Good morning, peeps, and welcome to ok F Daily with me your Girl, Danielle Moody recording from the home Bunker, Folks, I am very excited for today's conversation with our resident in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Mepzil. Jonathan's new book, What We've Become launch this week and him and I are going to be having a conversation in person in Brooklyn on February fifth at seven pm at green Light Bookstore.
And you know, in today's conversation, we delve into the ways in which we have vast differences not only in this country between parties, but also in terms of our experiences as it pertains to freedom, liberty, and justice for all. And what surprised me about today's conversation is how Jonathan's book really lays bare how white supremacy, privilege, and freedoms are wrapped around the barrel of a gun and have been.
And if that is the position of the right, then how do we reposition ourselves and the conversation about gun control in this country, gun control, gun reform, whatever it is that you want to call it. But what Jonathan's new book lays out is that painting the issue as a public health crisis doesn't provide us with the depth
and breath that we need to approach this issue. And sometimes, look, you can go at things right over and over again and wonder why you aren't making any progress, or because you've been going at something the same way over and over again, be afraid to pivot because you've already expended
all of this energy, time, research. And what Jonathan's book offers, and I just think that the entire conversation offers, is that we should always be open to the pivot, to the thinking about something new, because if what you are doing is not working, then you have got to change course. And his book, What We've Become, is exactly that, a change in course, a shift in narrative, and an opportunity for us to see the gun reform movement through a
different lens and through a different perspective. So coming up next, my conversation with our friend doctor Jonathan Metzel. Folks, you know that whenever we have the opportunity to chat with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel on his launch day for his new book, What We've Become, I'm so excited, folks. If you are in the New York area, on February
fifth at green Light Bookstore in Brooklyn. Jonathan and I will be sitting down in person for conversation about his new book and about you know, the state of the world and mass shootings and guns and all of those things. So do go to Jonathan meetzil dot com. You'll get all of the details I am sharing on social all of the platforms. Jonathan, Hello, my friend, how are you. Happy launch day?
To you? Thank you, thank you. It's it's been a thrilling, great, and you know, confusing day. I did PBS last night, I did a couple of pieces this morning. I'm just laying low here kind of waiting for all the other action to start. But this goes in all these ways. You know, you get a lot of you know, feedback because your ideas are out in the world, which I
think is really nice. I think, as I've talked about a lot here, this book has been really hard and challenging to write because I started in one place, and five years later it took me to a place I was not expecting. I started off as a complete advocate for public health based gun reform, and I still feel that way. I'm still a strong proponent of gun laws. But it made me think that we're missing the point a little bit. I mean, that's kind of in part.
The point of the book is that we're understandably, I mean, the book is about trauma and what it does to families and communities. We're shouting about injuries and deaths, but the other side is just playing by a totally different playbook that we are not responding to whatsoever, which is a playbook about power and authority and judges. And over the course of my book, people on my side kept saying, you know, now, by now eighty five percent of people
want background checks. The support is great. But while we were doing that, the other side was overturning public carry gun laws in thirty nine states, and we surpassed five hundred million civilian owned guns in this country, and the Supreme Court overturned even New York's public carry gun laws. And so there's a real disconnect between one side, which is arguing for health and morality, and I think this
is on the side of right. I mean, I'm very clear about that, but the other side is playing by a power game. And I just didn't feel like the public health response was enough really to what we're facing. I really think we need to change really the terms of the debate and the structure and what we're advocating.
So is it then too, because I guess, to your point, the public and I remember when there was like the shift to the public health debate, and I was sitting with other doctors several years ago talking about gun violence and you know, and how they wanted to reframe it and come from a place of heart in the same way that we would look at you know, heart disease and cancer rates, and you know, and and how they
affect different communities. To your point, though, when you're dealing with a group with the Republican Party, with maga supremis who feel that their guns are their power right and they are absolute about it, and because of their absolutism, we have an epidemic in this country. To you, is it then that democrats and progressives shift to a place of power? You know? Is it is it to be like the Republicans but for the greater good? What what
is that without? You know, obviously we want people to pick up your book, but what does that mean in terms of moving from a place of heart to power? In your in your mind.
Well, there are two levels of that, and I admit in the book, and I'll admit right now that they are in tension with each other. They're not the same. But I think there are two ways we have to think about that. One is that the problem that democrats are facing is much bigger. Like cigarettes were a public
health problem. People were smoking a cigarette in restaurants, people were getting secondhand smoke, and that led to a public health intervention, which is, let's hold the cigarette makers accountable. Let's show research that will convince people the second hand smoke is a danger. Everybody has an aunt or an uncle or a neighbor who has lung cancer, they're going to understand that same thing. With seat belts, seat belts. Faulty seat belts were killing people. Faulty cars were killing people.
Everybody drives. At one point, everybody knew someone who'd gotten in a terrible car wreck, and we could hold the car makers responsible. We applied that model to guns, really, as I tell in the book, starting in the nineteen nineties when that model mates, because at that time we thought, hey, it's worked for all these other things, and it was totally reasonable to think it was going to work against guns.
But the problem is what happened over the subsequent decades was that first of all, the gun industry was shielded from the kind of product liability lawsuits that would have made a public health argument really have teeth, which so it never really did that. But the other thing is guns are just a really fundamentally different entity than our cigarettes and cars. They tie into the racial history of the United States, They tie into really deeply North South politics.
Somebody in the North can yell gun control now, and somebody in the sALS will say you're oppressing my freedom and liberty and all this kind of it just means something really different. And so a public health model that was coming from blue state America just didn't make any conceptual sense. And I think over time those fissures get
to be much greater. So that's the bigger part of the story, which is that that argument really was something that the Nray understood and liberal America didn't, which is that you know, they could use the public health argument to sew resentment in the South like these people are coming after in ways that played out, for example in the pandemic, and it left us without adequate strategies for
the bigger issues that were happening. The bigger issues were that basically the right and the South were using the gun issue to overturn state legislatures, kick out centrists, take over the judiciary, which it was huge, And so part of the story is a health argument really was glossing over what was happening, which was that Red State America was sowing the seeds of authoritarianism using the gun issue.
And to me, that's kind of the main argument of the book is that a health argument made it hard for us to see what was really happening down here in Red state America because health seemed like common sense
to us. But health was a really useful foil for Red state America to do something that the health argument was never going to give you an answer to, which was take over the judiciary, takeover politics, and then use that as a missile basically to then take over Blue state America if you look at, for example, what happened
with the Supreme Court last year. So that's kind of the meta argument of the book is that a health argument we didn't see that, we didn't see what was really happening, how that was being used in Red state America. But then the second layer of the book is that I do think there's an opportunity. Now the NRA is kind of imploding on itself. People are really starting to wonder. I mean, here in Tennessee, we've had so many horrible mass shootings and people are wondering, like, where do I
go from here? And I think in red state in America, there's a hunger to say, give me something that I can use here and coming in and saying background checks and red flag laws that shite don't fly down here.
I mean that is government intervention and government databases. And so the other part of the book is I think we need a new agenda that actually speaks to voters who are going to be really important in the election, coming up with a who are like kind of blue and I mean, I'm sorry Red and purple state people
who want an agenda that speaks to their concerns. And so ultimately, I also do offer a lot of practical solutions in the book for how we can strategize ways to change guns safety reform in ways that meets the interests of gun owners. Basically, in other words, we're not against gun owners. That was a mistake that The New York Times made in the review of my book this morning. We're not against gun owners, but gun reform doesn't speak
to their interests. If we're rushing in and saying we need government regulation, you need to actually answer their concerns in a much more structural way so that they can materially see how that might be beneficial to them. So those are the two threads. But yeah, those are the two threads. But they're complicated.
No, no, no, And it's helpful, and I appreciate the way that you've laid it out. I have a couple of follow up questions that I think may help people get a little bit more granular in terms of what
it is that you're offering. So first, you know, when you say that what Republicans were doing in Red States was seating the ground of authoritarianism, right, and I'll you know, echo that, and add, you know absolutism, that there is no room right when when we're talking about authoritarian regimes, where we're talking about absolutism, there is no room for compromise, for conversation for anything other than what is being dictated to.
I wonder, however, because Jonathan, you and I have had conversations, you know, over the years where we lament the way that democrats message and I wonder if even us saying authoritarianism is that too big of a concept and a word for people to understand what it is that the right had been doing while we were focused on changing hearts and minds.
Well, here's a useful metaphor. COVID hit. Half the country assumed, here's a virus that's going to kill us as humans. We all are on the same side here. But Red State America and Trump saw it as an opportunity to play on the fears that have been fomenting really for decades under the gun lobby, which is these blue state people are telling you what to do. It's the government kind of telling you what to do. And so we assumed that a health message was universal. Everybody was going
to be on the same side about COVID. But the other side said, look, they're rushing in with the government, and the government is going to control your health. They're going to take away your freedom and liberty, your kids can't go to school, you're going to lose your job. And that place to red state resentment and anxiety, which is massively, massively mobilizing. It gets people to vote, It
gets people to push out centrists. Then when people get elected, it gets them to put in judges who are going to overturn, you know, like in Florida they put in an attorney general who is now banning vaccines and stuff like that. So it leads people, pushes people that anxiety about liberals coming in to take away your freedom and liberty. Now that sounds like a stereotype, but it sure is a prevalent one. And what I show is that's been building.
It didn't just happen in the vaccines. It's been building over thirty thirty years, really as part of the gun debate, and so again and again and again, the red state America would say, look, they're coming to take away your guns, and that would red state people would go out and droves to support people. And what the NRA and GOP did with that power is that they then put in place judges like one judge I write about was like thirty five years old, he'd never tried a case in
his life in Mississippi. His only criteria was he was a lifelong member of the NRA and he would vote for gun rights anytime. And that this all the way up to the Supreme Court and so they had a model of using what felt for them like liberal overreach to really sow the seeds of power. And that power was something that a health model was never going to refute, right, because they all of a sudden, there are all these lifetime judges who are supporting even the most seemingly ridiculous you know,
guns on campus, guns on park in parks. And so the gun debate really created a kind of foundation of power that really pushed out any reasonable people. And again, and the health argument, I believe in health, I believe in gun laws, but I don't think it's a counter to what we were seeing in the South, which is guns became a vehicle for really structural institutional power, and every time we would rush in and say we need more government databases and stuff like that, they would just
use it to gain more power. And that was something that was never part of our calculus and still isn't in a way.
Jonathan talk to us about you know, the story that you lift up in the book is one that is based largely in race, right and racism. And I think that oftentimes when we're having conversations, not you and I, I mean, like the bigger we are having conversations we discount how race and racism plays into and is baked into the policies that are being offered. So can you talk to us about how in your meta you know, layered plan, how you how you understand racism and race being at play.
I mean, it's it's at the core a story about race. A naked white man travels from Illinois where he really shouldn't have had guns. You know, this guy had been stopped by the cops a bunch of times. He'd gone to the White House and tried to jump the fence at the White House. He gets arrested, given over to the FBI. Is the FBFL. The FBI says he shouldn't have guns, and so part of the story is that if anybody else about a white man yanked this wankie, you know, they would have been dead or in jail.
And so part of the story is about the privilege of the white male gun owner. This guy kept getting his guns back. I mean, it's just unbelievable, Like he kept getting his guns back. The cops gave him his guns back, his dad gave him his guns back. Even
after the Yeah, he got his guns back. So part of it was about the stereotype of the white male gun owner walking around in the world being seen as a trope of freedom and protector and all this stuff in ways that other people just do not get that, right. I said, like, this would be a two page book if it was a book about a black man. A black man pulled this for five seconds and he's dead, and that you know, that's the end of the story.
And so I write about that a lot. So part of the story is about the body of the pre shooting white male gun owner. But then you know, something really important happens, which is he gets his guns confiscated, they give the guns to his dad, his dad gives him the guns back, and then he drives to Tennessee. Why does he drive to Tennessee. It's because in Illinois he can't have his guns legally, but in Tennessee he's
a legal white man with a gun. There's no gun laws in Tennessee in a way, And so part of the story was the allure of his freedom, his privilege, his esteem, like Tennessee mirrored his version of himself as like being a proud white male gun owner. So part of it was about how when he's in Tennessee, Tennessee mirrors his values because it reinforces his privilege as is, you know, embedded in his body and his guns. And
then he becomes a killer. And after the shooting, the state apparatus mobilizes to in a way support the rights of men like him the whole There's a gubernatorial election I write about in the book a few months after the shooting, and overwhelmingly they vote in a governor, Governor Lee, whose platform was we're going to have no gun laws. And so in a way, the apparatus saw the shooter as a reflection of their values in ways that made it just much easier for this shooting to happen again.
And so the third part of how race functions is at this structural level where it's really just the institutions reward even the most extreme, pornographic, pathological instances of when it's so clear that these white bodies and white guns are killing black bodies, which is really the story, we build these institutions that assure that this is going to happen again. It's an institutional story.
And I just you know, and I will say and thank you because the way that you laid that out was just you know, breathtaking, because I have to tell you that there for me when I listen, when I read, you know, and hear these stories, this is America fundamentally, through and through right, Like this is that the story that you reference? You know what you're writing. This is the story of America. It is about murtyring, subjugating, oppressing black bodies, like that is it? That is the birth
of this nation. It will be the death of this nation. And I, you know, I and I honestly I have to say that I have in this moment just like such clarity around the fact that, like, I don't think
that anything will ever change. I really don't. Like I think that there will always be I think that white men will always win in terms of this debate, because fundamentally it goes back to the founding of this country, about their toxic masculinity, about domination, about their exceptionalism, and that in that entire fantasy, psychotic fantasy, is tied up into gun ownership. And so you know, it doesn't matter how many white kindergarten children are murdered, it doesn't matter
how many. You know, they're just the cost of freedom. And if that is your and now assists, then I never see you being able to be moved.
You know, as I was saying before, The New York Times this morning called the book mild, and I'm really perplexed by this because to call it mild, you'd have to totally miss the race critique. Or maybe this is mild for some people. But what I write is that black Americans are also sold the false promise that if they two buy guns, they're going to have equality with
white people under the Second Amendment. And I really, really really take that down in the book to show that black Americans with guns is used as an anxiety to trope to sell more guns to white people. And it's really clear even when even when the shooting makes so clear where this is all taking us. And so we do see a lot of Black Americans buying guns, and that's part of why I argue that the health paradigm
is losing. The biggest, most expansive body of gun owners now are black women actually, and also liberals, progressives, and Black Americans, who for so long stood as like the hallmark not just of Democrats but of gun reform. They were like the people who always voted for gun reform because in the nineties. They had seen what guns did to their communities, but when so many white people started getting guns, they started saying, well, we better get guns as well. But this was I mean, the NRA is
an arms dealer. They're trying to arm both sides. And so what I show is the false promise is what we're selling to Black Americans is not the promise of equality if you get guns. Also, it's a way of stimulating more and better gun sales among white Americans. And to me, it's just such a vicious cycle because the outcomes are exactly what this shooting shows and reveals and
reflects and portends, which is hierarchy and death. And so in a way, I'll just say that ultimately, what I say is that the naked white body of the shooter, as you say, is a reflection of American choices and values in addition to a pathology of them.
Yeah, and I just you know, I would just add that, like, I don't think that black Americans believe that gun ownership is akin to equity. I think that black Americans are very aware that we will never fully ever be seen as equal in this country, and that you're going to kill us if we're unarmed, you're going to kill us. If we're armed. It doesn't really fucking matter. So at the end of the day, if I can do anything, any small thing, to be able to protect my family.
Was the thoughts of the Black Panthers and the reason why the Black Panthers were armed and talked about the Second Amendment and their right to be full citizens of this country. And it's just like, it doesn't matter whether or not you are peaceful or you are violent. The system of white supremacy that this country is built on is going to kill you, right, And that to me, it's like it's not it's not the oh, well, if I get this, then they will see me as a citizen. It's just like it doesn't matter.
Well, I'm going to fall back on a public health throw faith and after all this and I'll say that, you know, there's also forty years of research that shows that sixty five percent of gun death is gun suicide and partner violence and accidental shooting. So when you accept that logic, you're also inviting all these other risk factors. It really becomes like secondhand smoke. You're inviting all this risk into your house. So there's no good outcome about
more armament. I really don't think for anybody in a way. And but I of course I agree with you. I mean, the whole book is about my agreeing with that point, which is just that there's this false promise that's always changed. But think about that cycle, right, the false promise of I might as well arm myself because the societies against
me or the cops aren't going to protect me. I mean, there's a lot of very direct marketing to black people after the floor murder, But then the cycle becomes then to white people, hey, you better arm yourself because look who else is getting guns? And here's our latest gun which shoots even more bullets, even more faster, and stuff like that. And so in a way, it just becomes this cycle, which which I have to say, just historical precedent for countries that go down that path. It just
that does not end well. And so in a way, you know, I have a piece in the Huffington Post this morning that I'm not being a total fatalist. I do think there's a moment now where we can change this. I think the implications of the twenty four election are huge, huge. If if we put more nra Supreme Court judges, we're done. And so you know, voting for Biden here with this, if you're voting on this issue, that the choice is
really clear. So I'm not saying everybody's the same, but i will say I want people to recognize how we got here, so that it just, you know, it just feels like there's so much confusion now about how we got here, and I want to kind of open people's eyes a little bit.
Jonathan, I tell you you are a gift. You're a gift to our weekly woke af commentary and conversation, and your writing and your thoughtfulness and your hopefulness is a gift to this movement. So we as always really appreciate you and your time. Folks. The book is what we've become and it is out now, so you should get it.
And if you are in the New York area, come and see us at green Light Bookstore in Brooklyn on February fifth, where Jonathan will be signing books, reading from his books, and him and I will be in conversation. Super excited about that. That is it for me today, dear friends on woke AF as always power to the people and to all the people. Power get woke and stay woke as fuck.