Latest / Wellness, Actually with Emily Oster & Perry Wilson, MD / Understanding Gun Violence with Megan Ranney

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Understanding Gun Violence with Megan Ranney · Wellness, Actually with Emily Oster & Perry Wilson, MD

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  Speaker 1: You were listening to the Parent Data newsletter for Monday,
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  Speaker 1: July eleventh, twenty twenty two. Subscribe at emiliast dot substack
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  Speaker 1: dot com. Today's interview with Meghan Ready is on guns.
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  Speaker 1: We planned this interview after the horrifying shooting events in Uvaldi.
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  Speaker 1: Many people wrote to ask about guns, about their child's safety,
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  Speaker 1: about what they could do. I didn't think I had
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  Speaker 1: the expertise to talk about this, but I found immediately
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  Speaker 1: of Megan. She's a practicing emergency physician, academic dean of
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  Speaker 1: the School of Public Health at Brown University, and a
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  Speaker 1: longtime researcher on sticky social problems, including violence, mental health,
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  Speaker 1: and technology. She's also a friend, and I was very
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  Speaker 1: grateful she agreed to come talk with me about the
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  Speaker 1: data behind guns and gun violence. We purposely organize this
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  Speaker 1: interview at some distance from the events in Ubaldi, both
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  Speaker 1: to give processing space and also to make sure these
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  Speaker 1: issues of gun violence stay top of mind and do
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  Speaker 1: not arise only when there is a mass hue. In
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  Speaker 1: the end, we are recording this on the day after
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  Speaker 1: the tragedy shooting in a highland park, which underscores perhaps
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  Speaker 1: it is extremely hard to find a week free of
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  Speaker 1: gun violence in this America. I hope this interview with
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  Speaker 1: Megan will provide both some data to better understand this
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  Speaker 1: and some call to action. Megan, thank you so much
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  Speaker 1: for joining me. I'd love for you to briefly introduce yourself.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, Emily. It's a joy and a pleasure to
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  Speaker 2: be here with you today, albeit on a difficult topic.
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  Speaker 2: My name is Megan Ranny. I'm an emergency physician. I'm
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  Speaker 2: the academic dean at the School of Public Health here
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  Speaker 2: at Brown University, and I'm also a public health researcher.
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  Speaker 2: My research focuses primarily on the intersection between technology, violence,
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  Speaker 2: and behavioral health.
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  Speaker 1: Excellent, and we're going to talk about all of those
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  Speaker 1: things today. So I'm hoping to do really two things
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  Speaker 1: in this conversation. The first is to talk about some
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  Speaker 1: data on gun violence, and the second is to talk
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  Speaker 1: a little bit about sort of call to action or
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  Speaker 1: what you see as policy responses. But let's start with
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  Speaker 1: the data. One of the facts that people have heard
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  Speaker 1: a lot about recently, particularly in the wake of Yuvald,
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  Speaker 1: is the statement that firearms are the leading cause of
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  Speaker 1: death for children zero to eighteen. And I'd love for
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  Speaker 1: you to unpack that a little bit for us and
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  Speaker 1: help us understand what does that mean in terms of numbers,
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  Speaker 1: What does that mean in terms of causes of those
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  Speaker 1: firearm deaths? How much should I be thinking about that?
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  Speaker 1: Does it vary with geographic location and so on?
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  Speaker 2: You know, as a public health professional, I think we
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  Speaker 2: should always start with the data, and it's important for
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  Speaker 2: us to understand both the truth of that statement, which
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  Speaker 2: is that firearms are the leading cause of death for
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  Speaker 2: children age one through nineteen one through eighteen one through
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  Speaker 2: twenty depending on how you look at it. If you
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  Speaker 2: go up to age twenty four, firearms remain the leading
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  Speaker 2: cause of death for kids, teens, and young adults in
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  Speaker 2: those age brackets in the United States. You are a
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  Speaker 2: kid in the US is more likely to die from
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  Speaker 2: a gunshot wound than they are to die from a
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  Speaker 2: car crash or from COVID, right, so to put it
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  Speaker 2: in context, and that's a staggering statistic. As parents, we
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  Speaker 2: don't think of our kids as being likely to get
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  Speaker 2: hurt or died from anything, and it matters and deserves attention.
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  Speaker 2: At the same time, when you dig a little deeper
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  Speaker 2: into what the causes of firearm injury and death are
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  Speaker 2: it gets a little more complicated than just saying, oh,
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  Speaker 2: it's the leading cause of death. And I think it's
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  Speaker 2: important for us to talk about the causes and about,
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  Speaker 2: like you said, the geography and the demographics, because it
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  Speaker 2: then helps to inform evidence based solutions for this horrific problem.
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  Speaker 2: So when you look down kind of into the data,
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  Speaker 2: if we look at all data on firearm injury in
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  Speaker 2: the United States, most firearm deaths among kids and adults
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  Speaker 2: are suicides, which is something that most people don't know.
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  Speaker 1: Is that true among kids as well as among us.
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  Speaker 2: So in kids in particular, kids are more likely to
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  Speaker 2: die from firearm homicide than suicide, but suicide is making
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  Speaker 2: up a growing proportion of firearm deaths among kids, particularly sadly,
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  Speaker 2: among black and brown kids are increasingly likely to die
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  Speaker 2: of firearm suicide. Unintentional firearm injury or unintentional kind of
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  Speaker 2: when you get shot quote unquote by accident is not
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  Speaker 2: common overall in the country, but is relatively common as
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  Speaker 2: a cause of death among kids, largely because they find
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  Speaker 2: a parent's gun and pick it up and think it's
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  Speaker 2: unloaded or think it's a toy and then there are
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  Speaker 2: the mass shootings, and you know, when a parent hears
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  Speaker 2: that statistic about guns being the leading cause of death
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  Speaker 2: for kids in the US, many parents assume that most
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  Speaker 2: of those are these horrific public mass shootings, things like
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  Speaker 2: Uvalde or Sandy Hook, or the shooting in Aurora, Colorado,
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  Speaker 2: or what happened just the day before we're talking in Highland.
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  Speaker 2: But the reality is that those mass shootings are just
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  Speaker 2: a drop in the bucket of the gun deaths that
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  Speaker 2: happen in this country every day. And I say that
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  Speaker 2: not to say that those mass shootings don't matter, but
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  Speaker 2: rather just to put in context what it is that
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  Speaker 2: we should really be afraid of as parents. As parents, yes,
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  Speaker 2: mass shootings, we should work against them, But the real
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  Speaker 2: worry for our kids is the round firearm homicide, suicide,
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  Speaker 2: or if they're young, around that unintentional or accidental death.
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  Speaker 1: When we started talking about having this interview, the thing
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  Speaker 1: that came to mind. I think the thing I said
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  Speaker 1: to you was I want parents to leave both less
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  Speaker 1: afraid and in some ways more afraid, or more focused
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  Speaker 1: on the issues that we can try to address with
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  Speaker 1: some policy, not that we can't try to address math
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  Speaker 1: shootings but just to sort of focus in on on
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  Speaker 1: the set of policies that are going to think about
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  Speaker 1: these broader issues which are happening more frequently. So when
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  Speaker 1: we talk, when we sort of think about that context,
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  Speaker 1: are there particular activities that put kids at risk? And
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  Speaker 1: how should I think about as a parent trying to
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  Speaker 1: address those.
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  Speaker 2: So there are a few things that put kids at
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  Speaker 2: much higher risk, there are also things that lower kids risk.
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  Speaker 2: And then I think one of the really difficult parts
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  Speaker 2: around this conversation, Emily is that when we do think
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  Speaker 2: about those horrific never events, there are things that we
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  Speaker 2: just can't control risk of.
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  Speaker 1: And of course the terror of all aspects of parenting.
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  Speaker 2: Right, exactly true, and I think we have to kind
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  Speaker 2: of put our hands around that and then try to
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  Speaker 2: change that risk in other ways, which I know we'll
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  Speaker 2: talk about later today. So I'm going to think about
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  Speaker 2: again kind of firearm injury and death in terms of
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  Speaker 2: those buckets. So the first is firearm homicide. Kid's risk
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  Speaker 2: of being killed by a firearm because they're shot and
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  Speaker 2: killed on purpose by someone else is predicted largely by
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  Speaker 2: a few things. The first is sadly, where you live
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  Speaker 2: there's lots of data showing that kids who are killed
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  Speaker 2: in firearm homicide, most of them haven't happened within about
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  Speaker 2: one thousand feet of one thousand meters excuse me of
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  Speaker 2: their home. And so if you live in a community
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  Speaker 2: where gun violence is common, your kid is sadly more
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  Speaker 2: likely to get caught in the crossfire or to get
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  Speaker 2: involved in circumstances that put them at higher risk. We'll
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  Speaker 2: also say that black and brown youth in this country
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  Speaker 2: are disproportionately at risk of being a victim of firearm homicide.
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  Speaker 2: That's for lots of structural, economic, environmental reasons. It's of
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  Speaker 2: course related to our country's history of racism, and those
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  Speaker 2: are things that we can fight against. Risk of being
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  Speaker 2: a victim of firearm homicide is also increased if your
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  Speaker 2: kid is using substances or involved in communities that are
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  Speaker 2: and so there's another space where you, as a parent
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  Speaker 2: can potentially intervene. You can lower risk by moving, which
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  Speaker 2: is easier said than done, isaid than done. By getting
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  Speaker 2: your kid involved in extracurricular mentoring programs. Things like Big
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  Speaker 2: Brothers Big Sisters actually have been statistically proven to reduce
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  Speaker 2: the risk of violence for kids, and by creating environmental
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  Speaker 2: changes things like street lights community gardens actually reduce the
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  Speaker 2: risk in a neighborhood of gun homicide. So that's the
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  Speaker 2: first group. The second group is gun suicide, which again
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  Speaker 2: is a rising number of deaths among our kids. Most
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  Speaker 2: kids who take their own life with a gun use
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  Speaker 2: a family member's gun, the vast majority of them. And
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  Speaker 2: there are about forty percent of us in the United
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  Speaker 2: States who have a firearm in our household. And you'd
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  Speaker 2: better believe that your kid is where that gun is.
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  Speaker 2: I will tell you, as an er doc, sadly, I've
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  Speaker 2: taken care of more kids than I would like to
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  Speaker 2: have ever had to see who have taken their own
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  Speaker 2: lives with a parent's gun, and the parent always thought
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  Speaker 2: that it was stored safely. So the biggest thing that
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  Speaker 2: you can do to keep your kids safe from firearms
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  Speaker 2: suicide is to make sure that if you have a gun,
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  Speaker 2: it is stored in a way that the kid truly
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  Speaker 2: doesn't have access to it. It's behind lock and key,
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  Speaker 2: it's in a biometric safe, or it's in a safe
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  Speaker 2: with a combination lock that your kid doesn't know. Relatedly,
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  Speaker 2: you also want to make sure that if your kid
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  Speaker 2: has friends whose parents have firearms that those guns are
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  Speaker 2: stored safely too, particularly if your kid is going through
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  Speaker 2: a tough time.
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  Speaker 1: So I want to pause on that because I think
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  Speaker 1: for you know, as a parent, I can understand how
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  Speaker 1: I would store my gun safely if I had one,
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  Speaker 1: But how do I navigate this with my kids parents
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  Speaker 1: of my kid's friends. I mean, are we saying like
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  Speaker 1: should I be calling them and saying do you have
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  Speaker 1: any guns in the house and if so, how are
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  Speaker 1: they stored? That is a potentially awkward conversation, which I
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  Speaker 1: think is hard for a lot of people.
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  Speaker 2: It is a potentially awkward and hard conversation, and so
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  Speaker 2: part of it depends on where you are. You and
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  Speaker 2: I live in Rhode Island, where rates of firearm ownership
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  Speaker 2: are relatively low. If I were living in Montana, if
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  Speaker 2: I were living in rural Missouri, I would before every
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  Speaker 2: time I would be having those conversations with parents, and
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  Speaker 2: I would have it in a non accusatory way, the
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  Speaker 2: same way as like, Hey, does your kid have any allergies?
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  Speaker 2: Do you have a pool? If you have firearms in
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  Speaker 2: the house, are they locked up? The other side of
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  Speaker 2: it is that you can offer that yourself if I
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  Speaker 2: have another kid coming over, I can ask that parent
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  Speaker 2: does your kid have allergies? And just you know, we
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  Speaker 2: don't have a firearm in the house, we don't have
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  Speaker 2: a pool either. We do have a trampoline, So it
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  Speaker 2: can be part of that kind of discussion that we're
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  Speaker 2: all used to having. You know, if you're going to
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  Speaker 2: take my kid out for ice cream, does my kid
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  Speaker 2: need a booster seat. It's part of that kind of
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  Speaker 2: larger group of conversations about safety where you don't want
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  Speaker 2: to as I know that you talk about it, you
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  Speaker 2: don't want to overplay it, right, But there is a
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  Speaker 2: way to integrate that discussion into the larger group of
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  Speaker 2: discussions around food allergies, et cetera, et cetera.
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  Speaker 1: It's not unrelated to some of the conversations that people
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  Speaker 1: were having to have during COVID, which is, you know, well,
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  Speaker 1: are you, like particularly early on, what else are you doing?
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  Speaker 1: You know, are we going to see you? And are
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  Speaker 1: you are you involved in other high risk COVID encounters.
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  Speaker 1: So maybe we just need to all be more comfortable
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  Speaker 1: with those conversations and having them in a non judgmental way.
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  Speaker 1: But nevertheless, the way that we need.
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  Speaker 2: To that's exactly right. And I think that the non
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  Speaker 2: judgmentalism is critical. I do a lot of my work
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  Speaker 2: not just looking at the epidemiology and looking at technology
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  Speaker 2: predictors of gun violence, but also working in partnership with communities,
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  Speaker 2: and I work in partnership with communities that have fire
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  Speaker 2: our owners in them, because again, percent of Americans have
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  Speaker 2: a firearm in the home, and the reality is almost
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  Speaker 2: all firearm owners, like almost all non firearm owners, are
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  Speaker 2: responsible safe. It's not like that by choosing to own
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  Speaker 2: a firearm you're somehow stupid or unsafe. You take your
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  Speaker 2: kids safety and your family's safety just as seriously as
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  Speaker 2: someone who chooses not to own a firearm, and you're
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  Speaker 2: going to assume the best of your friends and their
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  Speaker 2: community and their parents. And I think that maintaining that
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  Speaker 2: non judgmentalism is critical for moving us forwards.
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  Speaker 1: Great, So that was I'm sorry to I interrupted you
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  Speaker 1: of your thing, but let's keep going with.
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  Speaker 2: What Yeah, so we talked about homicide. We talked about
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  Speaker 2: them suicide, right, So how to reduce your kid's risk
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  Speaker 2: of firearm suicide. That same discussion is also going to
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  Speaker 2: reduce the risk of unintentional or accidental injury PS. Telling
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  Speaker 2: your kid not to touch a firearm actually has been
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  Speaker 2: shown to not work. The best thing is just to
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  Speaker 2: make sure they're not around it unless you're standing next
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  Speaker 2: to them, right. I have plenty of friends and colleagues
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  Speaker 2: who go hunting with their kids, whose kids participating for
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  Speaker 2: each that's a very different type of environment. So outside
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  Speaker 2: of that, kids shouldn't be around firearms unsupervised, and a
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  Speaker 2: firearm should be locked up. And then the last part
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  Speaker 2: is how to reduce that risk of mass shootings. And
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  Speaker 2: that's a bigger discussion which we can get into, but
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  Speaker 2: I'll tell you what I discussed with my kids, which
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  Speaker 2: is we have conversations about the kids in their school
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  Speaker 2: and who's being bullied, who's bullying, Are there things that
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  Speaker 2: are making them concerned, Who do they have in their
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  Speaker 2: school to go to if they're worried about someone that's
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  Speaker 2: in their classroom, and making sure that we have those
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  Speaker 2: support systems set up for kind of see something, say something.
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  Speaker 1: That makes sense. I do want to get onto the
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  Speaker 1: sort of mass shooting and the gun control policy questions,
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  Speaker 1: but you know, one of the things that we highlighted
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  Speaker 1: in my pre discussion notes was the question of dating violence,
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  Speaker 1: and I I wonder if you would touch on that briefly.
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  Speaker 1: I know most of the people who are listening to
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  Speaker 1: this probably have younger kids, but it is also the
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  Speaker 1: case that people have older kids, and this for adults
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  Speaker 1: my senses, that is an important part of the conversation,
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  Speaker 1: and maybe for older teens as well.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you for asking that. When we actually look
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  Speaker 2: at risk factors for any type of firearm death, domestic violence,
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  Speaker 2: or dating violence, whether you're a perpetrator or a victim,
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  Speaker 2: Bullying and acute emotional crises are some of the strongest
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  Speaker 2: predictors of risk for women in the United States, starting
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  Speaker 2: at about age fourteen or fifteen. The leading reason for
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  Speaker 2: us to be killed by a gun is because we're
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  Speaker 2: shot by a partner. And so this gets into a
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  Speaker 2: broader discussion about how you help your kids of all genders,
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  Speaker 2: how you help to create kids that are able to
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  Speaker 2: both recognize risk factors, get out of a relationship, and
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  Speaker 2: help those around them, knowing that if they're not a
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  Speaker 2: victim of dating violence or domestic violence, there's a high
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  Speaker 2: chance that one of their friends will be. And so
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  Speaker 2: that gets into kind of a bigger parenting discussion about
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  Speaker 2: how you create that support system for kids, how you
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  Speaker 2: help kids to be aware of the risk factors. But
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  Speaker 2: as a parent, one of the biggest things is, God forbid,
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  Speaker 2: if your kid is ever involved in dating violence or
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  Speaker 2: domestic violence, to make sure that neither they nor their
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  Speaker 2: partner owner have access to a firearm, because that just
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: increases the chance of lethality by somewhere between five and
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  Speaker 2: twenty times.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, it's not on some of what you're saying
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  Speaker 1: in the sort of parenting space of this, I think
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  Speaker 1: echoes much of what we know about bullying and how
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  Speaker 1: kids are resilient around those issues in school, which is
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: that you having a supportive, open set of communication tools
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: at home which allow them to sort of express out
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: what is going on end up mattering for a lot
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: of different things.
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  Speaker 2: Say again, my kids are ten and thirteen, and I
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  Speaker 2: was definitely of the mindset of my kids are not
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  Speaker 2: going to be on social media, right, But then it's
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: how they all socialize. In particularly over the last two years,
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: as kind of in person socialization was less common, they
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: spent a lot more time on Minecraft and TikTok and
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: all those things. And I am actually a really big
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: believer and the data back set up, including my own
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: research data, that there are ways to have good conversations
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  Speaker 2: with your kids around social media, conversations about what those
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: group chats are, like, who's being bullied, who's saying what where.
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  Speaker 2: You're not telling the kids that as soon as they
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: come to you with a case of bullying, that you're
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: just going to shut off their social media use, but
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  Speaker 2: rather you use it as a chance to help walk
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  Speaker 2: them through conflict resolution skills and to provide support to
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  Speaker 2: their friends. Because you can do the very best that
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  Speaker 2: you can for your kid, but you're not the parents
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  Speaker 2: of other people's kids. Your kid can help their friends, right,
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  Speaker 2: and so that becomes then you know, I talk a
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  Speaker 2: lot in my when I talk about gun violence about
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: that being the terminal event. Right. People don't just one
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  Speaker 2: day pick up a gun and decide to shoot themselves
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  Speaker 2: for shoot someone else. For the most part, there's usually
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  Speaker 2: a long series of events that get them to that point.
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  Speaker 2: And yes, we want to separate them from the firearm
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  Speaker 2: at that end moment, but we also need to do
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  Speaker 2: the work to pick up on all those warning signs
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  Speaker 2: earlier and change someone's course. And so it does relate
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  Speaker 2: to the discussions about Bullen. It's a both and to.
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  Speaker 1: Both and all right, so let's turn to gun control measures.
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  Speaker 1: So I would love to hear your thoughts on sort
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  Speaker 1: of what our appropriate next steps. Congress has done some
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  Speaker 1: things in the past few weeks which seem at least
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  Speaker 1: in the right direction, but I'd love to hear what
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  Speaker 1: else you think should be done, and honestly, what you
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: think people can do if they would like to push
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: the agenda that you are suggesting.
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  Speaker 2: So here too, it is a both and The history
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  Speaker 2: of public health, as you know from your discussions around COVID,
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: shows that policies can be tremendously effected. Policies can also
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: be tremendously ineffective and can even backfire. There are some
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: policies that absolutely make sense. We have to start from
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: that kind of baseline, kind of level setting, Emily, which
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: is that there are about four hundred million firearms in
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: private hands in the United States right now. That's give
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: or take fifty to one hundred million, because we actually
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: don't know exactly how many there are, so recognizing that
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: there are a few things. The first is that things
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: like background checks absolutely make a difference in terms of
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: new purchases of firearms, making sure that people who buy
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: guns don't have any of those really well established warning
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: signs that that mean that they should be disqualified. The
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: second is having ways to get firearms out of people's
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: hands safely if they kind of cross over right, if
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: they're showing signs or have actually had behaviors that make
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: them higher risk. Those types of laws can be things
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: like domestic violence related policies like the partial closing of
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: the boyfriend loophole. With this new Senate policy. Here in
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Rhode Island, we have even stronger laws when someone before
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: you're convicted, when you have an ex parte domestic violence order,
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: in theory, the police can take someone's firearms away temporarily. Similarly,
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: there are these things called red flag laws, which allow
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: usually family or law enforcement to do something in the
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: short term when someone's showing impulsivity or suicidal impulses, or
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: if someone's having dangerous postings on social media, that there's
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: something you can do to separate that person from firearms.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: And then there's another whole series of laws around banning
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: certain categories of guns, around changing ages for firearm ownership,
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: around having stricter permitting procedures, particularly for concealed carry. Those
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: can have impact and have been put in place in
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: other countries effectively. But those first two groups of policies
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: that I talked about will help decrease risk for many
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: Americans effectively. Background checks, red flag laws, and stronger domestic
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: violence restraining orders will absolutely have a short term impact,
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: and we're seeing them make progress. The other side of
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: it is, in addition to policy, there also has to
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: be changes in social norms and in kind of the
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: education that we do around the policy. I'm going to
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: go back to those red flag laws for a minute,
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: because I think they're one of the powerful tools that
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: we have. The reality is is that study after study
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: has shown that even in state with red flag laws,
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: most doctors, most family members, and even most law enforcement
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: officers don't know that those are an option. So a
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: law is only as good as it's enforcement and the
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: behaviors around it, And if a community doesn't believe in it,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: and if a community doesn't use it, it's not going to
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: make a difference. Same thing for safe storage laws, which
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: I didn't mention in that list. Safe storage laws basically
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: mandating that if you have a gun in the house,
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: you have to have it stored kind of locked up
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: are associated with lower rates of kids being hurt. But
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of conflict as to whether the storage
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: laws follow good practice in a community or whether the
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: laws lead to good practice. So to me, the thing
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: that we need to do is to push for passing
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: good policy, for making sure that we have the ability
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: to manage who safely owns a gun, and for us
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: to also work really strongly on changing those social norms
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: around what safe and responsible firearm ownership looks like.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: And how can people support the work to do those things.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: So there's a bunch of different things that can help
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: support that. They range from activism organizations things like Mom's
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: Demand or every Town or Brady, to groups like one
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: that I belong to and kind of help start called
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: Affirm Research. It's a firm at the Aspen Institute that's
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: actually a partnership between fire our owners and non fire
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: our owners to help change conversations about identif find and
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: acting on risk in the firearm oaning community. Two things
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: like getting involved with neighborhood and community organizations, which really
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: does make a difference. Again, I mentioned putting in community gardens,
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: mentoring organizations, domestic violence shelters. All of those things helped
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: to decrease the risk as well.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Excellent. So before we end, is there something you wish
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: people knew or a misconception that you feel we must
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: fight against. Want your last word if you have one.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So, my biggest thing that I try to fight
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: against is the misconception that mental illness is what causes
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: firearm deaths in this country. Firearms suicides are of course
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: related to depression and hopelessness, but in general, most firearm
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: injuries and debts in this country are not really to
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: mental illness, and in fact, people who are seriously mentally
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: ill are not significantly more likely to kill someone else
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: than the average person is walking down the street. There
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: have been studies of mass shooters showing that one of
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: the biggest predictors is actually a history of prior violence.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: These are folks who have deep seated personality disorders, hatred,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: often white nationalism, as part of their creed. And we've
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: got to move beyond labeling the mentally ill, because that
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: just stops us all from making progress.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Good last word, Thank you so much for doing us
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate it.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: Sure can I do say one more thing. I think
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: you and I are recording this the day after the
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: July fourth shooting in Highland Park, and as a mom
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: as well as as a community member and as an
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: er doc, I think one of the toughest things to
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: grapple with is this kind of sense of those mass
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: shootings being unpredictable. We can put our kidden seat belts
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: and have our kid where by helmets. We can also
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: make really evidence based judgments about where to restrict kind
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: of where that level of risk lies, right, And I
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: think that you and I are actually pretty similar in
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: terms of letting our kids take a lot of risks
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: in life, because overall, the chance of them getting hurt
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: by most of these things is really small, and they
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: need to learn how to judge on their own. And
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: I think that one of the things that is toughest
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: about the topic that we're talking about today is that
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: that risk feels so unquantifiable. And my saying, yeah, mass
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: shootings are less than one percent of children dying from
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: gundas in this country doesn't feel sufficient when we think
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: about yeah, but it could be the parade that I
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: go to. So I just want to be clear to
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: the folks that are listening that I'm not trying to
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: say that either mass shootings or homicides or suicides don't matter,
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: but rather it's that we need to be able to
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: have our kids out in society and doing things, and
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: we need to find ways to channel our fear into
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: action and into areas of control rather than letting that
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: fear dominate us. Our kids are most likely they're more
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: likely to get shot in our neighborhood or even in
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: our home if we have a firearm in the home,
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: than they are in a school, in a movie theater,
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: or at a parade. But we can also take actions
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: to help reduce that risk when we're at a school,
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: a movie theater, or a parade, maybe not on behalf
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: of our individual kid, but on behalf of society. And
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: I think that one of the biggest things that we
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: need to do and that your listeners can be helpful with,
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: is helping us grapple with this legitimate fear and keeping
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: it from becoming a kind of dominating our lives and
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: keeping us from going out and doing things. And I hope,
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: if nothing else, that this discussion has helped move some
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: people forward into understanding kind of what the actual numbers
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: are and where they can go next to help create action.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Amazing. Thank you, thank you, thank you.