December 14, 2021 • 26 mins
Kris Brown, President of Brady United chats with Jason about the impact of gun violence, the NRA and the legacy of Jim and Sarah Brady.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Righteous Convictions with Jason Flamm the podcast where
I have the privilege of speaking with people who see
the wrong in the world and are driven to make
it right. Today, I speak with a veteran of gun
violence prevention work who's been on a mission since her
early days advocating for the landmark uncontrolled legislation, the Brady Bill.
For me, my goal to live in a safer environment
(00:24):
where I can go to the movies, we can go
to concerts, we can walk in our neighborhoods and not
be afraid of being shot. It is about life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness, and if you're afraid of
being shot, you can't pursue those things. As the president
of Brady United, she continues to fight the n r
(00:45):
A for common sense measures, supported even by the large
majority of their own membership. Chris Brown right now on
Righteous Convictions, Welcome back to Righteous Convictions. I am so
(01:14):
glad that we're going to be doing what we're doing
today because we're gonna be covering a topic that has
been on my mind for a long time. It's one
of the most important topics in our society today, and
fortunately we have a guest Chris Brown, who is a
(01:35):
veteran of gun violence prevention work, and that's what we're
here to talk about. She began her work on Capitol
Hill working for Representative Jim Morgan advocating for the bill
known as the Brady Bill, a very famous Brady Bill,
and is now the president of Brady United. Chris, I'm
not going to read your whole resume here because it
would take too long, but let me just say that
(01:57):
I'm I really appreciate you taking the time to be
with us today. I really appreciate the time you're taking
to talk about this issue with me. First of all,
for those who don't remember, a lot of our listeners
are probably too young to remember, James Brady. Jim Brady
was the press secretary for Ronald Reagan. He was grievously
wounded in the assassination attempt on President Reagan's life, and
(02:18):
he went on to take his experience and start at
the Brady Center, which has been really the driving force,
I would say, in trying to establish same gun policies
in this country and prevent the senseless gun violence for
as long as I can remember now. But before we
even talk about the origins, where we're at and what
we can do about it. I want to know how
you got involved in it. For me, it's actually a
(02:40):
little complicated. I will say I am not a victim
of gun violence. I have not had family members shot.
When I graduated from college, I wasn't sure what I
was going to do. I worked for a congressional candidate
who was running for office. He won, and I worked
for him for eight years on Capitol Hill. During that time,
(03:00):
one of the issues that I focused on as a
young person was gun violence because we categorized it as healthcare,
and that was one of the issues I focused on.
So I was privileged to meet Jim and Sarah Brady
during that time. They were lobbying for change around the
issue of gun violence prevention, and I became educated and
(03:21):
already what was violence in America that really eclipsed other countries?
And then I got busy having a family, being a lawyer,
doing other things. It wasn't really until I lived overseas
in Switzerland's for many years, and the question I got
asked the first thing when they found out I was
(03:42):
an American, what's up with gun violence in your country?
Every person, it didn't matter where they were from. It
didn't matter their origin story. And we have to understand
as Americans that's the impression other people have about our country.
And I really oized, Oh, I've been in this system
(04:05):
so long, America, I don't see what it does to me.
We pay a price for this, whether we are directly
or indirectly impacted. I'm just thinking about you in Switzerland
with all these people coming up with their Swiss accents, um,
you know, asking you what is I can't do a
Swiss accent, but if I could, I'd say it was
a Swiss all this gun violence, and I'm thinking about
(04:27):
it too, Like over there, I'm guessing you don't have
to go through a metal detector to go to a concert, right,
or to go probably anywhere except in an airport ever,
not even there. It's a totally different world, and you
never think about it. And that's the thing to me
is you don't understand as a human being what it
is not to think about a risk. You can only
(04:52):
understand the impact of having to internalize a risk something
you're not even conscious of. It's somewhere in your sel
all yeller being until after you look back on it.
And it was a big deal to me to realize
I never thought about it, and I do all the
time here and there are others for whom it's a
(05:13):
daily struggle. I mean, in my other podcast, Wrongful Conviction,
I interview people, many of them grew up in circumstances work.
They would hear gunshots in the neighborhood when they were children.
It was just part of daily life. At least, I'm
guessing for you, it's a real fear. It's a real
fear for all of us because it could break out anywhere,
and these mass shootings, we become numb to them. I mean,
I remember sitting sobbing watching Sandy Hook that day. Was
(05:38):
just yeah, And I'm sure every every parent and everybody
who has a heart and soul must have felt the
same way. But that was probably the bottom for me.
But there's been so many others, and every single one
is is just a freaking tragedy. But okay, so the
question I have for you, Chris, is how the freak
did we get here? Right? Wasn't always like this, was it?
(06:01):
I Mean, there were muskets back in the day, and
there were people with those funny pants with the long
socks and the strange hats and then proferly shirts the
Yankee doodle dandies. Yes, there are those, We've seen those,
We've seen those images. But okay, so how did we
get to a point where we have we have more
guns than people in America? Is that right? We do
(06:23):
have more guns than people. And the way we got
hair was with a lobby, one that parades as a nonprofit,
that isn't the nonprofit the National Rifle Association, which with
their leader Wayne Lapierre, has really recast guns in America
since nine because before the nineteen seventies, all of us
(06:46):
were in agreement, including the n r A, about how
we should recognize the Second Amendment, which is, let's face
it about an armed militia and recognize public safety. And
the position of the n r A with Wayne law
Pierre at the HELM, really changed dramatically from how can
(07:08):
we protect public safety to how can we sell as
many guns to as many people as possible without regard
to the consequences. And that's what we see today. If
you look at the n r A magazine going back
thirty years, which I have spent time doing, what you
will see is something close to the Hunger Games. I
(07:31):
mean they're selling a dystopic universe, and we see this
with their political ads to where the only safe America
is one in which all of us carrying firearms in
our homes, in public life, to our Starbucks, to the
grocery store, because at any moment, our life could be taken.
(07:54):
And to me, this is diametrically opposed to some of
our notion in public life which we're all promised, which
is the commitment to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
And what we find today is, pardon the analogy, the
crosshairs between that commitment and a notion of the Second Amendment,
(08:18):
which is without limit, which allows anyone to carry a
gun at any time. And it's successful lobbying. I'm not
sure what to tell you about it, other than that
it's to sell more guns to as many people as possible.
It's an industry shift that we've seen that has corrupted
(08:38):
our public life in a really sad and material way.
(09:01):
I'm sure that your listeners would be really surprised to
know that we had a sixty increase in gun sales
during the pandemic compared to the prior year. A lot
of people are buying guns, Oh, my house is going
to get broken into. It's going to be this bad
Max to Stopia nightmare, blah blah blah, you know, And
I was starting to get caught up in it. But
I was like, Okay, I call a friend of mine
(09:21):
who's on the SWAT team, right, and I said, to listen,
I'm thinking about He was doing me a favor. Will
you don't buy a freaking gun? He goes, First of all,
no one's breaking in your house. He goes, I've been
doing this stuff for twenty years. People don't break into
occupied houses, and if they do, the last thing you
want to do is fire a shot. And we know
(09:41):
that people that do have guns in the home are
overwhelmingly likely more than nine pers at the time that
they shoot someone, it's a loved one or themselves. He goes,
Believe me, if someone breaks in my house, I'll just
show him around, take what you want, and get out
of here. Right. So, now we're at this place right
where people are, you know, the they see these tragedies
happening day in and day out. Many many many of
(10:04):
our listeners will have experienced personal loss as a result
of this. Not necessarily the mass shooting could be in
an up close incident, something in the home. Who the
hell knows, right, I've read so many stories about toddler's
a two year old sitting in the cart at Walmart
and pulling her mother's gun out of her purse and then,
you know, not knowing what it is, shooting and killing
her mother. Maybe it's a boy, I don't remember, but
(10:25):
these that's not even uncommon, right. I read that that
happens about three dozen times a year that a toddler
shoots their brother. I'm talking toddler's not eleven year old, right,
forget that problem, right, This is something that's very unique
to America. Ultimately, this is about family fire. This is
about kids finding guns in their own home. There are loaded, unsecured,
(10:50):
and if someone had them in a safe, unloaded, locked
with amy unition separate, it would never happen. So we've
normalized the idea in this country of keeping a gun
for too many people in their purse when their babysitting,
(11:14):
or next to their bed, or in a kitchen table.
And the problem is the kids are the people who
find those guns, and it doesn't matter how old they are.
You see videos about this, A young toddler they're index
finger that may not be the finger that can pull
(11:34):
the trigger. They'll figure out a way to make their
thumb do it. And so many kids have lost their
lives just based on that. I just pulled up an
article on toddlers and guns. This is from Fortune magazine.
I'm just gonna read a little bit of it. Toddler's
are somehow getting their hands on firearms, and the results
(11:55):
are favorite last year, toddler's children one, two or three
years of age, we're shooting people, either them, those are others,
at a rate of about one per week. Oh my god.
The Washington Post reports at the pace has since picked up.
This is two thousand six and first five months of
two thousand and sixteen, there's been at least twenty three
reported shootings by toddlers those are three years older lessons,
compared to eighteen the same time period last year. In
(12:17):
eighteen of those twenty three incidents, the children shot themselves,
and in half of those cases they died. Of the
remaining five incidents, two of them were failing. Like this
is insane. We gotta get rid of these guns. Oh
my god. Okay, so much of what well you do
with Brady is dealing with the aftermath of that, dealing
with families, and it never ends. What are the main
(12:40):
pillars now of Brady's work, So Brady continues Jim and
Sarah's legacy. Obviously, we have a bill that is pending
in the Senate, like far too many bills, honestly, to
expand the Brady background check system. We also work on
assault weapons bans and other kinds of issues at the
(13:02):
federal level through a big policy team that are amazing,
and in the States too. There's a lot of stuff
happening in the States right now to allow concealed carry
open carry that we fight and make a difference on.
We have a litigation team that has received over sixty
million dollars and judgments against gun dealers who violate the law,
(13:24):
and ultimately that we hope will really change the industry.
The last thing that is so important is Brady has
a legacy through Jim and Sarah, who are gun owners,
also Republicans of reaching out to gun owners. So our
and Family Fire campaign is about reaching out directly to
gun owners and spreading the message of safe storage of guns.
(13:48):
If we can do that, I think we have to
really focus on how we transform the conversations each of
us have with each other. How do we talk to
people who have guns? How do we change the dialogue
around that and allow us to get to a common ground.
I think for our issue, we are unnecessarily divided. Politics
(14:11):
may divide us, but for the most part on the
solutions we're aligned. We believe there should be background checks.
We believe that people should safely store their guns. We
believe that if someone who is dangerous to themselves or others,
there should be a way to remove guns temporarily. All
of that we agree on. Let's find a way as
(14:34):
Americans to talk to each other about that and have
people who represent us actually make that happen. This is
an unnecessarily divisive issue and it doesn't need to be
that way. And that's the legacy of Jim and Sarah.
That's why our tagline is take action, not sides. We
(14:55):
just want to get to a point where we save lives.
That seems like an eman the reasonable and noble goal,
and that's something we all should be able to get behind.
So there are great people, yourself included, doing courageous work. Right.
I'm sure you know you deal with a lot of
angry people who think you're trying to take their guns away. Yeah,
they're always white men. I'll just send almost every mass
(15:19):
shooting every time it happens, I'm like, I wonder which
white guy went out and took out his aggressions on
innocent civilians. Women don't shoot people. I've always wondered about that.
I don't have the answers to that. I mean, for
our focus as an organization, it's all about prevention and
understanding better how we can reduce the incidents. Part of that,
(15:41):
you're right, is understanding that for the most part, we
have this big divide right between genders around shootings. Of
the eighty thousands people this is yearly, by the way,
in America on average to our shot and live with
those injuries, about two thirds of those are suicide attempts.
(16:07):
White men are also the biggest victims of suicide. That
is something I am aware of. So the fact is
that this ready access to guns for someone who's experiencing
depression or a mental health crisis of any kind, or
who knows the heartbreak anything right at the idea that
you can just access that and make a rash decision
(16:29):
that then is going to end your life and destroy
the lives of the people that love you when all
you really need maybe is a freaking hug, right or
or or a good shoulder to cry on. And so
for us, if we are going to solve the epidemic
of gun violence as a data driven organization, when we
(16:49):
think about this, we have to think about what's driving
that gun violence. We have different categories of gun violence
in this country. Suice side is different from homicide, is
different from unintentional injury, is different from all other forms
of gun violence, including domestic violence. If you think about
(17:13):
that in this clinical sense, which is horrible. You do
have this overrepresentation of white men in every category. Right,
we have to look at these closely and understand what
are the reasons people are doing this, and that's why
(17:35):
the research around this is so important. But we have
not looked at any of the reasons behind the question
you're asking. For two decades. Congress stopped the Centers for
Disease Control from researching any reason behind gun violence or
(17:55):
how to solve it for twenty years at the behind
best of the n r A, and that didn't change
until two years ago. Ran Rosa di Loro from Connecticut,
who is on the Appropriation Committee stopped that. You know,
it's crazy you're talking about, Chris that in the twenty
years of not doing this research, we've also lost over
(18:17):
six hundred thousand Americans to gun violence, you know, and
we're focusing on the wrong things. We're worried about people
coming from overseas to attack us. That's not happening. And
then there's these crazy people are like, oh, I've got
the gun to protect me for the government. Listen, if
the government comes after, they're coming with planes and tanks.
Your your pea shooter is not going to do anything. So,
by the way, we can talk about this all day.
(18:38):
It's it's so crazy, and you and I are not
going to find much to disagree on. All I know
is many of the answers are very straightforward. We need
to invest in communities, We need to invest in prevention.
We have to have better laws, and we have to
find a way with communities that experience everyday gun violence
(18:58):
to invest in violence intervention programs that are known to work.
And the one thing I'll say about that is, thank
goodness Joe Biden as president, because he has put five
billion in the infrastructure program to actually invest in community
programs that really focus on how you change the trajectory
(19:23):
of a particular person's life so that they are not
a dictum of gun violence and so that they can
be a successful member of our society. That's what we
all want. But let's be real. If you are experiencing
gun violence as an everyday reality, the idea that you
(19:44):
can succeed in our society is false. It will not happen.
The average black mail in this country has a four
years reduced life expectancy compared to their white counterpart. Do
completely to gun violence, suicides, homicides, accidental injuries, and death
(20:25):
mass shootings. You know, I'm I'm reluctant to even offer
a statistic on the matter because by the time this
is released and eventually listen to, will sound like a
couple of cave people living in happier times, unaware of
the latest tragedy, which of course will spur on a
debate in which it seems only one side has the
(20:46):
courage to actually base our shared crisis. Let's call it
what it is. They'll throw up bad faith arguments, gaslight
everyone tell us that now is not the time to
talk about it, and again they'll run out the shot clock,
so that the possibilities for personal gun ownership remain virtually limitless.
(21:07):
And this would be depressing if not for all of
us who recognize this as what it is, which is
an epidemic, and all of us who are driven to
actually do something about it, including get this, eight of
gun owners who support expanded background checks. So that's of
gun owners. So, Chris, what is something that we can do?
(21:31):
So if you want to know more information about how
you can get involved, please go to Brady United dot org.
There's so many different things that you can learn, you
can be a part of, you can figure out how
to make change. You can always contact me. I am
at kay Brown at Brady United dot org. Always feel
(21:52):
free to get in touch with me and the first
action here it may seem hard, but begins with single
step and you have to figure out within your remit
what you can do if you care about gun violence.
There's so many different ways to be involved. It could
(22:12):
be that you talked to other neighbors. It could be
you talk to your family if they're gun owners, about
safe storage. It could be that you know a gun
shop in your area and you want to figure out
how they sell guns and want to make sure they
sell them securely. It could be that you want to
lobby someone at your state legislature around this. You could
(22:35):
give twenty five dollars and that would help us to
so go to Brady United dot org. There is no
right answer, There is no wrong answer. The only bad
thing if you care about this is not getting engaged
because in the end, this issue relies on all of
us lifting our voices, and we need you, We really
(22:57):
need you. I'm going to take the same aim steps, um,
and I'm glad you told me. You've given me simple
steps to follow, and of course we'll put these in
our episode bio as well. All Right, So I ask
every one of our guests each week, and the question is,
if you had a magic wand and you could fix
one thing, what would it be? Cynicism? I guess, and
(23:19):
hope for something better that we could achieve collectively, Sir,
I wasn't expecting that. You know what I'm gonna I'm
gonna make a sure that says Fox cynicism and letna
see how that goes. Okay, I'll buy it. Yeah, you know,
it's no magic one, but but it'll help. Now, before
we go to the closing of our show, I'd like
(23:40):
to invite our audience to tune in next week when
we'll be speaking with Katie Shaffer, the director of Organizing
an Advocacy at the Center for Community Alternatives. We'll be
talking about her work and reforming the countless pitfalls of
our car sol system. And now the closing of our
show is called Words and Poison Work. First of all,
I thank you Is Brown for joining us, and then
(24:01):
turn my microphone off, leave my headphones on, kick back
in my chair, and just listen to anything else you
feel is left to be said. Sure, well, what I
would just say is the thing that's amazing about where
we live as activism really makes a difference. And it's
hard sometimes even I feel this way to understand the
(24:23):
power of your voice. But if you lift it, especially
with a community of others who care about this, it's
not only something that you can make a big difference
on which I promise you can, but also it's uplifting
to you personally, and that's so important. We need community,
(24:44):
especially with everything that we've experienced with COVID. So please,
if you're thinking about things that are important to you,
and I know gun violence prevention is one included in
the things that you're talking about with others. Lifted up
and think about Braid in those conversations and what we
can potentially, I hope, provide you to make a difference
(25:06):
in your community, in your state, and ultimately in this country.
For me personally, my goal to live in a safer
environment where I can go to the movies. You can
go to the movies, you can go to concerts, We
can walk in our neighborhoods and not be afraid of
(25:29):
being shot and not to be tripe. But that is
the American dream. It is about life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness. And if you're afraid of being shot,
you can't pursue those things. Thank you for listening to
(25:54):
Righteous Convictions with Chase and Plomb. I'd like to thank
our production team Connor Hall, Jeff and Kevin Wardis. With
research by Lava Robinson. The music in this production was
supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Follow
us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at Lava for Good.
You can also follow me on TikTok and Instagram at
(26:15):
It's Jason Flom. Righteous Convictions with Jason FLOM is a
production of Lava for Good podcasts and association with say
About Company Number one.
Welcome to Righteous Convictions with Jason Flamm the podcast where
I have the privilege of speaking with people who see
the wrong in the world and are driven to make
it right. Today, I speak with a veteran of gun
violence prevention work who's been on a mission since her
early days advocating for the landmark uncontrolled legislation, the Brady Bill.
For me, my goal to live in a safer environment
(00:24):
where I can go to the movies, we can go
to concerts, we can walk in our neighborhoods and not
be afraid of being shot. It is about life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness, and if you're afraid of
being shot, you can't pursue those things. As the president
of Brady United, she continues to fight the n r
(00:45):
A for common sense measures, supported even by the large
majority of their own membership. Chris Brown right now on
Righteous Convictions, Welcome back to Righteous Convictions. I am so
(01:14):
glad that we're going to be doing what we're doing
today because we're gonna be covering a topic that has
been on my mind for a long time. It's one
of the most important topics in our society today, and
fortunately we have a guest Chris Brown, who is a
(01:35):
veteran of gun violence prevention work, and that's what we're
here to talk about. She began her work on Capitol
Hill working for Representative Jim Morgan advocating for the bill
known as the Brady Bill, a very famous Brady Bill,
and is now the president of Brady United. Chris, I'm
not going to read your whole resume here because it
would take too long, but let me just say that
(01:57):
I'm I really appreciate you taking the time to be
with us today. I really appreciate the time you're taking
to talk about this issue with me. First of all,
for those who don't remember, a lot of our listeners
are probably too young to remember, James Brady. Jim Brady
was the press secretary for Ronald Reagan. He was grievously
wounded in the assassination attempt on President Reagan's life, and
(02:18):
he went on to take his experience and start at
the Brady Center, which has been really the driving force,
I would say, in trying to establish same gun policies
in this country and prevent the senseless gun violence for
as long as I can remember now. But before we
even talk about the origins, where we're at and what
we can do about it. I want to know how
you got involved in it. For me, it's actually a
(02:40):
little complicated. I will say I am not a victim
of gun violence. I have not had family members shot.
When I graduated from college, I wasn't sure what I
was going to do. I worked for a congressional candidate
who was running for office. He won, and I worked
for him for eight years on Capitol Hill. During that time,
(03:00):
one of the issues that I focused on as a
young person was gun violence because we categorized it as healthcare,
and that was one of the issues I focused on.
So I was privileged to meet Jim and Sarah Brady
during that time. They were lobbying for change around the
issue of gun violence prevention, and I became educated and
(03:21):
already what was violence in America that really eclipsed other countries?
And then I got busy having a family, being a lawyer,
doing other things. It wasn't really until I lived overseas
in Switzerland's for many years, and the question I got
asked the first thing when they found out I was
(03:42):
an American, what's up with gun violence in your country?
Every person, it didn't matter where they were from. It
didn't matter their origin story. And we have to understand
as Americans that's the impression other people have about our country.
And I really oized, Oh, I've been in this system
(04:05):
so long, America, I don't see what it does to me.
We pay a price for this, whether we are directly
or indirectly impacted. I'm just thinking about you in Switzerland
with all these people coming up with their Swiss accents, um,
you know, asking you what is I can't do a
Swiss accent, but if I could, I'd say it was
a Swiss all this gun violence, and I'm thinking about
(04:27):
it too, Like over there, I'm guessing you don't have
to go through a metal detector to go to a concert, right,
or to go probably anywhere except in an airport ever,
not even there. It's a totally different world, and you
never think about it. And that's the thing to me
is you don't understand as a human being what it
is not to think about a risk. You can only
(04:52):
understand the impact of having to internalize a risk something
you're not even conscious of. It's somewhere in your sel
all yeller being until after you look back on it.
And it was a big deal to me to realize
I never thought about it, and I do all the
time here and there are others for whom it's a
(05:13):
daily struggle. I mean, in my other podcast, Wrongful Conviction,
I interview people, many of them grew up in circumstances work.
They would hear gunshots in the neighborhood when they were children.
It was just part of daily life. At least, I'm
guessing for you, it's a real fear. It's a real
fear for all of us because it could break out anywhere,
and these mass shootings, we become numb to them. I mean,
I remember sitting sobbing watching Sandy Hook that day. Was
(05:38):
just yeah, And I'm sure every every parent and everybody
who has a heart and soul must have felt the
same way. But that was probably the bottom for me.
But there's been so many others, and every single one
is is just a freaking tragedy. But okay, so the
question I have for you, Chris, is how the freak
did we get here? Right? Wasn't always like this, was it?
(06:01):
I Mean, there were muskets back in the day, and
there were people with those funny pants with the long
socks and the strange hats and then proferly shirts the
Yankee doodle dandies. Yes, there are those, We've seen those,
We've seen those images. But okay, so how did we
get to a point where we have we have more
guns than people in America? Is that right? We do
(06:23):
have more guns than people. And the way we got
hair was with a lobby, one that parades as a nonprofit,
that isn't the nonprofit the National Rifle Association, which with
their leader Wayne Lapierre, has really recast guns in America
since nine because before the nineteen seventies, all of us
(06:46):
were in agreement, including the n r A, about how
we should recognize the Second Amendment, which is, let's face
it about an armed militia and recognize public safety. And
the position of the n r A with Wayne law
Pierre at the HELM, really changed dramatically from how can
(07:08):
we protect public safety to how can we sell as
many guns to as many people as possible without regard
to the consequences. And that's what we see today. If
you look at the n r A magazine going back
thirty years, which I have spent time doing, what you
will see is something close to the Hunger Games. I
(07:31):
mean they're selling a dystopic universe, and we see this
with their political ads to where the only safe America
is one in which all of us carrying firearms in
our homes, in public life, to our Starbucks, to the
grocery store, because at any moment, our life could be taken.
(07:54):
And to me, this is diametrically opposed to some of
our notion in public life which we're all promised, which
is the commitment to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
And what we find today is, pardon the analogy, the
crosshairs between that commitment and a notion of the Second Amendment,
(08:18):
which is without limit, which allows anyone to carry a
gun at any time. And it's successful lobbying. I'm not
sure what to tell you about it, other than that
it's to sell more guns to as many people as possible.
It's an industry shift that we've seen that has corrupted
(08:38):
our public life in a really sad and material way.
(09:01):
I'm sure that your listeners would be really surprised to
know that we had a sixty increase in gun sales
during the pandemic compared to the prior year. A lot
of people are buying guns, Oh, my house is going
to get broken into. It's going to be this bad
Max to Stopia nightmare, blah blah blah, you know, And
I was starting to get caught up in it. But
I was like, Okay, I call a friend of mine
(09:21):
who's on the SWAT team, right, and I said, to listen,
I'm thinking about He was doing me a favor. Will
you don't buy a freaking gun? He goes, First of all,
no one's breaking in your house. He goes, I've been
doing this stuff for twenty years. People don't break into
occupied houses, and if they do, the last thing you
want to do is fire a shot. And we know
(09:41):
that people that do have guns in the home are
overwhelmingly likely more than nine pers at the time that
they shoot someone, it's a loved one or themselves. He goes,
Believe me, if someone breaks in my house, I'll just
show him around, take what you want, and get out
of here. Right. So, now we're at this place right
where people are, you know, the they see these tragedies
happening day in and day out. Many many many of
(10:04):
our listeners will have experienced personal loss as a result
of this. Not necessarily the mass shooting could be in
an up close incident, something in the home. Who the
hell knows, right, I've read so many stories about toddler's
a two year old sitting in the cart at Walmart
and pulling her mother's gun out of her purse and then,
you know, not knowing what it is, shooting and killing
her mother. Maybe it's a boy, I don't remember, but
(10:25):
these that's not even uncommon, right. I read that that
happens about three dozen times a year that a toddler
shoots their brother. I'm talking toddler's not eleven year old, right,
forget that problem, right, This is something that's very unique
to America. Ultimately, this is about family fire. This is
about kids finding guns in their own home. There are loaded, unsecured,
(10:50):
and if someone had them in a safe, unloaded, locked
with amy unition separate, it would never happen. So we've
normalized the idea in this country of keeping a gun
for too many people in their purse when their babysitting,
(11:14):
or next to their bed, or in a kitchen table.
And the problem is the kids are the people who
find those guns, and it doesn't matter how old they are.
You see videos about this, A young toddler they're index
finger that may not be the finger that can pull
(11:34):
the trigger. They'll figure out a way to make their
thumb do it. And so many kids have lost their
lives just based on that. I just pulled up an
article on toddlers and guns. This is from Fortune magazine.
I'm just gonna read a little bit of it. Toddler's
are somehow getting their hands on firearms, and the results
(11:55):
are favorite last year, toddler's children one, two or three
years of age, we're shooting people, either them, those are others,
at a rate of about one per week. Oh my god.
The Washington Post reports at the pace has since picked up.
This is two thousand six and first five months of
two thousand and sixteen, there's been at least twenty three
reported shootings by toddlers those are three years older lessons,
compared to eighteen the same time period last year. In
(12:17):
eighteen of those twenty three incidents, the children shot themselves,
and in half of those cases they died. Of the
remaining five incidents, two of them were failing. Like this
is insane. We gotta get rid of these guns. Oh
my god. Okay, so much of what well you do
with Brady is dealing with the aftermath of that, dealing
with families, and it never ends. What are the main
(12:40):
pillars now of Brady's work, So Brady continues Jim and
Sarah's legacy. Obviously, we have a bill that is pending
in the Senate, like far too many bills, honestly, to
expand the Brady background check system. We also work on
assault weapons bans and other kinds of issues at the
(13:02):
federal level through a big policy team that are amazing,
and in the States too. There's a lot of stuff
happening in the States right now to allow concealed carry
open carry that we fight and make a difference on.
We have a litigation team that has received over sixty
million dollars and judgments against gun dealers who violate the law,
(13:24):
and ultimately that we hope will really change the industry.
The last thing that is so important is Brady has
a legacy through Jim and Sarah, who are gun owners,
also Republicans of reaching out to gun owners. So our
and Family Fire campaign is about reaching out directly to
gun owners and spreading the message of safe storage of guns.
(13:48):
If we can do that, I think we have to
really focus on how we transform the conversations each of
us have with each other. How do we talk to
people who have guns? How do we change the dialogue
around that and allow us to get to a common ground.
I think for our issue, we are unnecessarily divided. Politics
(14:11):
may divide us, but for the most part on the
solutions we're aligned. We believe there should be background checks.
We believe that people should safely store their guns. We
believe that if someone who is dangerous to themselves or others,
there should be a way to remove guns temporarily. All
of that we agree on. Let's find a way as
(14:34):
Americans to talk to each other about that and have
people who represent us actually make that happen. This is
an unnecessarily divisive issue and it doesn't need to be
that way. And that's the legacy of Jim and Sarah.
That's why our tagline is take action, not sides. We
(14:55):
just want to get to a point where we save lives.
That seems like an eman the reasonable and noble goal,
and that's something we all should be able to get behind.
So there are great people, yourself included, doing courageous work. Right.
I'm sure you know you deal with a lot of
angry people who think you're trying to take their guns away. Yeah,
they're always white men. I'll just send almost every mass
(15:19):
shooting every time it happens, I'm like, I wonder which
white guy went out and took out his aggressions on
innocent civilians. Women don't shoot people. I've always wondered about that.
I don't have the answers to that. I mean, for
our focus as an organization, it's all about prevention and
understanding better how we can reduce the incidents. Part of that,
(15:41):
you're right, is understanding that for the most part, we
have this big divide right between genders around shootings. Of
the eighty thousands people this is yearly, by the way,
in America on average to our shot and live with
those injuries, about two thirds of those are suicide attempts.
(16:07):
White men are also the biggest victims of suicide. That
is something I am aware of. So the fact is
that this ready access to guns for someone who's experiencing
depression or a mental health crisis of any kind, or
who knows the heartbreak anything right at the idea that
you can just access that and make a rash decision
(16:29):
that then is going to end your life and destroy
the lives of the people that love you when all
you really need maybe is a freaking hug, right or
or or a good shoulder to cry on. And so
for us, if we are going to solve the epidemic
of gun violence as a data driven organization, when we
(16:49):
think about this, we have to think about what's driving
that gun violence. We have different categories of gun violence
in this country. Suice side is different from homicide, is
different from unintentional injury, is different from all other forms
of gun violence, including domestic violence. If you think about
(17:13):
that in this clinical sense, which is horrible. You do
have this overrepresentation of white men in every category. Right,
we have to look at these closely and understand what
are the reasons people are doing this, and that's why
(17:35):
the research around this is so important. But we have
not looked at any of the reasons behind the question
you're asking. For two decades. Congress stopped the Centers for
Disease Control from researching any reason behind gun violence or
(17:55):
how to solve it for twenty years at the behind
best of the n r A, and that didn't change
until two years ago. Ran Rosa di Loro from Connecticut,
who is on the Appropriation Committee stopped that. You know,
it's crazy you're talking about, Chris that in the twenty
years of not doing this research, we've also lost over
(18:17):
six hundred thousand Americans to gun violence, you know, and
we're focusing on the wrong things. We're worried about people
coming from overseas to attack us. That's not happening. And
then there's these crazy people are like, oh, I've got
the gun to protect me for the government. Listen, if
the government comes after, they're coming with planes and tanks.
Your your pea shooter is not going to do anything. So,
by the way, we can talk about this all day.
(18:38):
It's it's so crazy, and you and I are not
going to find much to disagree on. All I know
is many of the answers are very straightforward. We need
to invest in communities, We need to invest in prevention.
We have to have better laws, and we have to
find a way with communities that experience everyday gun violence
(18:58):
to invest in violence intervention programs that are known to work.
And the one thing I'll say about that is, thank
goodness Joe Biden as president, because he has put five
billion in the infrastructure program to actually invest in community
programs that really focus on how you change the trajectory
(19:23):
of a particular person's life so that they are not
a dictum of gun violence and so that they can
be a successful member of our society. That's what we
all want. But let's be real. If you are experiencing
gun violence as an everyday reality, the idea that you
(19:44):
can succeed in our society is false. It will not happen.
The average black mail in this country has a four
years reduced life expectancy compared to their white counterpart. Do
completely to gun violence, suicides, homicides, accidental injuries, and death
(20:25):
mass shootings. You know, I'm I'm reluctant to even offer
a statistic on the matter because by the time this
is released and eventually listen to, will sound like a
couple of cave people living in happier times, unaware of
the latest tragedy, which of course will spur on a
debate in which it seems only one side has the
(20:46):
courage to actually base our shared crisis. Let's call it
what it is. They'll throw up bad faith arguments, gaslight
everyone tell us that now is not the time to
talk about it, and again they'll run out the shot clock,
so that the possibilities for personal gun ownership remain virtually limitless.
(21:07):
And this would be depressing if not for all of
us who recognize this as what it is, which is
an epidemic, and all of us who are driven to
actually do something about it, including get this, eight of
gun owners who support expanded background checks. So that's of
gun owners. So, Chris, what is something that we can do?
(21:31):
So if you want to know more information about how
you can get involved, please go to Brady United dot org.
There's so many different things that you can learn, you
can be a part of, you can figure out how
to make change. You can always contact me. I am
at kay Brown at Brady United dot org. Always feel
(21:52):
free to get in touch with me and the first
action here it may seem hard, but begins with single
step and you have to figure out within your remit
what you can do if you care about gun violence.
There's so many different ways to be involved. It could
(22:12):
be that you talked to other neighbors. It could be
you talk to your family if they're gun owners, about
safe storage. It could be that you know a gun
shop in your area and you want to figure out
how they sell guns and want to make sure they
sell them securely. It could be that you want to
lobby someone at your state legislature around this. You could
(22:35):
give twenty five dollars and that would help us to
so go to Brady United dot org. There is no
right answer, There is no wrong answer. The only bad
thing if you care about this is not getting engaged
because in the end, this issue relies on all of
us lifting our voices, and we need you, We really
(22:57):
need you. I'm going to take the same aim steps, um,
and I'm glad you told me. You've given me simple
steps to follow, and of course we'll put these in
our episode bio as well. All Right, So I ask
every one of our guests each week, and the question is,
if you had a magic wand and you could fix
one thing, what would it be? Cynicism? I guess, and
(23:19):
hope for something better that we could achieve collectively, Sir,
I wasn't expecting that. You know what I'm gonna I'm
gonna make a sure that says Fox cynicism and letna
see how that goes. Okay, I'll buy it. Yeah, you know,
it's no magic one, but but it'll help. Now, before
we go to the closing of our show, I'd like
(23:40):
to invite our audience to tune in next week when
we'll be speaking with Katie Shaffer, the director of Organizing
an Advocacy at the Center for Community Alternatives. We'll be
talking about her work and reforming the countless pitfalls of
our car sol system. And now the closing of our
show is called Words and Poison Work. First of all,
I thank you Is Brown for joining us, and then
(24:01):
turn my microphone off, leave my headphones on, kick back
in my chair, and just listen to anything else you
feel is left to be said. Sure, well, what I
would just say is the thing that's amazing about where
we live as activism really makes a difference. And it's
hard sometimes even I feel this way to understand the
(24:23):
power of your voice. But if you lift it, especially
with a community of others who care about this, it's
not only something that you can make a big difference
on which I promise you can, but also it's uplifting
to you personally, and that's so important. We need community,
(24:44):
especially with everything that we've experienced with COVID. So please,
if you're thinking about things that are important to you,
and I know gun violence prevention is one included in
the things that you're talking about with others. Lifted up
and think about Braid in those conversations and what we
can potentially, I hope, provide you to make a difference
(25:06):
in your community, in your state, and ultimately in this country.
For me personally, my goal to live in a safer
environment where I can go to the movies. You can
go to the movies, you can go to concerts, We
can walk in our neighborhoods and not be afraid of
(25:29):
being shot and not to be tripe. But that is
the American dream. It is about life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness. And if you're afraid of being shot,
you can't pursue those things. Thank you for listening to
(25:54):
Righteous Convictions with Chase and Plomb. I'd like to thank
our production team Connor Hall, Jeff and Kevin Wardis. With
research by Lava Robinson. The music in this production was
supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Follow
us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at Lava for Good.
You can also follow me on TikTok and Instagram at
(26:15):
It's Jason Flom. Righteous Convictions with Jason FLOM is a
production of Lava for Good podcasts and association with say
About Company Number one.
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