're exactly right. Seventy eight Americans support background checks,
Speaker 1: closing loopholes on the sale of guns at places like
Speaker 1: gun shows and online. There's broad public support for this,
Speaker 1: but you can't move the needle even a millimeter because
Speaker 1: of the power of elected officials and judges who are
Speaker 1: not willing to go anywhere with this. And the Republicans,
Speaker 1: as we've talked about a lot on this show, have
Speaker 1: basically stacked the judiciary with I mean, ultimately, gun policy
Speaker 1: is made at the judiciary level also, and there are
Speaker 1: judges who are just about finishing high school right now
Speaker 1: who have lifetime appointments. There was one judge I think
Speaker 1: in Mississippi who's thirty five years old, had never held
Speaker 1: any kind of any kind of elected office or anything
Speaker 1: like that. His only position was that he was an
Speaker 1: unflinching Second Amendment supporter. So we've got across the country
Speaker 1: judges in positions with lifetime appointments that are going to
Speaker 1: last for quite some time. And so the Republicans have
Speaker 1: played the long game. They saw that the power of
Speaker 1: all this stuff is in the judiciary and none of
Speaker 1: this is going to matter unless the Democrats have a
Speaker 1: counter strategy for getting judges in place who are not
Speaker 1: zealots about this issue and other issues. You know, it's
Speaker 1: funny because yesterday I was looking, you know, in Twitter,
Speaker 1: on Twitter, and I am seeing a tweet of congratulations
Speaker 1: that this year the Biden administration appointed ten federal judges.
Speaker 1: And I said, ten federal judges in a year, And
Speaker 1: you guys are posting that like that, that's celebratory. I said,
Speaker 1: how many judges was Donald Trump putting up a week? Right?
Speaker 1: How many? How many were how many were they appointing
Speaker 1: a week, you're talking about ten in a year. If
Speaker 1: we're working at that pace, we ain't getting anywhere, right,
Speaker 1: It's not going to get any easier. And everybody's now saying, oh,
Speaker 1: McConnell has powers threatened, And I'm like, McConnell's superfluous, just
Speaker 1: like the terra superfluous at this point, Like they have
Speaker 1: these judges in their thirties appointed in courts all across
Speaker 1: the country. Their agenda is going to be playing out
Speaker 1: for decades in a way. And so I just think
Speaker 1: that the day one of this administration, they should have
Speaker 1: had a federalist Society style list of judges that we're
Speaker 1: going to counter all the crazy judges that were in place.
Speaker 1: And I agree with you completely completely that this, among
Speaker 1: other failures of this administration, has been a failure or
Speaker 1: also of the Democrats to come together. I mean, this
Speaker 1: should have been from day one, from day one. So yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, so I had pulled up an article the
Speaker 1: New York Times, as you know, tracks using the Gun
Speaker 1: Violence Archive, they track mass shootings, right, and you know,
Speaker 1: there is there's very little consensus, as they say, on
Speaker 1: the definition of what a mass shooting is Some say
Speaker 1: that it's for more people injured or killed. Others say
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's two or more. But regardless of this,
Speaker 1: I wanted to bring up something because we've talked about
Speaker 1: this before that while in twenty twenty, you know, we're
Speaker 1: in quarantine and we're dealing with the COVID nineteen virus,
Speaker 1: you had said Americans bought more guns in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: than they had ever before. And the other thing that
Speaker 1: was that was said, according to gun violence Archives, is
Speaker 1: that there was more than six hundred shootings in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty and that we just warrant covering them. The news
Speaker 1: just wasn't covering the mass shootings in the way that
Speaker 1: they had before because we had this other crisis and
Speaker 1: pandemic that we're covering. And so when you look at
Speaker 1: these numbers, they said, to compare twenty nineteen, where there
Speaker 1: were four hundred and seventeen shootings to twenty twenty, when
Speaker 1: we're in a pandemic and there are six hundred shootings.
Speaker 1: And then to some extent, they're saying that, you know,
Speaker 1: there have been countless mass shootings in twenty twenty one. Jonathan,
Speaker 1: is it me or is everything trending upwards, and and
Speaker 1: and what do you what are some of the theories
Speaker 1: that you have to help us understand why we're trending
Speaker 1: upwards at this particular time. Well, one truism that we've
Speaker 1: seen for decades is that the more guns, the more
Speaker 1: more guns, mean more shootings. That's just kind of the
Speaker 1: way this thing works out. When there are fewer guns,
Speaker 1: there are fewer shootings. It's shouldn't be rocket science. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: that's a very controversial position. And so what have we
Speaker 1: seen over the course of the pandemic. We have seen
Speaker 1: the biggest rise in gun sales in the history of
Speaker 1: the planet. In a certain kind of way, that was
Speaker 1: an issue before the pandemic. Even before the pandemic, Americans
Speaker 1: owned three hundred and ninety three million guns. You might
Speaker 1: do the math. That's more than people. So there was
Speaker 1: like one point two one gun per people in the country.
Speaker 1: Not that every person had a gun, but so we
Speaker 1: were already the most armed civilian populace in the globe,
Speaker 1: on the globe, and then the pandemic. The first couple
Speaker 1: of months of the pandemic, there was this rush making guns.
Speaker 1: Gun stores essential businesses. People were buying guns the way
Speaker 1: they were buying purell and toilet paper, and so we
Speaker 1: just have an ungodly amount of guns in circulation in
Speaker 1: this country, and so it's not surprising that what follows
Speaker 1: is shootings, different kinds of shootings. With the massings get
Speaker 1: all the headlines, but the kinds of shootings that happen
Speaker 1: when people have guns in their homes are guns suicides
Speaker 1: and partner violence, shootings and other kinds of shootings. And
Speaker 1: so the more guns that are in people's homes, particularly
Speaker 1: during a moment of tension and when people are staying
Speaker 1: at home or social distancing or homeschooling their kids, you're
Speaker 1: just going to see the kind of result that we've
Speaker 1: had now, which is an unfettered, just orgy of gun
Speaker 1: sales into homes, a lot of them that had never
Speaker 1: had guns before, a lot of tension, ideological social anxiety, unrest,
Speaker 1: political and ideological divisiveness, and crappy gun laws. And so
Speaker 1: it's really a kind of perfect storm. And I think
Speaker 1: probably next year's even unfortunately, going to be even worse.
Speaker 1: And until we kind of can come together on this,
Speaker 1: along with coming together and everything else, I think this
Speaker 1: is what we're going to see. But again, That's why
Speaker 1: I was saying the NRAY is so superfluous because they've
Speaker 1: already got permiss of judges and more guns than people
Speaker 1: in the country, and so what else they have to
Speaker 1: do at this point except for armed both sides of
Speaker 1: a civil war, And so that really it's a it's
Speaker 1: a scary moment, and guns just heighten heightened the risk
Speaker 1: for everybody. With a few minutes that we have left, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: I want to circle back to something that you just
Speaker 1: said about suicides, because this is this is something else
Speaker 1: that I don't think is getting a lot of attention
Speaker 1: right now, which is, you know, a study had come
Speaker 1: out and USA US News had reported it over the summer,
Speaker 1: and then again it was picked up recently that the
Speaker 1: suicide attempt rate among teenagers has increased by almost half,
Speaker 1: particularly for teenage girls. Emergency room visits for suspected suicide
Speaker 1: attempts among girls between the ages of twelve and seventeen
Speaker 1: increased twenty six percent over the summer of twenty twenty
Speaker 1: and fifth the percent this winter, right the winter that
Speaker 1: we are currently in US Center for Disease and Control
Speaker 1: and Prevention has found right, and they're saying that this
Speaker 1: is another pandemic. And again I want to tie this
Speaker 1: back to the trauma that we are placing on children
Speaker 1: in this country, whether it is you know them watching
Speaker 1: adults right say, don't wear a mask. Wear a mask,
Speaker 1: you're you know you're not a patriot if you wear
Speaker 1: a mask, to ushering kids into schools to do mass
Speaker 1: shooting drills, active shooting drills instead of fire drills like
Speaker 1: you and I did when we were in school. What
Speaker 1: do you what do you think when you see reports
Speaker 1: like this and hear about studies like this, and like,
Speaker 1: why aren't we talking about this as a major crisis
Speaker 1: around our kids? You would think saving our kids would
Speaker 1: be something we could come together around. Instead. Everything we've
Speaker 1: talked about here, the debate about guns, the debate about
Speaker 1: the role of history and when does history begin, the
Speaker 1: debate about what we teach and how they think, is
Speaker 1: all happening in the context of just a tsunami of despair.
Speaker 1: Because kids in school right now don't know what the
Speaker 1: future is going to look like. There's climate instability, the
Speaker 1: pandemic is raging. The grown ups are not in control
Speaker 1: right now. There's no certainty about the future of the
Speaker 1: economy or the world they're going to enter into, and
Speaker 1: so we've made kids political pawns at precisely the moment
Speaker 1: that kids are the most vulnerable. I see this even
Speaker 1: with the college students I teach, and it's such a
Speaker 1: national failure. It's just such a national failure. And really,
Speaker 1: I think that taking these ideological battles and then making
Speaker 1: kids the places where these ideological battles are being fought
Speaker 1: is going to lead to horrific, horrific consequences for kids,
Speaker 1: but also a host of unattended consequences just for the
Speaker 1: country that we can't even envision. And so really, I
Speaker 1: really hope that if we if we address even one pandemic,
Speaker 1: that this is the one that we that we focus on.
Speaker 1: You know, I just it is. It is amazing to
Speaker 1: me that, you know, a decade, two decades ago, the
Speaker 1: Republicans referred to themselves as the Party of family values.
Speaker 1: That you know, two decades ago it was, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we care about life. The Twitter handle at GOP tweeted
Speaker 1: during the abortion hearing at the Supreme Court, we are
Speaker 1: the pro life party. We care about life, life above
Speaker 1: all else. And I'm saying to myself, where where is
Speaker 1: that true? I mean, I of course agree with you.
Speaker 1: I mean all these fights, I mean, all the critical
Speaker 1: race theory stuff, the sixteen nine stuff. It's it's kind
Speaker 1: of making an example. But I also think that polarization
Speaker 1: itself has taught sick for kids in a way. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, I don't know, I don't know where we
Speaker 1: go from here. I mean, I think that the despair
Speaker 1: among kids is something that this country is going to be,
Speaker 1: even if the pandemic was solved tomorrow, even if all
Speaker 1: these problems were solved tomorrow, even if we could somehow
Speaker 1: magically glue the ice shelf back into place before it
Speaker 1: falls off into the ocean, kids are just the level
Speaker 1: of uncertainty, trauma, despair, just about who's in control, what's
Speaker 1: the world going to be like five years from now,
Speaker 1: which all these things that are causing grown ups to
Speaker 1: have anxiety, kids are suffering in space. I again again,
Speaker 1: I teach college. I see kids, you know, they're kids
Speaker 1: to me very regularly, and I can just say that
Speaker 1: the level of uncertainty right now is just off the charts,
Speaker 1: and in a way, it's a reflection of our dysfunctional
Speaker 1: political system more than anything else. Yeah, And I you know,
Speaker 1: and I would just end with this is that what
Speaker 1: hurt would pains me the most. Unlike your college students, right,
Speaker 1: who have the ability to vote, right, they have the
Speaker 1: ability to actively participate in in our society, in our
Speaker 1: in our politics, these young kids, these middle schoolers, these
Speaker 1: high schoolers, it's like being trapped in a cage and
Speaker 1: watching everything burn around you and not having the ability
Speaker 1: to open up the door and escape. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: and I and I literally just don't you know, just
Speaker 1: don't think that we are collectively thinking about what the
Speaker 1: long term ramifications of that level of despair and trauma
Speaker 1: really is. I mean, let's think about the how could
Speaker 1: politics constructively address the future of mental health for kids.
Speaker 1: I think that would be a very important political intervention
Speaker 1: in a way. So, um, and you mentioned voting, but
Speaker 1: I mean, a lot of college students right now, look
Speaker 1: just look at the politics of voting. It's not like
Speaker 1: they see that as like a panacea in a way.
Speaker 1: And so in a way, we really need to rebuild
Speaker 1: faith in trust in those institutions. And you would think
Speaker 1: that would be something people could come together about, but
Speaker 1: that ain't happening quite yet. Oh, Jonathan, I just you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I do not know, I do not know.
Speaker 1: You know, I liked it when I thought that it
Speaker 1: was COVID nineteen that was our biggest fucking problem. But
Speaker 1: it's not. We are living inside of a of a
Speaker 1: perfect storm. We appreciate you as always being one of
Speaker 1: our many trusted guides to get us through. We'll talk again,
Speaker 1: God willing next week. No, we'll have a cheerful We'll
Speaker 1: do cheerful holidays next week. You know some things. Maybe
Speaker 1: that is it for me today. Dear friends on woke
Speaker 1: a f as always power to the people and to
Speaker 1: all the people. Power. Get woke and stay woke as
Speaker 1: fun and friends. Do take good, good care of yourselves, please,
Speaker 1: because your wellness is what is going to have you
Speaker 1: survive whatever this is that we are living in. See
Speaker 1: you soon,