Guns Are A Democracy Problem

favorite quote from Martin Luther King Junior. And today I don't know. I am speaking to you as I prepare to head to Washington, DC to attend a Pride event at the White House, and I was trying to decide whether or not I was going to share publicly that I was going to attend the Pride event at the White House. And then I realize that if I'm keeping it a secret, or I'm just not sharing it in the way that I share most of things that I

do around work, then that means something deeper. I woke up this morning and was really wondering whether or not I was going to go. And there are so many reasons. There were so many reasons that I talk about on this show. But when I received the news that Representative Jamal Bowman lost his primary race to APAC, backed basically of Republican Light George Latimer, who was endorsed by Hillary Clinton among other Establishment Democrats, is pro Israel, which means

to me, your pro genocide. I was disgusted because this is what special interest groups with a lot of fucking money and a lot of fucking power do. They thwart the will of the people in order to advance their own interests. That race had nothing to do with the district that Bowman has been representing. It had nothing to do with the people in that district. It had everything to do with using power and influence to silence those that you don't agree with on an issue that honestly

everyone should agree on. Humanity right, how we navigate war, right, the rules of a fucking engagement. But APAC, along with establishment Democrats, sent a powerful message through Bowman's loss, which is shut up and get in line, and if you don't,

we will dispose of you. And so I struggle with going to a pride event at the White House while children are starving, while an entire group of people, millions of people have been run off their land, blown up, beaten, raped and tortured, all in the name of security and safety. And I posted on social media that you are never going to convince me that any of those acts are about securing safety for any one group of people. And

so I have very little pride in this moment. And I reached out to a friend of mine who was running down all of the things that the Biden administration has done for the queer community, the inclusion of queer kids in Title nine, the protections that Biden is trying to put forward, all of which frankly, can be rolled back right like as soon as Donald Trump would assume the White House, all of these executive orders, all of these advancements are gone. And so what does it mean

to have pride in this moment? I really don't know. I know that my initial reason for wanting to attend the White House Pride event was because, in my heart, folks, I honestly believe that this may be the last one, and I want I wanted to experience the White House with my friends, with my community for potentially the last time. And I feel selfish in wanting to do that. I feel complicit in the violence, in the greed, in the

dehumanization that is happening. But honestly, I just I find myself today at a loss.

If your life has never been on the line, if you have never waited with anxiousness and dread as a group of unelected black robes decide whether or not you are worthy, you are part of a privileged class. I just feel like everything around us is crumbling so quickly. It's like trying to hold water in your hands, and everything is just seeping through the cracks everywhere. Power, privilege,

and whiteness are winning. And so what does it mean to just want to pretend for two hours that we are safe, that we are okay, that we have the means to ride out this dark tempest that we're in. I don't feel celebratory. I don't feel hopeful. And I know that my ancestors experienced far fucking worse, and there are people alive right now that are experiencing the unimaginable. So what do we do?

And so the politics, the dark, fucking evil politics that are at play, it's just a lot. And it's like, do we allow this administration to continue the political maneuvering that they're doing because they know that a pack and other APAC backed organizations and foundations and super wealthy billionaires will oust him. Because at the end of the day, folks, Joe Biden's going to be fine, right, He's a wealthy, white powerful man in America. If he doesn't regain the presidency, he'll be fine.

We talk about a recent piece that was written by the Surgeon General on naming gun violence in this country is a public health issue, which is exactly what Jonathan's book, whose latest book, What We've Become, is all about, is how we need to reframe and how public health may not be the framing that is needed. That conversation is

coming up next, folks. You know that whenever we have the opportunity to sit down with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzl, we are always always thrilled and honored. And I will say, dear friends, I know Jonathan lied to you last week when he said that this week we were to talk about rainbows, puppies and sprinkles, But unfortunately wrong country for that. We're not in Finland, Norway or someplace else that seems nice and safe.

cheerful conversation. And I've been tweeting. Actually I've been walking on New York and like take like, I walk down my block the other day and there was there's this thing called like Opera in the Streets or something, and they had a stoop. They had a concert on the stoop where they were like these beautifully it's just incredible opera voices, singing arias, and like everybody was out there

with like their kids and their families. And then I walked another block away and there was a steel drum concert. They were doing like all these covers on steel drum and everybody was dancing. So I've been tweeting like here's what Fox News doesn't show you. It's just like how great it is here is there?

I always tweet like a picture like from where I am, like if it's at the park, or if it's like walking and passing like eighty seven strollers like on you know, like it's just it's so I'm like, I'm I would be more terrified to spend the summer in Tennessee and I would ever be to spend the summer in New York.

that like we're not friends or anything. But we were out of reception a couple of weeks ago with some of the Fox News hosts, Oh my god, and they were like yacking it up and everybody was like getting along and stuff like that, and then it was in Chelsea. Everybody went out with like everybody's strollers, like acuge group, people went for dinner, went for drinks, and then the next day they were on Fox News saying it's a hell hole. I'm afraid to like walk outside my door.

on healthcare or somebody else or something like that. And if you go in the green room at Politicon, like, oh, there's you know, I'm just making this up, but I mean and culture yaking it up with like the MSNBC host and Joy Read is like talking to like Sean Hannity, like it just kind of felt like in the back and there used to be this cartoon on the like bugs, funny kind of cartoon where like the member, the sheep, dog and the wolf would like they'd like get to

work in the morning. They'd be like, hey, Sam, how are the kids? And then they'd clock in and they'd beat the crap out of each other for eight hours and they'd clock out or something like that. And that's what it felt like like in the back room. Everybody was just like a normal person. But the market we've created, the market rewards people like hating each other, So there is a huge market for people thinking.

I think that what has happened is this decision, conscious decision that Rupert Murdoch made that was just like they're the enemy, right, because I don't ever believe that Democrats and you know, quote unquote, because I can't even call MSNBC progressive media because it's not. But I think that there was a time when mainstream media didn't see each

other as the enemy. It was Fox News that did that and so so out of that spin, then you've created this US versus them mentality, and that's what feeds their audience, because what they don't want to feed their audience is any semblance of the truth, which is that to the point of the article I'm about to bring up, is that we have more in common than they want us to believe. Like, we have more in common and want a lot of the same things, but it does not serve those in power. It does not serve the

one percent. It does not serve those systems to bring people together. There is more money and there is more power for them in divisiveness, and that is what they feed on, having turned our politics into a game of

sport as opposed to like a conversation around ideas. So that being said, you, my friend, are featured mentioned in a New York Times article that came out in the Health section today entitled Surgeon General declares gun violence a public healthcre isis doctor Vivek Murthy is calling for a multi pronged effort to reduce gun depths, modeled on campaigns against smoking and traffic fatalities.

public health. You disagree on this point. You've written a book right which we've talked about what We've Become, that talks about reframing this very idea. So set up why you disagree with this stance of guns being a public health issue.

That's the whole argument of my book. And I think there are three main ways that I kind of go crazy when stuff like this happens. To be honest, not again that I don't support it. I mean, if you just look at gun related injuries and deaths, it's over fifty thousand a year, which is a man made pathogen killing that many people in this country and injuring many many more. Is something we need to intervene into. But there are I think three problems that I talk about

in the book. Number one is that we convinced America that cigarette and faulty seat belts and all these things were health risks that the prevention model would work in that regard. And so, for example, if you go into a into a restaurant anywhere in the country and somebody lights up a cigarette, the whole restaurant's going to be like, no, dude,

you know. Second, if you get into a car and somebody doesn't like click it or ticket or whatever, you're like, hey, man, we're not driving until you put on that seat belt. So we convince people of this, but we haven't done that with guns. To understate greatly, I've interviewed so many gun owners, and they don't see guns as health risks. We failed to convince them. They see guns as protection, as protectors, protectors of their family. And that's for a

bunch of reasons. One is just decades of messaging from the NRA, but also the racial history of the United States, which coded gun ownership as a privilege of whiteness, and

so guns carry these different, very historical emotional symbols. And so for those reasons, gun owners the people who are going to be impacted by any gun policy, not only do they are not convinced by the prevention model, they kind of feel exactly the opposite, that public health is coming for their freedom and liberty, and so just calling it a health frame it reinforces the stereotype that often non gun owning liberals have, But it doesn't speak to

the people who are the people who're trying to convince to kind of follow the rules that we're convincing. And so part of the story for me is, if you really want to address guns, you have to address what it means to carry and own a gun. You have to address the history of whiteness and relationship to gun ownership. You have to do all these other factors. You have to build out infrastructures and cities to make them safer.

And we've talked about two weeks ago here and so in a way, just for me, the public health frame is very limiting. It doesn't do any of those things. And so a bunch of liberals, you know, like me, cheer and say, finally the Surgeon General is doing a report on this. But it's important to recognize that that convinces people very often who are already convinced and to

really intervene here. Its guns are. They're a much bigger problem than a public health from there a democracy problem, they're an electoral problem, they're a regional problem, a racial problem, and public health just doesn't do any of those things.

the firearms used were not stored and locked. We know that the CDC has come out and said recently that gun deaths is the number one cause of deaths for children in this country. So when the veach murthy, doctor Murphy says we need a multi pronged approach, can the public health peace be a part of that multi health prong or are you saying that no, it can't be

a part of it. It shouldn't be a part of it at all, because it doesn't have the range essentially to be able to address the very important points that you brought up.

I think public health is useful for. So it's not like I'm anti public health, but I can say that even if we had universal public health tomorrow, we would still have many of the same problems that public health does not address because guns are not just a health problem. That's kind of the argument of my book that guns really are a democracy problem. And I say that because the NA has used the gun issue to seat lifetime judges, you know, thirty five year old judges who have never

heard a case in some of these appellate courts. They use the gun issue to hijack our democracy. And so while we were rallying importantly for public opinion shifting around public health, the NRA was using the gun issue for a totally different agenda, which was anti democracy. And so while we were rallying to get to this point about public health, their strategy was using the gun issue to eat judges, to overturn elections, to overturn the will of New York voters, and the Bruin case and the rule

of you know ore again. Virginia, Ohio, there's a long list of voters want things in place about gun safety. But because these judges are radicalized, they're overturning not just gun laws, they're overturning women's reproductive rights and germandering and voting and all these things. So guns were a tool that was about power for the right, and the public health model was like, let's just all get together and save some lives, and that's great. I'm one hundred percent

before that. We have way too much gun injury and death. But if you don't see the bigger agenda of what's happening, you could have a warning on every gun in America and you'd still have the bigger problem, which is that while we were marching about gun safety, the other side was using the gun issue to seat judges across the country and Supreme Court judges and all these things. So for me, the public health frame just doesn't go far enough,

and we have to as we embrace public help. I just think we have to recognize the limitations because you're right, all that data about us versus the world, it's unconsortable. But it's also true that it's injury and death data will not show you the bigger real problem for me about guns, which is about, you know, you want to understand what gun politics lead to. Read Project twenty twenty five.

That's that agenda. Read what people are saying about if Trump loses the election, what they're going to do, all these kind of things. Guns are not just a health problem, They're a democracy problem. And to me, that's kind of what all my research points toward.

that guns are a real issue in this country. Like I think that those of us who have won to serious, necessary, aggressive gun reforms have just been met with a multi billion dollar gun lobby, have been met with politicians that we know are bought and paid for with their A plus plus ratings from the NRA, And so I don't necessarily believe that any convincing of the population which their positions and their desire to see change is not going

to happen with politicians who's gerrymandered districts and a lobby that has bought the federal bench. So I'm just like, meet my cynicism with possibility right now, I guess is the point is what I'm gonna ask Jonathan, because I don't see it.

wasn't given to other people, and carrying a gun in public meant whiteness.

about health. It's about power and privilege. And so yes, guns are killing and entering way, way, way too many people, but guns symbolize power for a lot of people, and so calling it a public health problem is not going to convince people if it's not also tied to electoral reform and judge reform and anti jerimandering efforts and all these things. And I guess I'm saying this because the

right recognized this. They recognize that they had like the perfect symbol of what it meant to be a white man. You know, nobody's going to take this away. The government's not going to take this away, and they have amplified this for decades now. And is calling it a public health problem going to address that? Or is it going to convince the people who are already convinced and marginalize the people who are who don't agree with it. And so the question is, I don't know for me that

polarization is the is the bigger problem. I'm not you know, in the book, as you know, I talk about a lot of ways I think we can address this that aren't linked to public health, right making communities safer, creating job and green programs, and all these kind of things, like looking at the ways in which we can actually make public space safer. That's always my answer. I'm a structuralist. But you know, again, I hope this does good. I really do hope this does good. I'm not rooting against it.

I'm just saying that I have a whole book of counter argument evidence, which is not an answer to what you're saying. But I just think that if we don't address these bigger issues, we're going to just keep being in the same feedback.

to see anything change in our lifetimes. I mean, when you see a classroom of children, kindergarteners whose names were just read out recently at the high school graduation that the Newtown children should have been at, but we're murdered in classroom and there's no change that happens in this country, then like I feel like we've just lost right. And I think then that's why so many people will then turn around, they will pick up their own guns and be like, well fuck it. If I can't beat them,

we can't beat sent into them. We can't show them the you know, And maybe we just should have begged those parents to show the bodies of their children, as mam Ma Atill did with em at Till's body, right, Like, maybe that's what we need because otherwise, you know, you have the right calling folks crisis actors and just you know, disregarding the lives of our children.

is not the case for me. I think if it's not tied to a long term strategy in the American zero sum political situation, it's just got to lead to reproducing the problems and so if public health is tied to electoral format, anti gearmandering and all this kind of thing. But the issue for me is when I talk to public health people a lot of times I'm like, oh, no,

that's politics. We're a political and I'm like, dude, this is a political issue, and so it's got to be you know, if this leads to more political engagement that is about the judiciary, then count me in one hundred percent. It's more just when people start calling public health common sense, that's I think we're being into trouble because it's not common sense for the people you're trying to convince to follow your rules.