Speaker 1: After public mass shootings, there's always these calls to do something,
Speaker 1: do something, do something, But what if what we do
Speaker 1: doesn't stop the next shooting. I want to have on
Speaker 1: this week's episode, just a data driven conversation. We're going
Speaker 1: to remove the emotion. We're just going to get into
Speaker 1: the numbers, get into the facts. And I've got none
Speaker 1: other than Dr John Lott for this episode. He runs
Speaker 1: and started the Crime Prevention Research Center before he got
Speaker 1: into a lot of the gun research he's He started
Speaker 1: his academic journey at u C l A, where he
Speaker 1: got his bachelor's degree in economics. He went on to
Speaker 1: get both his master's and PhD from there as well.
Speaker 1: He worked as an economist at the University of Maryland,
Speaker 1: Yale Law School, the University of Stanford, Texas, A and
Speaker 1: M We're in business school, all these different places, right,
Speaker 1: So he starts at a place really from digging in
Speaker 1: the numbers. That that's what he loves, that's what he does.
Speaker 1: He had also worked as a chief economist at the
Speaker 1: United States Sentencing Commission. So we're going to get into
Speaker 1: all of this stuff with him. What would actually prevent
Speaker 1: the next public mass shooting? What's the profile of a
Speaker 1: mass shooter. Why did these keep happening? And are they
Speaker 1: happening more since Columbine or is the media just covering
Speaker 1: the more. So I've got a lot of questions for
Speaker 1: Dr John Lott. We're also going to get into, you know,
Speaker 1: the latest proposal from Congress, this bipartisan proposal, things like
Speaker 1: red flag laws, you know, do they allow for due process?
Speaker 1: So I've got a whole host of questions for him,
Speaker 1: Dr John Lott. He knows the data, he knows the research,
Speaker 1: and he's going to give it to us on this show.
Speaker 1: Dr Lot, I'm really looking forward to having this conversation
Speaker 1: because after mass shootings, there's always these calls we have
Speaker 1: to do something, we have to do something, But what
Speaker 1: if that do something doesn't stop the next mass shooting?
Speaker 1: You know? So I really want to just have a
Speaker 1: data driven conversation, not an emotional conversation, but a data
Speaker 1: driven one with you. And I know that's what you
Speaker 1: do at the Crime Prevention Center. So I appreciate you
Speaker 1: joining the show. Sure, yeah, no, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1: Uh right, Look, everybody wants to go and stop these attacks. Uh,
Speaker 1: but what you want to do is do something that's
Speaker 1: relevant for stopping them, and uh, you know you have
Speaker 1: this push for things like universal background checks. Um, it's
Speaker 1: been kind of the game go to type of legislation
Speaker 1: that they wanted. But yet there's not one mass public
Speaker 1: shooting this century that would have been stopped if such
Speaker 1: a law had been in effect, these background checks on
Speaker 1: the private transfers of guns, And yet they keep bringing
Speaker 1: it up, and it makes one begin to think that
Speaker 1: they have reasons other than trying to stop these types
Speaker 1: of attacks that are motivating it. Why is the focus
Speaker 1: always Okay, well, the answer is getting rid of guns,
Speaker 1: are limiting the ability to own them to some degree.
Speaker 1: I think they want to get rid of guns. If
Speaker 1: they wanted to pass something like a universal background check,
Speaker 1: these background checks on private transfers of guns. I've been
Speaker 1: telling them for over twenty years how they could easily
Speaker 1: get something like that passed if they made a few
Speaker 1: reasonable changes. I mean, they keep on saying, we just
Speaker 1: want reasonable gun control. Well, I can give you a
Speaker 1: few extremely reasonable fixes to the bills that they have
Speaker 1: that would make it easy to get it passed. But
Speaker 1: they refused to do that, and it kind of convinces
Speaker 1: me over time that they really don't care about things
Speaker 1: like universal background checks per se. They care about making
Speaker 1: it costly for people to be able to go and
Speaker 1: get guns. You know, we're talking about, obviously the desire
Speaker 1: to put more laws on the books, but how many
Speaker 1: gun laws do we currently have on the books and
Speaker 1: to what extent are we following them. We have a
Speaker 1: lot of laws that I guess it depends how you
Speaker 1: want to count them. Uh. Uh. There's a guy named
Speaker 1: Alan Corwin who goes around and kind of counts the
Speaker 1: number of words in different uh gun laws, either federally
Speaker 1: or in the state. He doesn't do it for all
Speaker 1: the states, but I mean for states like California may
Speaker 1: literally have hundreds of thousands of words, uh dealing with
Speaker 1: the gun control laws just at the state level. And
Speaker 1: you probably have thousands of gun control laws if you
Speaker 1: count local ordinances and restrictions people have locally in counties
Speaker 1: or cities on guns. Um. But nobody has really ever
Speaker 1: gone through and systematically counted all the laws uh in
Speaker 1: any way. It's just I mean, we have a lot,
Speaker 1: um and you know, my concern is that a lot
Speaker 1: of the problems that we have are due to existing
Speaker 1: gun control laws like these gun free zones that are there,
Speaker 1: and rather than going back and undoing the existing laws,
Speaker 1: the push seems to be, well, we need yet even
Speaker 1: more laws that will fix the problem, and they cause
Speaker 1: more problems, so you know, just kind of continue in
Speaker 1: the background check stuff. As an example, UM, if my
Speaker 1: research convinces me of anything, it's the two groups of
Speaker 1: people benefit the most from having guns. One of them
Speaker 1: are poor blacks who live in high crime urban areas.
Speaker 1: The very people who are most likely victims of violent crime,
Speaker 1: according to my research, are the ones who benefit the
Speaker 1: most from having guns for protection. Police are extremely important,
Speaker 1: but if you talk to the police or look at
Speaker 1: surveys of police, police themselves understand they virtually always arrive
Speaker 1: on the crime seen after the crimes committed, and so
Speaker 1: what's the safest course of action for them to take?
Speaker 1: And it turns out having a gun is by far
Speaker 1: the safest course of action. So we have the errors
Speaker 1: in the background check system I was talking about, but
Speaker 1: we also have the costs. If you live in Washington,
Speaker 1: d c. Lisa, Let's say you and I lived in
Speaker 1: d c UH and I'm going to give you a gun.
Speaker 1: It costs a hundred twenty five dollars to go through
Speaker 1: a background check. Now, just to give you an idea
Speaker 1: of how these laws are purposely set up to make
Speaker 1: it difficult for people to get guns. Let's say now
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you four guns. So it's just
Speaker 1: John giving Lisa four guns, one person giving one other
Speaker 1: person the guns. You think it's just one background check
Speaker 1: because the same person is getting all the guns from
Speaker 1: one person. But no, they require a separate background check
Speaker 1: on each gun. So if I'm going to give you
Speaker 1: four guns, that is going to cost five hundred dollars
Speaker 1: rather than a I mean, there's like no logical reason
Speaker 1: to me why you should have to require a separate
Speaker 1: background check on each gun, right than just on the
Speaker 1: one person who's getting the guns. Uh. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's just an example where they kind of purposely go
Speaker 1: out of their way to make it costly. Now, look,
Speaker 1: if you believe that is going to control I advocate
Speaker 1: say that the background checks are important for stopping crime,
Speaker 1: and I don't believe that. But if you do believe it,
Speaker 1: then presumably you want to encourage people to go out
Speaker 1: of their way, not to just to make it for
Speaker 1: me to give you the guns, but to go and
Speaker 1: find a license dealer and make the transfer through them. Um,
Speaker 1: you want to encourage people to do that, Well, how
Speaker 1: is making people pay a tax essentially encouraging them to
Speaker 1: go and obey the law? Or you know, if you
Speaker 1: if you believe it reduces crime, it reduces crime for everybody,
Speaker 1: not just the law abiding individual who's going out of
Speaker 1: their way to go and do the background check. Well,
Speaker 1: how how is making them, the person who's obeying the
Speaker 1: law bear the entire freight of paying for this accomplishing
Speaker 1: that if if as an economist, I would say, if
Speaker 1: everybody benefits, everybody should pay, you know, pay for this
Speaker 1: out of general revenue. But they will fight you. They
Speaker 1: will fight you against this. Okay, quick commercial break back
Speaker 1: with Dr John Lott on the other side. The reason
Speaker 1: I had asked you about the gun laws is, you know,
Speaker 1: we we look at prosecutors in major cities across America
Speaker 1: that aren't prosecuting criminals right now. So it's just hard
Speaker 1: to imagine that increasing the amount of laws in the
Speaker 1: books will do anything when we already you know, have
Speaker 1: essentially lawless cities across America. But I want to get
Speaker 1: into some of the basics of mass shootings with you
Speaker 1: and just go through some basic questions on this. You know,
Speaker 1: the first is how are mass shootings to find? Well,
Speaker 1: you have two definitions. You have mass shootings and you
Speaker 1: have mass public shootings. Mass shooting are any shooting that
Speaker 1: occurs where you have four more people killed other than
Speaker 1: the murderer. Usually now there's a place called the and
Speaker 1: that's been the traditional FBI definition. Uh. Now you have
Speaker 1: a place called the Gun Violence Archive, which is a
Speaker 1: gun control group, which is what the media sites all
Speaker 1: the time, and they have their own definition. They have
Speaker 1: three or more people shot, either wounded and or killed. Um,
Speaker 1: and that's the definitely, that's the number that you hear
Speaker 1: when they say, well, we've had two hundred mass shootings
Speaker 1: or something this year. Um. Mass public shootings is a
Speaker 1: narrower definition. And what that tries to get at are
Speaker 1: these attacks that occur at a mall or school or
Speaker 1: a movie theater or something where the point of the
Speaker 1: attack is simply to kill as many people as possible.
Speaker 1: And um, so as public is four more people killed
Speaker 1: in a public place, not involving some other type of
Speaker 1: crime or like a gang fight over drug turf. You
Speaker 1: know what most people miss is that the mass shooting
Speaker 1: about eighties seven percent of those are gang fights over
Speaker 1: drug turf, and the vast majority of the rest are
Speaker 1: things like a robbery which resulted in the death of
Speaker 1: multiple people and uh or in the case of the
Speaker 1: gun violence archived just woundings or whatever. And uh. Now
Speaker 1: are gang fights over drug turf important? Yeah, sure, any
Speaker 1: time people get killed is important, But the causes and
Speaker 1: solutions of gang fights over drug turf are very different
Speaker 1: than the causes and solutions to things like stopping these
Speaker 1: mass public shootings. Um. You know, getting rid of gun
Speaker 1: freeze owns I think is important for stopping these mass
Speaker 1: public shootings. But you know, the notion that you're going
Speaker 1: to easily get rid of the guns that drug gangs have, UM,
Speaker 1: isn't really serious. Well and if you look at you know,
Speaker 1: these public mass shootings. Have we seen more of them
Speaker 1: increase since colibine or is it just or coverage of
Speaker 1: them has increased? The rate of mass public shootings has
Speaker 1: been fairly constant. You had a little bit of an
Speaker 1: increase around twenty and it's gone back down again. Um.
Speaker 1: And uh, you had some increase around the same time,
Speaker 1: and the number of people killed but you know, one
Speaker 1: thing I think needs to be clear. Over the last
Speaker 1: couple of weeks or a few weeks, there's been kind
Speaker 1: of this theme in the media that the United States
Speaker 1: is unique in terms of mass public shooting. So that's
Speaker 1: that's simply false. Um. You have a number of countries
Speaker 1: in Europe that have higher per capita rates of mass
Speaker 1: public shootings in the United States hip per capita rates
Speaker 1: of public school shootings than the United States. Um. The
Speaker 1: problem that people make in these comparisons is that usually
Speaker 1: the media and gun control people and Democrats will just
Speaker 1: talk about the number of attacks. But you have to
Speaker 1: take into account is that the United States has over
Speaker 1: three people. Um. There are a lot of countries in
Speaker 1: Europe that have five million people or six or eight
Speaker 1: million people. Germany, which is the most populous country in Europe,
Speaker 1: has has eighty million people. Uh, So that's less than
Speaker 1: the fourth of the population in the United States. If
Speaker 1: you look at mass public school shootings since two thousand,
Speaker 1: there have been nine in the United States. Uh, there
Speaker 1: have been three in Germany. Uh. The most deadly one
Speaker 1: had eighteen people killed, The second most deadly one had
Speaker 1: fifteen people killed. Then you have another one where there's
Speaker 1: four killed. Uh, you multiply three times four, you get twelve. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, you have a country like Finland, which has
Speaker 1: had a couple uh school shootings. Um, they have five
Speaker 1: million people in the country. They have one the population
Speaker 1: that the United States has. You know, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like people if you with the news media compared the
Speaker 1: number of murders in Rhode Island or let's say, Wyoming
Speaker 1: with Texas or California, presumably not. You know, if you're
Speaker 1: going to compare it across states, people know you'd put
Speaker 1: it in per capita terms, but for some reason they
Speaker 1: refuse to do that when when they're talking about these
Speaker 1: mass public shootings, probably because it's about the narrative as
Speaker 1: opposed to getting the truth out to the public. You know,
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you, is the contigient or the
Speaker 1: copy of cat affects real with some of these when
Speaker 1: you look at the public mass shootings like these school shooters,
Speaker 1: or is that a real thing? There's no doubt. I
Speaker 1: mean you just have to read their diaries and manifestos
Speaker 1: and other things that they leave time after time after time.
Speaker 1: The murderers will say, if I can only kill more
Speaker 1: people than such and such killed, I can get more
Speaker 1: media attention. So you look at the Sandy Hook killer.
Speaker 1: He had He had been planning his attack for over
Speaker 1: two and a half years. According to police, he had
Speaker 1: put together the equivalent of a doctoral dissertation where he
Speaker 1: had looked at mass public shootings over the previous forty years. UM.
Speaker 1: He had apparently graft out the relationship between the number
Speaker 1: of people killed in attacks and the amount of media
Speaker 1: coverage that they had gotten. In His goal, according to
Speaker 1: one police report, was to go and kill more people
Speaker 1: than the Norway killer had killed. He he the Norway killer,
Speaker 1: if you ignore the bombing deaths, had shot to death
Speaker 1: sixty seven people. That's more than any mass public shooting
Speaker 1: in the United States. And uh, and he was hoping
Speaker 1: that if he could kill more people than the Norway
Speaker 1: killer had killed, that he could get even more worldwide
Speaker 1: media attention. UM. You know, at some point along the line,
Speaker 1: I mean, we've always had people who want to go
Speaker 1: and commit suicide, but at some point along the line,
Speaker 1: several decades ago, UM, there were a group of people
Speaker 1: that knew they wanted to go and commit suicide, but
Speaker 1: realized that they could commit suicide in a way that
Speaker 1: people at least would know that they were here. And Uh,
Speaker 1: they talked about, well, my name will be in the
Speaker 1: history books. People will know that I was important, Um,
Speaker 1: that I mannered so many When you read the diaries
Speaker 1: or statements from these other murders, Um, they just don't
Speaker 1: feel appreciated. Uh. You know, women won't go out on
Speaker 1: dates with them or something, or they you know, people
Speaker 1: won't be their friends or whatever. Um. And you know,
Speaker 1: you read the diaries and stuff, and you realize, well,
Speaker 1: there's a pretty good reason why people your friend, you're
Speaker 1: a really strange guy. But the but they want to
Speaker 1: commit suicide in a way that people will know that
Speaker 1: they were here. And so they discovered that they could
Speaker 1: get massive news attention by killing lots of people, and
Speaker 1: so they planned these things. Six months is a short
Speaker 1: amount of time for them to plan it. Uh. Many
Speaker 1: of them plan for a year or two years or more. Um.
Speaker 1: And they pick and they go through detailed planning. Uh.
Speaker 1: They case places beforehand. You have, like you or a
Speaker 1: Batman movie theater shooter, he had cased multiple movie theaters
Speaker 1: before he went in there. He picked the one. There
Speaker 1: were seven movie theaters that were showing the premiere of
Speaker 1: the Batman movie within a twenty minute drive of his apartment.
Speaker 1: He picked the one movie theater that banned permanent concealed handguns.
Speaker 1: Um you see the same thing over and over again,
Speaker 1: the the Omaha, Nebraska mall shooting, or the uh St
Speaker 1: Louis mall shooting, or the Salt Lake City mall shooting,
Speaker 1: or the um uh the Portland, Oregon mall shooting. You
Speaker 1: may have, you know, five six malls in an area,
Speaker 1: and only one or two will have signs posting banning
Speaker 1: permier concealed handguns. And so where do they go? Well,
Speaker 1: and that's also yeah, the one that doesn't have or
Speaker 1: the gun free zones. And that makes sense because you know,
Speaker 1: if you just look at it from a common sense standpoint,
Speaker 1: if you're looking to inflict mass harm, you go to
Speaker 1: the easiest place to do it. So I feel like
Speaker 1: that's you know, common sense. Yet a lot of lawmakers
Speaker 1: can't seem to grasp that concept. But you talked about
Speaker 1: some of the background of some of these public mass shooters.
Speaker 1: What's the typical profile for what is there a typical profile?
Speaker 1: There's no typical age. You know, people are focusing right
Speaker 1: now because of a couple of recent attacks on people
Speaker 1: who are under twenty one. But if you look at
Speaker 1: all the mass public shooters over the last twenty five years,
Speaker 1: the most common age rage is five. The next most
Speaker 1: common age rage is thirty six to forty, the next
Speaker 1: one is umtet and then only at that point do
Speaker 1: you get to sixteen to twenty. Um. Uh. You know
Speaker 1: you have mass public shooters who are in their sixties
Speaker 1: out there. Uh. As far as other parts of the profile,
Speaker 1: they're overwhelmingly male. Uh. You know, like nineties seven percent
Speaker 1: or so are male. Um Uh. There are people that
Speaker 1: have no real political or religious views. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: we keep on hearing white supremacists. You have if you
Speaker 1: look at people who are anything from white supremacists, neo Nazis,
Speaker 1: or just people who are upset about illegal immigration. Uh,
Speaker 1: you get about nine percent of the mass public shooters.
Speaker 1: Um Uh. Muslims who are doing it because of radical
Speaker 1: views on Muslim things are about nine percent of the
Speaker 1: population to their make up about half of one percent
Speaker 1: of the population, but they make up nine percent of
Speaker 1: the mass public shooters. Um. But overwhelmingly you just have
Speaker 1: people who to commit suicide and who want to do
Speaker 1: it in a way that's going to get them attention. Uh.
Speaker 1: That's that's the overwhelming common view that's there. Uh. The
Speaker 1: other thing is, over the last twenty five years, over
Speaker 1: half the mass public shooters were actually seeing mental health
Speaker 1: care professionals prior to their attack. And yet and not
Speaker 1: one single case where mental health care professionals able to
Speaker 1: identify those individuals as a danger to themselves or others. Why. Well,
Speaker 1: there's a whole academic literature on that. Uh. And and
Speaker 1: the explanation is usually, well, um, people with mental health
Speaker 1: problems are usually on average, less violent than the general population.
Speaker 1: They're actually more likely to be victims of violence than
Speaker 1: the general population themselves. Um. And it's just such a
Speaker 1: rare thing, they'll say. They'll say, look, Uh, they're about
Speaker 1: two and a half in schizophrenics in the United States
Speaker 1: in any given year. And yet if you look over
Speaker 1: the last twenty five years, there's really only one clear
Speaker 1: case of a schizophrenic uh committing a mass public shooting
Speaker 1: and uh one other one. Whether is at least an
Speaker 1: argument to be made that he may have been Um.
Speaker 1: But uh, you know, if I were to say, okay,
Speaker 1: of these two point five million people, pick the thousand
Speaker 1: most likely ones to go and do it. Even if
Speaker 1: you get a guy who's in the thousand that you pick,
Speaker 1: you'll still be wrong nine out of the thousand times.
Speaker 1: And that's usually the type of argument that you see
Speaker 1: being provided by mental health care professionals. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: here's the thing. I have no problem with people spending
Speaker 1: more money on mental health care for people. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: just that, you know, it's pretty hard to believe that
Speaker 1: you're going to catch most of these people beforehand, or
Speaker 1: even a small fraction of them. And so to me,
Speaker 1: the question is, what's your backup plan? What do you
Speaker 1: do if you can't identify these individuals beforehand? And that's
Speaker 1: where allowing people to protect themselves comes in. If you can't,
Speaker 1: if you can't, if you really have very little hope
Speaker 1: of identifying these individuals beforehand, what what do you do
Speaker 1: if you can't catch them? Quick break more data on
Speaker 1: public mass shootings. I guess you know. My concern is
Speaker 1: when we start getting into some of the mental health conversations,
Speaker 1: like with the Senate proposal that they just put out,
Speaker 1: including you know, funding and encouraging of things like red
Speaker 1: flag laws. I mean, we just got through a time
Speaker 1: period with COVID where you know, I didn't get the
Speaker 1: vaccine right, and like Democrats wanted to find me, wanted
Speaker 1: to confine me to my home, wanted to potentially imprison
Speaker 1: me just for questioning vaccine efficacy, wanted to put me
Speaker 1: in a designated facility, and if I had kids, would
Speaker 1: want to take away my kids for me simply because
Speaker 1: I don't share the same opinion as they did on
Speaker 1: the vaccine. So the concern for me when you look
Speaker 1: at red flag laws or you give increased authority to
Speaker 1: mental health officials to flag people, is could they flag
Speaker 1: me simply because I hold different opinions than they do. Well,
Speaker 1: I suppose anything as possible. Look, as far as I'm concerned,
Speaker 1: you already have a better law on the books for
Speaker 1: dealing with this than red flag laws. Uh. They go
Speaker 1: by different names in different states. Uh. Oh, states to
Speaker 1: call them Baker Act or in California it's called where
Speaker 1: if somebody's concerned about the behavior of somebody, either that
Speaker 1: they believe that they're danger to themselves or somebody else. Uh,
Speaker 1: they can go and contact the police. The police will
Speaker 1: come in and evaluate if they have what's called a
Speaker 1: reasonable suspicion about the person. Uh, then they'll take them
Speaker 1: to a mental health care professional who will evaluate them.
Speaker 1: Either one or two will evaluate them, and then if
Speaker 1: there's additional concerns at that point, there can be an
Speaker 1: immediate hearing. Um. If you can't afford a lawyer, one
Speaker 1: is provided for you, and a judge at that point
Speaker 1: has a broad range of options. He can say, look,
Speaker 1: I'm concerned, Uh, I want you to go and see
Speaker 1: a mental health expert. Um, and then we'll have you
Speaker 1: come back in in a couple of weeks and we'll
Speaker 1: evaluate how your treatment's going. At that point. Um, they
Speaker 1: could in theory, take away somebody's guns. They could uh
Speaker 1: involuntarily commit you in the most extreme cases. Um. What
Speaker 1: red flat laws do is they sensely strip out all
Speaker 1: those protections that are there. Um. Red flag laws are
Speaker 1: virtually always used regarding concerns about suicide. And Uh. What
Speaker 1: happens is is that somebody will make a complaint. The
Speaker 1: complaint will be given to a judge. All the judge
Speaker 1: sees in front of them is the written complaint doesn't
Speaker 1: question the person. There's no cross examination that's there. The
Speaker 1: judge solely based on the written complaint will make a
Speaker 1: decision whether or not to take away a person's guns.
Speaker 1: So you don't even know that there's a complaint until
Speaker 1: the police show up at your house at five am
Speaker 1: in the morning. And uh, and then maybe within a month, Uh,
Speaker 1: there'll be a hearing in which to decide whether or
Speaker 1: not to make the order permanent or not. Uh. No
Speaker 1: lawyers are provided for you. You have to go in
Speaker 1: the higher one yourself. I've talked to lawyers involved in
Speaker 1: these types of cases. You're talking about legal fees that
Speaker 1: will be around tenth thousand dollars or so to handle
Speaker 1: a hearing like that. Um. And what you find is
Speaker 1: that the vast majority of people UH don't hire lawyers
Speaker 1: to go and represent them because the only thing that
Speaker 1: happens with the red flag law is that your guns
Speaker 1: are taken away. So you may value your guns, but
Speaker 1: you know, is it really worth ten thou dollars to you?
Speaker 1: A few people are going to say yes it is. UM.
Speaker 1: The problem is, if you are concerned about somebody being suicidal,
Speaker 1: is it really a serious solution just to say, well,
Speaker 1: I just I'll take away their guns. I mean, if
Speaker 1: somebody is suicidal. Uh, there's so many different ways that
Speaker 1: people can commit suicide, and the notion that's simply taking
Speaker 1: away their guns solves the problem is not a serious response.
Speaker 1: And they don't involve mental health care professionals in any
Speaker 1: part in the process. Only a couple of a state
Speaker 1: red flag laws even mentioned mental illness. And they don't
Speaker 1: even provide in any of these places for mental health
Speaker 1: care professionals to be involved any place in the process. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, I think it's a couple of things they're
Speaker 1: going on. One is, um, it's a lot easier to
Speaker 1: write a new law that doesn't have any civil rights
Speaker 1: protection than it is to go and remove uh civil
Speaker 1: rights protections from existing laws. Uh. And the other thing is,
Speaker 1: I think gun control people want to make laws that
Speaker 1: where they said, well, if we just take away the gun,
Speaker 1: then the problem is solved because the guns are the problem.
Speaker 1: And that's that's just silly stuff. I mean, it's just irresponsible,
Speaker 1: I think to frame things that way. But that's they're
Speaker 1: their modus operandi, that's the way they operate. That's the
Speaker 1: image that they want to get across to people, right,
Speaker 1: And I wanted to you talked previously for the red
Speaker 1: flag laws that states already have these laws on the books.
Speaker 1: Does every state have you know, some law you know,
Speaker 1: in lieu of a you know, a red flag type thing.
Speaker 1: Does every state have a law in the books currently
Speaker 1: addressing being able to take a gun away from someone
Speaker 1: who is, you know, maybe mentally deranged or whatever. Every
Speaker 1: state and the federal government has these Baker Act type laws.
Speaker 1: Every state does. Now. You know, if they were serious
Speaker 1: about dealing with mental health issues, what they would say is, Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe we need more funding for mental health facilities or something.
Speaker 1: Maybe they'd make some tweak I don't know what it
Speaker 1: would be because they never focus on that. Uh. Nobody
Speaker 1: kind of forces them to go and debate those types
Speaker 1: of issues. Um, but uh uh, you know I would uh,
Speaker 1: that would be my approach. But you know, if you
Speaker 1: have some problem, if you think that there's a reason
Speaker 1: you need this new law, fine state what it is
Speaker 1: and maybe we can make an adjustment to the existing law.
Speaker 1: But no, they won't do that. Their approaches to have
Speaker 1: this new law that kind of guts all these civil
Speaker 1: rights protections that are there. Obviously, had the federal assault
Speaker 1: weapons bad it was in place for a decade, What
Speaker 1: impact did that have and would banning air fifteens have
Speaker 1: any impact? Well, it didn't have any effect. Even studies
Speaker 1: paid for by the Clinton administration weren't able to find
Speaker 1: any effect on any type of violent crime or on
Speaker 1: mass public shootings. Um. And you know it's you know,
Speaker 1: the bizarre thing is you have after the Buffalo shooting, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, if you read as manifesto, Uh, he
Speaker 1: talks about using an air fifteen precisely because he thought
Speaker 1: it would get people the most upset. He knew that
Speaker 1: it would lead to more calls for gun control. Um.
Speaker 1: And uh you know he uh he bought a New
Speaker 1: York state compliant a R fifteen. Uh. New York has
Speaker 1: more stringent assault weapons ban than the original federal one.
Speaker 1: And so you know, we're kind of treated to this
Speaker 1: uh spectacle of Biden going to Buffalo and calling for
Speaker 1: an assault weapons ban and saying, if we only had
Speaker 1: an assault weapons ban, uh, we wouldn't have attacks like
Speaker 1: the one in Buffalo, and New York already has an
Speaker 1: assault weapons ban, and nobody in the press even asks
Speaker 1: him about that contradiction that's there. Um. Look, uh, when
Speaker 1: you go from the ten years before the assault weapons
Speaker 1: ban to the ten years that it was in effect,
Speaker 1: there's absolutely no change in the number of attacks mass
Speaker 1: public shooting is using assault weapons. Um. You would think if, uh,
Speaker 1: if the assault weapons ban were driving any dropped, that
Speaker 1: you would see in the number of attacks. Uh, you
Speaker 1: would see a drop in the percentage of mass public
Speaker 1: shootings using assault weapons because some of the people who
Speaker 1: may have used assault weapons so called assault weapons, would
Speaker 1: have switched to other types of guns. If you look
Speaker 1: over the last twenty five years of mass public shootings
Speaker 1: involve a rifle of any type, um, Uh, fifty eight
Speaker 1: percent involve handguns. UM. So they're not even the ones
Speaker 1: that are most likely used in these attacks. They could
Speaker 1: switch to something else that you can't have a drop
Speaker 1: in the total without a drop in the percentage of
Speaker 1: attacks using these so called assault weapons. In fact, actually
Speaker 1: during the band, the percentage of attacks using assault weapons
Speaker 1: it up, and after the band they went down, which
Speaker 1: is the exact opposite pattern. People can see all the
Speaker 1: data at our website at crime research dot org if
Speaker 1: they're interested, but um, you know it's if you go
Speaker 1: back and know how they put the assault ament's band together.
Speaker 1: Senator Feinstein had her staff go and look through catalogs
Speaker 1: of guns and put check marks next to the guns
Speaker 1: that they thought looked particularly threatening or what have you.
Speaker 1: There's no kind of logical difference in the guns that
Speaker 1: were there that they were doing. It was purely based
Speaker 1: on the list of guns that they named. There were
Speaker 1: based solely on how they looked. UM. Just to make clear,
Speaker 1: you know, now we're having some people like Biden talk
Speaker 1: about just banning UH. Semi automatic guns. As I mentioned before,
Speaker 1: the vast majority of guns owned in the United States
Speaker 1: are semi automatic. UM. The These are guns where one
Speaker 1: pull the trigger, one bullet comes out. It reloads itself.
Speaker 1: One pull the trigger, one bullet comes out. So if
Speaker 1: you're talking about different types of rifles, you have manually
Speaker 1: loaded rifles where you fire a bullet and you have
Speaker 1: to physically yourself put another bullet in the chamber, you
Speaker 1: have semi automatic guns, and then you have fully automatic
Speaker 1: machine guns. None of these mass public shootings have involved
Speaker 1: machine guns. None of the crimes generally are murder is
Speaker 1: generally involved machine guns. With the nineteen thirties has been
Speaker 1: like one murder with with the machine gun and UH.
Speaker 1: The thing is, though regular people benefit a lot from
Speaker 1: having semi automatic guns. There's a reason why almost all
Speaker 1: the guns sold in the United States or semi automatics,
Speaker 1: and that is, if you're attacked by multiple criminals, or
Speaker 1: if you fire and miss, or if you fire and
Speaker 1: wound the attacker but don't incapacitate them, you may really
Speaker 1: wish that you could quickly fire a second bullet, and
Speaker 1: and you may not have the luxury of time to
Speaker 1: manually reload your rifle there uh in order to fire it. Um.
Speaker 1: So you know, uh, I think a lot of these
Speaker 1: gun control laws that they push are more likely to
Speaker 1: make it difficult for law abiding citizens to defend themselves,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be uh stopping criminals. To be clear,
Speaker 1: I am not a gun owner, but I support the
Speaker 1: Second Amendment because all you have to do is look
Speaker 1: at history and see what happens once citizens become disarmed
Speaker 1: and tyranny takes over. And so for that reason alone,
Speaker 1: I support the Second Amendment because I think it serves
Speaker 1: on a check against tyranny, and it serves on a
Speaker 1: check of keeping America free. So that's why I support
Speaker 1: guns personally. You know how challenging is it as a
Speaker 1: researcher in today's political climate, looking at the media. I mean,
Speaker 1: how much missing formation is out there? You know, how
Speaker 1: much does that change the perception? And a lot of
Speaker 1: these conversations of just a lot of these reports coming
Speaker 1: from a place of you know, a lack of understanding
Speaker 1: or or from falsehoods has a huge impact. I'll give
Speaker 1: you one example. Uh. You know, the theme under the
Speaker 1: buying administration is that in order to reduce violent crime,
Speaker 1: we have to have gun control. You know, I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe it's just because I deal with these numbers all
Speaker 1: the time. I'm just astounded by the discussion. Let's an
Speaker 1: eight percent of violent crime involves guns. Now, I don't
Speaker 1: think that Biden's solutions even for that eight percent are
Speaker 1: going to be very useful. But you know, the way
Speaker 1: you reduce gun violence is the same way you reduce
Speaker 1: violent crime. General. You have to make it risky for
Speaker 1: criminals to go and commit crime. And you know, as
Speaker 1: you were alluding to earlier with prosecutors, you have district
Speaker 1: attorneys around the country were refusing to prosecute very violent criminals.
Speaker 1: You've had many urban areas over half even two thirds
Speaker 1: of inmates have been released from jail's. Uh, You've had
Speaker 1: police budgets being cut. Uh. In New York City, they
Speaker 1: cut the police budget by billion dollars a year. In Chicago, Uh,
Speaker 1: in they eliminated four hundred positions uh from full time
Speaker 1: law enforcement uh there in the city. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: they've had other restrictions on how police are able to
Speaker 1: go and do their job. You've had bail reform. I mean,
Speaker 1: the bail reform is just crazy. Um. You know the
Speaker 1: guy who drove his SUV through the Christmas crowd in Wisconsin, Um,
Speaker 1: he uh was facing charges he had been arrested for
Speaker 1: an attempted murder of the mother of his child with
Speaker 1: his car. He had tried to run her over. Uh.
Speaker 1: He was facing attempted murder charges. There. He was facing
Speaker 1: other felony charges. Uh. He's facing twenty five years or
Speaker 1: so imprisoned for all the different crimes that he was
Speaker 1: facing already. What are you gonna do. You're gonna the
Speaker 1: twenty five years in jail that he's facing didn't stop him.
Speaker 1: But if you go and say, well, if he kills
Speaker 1: six more people and and sends sixties some people to
Speaker 1: the hospital, Um, you know, we'll give him an additional
Speaker 1: uh six life sentences. You know, if he's already essentially
Speaker 1: facing he's thirty eight years old, uh, facing twenty five
Speaker 1: years in jail. Uh. The guy, you know, the guy
Speaker 1: is gonna be in his sixties when he gets out.
Speaker 1: Um Uh, it's almost as if he's already facing a
Speaker 1: life sentences there. Uh. And you have people you know,
Speaker 1: uh in New York or other places, they're facing long
Speaker 1: prison sentences. They get out with little or no bail.
Speaker 1: That's there. Is it surprising that they go and commit
Speaker 1: other crimes when there's really no additional penalty that you
Speaker 1: can put on them because they're already facing long prison sentences. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's just crazy stuff. But the bottom line is you
Speaker 1: want to you want to make it risking. Biden has
Speaker 1: given four major addresses on violent crime, um and uh.
Speaker 1: In those four speeches, he's never mentioned the district attorneys once.
Speaker 1: He's never mentioned all the inmates being released from jail's once.
Speaker 1: Um he uh, he goes. He's mentioned police four times,
Speaker 1: but when he's mentioned police, it's been in terms of
Speaker 1: them enforcing gun control laws. You know, if I were
Speaker 1: Biden when he gave his big talk in New York
Speaker 1: in February, I would have gone in and said, look, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you've cut the police budget by billion dollars
Speaker 1: a year. You know, is it surprising that you've had
Speaker 1: any increase in violent crime that's occurred here? It's insane,
Speaker 1: you know. To take us through, so said it has
Speaker 1: released their proposal on what they want to do on
Speaker 1: you know, guns, and in their way, they're trying to
Speaker 1: address the vol the shooting. You know, take us through.
Speaker 1: We kind of we already got into red flag laws,
Speaker 1: which is part of it. They want to try to
Speaker 1: increase and encourage states to administer red flag laws. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know they're trying to increase that. But take us through,
Speaker 1: you know, the rest of it. What do you think
Speaker 1: of it? What's your takeaway? Would any of it help,
Speaker 1: would any of it hurt? You know, kind of just
Speaker 1: take us through broadly, sort of what you think about
Speaker 1: what you've read so far on it. The devil is
Speaker 1: going to be in the details on what they do here,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, we're just gonna have to see
Speaker 1: what they end up coming down to. Uh in terms
Speaker 1: of the agreements, I you know, right now, it's a
Speaker 1: very vague sketch on on what they're proposing. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: they wanna Uh they're talking about things like, um uh
Speaker 1: having go after straw purchasers. I have no idea what
Speaker 1: they're talking about there. They're talking about um things like
Speaker 1: uh uh more strictly regulating uh licensed dealers. Well, okay, again,
Speaker 1: I don't know what they mean. I mean, you look
Speaker 1: at what Biden's done on something like uh licensed firearms dealers.
Speaker 1: He's adopted so called zero tolerance approach where he's having
Speaker 1: Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco on firearms and explosive experts agents
Speaker 1: go in and check paperwork. Biden has this description of
Speaker 1: licensed dealers selling guns out of the back of their
Speaker 1: store to criminals. And that's that's what's happening. And that's
Speaker 1: not what they're going after. They're looking to see whether
Speaker 1: they have any paperwork mistake, no matter how tiny, no
Speaker 1: matter how trivial, over let's say the last fifteen years,
Speaker 1: and if they find one mistake, you're out of business.
Speaker 1: It can be a very trivial, tiny paperwork mistake. But
Speaker 1: then they've already put thousands of of licensed gun dealers,
Speaker 1: something like five thousand or so out of business. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's just getting going. I assume when they get
Speaker 1: the new Uh. Ahead of the a t F in there,
Speaker 1: they'll go even more full bore on doing that. And uh.
Speaker 1: You know, UM, I don't know whether the Democrats want
Speaker 1: to try to codify that more or make it even
Speaker 1: more restringent or whatever that's going to be there. I
Speaker 1: assume the Republicans will push back. I don't know whether
Speaker 1: they will even come to an agreement on something like that. Um.
Speaker 1: So Uh they want to have changed the rules for
Speaker 1: people under twenty one buying a gun. Um. Uh. My
Speaker 1: understanding is from this, Uh, the Texas school shooter had
Speaker 1: a felony charge that was on his record as a
Speaker 1: juvenile domestic or at least a domestic violence charge and uh,
Speaker 1: and so they want to make it so you can
Speaker 1: go and look at the juvenile records. Look, if somebody's
Speaker 1: seventeen and a half and they commit a crime, do
Speaker 1: you learn something about them when they turn eighteen? Sure? Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't think there's just because you become eighteen, we
Speaker 1: don't learn something about things about you that you did earlier. Traditionally,
Speaker 1: what's happened is we've said if somebody makes, uh does
Speaker 1: a crime when they're fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, or whatever, Um.
Speaker 1: You know, people make stupid mistakes when they're young. We
Speaker 1: don't want them to follow that for the rest of
Speaker 1: their lives. And so we've sealed juvenile records that are there.
Speaker 1: So much of the gun control debate focuses on one
Speaker 1: particular or instant as far as I know, in the
Speaker 1: last twenty five years, Um, the Texas school shooting is
Speaker 1: the only case where we had somebody who had a
Speaker 1: juvenile record like that, who, in theory, could have been
Speaker 1: prevented from legally at least obtaining a gun. Uh if
Speaker 1: this had been including his records. My impression is that
Speaker 1: Democrats want to make this a ban for all ages.
Speaker 1: Um uh you know, and so you just have an
Speaker 1: additional thing that they put on that's going to disqualify
Speaker 1: people for life from only a gun. So you know,
Speaker 1: you've we talked about mental illness before. If if you
Speaker 1: have a problem, let's say when you're eighteen or twenty,
Speaker 1: and you're involuntarily committed, your ban for your life from
Speaker 1: being able to go and own a gun, it may
Speaker 1: have been a one time, transitory thing that occurred. Uh.
Speaker 1: You may be perfectly fine when you're thirty or forty
Speaker 1: or fifty but you're still banned for life from being
Speaker 1: able to go and have a gun. Um. So you know,
Speaker 1: I understand uh that we can learn stuff about people
Speaker 1: from their behavior when they're a juvenile. Um. The question
Speaker 1: is going to be where do you end it and
Speaker 1: how do you make sure it's ended at that point
Speaker 1: because once you kind of unseal these juvenile records and
Speaker 1: they're put into these other systems, I'm not sure how
Speaker 1: easy it is to go and remove it. So would
Speaker 1: the number one thing be to to stop these school shootings,
Speaker 1: to get rid of gun free zones? I mean, look,
Speaker 1: we we did a report where people can find it
Speaker 1: out our website at crime research dot org where we
Speaker 1: looked at all the discharges of firearms on school property
Speaker 1: from two thousand on um, anything from an axonal discharge
Speaker 1: by a police officer all the way up to a
Speaker 1: mass public school shooting. And uh, Um we have twenty states,
Speaker 1: including uh parts of Texas where you have armed teachers
Speaker 1: and staff. Of the schools in Texas have armed teachers
Speaker 1: and staff. But this attacker picked a school where teachers
Speaker 1: and staff were banned from being able to go and
Speaker 1: have guns. UM. So you literally when you look at
Speaker 1: these thousands of these twenty states, you have thousands of
Speaker 1: schools that have armed teachers and staff. You cannot find
Speaker 1: one attack where anybody has been wounded or killed anywhere
Speaker 1: near during school hours when teachers would be around. UM
Speaker 1: at as any of those schools where teachers and staff
Speaker 1: are armed. All the school shootings, every single one where
Speaker 1: anybody's been wounded or killed has occurred at uh at
Speaker 1: places where teachers and stay for a band from having guns. Look,
Speaker 1: you have two different types of signs that you put
Speaker 1: in front of schools. Either they have signs that say
Speaker 1: this school is a gun free zone, or you have
Speaker 1: a sign that says warning, select teachers and staff are
Speaker 1: carrying concealed handguns and we'll use them to go and
Speaker 1: uh protect students and others here at the school. UM.
Speaker 1: You know. UH, a lot of people, even Republicans, are saying, well,
Speaker 1: we need to have one police officer in each school.
Speaker 1: I don't think people appreciate what an incredibly difficult job
Speaker 1: having one person in uniform faces and stopping these attacks. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you have one person and only one person who
Speaker 1: is a gun and he's in uniform, he's readily identifiable. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, we talked about the Buffalo shooting. The Buffalo
Speaker 1: shooter had cased the grocery store. He knew that there
Speaker 1: was one arm guard there. He knew where the one
Speaker 1: armed guard was stationed in uniform. Who do you think
Speaker 1: he took out first? They know if they take out
Speaker 1: the one person in uniform first, they're gonna have free
Speaker 1: rein to go after everybody else because they're the only
Speaker 1: person with a gun in these places. You know, if
Speaker 1: you're gonna have a guard at a place, or a
Speaker 1: police officer, for for heaven's sakes, don't put them in uniform.
Speaker 1: Don't make them readily identifiable. If you're gonna have one
Speaker 1: police officer, make them a gym teacher or something. Okay,
Speaker 1: uh so they blend in, uh so that the attackers
Speaker 1: don't know who it is that they have to go
Speaker 1: and try to take out first. These attackers have real
Speaker 1: strategic advantages if you're if you're a police officer and
Speaker 1: you're guarding an elementary school. I mean, talk about a
Speaker 1: boring job. You know, day after day, week after week,
Speaker 1: month after month, nothing happens. It's hard to be on
Speaker 1: your hose all the time there. You don't have eyes
Speaker 1: in the back of your head. We're talking about one guard.
Speaker 1: It's very expensive to put one full time police officer
Speaker 1: in each of these schools and uh and the benefit
Speaker 1: is relatively small. And besides, if you have teachers and
Speaker 1: staff caring, you make the job of at one uniformed
Speaker 1: officer much safer because the attackers. You put your signs
Speaker 1: out in front of the school, warning the attackers, because
Speaker 1: what happens is the attackers have to reveal their position
Speaker 1: when they start firing at the officer, and they have
Speaker 1: to worry that maybe somebody behind them or to the side,
Speaker 1: somebody that they can't identify to begin with. Well, and
Speaker 1: we saw, you know, there's recently, you know, a Texas
Speaker 1: church shooting where a congregant was able to take out
Speaker 1: you know, so we've seen this happen. And there's also,
Speaker 1: you know, not too long ago at a party in
Speaker 1: West Virginia, a woman with a pistol was able to
Speaker 1: take out you know. But Dr John Lytte, I really
Speaker 1: appreciate your time, you know, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining the show. But just one quick thing. On our
Speaker 1: website at Crime Research dot or, we have dozens of
Speaker 1: those types of cases that you're mentioning. Rarely do these
Speaker 1: cases get national news coverage, and often when they do,
Speaker 1: the media gets it wrong. Uh. But just in the
Speaker 1: last few years, we have dozens of these cases up
Speaker 1: on our website. Uh, dramatic cases where if the people
Speaker 1: weren't there with their permanent concealed handguns we're talking about
Speaker 1: in public places, you know, they would have gotten national
Speaker 1: and international news coverage. These are cases where the police
Speaker 1: themselves have said that multiple people would have been killed
Speaker 1: if it hadn't been for the presence of the permit holder.
Speaker 1: So just in conclusion my debate, my guess is the
Speaker 1: entire debate that we have right now would be dramatically
Speaker 1: different if the types of stories that you were just
Speaker 1: referring to got national news coverage and even once in
Speaker 1: a while and even and also if you got uh,
Speaker 1: when they cover these mass public shootings, if once in
Speaker 1: a while they would go and mention we've had yet
Speaker 1: another mass public shooting where guns are banned. It's often
Speaker 1: the easiest thing for the reporters or whatever to go
Speaker 1: and check. Instead, they'll go and say, well, we think
Speaker 1: he used this type of gun, or we think he
Speaker 1: got it this way. Things that are often wrong. You know,
Speaker 1: these last couple of tacks, We've had multiple news stories
Speaker 1: about these guys supposedly wearing body armor. You know, Uh,
Speaker 1: the news media just completely gets this stuff wrong. They
Speaker 1: lie through their teeth and it's it's unfortunate, which is
Speaker 1: you know why we try to do segments like this
Speaker 1: on this show. Dr John lytte, I appreciate your time,
Speaker 1: Take care, sir, have a great day. Thank you. Dr
Speaker 1: John ly So. Trying to bring you a bunch of
Speaker 1: different guests on the show to really dig into a
Speaker 1: lot of the hot button issues, the issues that impact
Speaker 1: your lives and and obviously members of Congress, literally coming
Speaker 1: from your guns as law abiding citizens is worthy of
Speaker 1: the evan episode on this show. So I hope you
Speaker 1: enjoyed the show. If you don't mind leave us a
Speaker 1: review on Apple Podcast, you can rate us five stars
Speaker 1: as well. Please share with your family and friends. And
Speaker 1: I thank you so much for listening. And I want
Speaker 1: to thank John Cassio, my executive producer, for all the
Speaker 1: work that he does to put this together as well.