Unsustainable Outrage

This week, we received an update about the shooting of the twenty five year old teacher in Virginia by her six year old student, and I just don't have the ability anymore to sustain outrage, just from my own mental health and well being. That being said, I just am beside myself that a six year old bringing a loaded weapon to school, critically wounding their teacher is not receiving wall to wall coverage. How fucking broken is America at this point? This is the thought that just keeps consuming

my thoughts. I used to work, as many of you know who've listened to the show for a while, My background is in education, in education policy. I was an

elementary school teacher. I taught first in second grade for a couple of years before I went to Capitol Hill to work on education policy, And I have got to tell you that all I keep thinking about when I'm thinking about this six year old is a like my former students who are now totally grown kids, but like their faces and their inquisitive nature and the fact that I'm going to be honest with you, they're not adults by any sense of the imagination. They're not even tweens.

But they are learning right from wrong. They are understanding and learning about expectations, both by their families and by their teachers. You're learning your roles. What the fuck is going on when one a six year old has ready access to a loaded weapon knows that it is a weapon that causes harm? What is going through their mind when they packed that weapon in their bag and went

to school. That's the one thing. The second is why, why in God's name, if you are a gun owner do you not have your gun under lock and fucking key, like I'm talking like fingerprint style lock and key in your home, out of the reach and out of the sight of fucking children. How do we not have legislation?

And one of the questions that I will ask Jonathan, and he provides an interesting answer to is should we And again I don't know in what society this is going to happen in because we can't agree on, you know, the existence of climate change. We can't agree on, you know, fair elections. We can't agree on whether or not gravity exists,

like in this current fucking climate of America. But should there be the pursuit of laws on the books that would make it criminalized If your weapon is not under lock and key, a child gets access to it and kill somebody or critically wounds them, should you not be held liable because the responsibility is on the gun owner. I mean, I have so many questions about what is happening in that home, What is going on with that child? Were their red flags? Why is a gun just laying

a fucking around. There are so many questions that have yet to be answered and probably never will be. But I'm like, if you want to carry a weapon, if it's a fucking constitutional right to do so, must the

rest of us live in a hostage zone? Because I'm telling you, we are finding so many ways to make it certain that those that want to educate kids, those that want to be teachers and caregivers, are going to run from this profession Because I'm telling you that in this day and age, I would never My sister, as you all know, is a teacher. She's working at an

independent school in New York. And you know, thankfully the school that she is working at is currently, you know, very small and is really about you know, progressive ideas and all of these things. But that doesn't mean that the community is okay with that. That doesn't mean that I'm not concerned about somebody coming into that school and wanting to shoot it up. And that should not be

a thought. My sister never had to think about those things when she was teaching abroad, and I think it's absolutely insane that one of the things that has her wondering if she wants to continue with education in a

classroom capacity is her own safety. I don't know, folks, I don't know what the answer is, but I got to tell you that this story, among so many others recently about children being shot and shooting other people is just, yeah, I guess we have it outrage fatigue as to why this isn't making the kind of news that it should. I don't know. Coming up next my conversation with our friend Jonathan Metzel. Folks, you know that whenever we have the opportunity to talk with our in house doctor, doctor

Jonathan Metzel. I am always pleased, and folks, you know, I also want to shout out people who have been sending dms and tweets Jonathan to us about appreciating that our consistent conversations around COVID. I know that for some people that can be like, oh, why are we still

talking about this? Well, because five hundred people a day are dying still of COVID nineteen and so, Jonathan, I just want to say to you, I consistently appreciate our in depth conversations that we get to have on the issues that are just not being touched upon in the mainstream. That being said, another conversation that I am just blown away is not receiving the type of world of Wall media coverage that it should is the horrific incident that

happened in Virginia at an elementary school. A six year old dear friends brought a gun to school let off one round. Teacher twenty five years old, took a defensive posture put up her hand. The bullet went through her hand and into her chest. The child, now Jonathan is in custody. No idea what is happening with their parents? But I just want to open up my first question with you, which is just like, what the fuck, Like, how could this? And I say that I don't even

say it tongue in cheek. I'm just like, what does it say about a country where a six year old can bring a loaded weapon to school point and direct it at a teacher, critically injuring them, and it doesn't make the headlines? Well, you know, I mean, first of all, you're right, it is a horrible tragedy, and it's a tragedy on so many levels. So I just want to acknowledge that I'm not in any way making light of it.

But I would say that the headlines around this story were so bizarre, right, because first there's this thing six year old shoots teacher and you just think, like, what world am I living in? For? So first when you see it, it's like a six year old shot a teacher. That's insane. And then the headlines after that are the gun was legally obtained, Like the headlines last couple of days, it was a legally licensed weapon of the mother, right,

and so oh oh, that explains it. It was a legally obtained firearm that in that case never mind and so and then there's a discussion about like should this child be charged? You know, like and you just think, like, on every level, there's so much wrong. But I would say that it ties back to a lot of stuff we talk about when we talk about guns here, which is it's about habituation. Right, fifteen years ago, a story

like this would have been like a national reckoning. It would have been, um, you know, where have we gone wrong? Even like ten years ago. But it's just the level of the level of violence, really the level of everyday violence that we're used to, that all the debates after this are you know, should they have metal detectors and schools, Oh, they don't have them in every room whatever. I'm just like, like that, the metal detectors are not the fucking problem. Yeah, right,

like that. It's it's and and to your point, it's not even I don't care if the weapon was illegally obtained or legally obtained, the fact that you have a loaded gun in your frigging home that is not under somebody's lock and key, and that we don't have laws in Virginia or I don't know, Jonathan, you tell me, in what states do we have pause that require gun owners to have their guns under lock and key out of the reach of children, And like, you know, the

thing is like, you're almost not talking about a law here. It's so obvious in a certain kind of way. I know. But I'm like, if you can be held criminally responsible and or liable? Right, I don't know. I mean, the thing is like, I'll argue both sides of this, right, Okay, this case because on one hand, it would a criminal

would liability? Would would lock? Would Would it matter in this case if it's a mother, I think as I understand it a single mother, as as I'm not sure that's the story I saw, Um what would would would would it? Would it criminalizing the stop it from happening? Um, I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. But I can say the flip side not about this particular case. Um, yeah, this case happened obviously in Virginia. Virginia actually has some gun laws, not a ton they

used to have a lot more. Um. But but I would say the flip side of it, having not to do with this case, is about this question of liability and the reason I'm saying that is because we had a case here in Tennessee about ten years ago, which is I mean, like there's a there's there's no hierarchy. We're at the bottom of the horrible pyramid here. But the case we had here is a seven year old

shot a four year old from an unsecured gun. And I can say that there is The bigger issue is that in Tennessee, we tried to say, um, we're gonna we're gonna make parents, We're gonna make pass a law that parents have to lock their guns when their kids are around, um to prevent possibly prevent this from happening again. And I will say it was almost part. It was one of the reasons why I got into this whole

field is that Democrats agreed, Republicans agreed. Everybody agreed, we have to lock up guns when they were kids around. It was such an obvious case. It was called mckayley's law, and the group that I'm affiliated with, Safe Tennessee was one of the leads of this. It was happening like in rural Tennessee, and everybody agreed. The judge agreed that people agreed that the vote was going to be the next day, and somehow the day before the vote happened to make it a law that the gunners had to

lock up their guns. The n RAY sent in a ton of lobbyists and basically, they're very powerful here. If we if we kneecap you guys, you're never you know, we're going to run billboards again to you, we're going to come out against you. You're never going to see elected office again. And they threatened the people who were going to vote for it, and the next day all

the Republicans voted against it. Because the n RAY was such a powerful lobby they were going to vote they were going to vote them out in a certain kind of way. And so the issue is first of all, seeing up close the power of what that means, because they were not they were not they were not kidding, right, they really could have. You know, people who crossed the NIRA here, they're they're gone, right, They're gone, And that's

just the way the system works. So what I learned about this was, first of all, even something is uncomplicated as like let's lock up guns when kids are around, it's like this mentality of you give them an inch, you give them the whole thing. We're not going to give an anything. So this seems like the most obvious case. Number two is that if gun reform wants to get serious,

it has to actually buffer. It has to give a room for these people in the middle who want to do the right thing, like you know, we're going to mobilize to keep you in office, or we're going to all vote for you as a Republican or something something like that. Like, the thing is, the threat of losing their job was so real, the n RA power was so real that even in this case, it just turned the votes and we lost the case. I mean we

lost the case. I mean that that to me, like Jonathan, in this instance, right as you're talking, I'm thinking to myself, Okay, let me think about this through the lens of the is bullshit evangelical pro lifers who walk around towns with these horrific made up images of twisted bodies, right, twist twisted, twisted fetuses, Right, this is the thing that they do.

Everybody has seen this. How is it that we on the side of sanity do not use that same logic, right that say, which is illogical, but use it in a logical way. That is, how are you four seven year olds with guns? How are we not running then campaigns that say, if you are voting against a measure that is about keeping children safe, but you call yourself the party of Family Values, then clearly you don't want

children safe, you want them riddled with bullets. So why don't we have then Micailey's face and whomever's face that has been taken by gun violence up on these signs and saying, if you're voting against this, then you want children dead like that because because you want to go at it with the oh will rally around you and keep you safe. And I'm like, fuck you, because it's not about them wanting to keep their jobs. They want to keep power. That is, that's a completely different conversation.

That's exactly right now that you're exactly right. And what I would say is there's no counter to that power. Right, the n RAY is threatening to take away their power, but there's no flip side in a certain kind of way. I mean, certainly we rally after mass shootings and all these kind of things, but I would say that part of the issue the NRA. In the book I'm writing now,

it talks about how the left doesn't understand gunpower. That's kind of one of my arguments because even what you just said implies there are rational actors who will be swayed by, you know, voters who will see the images of these kids and stuff like that. But the thing is, the NRA has already leveled the playing field, I mean

as already one. It's like the n RA already owns the judges and the politicians right right, and so in a way, by the time it gets to the rational voters whose minds might be swayed, the whole thing is already the whole thing is already decided in a way.

And so I mean, part of what I'm trying to think about, and I don't know the answer, is like the gun safety movement needs to think much more about not just leveling with like the reason of people, but also like how do you get like upstream power in a way, because again there's this case and so many others, there's no counter Like the n RA can come in

and say we control the system. Either you agree with us, or you're kneecapped and you're swimming at the fishes or horseheads in your bed or cement cement, you know, ski boots or something like that, but there's no counter to that, right. The only thing we have is like a linked to people's moral thing to vote differently than they do and

unfortunately or to act differently they do. It's just like we're already way too downstream, right, So the question is like, how do you get up to the level of power where there's a stake to play at the level of power?

And that's the hard question for this gun debate, right, because like the gun rights movement always says like eighty percent of people agree with background checks, and that's great, but it does also doesn't matter because the other side already controls the judges and the politicians and the Supreme Court and all that stuff. And so the question is like, what does upstream gun safety power look like? That's a

really hard question, right. I don't know, but I think it's kind of in line with your question, right, which which is I mean, the nr I figured it out, right, They figured out the power is in judges. That that was their insight, and then they own the judges and my and my feeling is that, okay, so we're not going to get those judges back. Sure, we have Joe Biden as an office, right, now that has appointed more

federal judges than Obama did in his first term. So great, we're on the right path, except you know, we have to ensure that Biden gets a second term, and then we have to ensure after that that we have Democrats consistently down the line in order to be able to and we hold the Senate in order to be able

to get these judges approved over and over again. Right that, we have to over index in a way of judicial appointments in order to catch up with the way that the Republicans have been able to rewrite the judicial map. I believe, however, that we can actually own the narrative and the media and the information landscape that there has been no continued push except outside of these outraged headlines.

Right that then dissipate the reason why. And here's a question for you, Jonathan, like, why do you think that a six year old shooting their teacher and critically wounding them is no longer headline news? Is it? Because we needed that six year old to take out the entire fucking classroom? Because that's our bar Now, well, I mean, I'm not trying to make any moral equivalence. This is

a horrible tragedy. Uvaldi was even yep, bigger tragedy. And Uvaldi did get the media attention, and it did get the headlines, and it did kind of get some nominal legislation passed. But even then we went back to the baseline. And so I just think that the outrage about these cases, it's certainly what you have to do to mobilize your side, right, But I just feel like, I don't know. I don't mean to be too defeat us, but I mean, at times like this, and certainly I think there is something

about the media narrative. You're exactly right that the reason something like this disappear from the headlines. I have no evidence for this, but it's not an accident, you know, And that's what and that's what I think. Yeah, I agree with you. No, there's there's bots, there's disaformation, there's algorithms like, it's not disappearing from headlines by accident. Um, just like after mass shootings they disappear. And I think

it's not just people lose interest. I mean they do, there's science on that, but it's also that, um, there's something driving this out of the headline that I think is not an accident. Now that being said, I just think that outrage alone is not a motivator. And why

isn't not a motivator? Um, it's not a vote motivator because gun rights people vote much more reliably than gun control people, No doubt that that shown again again, even though the guns are a wedge issue, pro gun people will vote much more reliably um on the issue of guns, um than than other people other people care about other things. UM. So that's that's one thing. But again the other is

we're just three decades behind in the game for judges. Like, to me, that is the that is the entire story that and you and I've been talking about it, oh for like three years every single week, which is that absolutely Like, there's this horrible case, and then there's the Supreme Court of the United States where we've got three Trump judges who were A rated NRA and two other a rated NRA people and they're ruling. Last year, as

we talked about, made doing anything about cases like this unconstitutional. Right. According to the Stroom report, if Virginia wanted to do something about this, they would have to if they wanted to pass a regulation, that regulation would have to be in keeping with the desires of white men who wrote the Constitution like seven thousand years ago, and so in a way, the framework on which we can do something about it is just so much smaller, like we just

don't recognize that. And so I think the issue is part of the issue. And I know I say this all the time and it's probably like whatever, but you have to see where the power lies, right, gun power is identified power, and you have to kind of counter that with your own power. And unfortunately, even though moral outrage is important in these cases, and this case is horrible and it's just like, get me the hell out of this country. Is six year olds are shooting their teachers.

But I also think that you have to learn from the NA It was a strategy over the past four decades where they realize where power lay. And so I don't know, I just you mean, think about how many times you and I have said judges, judges, judges. Yeah.

I mean, it's just, you know, it is really hard not to have a defeatist and just a deflated, deflated emotions around this, you know, and just feeling like we as normal average American citizens are just being held hostage in so many ways by the zealots, and that there isn't any time that we're going to see in our

lifetime relief. Because if we're talking about three decades behind in terms of judge appointments, then we're talking about what having how many Democratic presidents in a row and holding the Senate for how long in order to get this in order to even even out, you know, it seems it seems absurd. You know, the the Gun Control Act of nineteen sixty eight was a pretty big achievement, right,

It was a pretty big achievement. I mean there were problems with it, right, but we passed legislation in nineteen sixty eight that did a lot of stuff. And even the Crime Bill in the eighties, which is or nineties, which is bad in a lot of ways. It had an assault weapons ban as part of the crime bill, the one that Joe Biden gets, you know, so much blowback about. But but when's the last time you saw a gun reform case go before the Supreme Court? We've

had tons of gun rights cases. I mean I can reel them off, you know, from you know, two thousand and eight, twenty ten, twenty twelve, two years ago with New York and then twenty twenty with New York, like gun rights cases go before the Supreme Court all the freaking time. When's the last time we had a gun safety case go before the Supreme Court? I don't know. Yeah,

no it hasn't. And so in a way, I just think that that's like the imbalance that we have to kind of see, which is it's not just about moral outrage, it's also about like all this other stuff. Now, of course you need you need a moral outrage to drive popular support, you know, to get there in a certain kind of way. But it just I mean, we're figuring

this out, but we just have we're paying. We're paying the price for I think a couple of decades of of not playing the game as well as the other side was, or not taking the n a seriously enough. Um twenty twelve was a big moment there. So I don't mean to like, am I bumming you out here? You kind of are, But I mean it's not you're not a clown. It's not your job to like entertain me into have lifted spirits. But at the same time, it's like it's the reality. Well, I mean, let me

be clear, students should not be shooting their teachers. Six year old should not have guns. You know, it's see it seems common sense. You know, it seems like a fucking baseline. I mean, like I just want to say that's the price of admission. I agree with all the points, like this ship should not be happening, But I would also say, like, so, where do we go from here?

I don't know. Just for me, I feel like seeing behind the curtain in a way makes makes it makes us feel less helpless because we can see that it's actually part of a strategy which we're not helpless about. We just have to have better strategies than we've had. I just you know, I will end by saying this, I feel so. I feel so and I don't even

know what the word is for parents and caregivers. Yeah, I just don't know how people in this country have the wherewithal to send their kids to school and not let lose their mind throughout their work day. You know that every time that their phone buzzes that it isn't some alert that's saying there was a mass shooting. Come identify your child, you know, but we can't tell you

at this time whether they're alive or dead. Like that just seems like par for the course of what it means to be a parent or a caregiver in America. And I'm just like, how, but also think about how this ups the ante, right, because when we think about school shooting, we think about the armed intruder. But now the school shooting is happening by the students. Right in a way, it's it's there's another thing for parents to

worry about. I mean that, but that had been the case with several of the high school shootings that we've seen have all been students. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. But this this isn't high school. Yeah, yeah, no, it's it's a mess. I mean, in a in a better functioning country, which in Brazil we are not at right now.

I'm sorry, in the United States were uh um, you know, this would be a moment of reckoning, Like you know, this would be a moment of reckoning about like save the children, which is like supposedly what like those other dudes are all about. But but that's not where we're at, you know. It's just every road leads back to Morgan's Yeah. But but I'm an optimistic, cheerful person, and I feel like we're going to change the tide here. At some point your book will, so, Harry, I didn't finish it.

My new book coming out January next year. Everybody, we'll hold on and wait until then, Jonathan. We need this book to be life saving and life changing. As always, dear friend, we appreciate your analysis and insight, and we'll talk again next week. God only knows what'll be in the headlines. Then well, I'll be, I'll be. I'll be dialing in from California next week so we can talk about climate next week. Wonderful. Great. I hope you won't be underwater or under a mud slide. And just to

remind everybody, I love puppies and lollipops are fantastic. I'm totally pro lollipop. I love Captain Crush with crunchberries. So you know there's other parts of me too, Yeah, that are joyful. Thank you, Jonathan. That is it for me today, Dear friends, on woke f as always, Power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.