Red, Blue, and Brady

42: Be a Problem Solver

February 03, 2020 Brady
Red, Blue, and Brady
42: Be a Problem Solver
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Show Notes Transcript

This week, Brady handles how gun violence is a public health issue, and why diversity in research really, really matters. To do so, JJ is joined by Vice President of Policy at Brady, Christian HeyneJP Thomas, Senior Program Manager at Brady, and Dr. Daniel Webster, the Bloomberg Professor of American Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Today, Daniel is here to discuss everything from the boyfriend loophole to John Hopkins' free course on gun violence prevention.

Then, in our "unbelievable, but" segment, JJ is talking about why you shouldn't test strange guns you find in malls (seriously, folks), followed by wrapping up our time together with a selection of gun violence, and gun violence prevention, news from this week...and then a very special message from JP.

Mentioned in this podcast:

For more information on Brady, follow us on social @Bradybuzz, or via our website at bradyunited.org. Full transcripts and bibliography available at bradyunited.org/podcast.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255. 
Music provided by: David “Drumcrazie” Curby
Special thanks to Hogan Lovells, for their long standing legal support 
℗&©2019 Red, Blue, and Brady

Support the show

For more information on Brady, follow us on social media @Bradybuzz or visit our website at bradyunited.org.

Full transcripts and bibliographies of this episode are available at bradyunited.org/podcast.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255.
In a crisis? Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a Crisis Counselor 24/7.

Music provided by: David “Drumcrazie” Curby
Special thanks to Hogan Lovells for their long-standing legal support
℗&©2019 Red, Blue, and Brady

JP:   0:07
Hey, everybody. This is the legal disclaimer where we tell you the views, thoughts and opinions shared on this podcast belong solely to us, the people talking on the podcast, and not necessarily Brady or Brady's affiliates. Please note this podcast contains discussions of violence that some people may find disturbing. It's okay. We find it disturbing, too.

JJ:   0:45
Welcome back to Red, Blue and Brady. Today I'm sitting down with a round table of gentlemen with Cristian Heyne, VP of Policy of Brady JP Thomas, senior program manager Brady and Dr. Daniel Webster, the Bloomberg professor of American Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. We're all together to talk about how gun violence is a public health issue and why diversity and research really really matters then in our "unbelievable but" segment I'll be detailing, why exactly data and gun education matters, especially if you find a gun in a store dressing room. Then in our news wrap up, I'm sorry to say that I have a lot of sad memorials to mark as we enter Gun Violence Victims Awareness Week. Finally, we have a special moment as you bid goodbye. It's JP. Yeah, that's right. He of the golden hair and voice is leaving us. But that's for later. For now, let's jump in with Dr. Webster. Or as he prefers to be called Daniel. Well, I've already introduced Christian and JP but Daniel, could you introduce yourself to our audience, please?

Daniel Webster:   1:52
Sure. I'm Daniel Webster. I'm Bloomberg professor of American Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and I direct the Center for Gun Policy and Research there.

JJ:   2:02
So what initially got you started into studying gun violence into doing gun violence prevention research?  

Daniel Webster:   2:08
That's a good question. Well, I've been interested in a variety of social issues, and initially I was a social worker, right after undergrad years as a psychology major and sort of by chance, the Department of Social Service that work with was housed in the same building with the health department, and I found that they were incredibly helpful on the work that I did dealing with domestic violence and child maltreatment issues, and that led me to public health. And I eventually made my way to Johns Hopkins to get my doctoral degree and came there not to study gun violence I was interested in other issues relevant to injury prevention. But during the late 1980s and early 1990s, when I was there, Baltimore, like many cities in the United States, was really going through an unprecedented epidemic of gun violence that was really having a terrible toll on young black males in particular. And I decided when I was there, because our campus in East Baltimore is really a stone's throw from some of the most impacted communities. I decided that was the issue I was going to tackle because I thought it was so central to public health in places like Baltimore. Well, we've learned over that span of time, you know, dating again back to the early 1990s. And now that violence in one's community, even if you're not directly impacted in terms of being a victim, had an enormous impact on your health, your well-being that that really is lifelong kind of stress that you hold. So that is what drew me to it is a crisis right in  my backyard of where I was studying public health. 

JP:   3:55
And I'm sure that you probably have and could teach a class on gun violence in Baltimore. Can you tell us a little bit about the history of gun violence in Baltimore and how the epidemic has changed over the years?  

Daniel Webster:   4:06
Yes, that's a good question. So Baltimore has been challenged with violent crime for generations. And, you know, I think there's never one way to explain why Baltimore has been impacted. But race has a lot to do with it. Racist policies that affected that really constrained housing options, employment, educational options and the response to crime in Baltimore has been historically very much a lock him up. Kind of. You know, the problem is these darn people, and and so we just need to put more and more and more in jail. Baltimore is a Rust Belt city that used to have a large manufacturing base so that if you were not highly, uh, educated and trained, you could still make a very good living in the steel mills and auto production and other sorts of manufacturing. When that starts crater in the 1980s, in particular, what was left was illegal drug market. And Baltimore from the day that I got there, has always thought about this as a drug problem, and they were going to, in essence address or fix this problem by going after the drugs and those who were selling them. We've done research to show that it's a complicated issue, but a lot of that has been incredibly unproductive and in some cases made the problem worse. Short term and long term. So we're living with a heavy history of racism and misguided policies that really have not addressed these social, economic and political determinants of violence.  

Christian:   5:56
Yeah, and I think the way that you describe Baltimore is really eloquent, and I think it speaks to gun violence on the whole in the country, right? There's no, you know, as we say, there's no magic bullet toe solve gun violence. I think every city, every neighborhood and every community sort of experiences gun violence differently. One thing that's clear is that nearly every part of American life these days, though, is impacted by gun violence and for so long, field of research around gun violence has been a very small field. We have been extremely fortunate toe have to have you and and your team over Johns Hopkins. You know the work again when it meets been doing for years. But what was it like studying this issue and looking into this issue with a really small community of researchers and frankly, for a long period of time, without much help from the government to do so as well, right? Which will certainly dive in on as well.

Daniel Webster:   6:46
That's a great question. So it was both exciting and terrifying. Honestly, you know, I decided I wanted to address gun violence as a public health problem, used scientific methods to better understand the problem and what works to reduce it. I did not have a particularly good manual, in essence, to go by and relatively few people to look to as what that looks like. And I actually designed the first class in a school public health that focused on violence as a public health issue, and I literally had to make it up. I mean, of course, I drew from other other research and other thinking, and I also I think it's great that this field is growing now. It's very exciting to see new people with new perspectives involved in this one way that I think I've distinguished myself early and now is that I straddle multiple worlds. In essence, um, I'm a member of American Society Criminology as well, as American Public Health Association. And I think when you examine a complex problem like gun violence, you have to draw from multiple disciplines in perspectives. And so I've learned a great deal from criminologists have learned a great deal from economist as well as people within public health to formulate my own understanding of what it even means to say. Gun violence is a public health problem, and we're gonna address it as such. And I opened my class every single year challenging my students to continue to redefine and refine what that even means. And and I think we can get very comfortable thinking that, you know, these sanctimonious public health. People think they know it. All right. I'm humbled by the complexity and challenges of gun violence and hope. I continue to always learn so that each time I'm teaching my class, there's something new took to learn.

Christian:   9:05
Let me pitch. I asked a very long winded question a moment ago. Let me ask a very simple question. With all that is the backdrop. Do gun laws work?

Daniel Webster:   9:13
Of course, it depends upon what laws you're talking about and how they're enforced, and even, and this is something again drawing from the field of criminology. I think we have not examined enough, which is the legitimacy of the laws for laws to work. There has to be compliance, and typically we think of that as well. Darn it, you got to enforce them. And of course you do. But within the field of criminology, what we find is that there's less compliance with laws if people don't think they're fair. So that's really important. As we, you know, begin 2020 and looking forward and thinking about you not only have to pass laws, you have to promote their legitimacy and why it's important to comply with them. So I want to get back to your question. Do gun laws work? We have a very robust set of studies now that I think if we know anything, we know that requiring a license to be able to purchase ah handgun reduces the diversion of guns from legal commerce and used to criminal use. We've demonstrated that in a number of different studies that also translates into less lethal gun violence in terms of homicides. We even see lower rates of law enforcement officers being shot in the line of duty. And I believe again, the connecting point here is there's fewer guns that get diverted from legal to illegal use. Law enforcement are gonna interact with people involved in illegal activities. And if more of those individuals are armed, their likelihood of getting shot is higher. What we hope to do soon is to also see on the other side of that coin in a simple cross sectional kind of analysis of this, we see that places with robust handgun purchaser of licensing systems, um, fewer civilians, air shot by law enforcement. Again, most common scenario of those kind of sad events are law enforcement is dealing with an armed in the individual. And if licensing and all the data suggests that it leads to fewer, you know, risky, dangerous folks being armed than the likelier that they're gonna feel compelled to to fire their weapon at a civilian is less importantly, We also find that licensing lower suicide rates and again reminding our listen to any listener doesn't know this. But most of our gun deaths are suicides, so we have a really robust literature on licensing. Background checks are critical, an important foundation of on in any system of gun laws. They're certainly foundational to a licensing system. You know what I take away from our research on this is that requiring background checks across the board reduces again this important diversions of guns from legal t legal use. But you have to have more processes in place than what many states have done to date. That's why I wanted to mention this whole enforcement and compliance component. It's my own view looking at data and just says the expert in the field, is that we haven't paid sufficient attention to those two issues of making sure that the laws are enforced and there's compliance. We've tended to think about background checks exclusively as a screening process, so if if a prohibited person wants to go purchase a gun, they will be denied. What we haven't given attention to is the cellar. Are there adequate constraints on a potential seller to transfer a gun to someone without a background check or someone who is a primitive person? I think that's That's sort of the key. Why licensing is important, but I think we again. This is for future study and exploration is, you know, can you come up with models for background checks that air that promote compliance through a combination of enforcement, strong enforcement and public persuasion?

JJ:   13:36
So do you mean sort of more like carrot sticks? Sort of things or

Daniel Webster:   13:40
Yeah, it's it's, it's you need the stick, but you need to convey that this is important. And if if we've learned, you know, I try to draw lessons from public health success stories, I think the one that transfers best and thinking about the gun violence problem is our success in reducing deaths from drunk driving. And you give a lot of credit to mothers against drunk driving for not only making laws stronger that that that needed to be stronger. They both made sure that those laws were enforced through again their own robust advocacy. But they also, through public campaigns, change social norms. They made it completely unacceptable to get behind the wheel of a car. After you've been drinking, we need the same kind of public persuasion that you just simply do not transfer a gun that someone you don't know a stranger or someone that you might suspect may not be illegal, legal to have that gun without a background check. So I think those were kind of keys when we look forward, 2020 and beyond is how can we promote enforcement, promote compliance as Look, this is just a social irresponsible thing to do on the seller side of this, not just on, you know, the screening process that makes sense.

JJ:   15:04
And I think an area of your work that really shows this well is some of the findings that have come out of your stories in, you know, domestic violence and the boyfriend loophole.

Daniel Webster:   15:12
Absolutely. So we've done. We've been thrilled to collaborate with April Zioli, former doctoral student of mine. And we learned, indeed, not only is important to have a firearm restrictions for domestic violence, restraining orders, we learned that it matters how broad those protections are. You have to cover the boyfriends as well as the spouse is an ex spouse is way. Prove that within it with the data, you simply do not save lives Forster without covering that gap we also found in our research that you had to write your laws to basically require surrender of the firearms when you're prohibited. Many people might find this hard to believe, but some of the laws are written in such a mushy way that people prohibited from having them who courts there too dangerous toe, have them aren't legal, re required and compelled to actually surrender their firearms. So we were. I think that's really important and exciting research, certainly when we think about domestic violence. But I hope actually, there's a broader lesson here for gun violence in particular that you have to think. Are you really covering all the risky people? In this case, you were missing a huge amount when you cut out the boyfriend problem, the dating partner problem and do do you have laws and systems in place that had actually enable you to keep guns from the prohibited person? And I think that's that's where the, you know our eyes should be on that prize of making sure that the laws are written in a way that they achieve those goals.  

Christian:   16:52
And I think that's so powerful and just unpacking what you're saying too, it's not, a law on its own is not gonna work. You need to make sure that you have a system of laws that's in place that is using research to look at who is most at risk of dangerous behavior. And how do we create prohibitions around those individuals in a responsible way, temporary or otherwise? And how do we make sure that those laws also a robust enough so that we're not just doing things, feel good policies? But we're doing the actual work to get guns out of the hands that are most at risk of danger paper and you've created a framework to be able to make that happen. We just got to get out in the field to make sure that that states comply.

JJ:   17:30
So how do you think we actually, you know, go about creating this norm change?

Daniel Webster:   17:35
Yes, we and we've done research on that kind of micro level as well and seen that you you can put systems in place that radically changes what this looks like. So, yeah, all those pieces are necessary, and we should not get too complacent simply and feel good like, wow, we just passed this great law to protect victims of domestic violence. If we really haven't promoted the systems that actually are needed to keep victims safe.

JJ:   18:06
So I just want to jump back toe the issue of licensing, which you were talking about as well. And I just wanna make sure that our listeners understand licensing is something that has become excitingly so, a topic that so many people around the country are talking about. And, you know, we have presidential candidates, Democratic presidential candidates talking about a national licensing scheme. We have your research that showing just how effective licensing can be no permit to purchase at reducing violence in the areas that have them. I do want to take a step back. And just what does that look like? Because every state has a different thing. You know, there's licensing, there's registration, there's permit to purchase. There's permit to own. And I think, you know, I know I certainly can get confused with them. And I just wonder if you could give us a breakdown on what you think these look like in practice and what you think works the best.

Daniel Webster:   18:55
Yes, we've been studying licensing, and there's as I've indicated before fairly robust set of evidence now that really shows that these can have really important impacts in reducing gun violence. But as Christian noted. These laws look different from state to state, and it's worth talking about that a little bit. And there's even differences of opinion between researchers or or advocacy groups about what constitutes says, as an actual licensing system from the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. Our own minimum minimum requirement is that in order to receive a license or a permit, basically they're the same thing. To purchase or acquire own a firearm, you have to directly engage with law enforcement, issuing that license or permit. And I can't over in tow emphasize how important that is, the way our current systems operate, whether you're going to purchase a gun from a licensed gun dealer or even in states with comprehensive background check laws for what we refer to as point of sale, comprehensive background checks. All of that goes through. A licensed dealer of licensed dealer is not a public safety official. Their job is to sell guns. I believe, fundamentally that someone acquiring a lethal weapon, but that process should begin and be vetted by of law enforcement or Public Safety Agency. So that's that's sort of the minimum requirement. And why again, why I think we're seeing differences when you say OK, as long as we got background checks, it's all good. But that process begins with someone who is really their job is not public safety. Their job is selling guns. I just think that's a less rigorous process. So I really wanted to emphasize that now the important differences of how what licensing looks like from state to state, there are three states that have sort of the most restrictive or robust systems in place, those being New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts? In each of those cases, law enforcement issuing the license to purchase firearms not only looks at whether the person has a legal prohibit, er we refer to as, ah, prohibiting condition from keeping them from legally owning a gun. They can use their discretion to deny if they see something in that applicants background that suggested them that it would be a public safety risk for them to have a firearm. What might that look like? For example, let's talk about domestic violence restraining orders. You can have a domestic violence restraining order on you because you've done something very dangerous, including threatening the life of someone threatening to shoot them in a variety of other you know, horrible, violent things. But those restraining orders almost all of them, expire, and they usually expire within 12 months. You could look at someone's background and see they have two or three or four domestic violence restraining orders that have expired. Do you want to now hand them the gun now that their restraining order is expired. Where someone may have been charged multiple times with violent offenses, but through different, you know, legal agreements or some technicalities, those convictions don't occur or they get pled down to a lower level. Public safety officials can look at that and say, maybe we don't want this person to have a gun. The other ways that licensing varies a little bit is the fingerprinting requirement for identification. I think that's also important. So in my view, sort of the foundational aspect of licensing is you're engaging with law enforcement agency who's gonna vet the application and you're not gonna. We have better IDs than we used to. Thankfully, that's good. Fingerprinting, however, I think has been documented to be the best way to identify individuals and connect them to their criminal records. Because while someone might have, you know, a real  ID, so to speak, what the criminal history records look like may, the way they spelled their name or anything in those documents could vary. And people are missed. And there was a tragic example of roughly a year ago in Aurora, Illinois, with a mass shooting at a place of employment. Where an individual, that was exactly the scenario, he slipped literally slipped through the cracks because he was able to get Illinois's licensing system was not robust enough. Did not require upon fingerprints and subsequently they did find yeah, he had convictions from another state that should have disqualified him, but he went on to kill multiple people. So I think at a minimum, law enforcement agency direct interaction and fingerprinting. Now I think safety training some Some states also require that I think that's a good idea, but I think most fundamentally it's that direct vetting process. By law enforcement.

JJ:   24:17
One thing that, it's hard for me to get over in this conversation is how much I'm learning from what from the points that you're making in the research that you've done and how important it is for there to be so many versions of Daniel Websters across the country. Can you give us a little bit more information about what the landscape of research on gun violence looks like in this country? And of course, there was a lot of news recently about CDC and NIH funding and how that kind of plays into the general environment across the country.  

Daniel Webster:   24:46
Yes, very exciting breakthrough that, frankly, I was really surprised that that we had with this Congress. It's been very difficult to do anything with this Congress, and I was very pleasantly surprised to see that What is the landscape book like for many years, it's a relatively small group of individuals who were specializing in studying gun violence. I began to see a change after Sandy Hook tragedy, with more people being interested in in, um doing research in this area. Even more so, post Parkland and a growth of private funding and hats off to Arnold Ventures for putting a very substantial amount of money of private money on the table $20 million they hope to put more out and that grows a field. The 25 million that was dissed appropriated half of that for CDC, half for NIH. That will also help. So the field that was once very, very small, at least within public health is really growing, and I'm cautiously optimistic that it will continue to grow. We still desperately need more under representative minorities involved in research. We need to be very intentional about creating those opportunities, cultivating those relationships and and really giving opportunities for leadership in research for all communities.

JJ:   26:19
And why is that important?  

JJ:   26:20
Well, you know, particularly the social sciences. As a researcher, you bring your own life, history and understanding of life and experiences to the sort of questions that you ask how you interpret the data. I as a white male 59 years old. Right now, you know, I try to be very intentional about relationships that I, uh, have professionally and try to engage with people as directly impacted by the problem of gun violence in places like Baltimore, for example. But I didn't grow up in West Baltimore. I didn't experience both the horrific problem of gun violence, but also the horrific response to that gun violence, which was often racial profiling and policing and unfair processes through through policing, prosecution and criminal justice system. So people who have that lived experience are gonna ask. Different questions are going to collect different data are going to interpret that data differently. So, you know, I I want us all to be very intentional about creating a robust feel that is diverse with all kinds of perspective and experiences. We often talk about diversity with respect to race and gender, gender, general identity. I actually think it's particularly important that we get diversity by age, and and so that that's my own goal is you know, we really need to groom young researchers and in individuals with a range of backgrounds, particularly from from communities most impacted by gun violence.

JJ:   28:07
So do you think that part of the way this intentionality is being demonstrated is through? You know this purposeful reframing of gun violence prevention as a public health issue,

JJ:   28:17
I think in particular with public health. Something that we bring to the table is that we do in other types of public health problems may be the best example is illegal drug use is a harm reduction orientation to the problem. We're not about moralizing about. You know, someone is bad thinking about public health problems being due to so called bad people, we think about what environmental conditions are producing the carnage of gun violence. How can we strengthen those communities? How can we strengthen individuals so that they're less vulnerable to involvement either as a victim or a perpetrator? And I think one thing in particular that's really important on the public outside is we're problem solvers. That's that's our orientation. There is no one discipline within public health. When you go into a school public health, like Johns Hopkins, you will see sociologists, psychologists, economist, political scientists, epidemiologists, an array of people with different backgrounds. But what sort of brings it all together is we're trying to solve problems, and rarely do you saw problems in just saying, well, it's a problem of bad people, right? So I think that that is what is really important in public health. That, uh, certainly, um, an act of gun violence is a bad thing. And we don't wanna sugarcoat that at all. But if your soul orientation is thinking about this well, it's just bad people are. Solution has always tended to be a prison cell, right? And sometimes that's necessary. I don't want to suggests that we should never incarcerate anyone, but we've overused it. And there, there are better ways to create healthier, safer communities.

JP:   30:17
One of the best resource I'm able to provide to my students was actually created by Johns Hopkins through your Corcera course on gun violence prevention that I've taken parts of and my students have all loved. Can you give us a little bit more information about why you created an open source free program for people and young people to learn about gun violence and how you think that that is important in order to make this issue a public health issue and get young people involved?

Daniel Webster:   30:47
I am so glad you asked me that question. I would have been disappointed if I'd left this podcast without having a chance to talk about that. So, you know, we've been very intentional. We want to create good science. We always want to create good science at our center. We just now hit our 25th anniversary. We're very proud of that.  

JP:   31:05
Congrats.  

Daniel Webster:   31:05
Thank you. But I think one thing that is unique about our center while we always strive for scientific rigor, we're also always been very intentional. That research and those research findings actually get used so that we're solving the problem. Getting back to what I was just saying about this is what is unique about public health. We solve problems. So what? What we observed is that after Sandy Hook, after Parkland in particular, there was so much energy for change, recognizing like things, we clearly have deep, deep need for reforms and how we regulate guns and, more broadly, how we address gun violence. And we saw that that groundswell of so motivating to see not only young people, their parents, their grandparents and everybody was behind. Let's make change. We cannot tolerate the levels of gun violence that we have the United States. So, you know, we we don't stay inside our little ivory tower. We we try to engage with people who are trying to solve this problem. And we saw so many people that were so impassioned and so dedicated for change, but most of them, frankly, did not have the information that they really needed to understand the nature of the problem. And what we know about is what are the most effective ways to reduce gun violence in America. So we said we got it. We got to make this available and we gonna make it broadly available. We certainly worth thinking about young people when we created this, without a doubt. But we've been very satisfied that we created something that is accessible. So we're very excited about it. We, uh we are trying to give some updates. Now, we're actually about to launch something that we call a teach out through again through course era that takes 11 part of what's in our course air, of course, about licensing for handgun purchasers and really expand that out. So that will be coming out literally within the next few weeks. So really exciting site about that and hats off to my colleague Dr. Cassandra for leading that, because again, we think there's a huge gap between what where the evidence is and where we are. And the way you fill that gap is for that research to be used. We wanted to empower communities empower advocates to make change that will actually work.

Christian:   33:55
And what can our listeners do?

Daniel Webster:   33:58
Yeah, that's that's, a, that's a good but a difficult question. I think the most simple and direct thing I want them to understand is that gun violence is preventable the way most people experience gun violence is we turn on our computers or we pick up our newspapers and we see something horrific that has happened. Sometimes the horrible mass shooting. Sometimes it is a shooting that happened in community or in some cases, even a suicide. And we look at these tragic events. It's often hard to imagine how, how can that not happen, you know, and you get in a mindset, particularly as mass shootings increase that things are only getting worse and these air impossible. Well, the research that we have shows that there are a number of ways that indeed gun violence can be prevented. We have evidence of that, and it's not easy, but gun violence is not an inevitable aspect of American life. We can, there's certain aspects of our laws and culture that will mean that we will probably always have higher rates of gun violence in some of our other nations, western democracies. But we can be a society as much, much lower levels of gun violence, enacting policies and programs that are actually widely popular. And so people think about this problem as intractable because the problem is so complex. This idea, that bad people are always going to get guns and then the politically this it's just too difficult to do. And all of our research suggests that we should be optimistic that we can reduce gun violence, that there're many of the things that we find that are effective. You get very large majorities supporting those policies in both political parties, among gun owners as well as non gun owners. So again, I think the shorter message is gun violence is preventable, and among the population there is the the will to make those changes. So it really rests with holding politicians elected officials accountable to make that happen.

JP:   36:36
Thank you so much for joining us. It was an absolute pleasure. Having you here and even having in the offices has been really helpful for all of us, thank you so much.

Daniel Webster:   36:44
Oh, I've enjoyed it very much. Thank you.

JJ:   36:47
Okay, so this week's "unbelievable, but" is one that personally left me with more questions than answers. While at an Adidas store in Atlanta, a 10 year old found a gun in the dressing room under a bench. Now, unfortunately, this isn't a super novel thing. We get reports of guns found by children both in public and in their homes all the time. What is novel, though, is that to determine if the gun was real or not, the boy's mother fired the gun off into the air. Now this 22 caliber gun was loaded and a single shot was fired. That is not okay for so many reasons. You know, why shoot a gun disturbing if it's real? Luckily, no one was injured and only minimal damage was done to the store. But that is basically luck. Guns are dangerous, and if you find one, even if you think it might be fake, the way to find out is not to fire it. Especially not in a public place and especially not with children around.

JJ:   37:56
So this week is National Gun Violence Survivors Week, which runs from the first of February to the eighth. According to research released by the gun violence prevention group EveryTown, America's gun death rate is 11 times greater than that of similar countries. Early February is usually around the time that that number of gun deaths in the U.S. surpasses the number of gun deaths of all those other industrialized nations in an entire calendar year, the second month of the year. And we surpass it. This past week we marked a number of sad anniversaries. First was the anniversary of the murder of Hadiya Pendleton. Hadiya was only 15 and she was shot in the back and killed while standing with friends inside Harsh Park in Kenwood Chicago. She just taken her final exams, and she and her friends were talking about plans for their 16th birthday parties. A talented band majorette, she was a friendly, book loving girl, and she had performed for President Obama's inauguration a week before her killing. Second came the anniversary of the death of Ethan Song, who was unintentionally shot and killed at a friend's house. Ethan loved to ski, hike and place spike ball. Notably, he assisted his mom and finding homes for almost 100 abandoned puppies. His parents now run the organization Song Strong, which is devoted to actions that help keep kids safe. Something that we hope will help keep kids safe is the passage of more common sense gun laws, which I'm happy to say, Virginia just did. The Virginia House of Delegates passed seven common sense gun violence prevention bills. These bills will help keep Virginian safer. Implementing policies supported by a bipartisan majority of Virginians, like expanding background checks and ensuring the individuals who may be in danger to themselves or others are not in possession of firearms.   

JJ:   41:34
And now why We're all very sad today.We are sad. I, unfortunately, have become a victim of my own campaign to successful. First. Yes, yes, yes, yeah. So listeners. I'm very sad to say that I have just accepted offer to join the Elizabeth Warren for president campaign, and I will sadly be leaving Brady for the time being. And it's been an absolutely incredible experience. Not only hasn't been a great experience organizing in the gun violence prevention movement alongside so many incredible advocates, politicians, incredible students, but also learning so much on this podcast with all of you listeners. So I can't thank you all enough for the time, the effort you all put into this movement and and how much I've learned along the way. So I want to give a big thank you to everyone who's been involved in and worked with me throughout the last two years. Yeah, well, and I guess the main asked that we have of our listeners now is Thio. Carry on the hashtag replace J P slogan just tweeted at Elizabeth Warren, right? Just do everything you can tow hashtag replaced cheap J p So we can get him back here in our studios, in our offices. But in all seriousness you know, I have been at Brady Not a terribly long time, but getting to know and c j. P in the work that he has done it has been instrumental to our work. We're going Thio. We're gonna miss you gravely, buddy. And it's gonna be hard to replace you. It's gonna be hard Thio work without you, but we're thrilled. Excited about the big things that you got ahead of you in your future. So keep us in mind. Don't stay a stranger, and, uh and we're excited to see where you end up.

JJ:   41:34
Can you promise on air? That should Warren win the presidency, she's gonna come on the Brady podcast. Can you make that promise right now?

JP:   41:41
I will not make that promise because I'm a good organizer who will not make promises that I cannot keep. But I will promise that I'm happy to be a Madison Wisconsin, affiliate interviewer for you. Whenever you need me, let me know. And if I can help out in any way, you know I'm there for you.

JP:   42:01
Thanks for listening. As always, Brady's life saving work in Congress, the courts and communities across the country is made possible thanks to you for more information on Brady or how to get involved in the fight against gun violence, please like and subscribe to the podcast. Get in touch with us at BradyUnited.org or on social @BradyBuzz, be brave and remember, take action, not sides