 Hey everybody, I am Nick Gillespie with Reason and today is our Reason livestream And I'm gonna bring our guests into the show right now As I was saying I'm Nick Gillespie with Reason This is the Reason livestream for Thursday February 9th, and I'm joined by my Reason colleague Jacob Solomon a senior editor Jacob, please say hello. Hello. Okay, and we're also joined by Heritage Foundation Legal Fellow Amy Swearer who writes a lot about the Second Amendment and defense of gun use Amy Thanks for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. So what we're going to do today Is talk about gun rights and gun violence in Joe Biden's America? I'm not sure I suspect all three of us would agree that you know, it's not really Joe Biden's America but you know, that's the convention and what I want to start off with we're so we'll talk about Biden's general attitude and discussion of gun rights and Second Amendment rights And then we're going to talk about this state of gun ownership In the country and the way that it's been changing over the past 20 years or so And then we're going to talk about the state of gun violence in America And what is the connection if any between gun control legislation and gun violence? Robust Second Amendment rights and and you know whether or not we're in a more peaceful society or not. I want to start off by running two short clips of Joe Biden The first is from last June After the mass shooting in Buffalo at a top supermarket there So let's listen to this and then I'm going to play a clip from the State of the Union just earlier This year, but let's listen one message for all of us Do something just do something for God's sake do something After Columbine after Sandy Hook after Charleston after Orlando after Las Vegas after Parkland Nothing has been done This time that can't be true This time we must actually do something Okay, and now here he is talking in the state of the union Do something do something That was the plea of parents who lost their children you've all the I met with every one of them Do something about gun violence? He saved lives It's time we do the same Band of soul weapons now Then let me just remove that. Okay, so Amy, let me ask you first, you know Joe Biden in the wake of You know a series of gun mass shootings last year and then more recently You know, there were a couple of events in January or earlier this year and in the state of the union You know the refrain of doing something It seems to have a sense of urgency and specifically when he's talking about banning assault weapons What what's your reaction to that kind of rhetoric? Well, the first immediate reaction that I have as someone who works in public policy is Do something is never a good basis upon which to build public policy It should never be just do something it should be do the right thing within a constitutional framework do an effective thing and from a gun policy perspective specifically banning so-called assault weapons Is not that effective thing I mean just look at some of the shootings that he referenced and so he referenced the the Chinese Lunar New Year shooting that that unfortunately just happened in California in January he mentioned Columbine. He mentioned Buffalo Those all involved time periods or locations in which assault weapons were already banned California has a more restrictive assault weapons ban than the federal government has ever imposed Columbine occurred during the height of the federal assault weapons ban Buffalo is in New York, which also has an assault weapons ban So when you start with this general premise of well, just do something do anything It's not a good basis by which to do the right thing or the helpful or effective thing and see that here Can you very quickly you you mentioned so-called assault weapons, you know assault weapon I think everybody pretty much agrees as a term of art not of science When Joe Biden and people who are in favor of an assault weapons ban are talking about assault weapons What do they mean and why is that definition? Not really up to the task. Sure. So first let's start with what an assault weapon is not it is not a machine gun Right. It is not a fully automatic firearm where it you pull the trigger and it will just continuously Fire bullets until you stop, right? It's not one of those it is a semi-automatic firearm, which is the same as Essentially every type of firearm that has been created in modern times. It's the most common type It means you pull the trigger once it fires one round So you have to continually pull that trigger now the difference between an assault weapon and a so-called not assault weapon is Certain types of features. So it's generally defined as a semi-automatic Typically rifle that has one two or more of the following cosmetic features something like a pistol grip Something like a barrel shroud or a collapsing or folding stock. So it's nothing related to calibers So sometimes people think that banning assault weapons means banning a specific type of Ultra deadly caliber of firearm. It doesn't it doesn't affect the size of the gun or the muzzle velocity or anything remotely related To deadliness or lethality. It's really comes down to almost the comfort You know that the ability of a person to hold it in a more comfortable fashion But it doesn't affect rate of fire Or anything of that nature. So it's essentially the same gun But one looks scarier than the other and it can be sort of configured especially for novice shooters to to shoot more comfortably Uh jake up you were writing about assault weapons for reason back when the federal assault weapon ban was was in force Um, what happened the last time that um, you know, there was an assault weapon ban in place Uh, well, I think it's worth pointing out that biden himself Has conceded the point that amy was making Which is that under that ban manufacturers could make slight Mostly cosmetic changes to their weapons and they could sell firearms that were in biden's words just as deadly So given that it is extremely implausible to think that, uh, Drawing these distinctions would have any kind of measurable impact on either mass shootings or gun violence in general Uh, what he doesn't understand Or perhaps understands what doesn't concede is that the new version of the federal ban that's been proposed has exactly the same problem So now it's one feature that disqualifies a gun versus two features The features are slightly different But the fact remains that if you remove a barrel shroud or if you you replace an adjustable stock with a fixed stock These changes do not Effect the fundamental function of the weapon. It fires the same ammunition at the same rate the same muzzle velocity So it's completely inconsistent for him to concede on the one hand that the ban that expired in 2004 Uh had no meaningful impact on the on the lethality of legally available weapons And then to say in the same breath that we're going to have this new improved one That overcomes that problem, but it doesn't it's it's inherent in the nature of these laws that they draw Distinctions that have little practical significance, especially when you're talking about a mass shooting Do you know, what's the etymology of assault weapon, um, you know, because this again if you go back to the 90s This was a major, you know focus of debate and and a federal legislation, but When did people start talking about assault weapons as opposed to automatic versus semi-automatic or you know, Whatever caliber and things like that Jacob Well that that question is a bit controversial because gun control people will tell you this was an industry term and there are examples of early examples of industry using uh that term But there's no question that it was popularized by gun control activists and who explicitly said We are capitalizing on the public's confusion About the distinction between machine guns and semi-automatic weapons and machine guns have been banned since the 30s, right? Effectively, they've been Strictly regulated. I mean since 1986 you you can't a civilian cannot buy a newly manufactured machine gun The ones that are owned now are registered with the government. You have to pay a tax. They don't care much in crime um and The the weapons that are are covered by these assault assault weapon bands are not not machine guns as amy amy mentioned um, so Just at at this, you know, preliminary level. It's just there's no reason to think that this would have a meaningful impact Biden claims that during the uh When the ban was in fact from 94 to 2004 There was a reduction either in uh fatalities or in incidents of mass shootings It's controversial as to exactly what that reduction was But it is on its face impossible to to attribute You know what happened then to simply to the assault weapon. Why why is that? Well, if you look at the the figures for uh mass shootings and i'm going to hear mostly talk about public mass shootings, which is what biden is referring to and these are traditionally defined as shootings in public that kill At least four people besides the the assailants These numbers are highly volatile Looking back at the last decade and a half or so They're generally in the single digits at all all but one year. They were in the single digits one year had 10 of them Yeah, and right now I'm sorry to interrupt but right now. I'm just uh, keep talking but in the background what people will see Is a animated store Kind of illustration of mass shootings in the united states Um from so you can expect the president Yeah, you can get much higher figures if you expand the definition And you will often see people claiming, you know hundreds of mass shootings in a given year and that comes from Expanding the definition to include cases with fewer fatalities, perhaps no fatalities cases in different Crimes that are committed in in private settings that involve gangs and this sort of thing But if what we're talking about is the thing that strikes fear into the heart of americans Which is the idea that you're out in a public place and some some maniac is going to come in there and shoot it up And possibly kill you the these remain very rare events in the past few years there's been You know something of an increase in both incidents and fatalities um in 2020 even as Murders rose overall the number of mass public shootings went down. I mean Again, we're talking about maybe from eight to four. That's a big percentage change But we're still still talking about very small numbers Since then, you know after 2020 they went up again in percentage terms pretty dramatically But that's maybe a reversion to the norm um, it's very hard to draw any kind of conclusions about these trends because there are They're driven by you know, for example There was a year 2017 where you had a very high number and usually high number Of fatalities for mass shootings, which was mostly attributable to two events the attack in las vegas And the attack at the church in subtle new springs, texas These sort of you know random events will will skew these figures And uh, so it's very hard to draw any firm conclusions about what's going on in terms of trends Even more so to attribute any changes to a particular law Um, yeah Well, I was going to say though, you know particularly for me the uh, you know, and I I speak as you know A hardcore libertarian who believes in the second amendment. I am not particularly interested in gun issues Convince that the rate of gun ownership and the rate of gun violence seem to be Loosely correlated at best and possibly positively correlated in the sense the more guns there are in circulation the less Violent crime there seems to be committed by guns or with guns, but um, having said that you know something like the las vegas shooting is absolutely terrifying right where you are you know and that to not only the Particulars of it where it's just a bunch of people in an open-air concert suddenly being shot to death from You know a hotel room and things like that, but there's to my understanding There's been no clear explanation of like the motivation of the shooter or anything like that Right, and that's that's why this the scares people because it is unpredictable Uh, it's the motivations are often inscrutable. Yeah, or just plain insanity I mean where it's like, you know And the difficulty the fundamental difficulty with trying to prevent these kinds of crimes is that Nobody can predict reliably predict who will commit a crime like this. I know we'd like to think otherwise We talk about red flags But but even you know mental health professionals Are terrible at predicting whether a particular person will actually You know commit a crime of violence Given that it is implausible to think That legislators or police officers who you know, for example, who file red flag petitions Are going to be good at distinguishing between all of the you know weird antisocial people in america Who who shows certain signs that may in some cases look quite disturbing And the ones who actually will commit crimes like these because this is a very very small share of all the weird disgruntled people And so that's a very hard problem to crack and what happens is you end up casting A wider net in the hope that you're going to catch the people who actually are bent on mass murder But then you sweep in lots of people who actually are harmless And in the case of red flag laws, uh, they lose their second amendment rights for a year or more as a result of concerns raised by other people Um, which may may or may not be well grounded and may or may not be honest Some in some cases you get malicious petitions by people with an axe to grind So that's a serious problem that requires at the very least Good due process protections and let's let's talk about red flag laws more specifically in a second But amy, uh, you know joe biden talks about being the most, uh Uh, you know kind of the most effective president on gun legislation in recent memory last year Congress passed and he signed readily and he supported and endorsed and pushed it along gun control legislation that you know is Legitimately considered the biggest gun control federal gun control legislation in decades Can you summarize what was in that and um, you know, what are what are we seeing as a result of that? Sure. So, you know, I think a lot of people have gotten this package Is it's really a package of of gun related laws wrong? I um on the one hand Yes, it is. I think the most significant step toward gun control that that has happened from at least a legislative standpoint I'd argue there have been some some agency changes with with the atf that have been equally as significant But certainly in terms of legislation In summary, it is a lot of additional spending tied to mental health And in school safety, which is not on the whole a bad idea You know, it's it's Always only going to be as good as as it is implemented effectively and you can always Argue about, you know, should that be coming from the federal government or is this something for states to figure out? But the the big things that came out of this were so-called expanded background checks for 18 to 21 year olds Which it's very unclear what That exactly means Even within the text of the language itself It seems to suggest that These 18 to 21 year olds who are otherwise law abiding citizens could In theory be subject to like longer Essentially waiting periods That that don't apply to other young adults. There was some language in there about Domestic violence misdemeanors But again, very very vague as to what that actually means and whether it actually expanded existing categories You know some funding potentially of red flag laws But also again of other like mental health courts and things of that nature So on the whole it was steps toward gun control, but there was really nothing In there, you know, I think gun control advocates have actually taken A victory lap that they they didn't really get There, you know, there was not an assault weapons ban or a magazine capacity ban or anything of that nature You know, and I may be forgetting one or two aspects of of that overall package. So it wasn't great It certainly didn't clarify anything, but it wasn't this, you know Devastating step toward gun control that where this victory lap is being taken either Do you worry about joe bud? You know, he you know, and the state of the union addressed just a couple days ago He said do something we need to do something. We haven't done enough And he says, you know ban assault weapons once and for all Do you worry is is he, you know in the parlance of gun control? Uh opponents or or gun rights activists. Is he a gun grabber? Yeah, I think the the rhetoric the way in which he talks is certainly concerning You know, he can call himself the most effective gun control president I I think by by far he is the most vocal And I think the most flippant in terms of of how he both mischaracterizes a lot of the issues You know the the quips about you know, what are you trying to hunt deer and kevlar vests or Sort of phrasing things in a way that would suggest Well, of course you should give up your guns because if you don't we have f 16s and I'll just send in the military to do it Anyway, um, you know, so he's been very flippant in a way that that past presidents Have not been even when advocating for the same laws and I think That more than anything should be concerning to the american people Jacob, uh, very quickly. What's wrong with a waiting period? Um for you know, you apply for a gun, uh, you know, whether it's a handgun or a rifle You know, this is something that's you know, you know, potentially incredibly dangerous You know, what's wrong with You know a background check and and a waiting period for that Well, the I mean the waiting period is not at the federal level. There's not a waiting period strictly speaking You have to pass a background check and it shows that it takes a bit the background check has to be Yeah, and and uh, you know, I think the democrats would like to make make the amount of time allowed long And uh, you know, the in some states do have waiting periods per se And the problem with that is that people Who are in danger and want to arm themselves for self protection You know that can be a really a crucial obstacle and it can endanger people's lives if it's somebody, you know A woman who's threatened by you know, a former boyfriend or an ex-husband for example Uh, it may be urgent for her to to have a gun for self defense But in terms of the the background checks This is an approach that the law we were talking about the bipartisan safer communities act double down on and and Neither democrats nor republicans To question the current system and they really should because under federal law currently You have wide categories of americans who have no second amendment rights For dubious reasons For example, uh people uh people who use marijuana Even in the in states where it's legal are not allowed to own guns under federal law People who have ever been subjected to involuntary psychiatric psychiatric treatment Even if it's for suicidal impulses, for example, and they were never deemed a threat to others They lose their right Uh to arm self-defense forever Uh people with felony convictions Even if the crimes didn't involve violence, uh, even if they didn't involve victims even, you know, if it's a drug offense You lose your right to own guns forever. Now this law Said that's fine, but we need to increase the penalties for violating these rules So they raised the maximum penalty for illegal possession From 10 years to 15 years they created a new crime which they call trafficking and firearms Which is not trafficking and firearms because it includes Uh, you know, if you're a marijuana user or somebody with with a a a drug felony record And you try to buy a gun that qualifies as trafficking firearms. That's another 15 years maximum penalty So it seems completely insane in practice Uh, you know, they're not Sending marijuana users to prison for 15 years because they own a gun But it can happen. That's what the law says And this is a live issue right now because there are cases Challenging in particular the ban on gun ownership by Marijuana users. There was a case in florida that was actually brought by the secretary of I think it's agricultural culture And consumer affairs there where she said look, uh, I want to protect medical marijuana users in florida It's not right that they lose their second amendment rights because they're participating in this program The judge in that case dismissed the lawsuit Uh, which the biden administration You know, they defended the the ban saying, uh, we think this is justified. We think it's constitutional a judge agreed But in Oklahoma recently another federal judge or another case said this is blatantly unconstitutional This is not consistent with the way the right to arm self Arm self-defense has been historically understood with the kinds of regulations that were thought to be consistent with that right And it is very hard to come up with historical analogs that, uh, look like that sort of rule Where we're an entire category of people based on substances that they consume Are not allowed to to have guns in any context So if you're looking for a close analogy, you won't find one. Uh, the best they can find is examples of laws from the 19th century or earlier where People who were actively intoxicated were either not allowed not supposed to carry guns or not supposed to fire guns Right, uh, but this you know this this ban when it comes to unlawful users of controlled substances goes much further than that It says if you use any of these drugs, you know, congress Um, you may not have a gun for any purpose in any context Uh, so that's going to be a live issue is that when it gets up to the supreme court It's not clear what they're going to say I mean historically you would think they since they tend to cater to anti drug prejudices that they would say this is fine But if they are following through on the approach that they Set forth in their decision last june Uh, you have to demonstrate that this uh, there is a an historical historical tradition Uh, that justifies this and then that's just very hard to do. Yeah, let's talk about that. Amy You know just a couple of days with Before biden signed legislation the gun legislation last year the supreme court ruled that a new york state ban on The ability of people to carry weapons was unconstitutional and it seems like you know Certainly for the past 20 years or so Every time that a gun case has come up the supreme court has expanded the right To own or carry guns Something similar at least going back to the 90s has been happening broadly at the state level where It is easier now for more people to own and carry weapons in a variety of circumstances What is going on that you know legislation or at least you know within uh, the Biden administration and the democratic party at the national level and it's in certain state houses Are moving towards more gun control, but it seems like the legal arguments are all kind of in favor of more A more robust defense of second amendment rights. Yeah, well, I would actually push back on that characterization a little bit of the supreme court Expanding rights. I think really the the better characterization Historically is to say that the supreme court sat around on its hands declining to to intervene For decades as as states You know interrupted and and rewrote essentially the second amendment to to mean yeah No, we can infringe this right however you want Um, you know up to and including like dc completely banning the possession of handguns um So from that respect, you know for many of us in in our lifetimes It's certainly this new feeling of seeing the supreme court intervene in that way But I think a lot of these laws that We've sort of established in the last couple of decades going back to the 60s I think a good number of them are up for Very serious challenge. If Bruin is applied Honestly, um, you know things not not just like you know, we talked about um bands on uh felon ownership firearms for for people like martha stewart for nonviolent felons But things like the federal ban on the the purchase of handguns for individuals under the age of 21, which would include even more restrictive state laws for individuals 18 to 21 who are entirely barred from their second amendment rights um You're seeing in what has it been now eight months since Bruin A range of legislation being challenged and shot down and I think you're right What's interesting is that at the same time you're seeing states like organ for example moving a completely restrictive direction So it's setting up this conflict the way I do want to asterisk that a little bit because on the one hand you have states like Not just organ but also california new jersey in response to Bruin Moving in a more restrictive direction At the same time you you've also seen what I think is actually a bigger majority or at least a plurality of states Moving in a less restrictive direction with respect to public carry So we've we've now actually reached a point where I think it's 25 states by last count Do not require a permit anymore to carry guns for self-defense in public as long as you're not otherwise prohibited From possessing firearms. Um, so the movement's really been all over the place, you know, you've had some states moving to to more permissive carry you've had other states trying to to Crack down on it even more so and now you have this component of of Bruin Which would seem to to put at risk a lot of these gun control laws in a way that I think is is Again setting up those battles over the next couple of years Jacob, uh, real quickly then I want to talk about the state of gun ownership because it's you know, it that's a fascinating question It's also a difficult reality to fully, you know grasp um for you know, uh for all kinds of uh, just practical reasons, but do you worry jacob that You know that um gun control or gun laws and gun issues are becoming part of a broader set of culture war issues You know, and it's funny. Amy or or uh, yeah, Amy mentioned oregon You know on the one hand, oregon is setting all kinds of uh, you know the pace in terms of legalizing and decriminalizing All sorts of drug laws and opening things up and then on the other hand They're like, you know, they're they're clamping down on gun gun ownership or gun rights and things like that And are you worried at all jacob that gun rights in the second amendment is becoming firmly enmeshed in a kind of Where if you're on the right if you're on the right or you're part of the right wing You are pro-second amendment whatever that means and if you're on the left you're against it Yeah, i'm actually i'm working on a book right now about uh, the parallels between Gun control and drug control and they're very striking divides between the parties and and and based on ideology Where people are are in the political spectrum Progressives tend to be very critical of the war on drugs and they know All sorts of problems that it creates they know that it was racist and it's an inception that it used to have a disproportionate impact on on blacks and Other minority groups that uh, it you know undermines civil liberties that it Contributes to corruption all you know this whole litany of problems But if you look at gun control, uh, you can say very similar things about its history its current consequences the racially disparate impact And undermining civil liberties inviting police abuse all that sort of thing and it it's like conservatives can see those problems When it comes to gun control, but they generally don't see them when it comes to drug control And the reverse is true for people on the left So it's it is unfortunate because really for To a large degree they're complaining about the same Problems what happens when the government says you may that own these things And we're going to make sure that that you can't get them Um, uh, it invites all sorts of abuses If only everyone could be libertarian, right? That's that's I mean they the elegant Yes, yes, but but it really is. I mean I I do that is that really does concern me because In principle both sides the progressives and conservatives should be able to see that the other side is making valid points But they tend not to because they see those other people as their enemy Right and therefore automatically dismiss what they have to say It all comes back to that star trek episode with frank gorschen where you know the one side one group of people are White on one side and black on the other and the other are black on this side and white on that and they hate each other And it takes captain kirk the full hour to figure out that they're actually different Also, I just I wanted to add in terms of a fall out fall out from Bruin The most immediate, uh, the the closest cases are the situations in states like New York and New Jersey where they said, okay, we're gonna start granting carry permits But you can't really use them because we're going to say you can't you know, there's A very long list of places where you're not allowed to have congratulations. You have the permit, but it's now worthless Yeah, so that that's the most obvious Case where this is going to go up at the Supreme Court and they're going to Presumably you'll say cut that out right. We met what we met what we said Are there any get around it by coming up with these new restrictions to replace the old restrictions You actually have to let law abiding people exercise the right to bear arms On the Supreme Court, are there any of the liberal justices who are, you know, good friendly towards second amendment rights or constitutional You know restrictions on state power, you know, I I have At least as far as I can remember In the major cases like heller and mcdonald and and brune. It's it's been a hard no from them So I I would not anticipate that changing with respect to these major Fundamental questions about the scope of the second amendment I do want to put a little bit of an addendum on what jacob said though about Gun ownership recently. I think it is important to note that Well, that the general trend is is still there with respect to the divide between parties When you look at the changing In sort of shifting grounds of gun ownership, especially since 2020 It seems to be changing a little bit At least to the extent that one of the fastest growing populations of both concealed carry permit holders and first time gun owners Is black women in particular But also just sort of shifting toward Minority gun ownership and and growths there. I think that is very important and and it's important not just for the the state of Yeah, you know the individual defense But I think it's important for the state of second amendment defense philosophically I think it's a good thing that that more and more americans of different demographic backgrounds Are recognizing for the first time Oh, I am part of the people to whom this right belongs. I think that's a very very good thing And I I hope that trend continues in that direction Yeah, let's talk about gun ownership and kind of the demographics and the large numbers Jacob in the past and reason has published stories about You know the intended targets of gun control and you know if I mean if there's a A broad-based federal or state level policy that is more discriminatory than the drug war It's it's gun ownership, right or it's gun control legislation Which was always targeted at freed blacks or you know newly freed blacks and things like that Here's a chart from the christian science monitor that is just talking about The surging gun sales since the pandemic and you know, and if we're being uh, you know clear about things about the both the the police killing of george floyd and and the riots and And demonstrations that followed in that you can see down here new gun owners between 2019 and 2021 blacks make up 21 prior to that before 2019 they made up about 10 Hispanics also saw a big increase Gun ownership surged a bit in that Let me see if I can get back to this slide right now Uh, I'm sorry. I'm not that facile with this but according to gallup in 2020 About 30 it looks like 32 percent or let's say a third of americans that they owned a gun 41 percent 44 lived in a household with a gun Jacob how have those numbers changed over the past 20 or 30 years? It's my understanding that you know, if you go back to the mid 90s It was closer to like half of people lived in a household With a gun or it seems like there are more guns in circulation But they are concentrated in relatively fewer households. Is that accurate? And if so, does that have any implications either for You know gun culture or gun control laws? Yeah, I mean that's that's basically right The numbers in terms of prevalence of adult Ownership have have gone down. It's about a third a third according to several surveys A third of adults who own guns and again, it is You know, this is a bug above mine It is you know, when you try to ascertain with any kind of real accuracy Basic facts about everyday american life. It's really hard. So it's all of this stuff is based on surveys and things like that But yeah, I mean there was there was a recent survey, which is the largest ever conducted and they they put The prevalence of gun ownership among adults at about a third and that's consistent with with with other surveys So it's probably more or less right, right? And but as you noted the number of guns in circulation, I mean, there are hundreds of millions of guns in circulation Has increased all this time Even even during this dramatic drop in violent crime and in gun crime You know since the the 90s right early 90s You get more and more guns in circulation, but somehow you get less less and less Violence and fewer murders so that on the face of it does not suggest that more guns necessarily means more crime, right in terms of the demographics of gun ownership that I think those numbers, you know since 2020 or so are are encouraging I mean there there are There is this sense that in the black community that At least among some people that that we are recovering a tradition of armed self defense That goes, you know back to the slavery and then emancipation and the civil rights movement Having a gun was vitally important to protect yourself against racist violence Especially when the government was not either not doing anything about it or actually pretty or they were yeah Yeah, they weren't the main and this this This turnaround on on a gun control didn't really happen until the 60s up until then you had mainstream black leaders Including Martin Luther King talking about about the you know, the ethics of of armed self defense They I mean these people had guns and they needed them And so that tradition has sort of been lost Now that sort of the mainstream African-american organizations now uniformly Approve of gun control they've joined that sort of progressive coalition that supports these restrictions Without paying much attention to who gets screwed over by these laws and it's You know that you look at the numbers in terms of who gets arrested and who gets prosecuted For illegal gun possession. This is one of the arguments that that people made Before the Supreme Court's ruling in Bruin Uh that these laws that basically make it impossible for you to have guns Uh for self-defense, especially in places where you'd want them right in high crime neighborhoods um in in big cities That they disproportionately hurts black people and You know, I don't know that that was the main argument that was persuasive at the stream before and it's undeniably true Uh, so so you have to start Uh questioning the impact of policies like that and things like you stop and frisk programs which uh overwhelmingly affect People minority groups Where they're looking for guns. That's what I mean at least ostensibly. That's what they're doing But of course it leads to all sorts of abuses because people get stopped for a good reason And they get patted down supposedly for weapons But that's an outgrowth of these policies that unfortunately You know, most of the the mainstream at least African-american organizations support those policies even though They have a really bad effect on their communities Do you think uh, you know, and obviously you're you're thinking a lot about the parallels between drug control and gun control Similar to the way that many black leaders and black civic groups were were real drug warriors In the 80s and the 90s because it was their neighborhoods and their constituents And communities that seemed to be taking it on the chin the violence that accrued to black market drug sales um, you know, they Ultimately, you know people like charles wrangled who was one of the, you know, main supporters of harsh disparities between powder and crack cocaine and then was like, wow, I fucked up I was wrong. Do you think that that will happen with black? Black community groups and and civic associations Well, they come around on on gun control similar to the way that they seem to have in a pretty big way on on drug laws Yeah, I mean that that president is encouraging Because you're right. I mean black members of congress Were all in favor of these really harsh drug penalties in particular for crack cocaine But pretty quickly they saw what happened and it was disproportionately black people who were who were uh Suffering as a result of this insane distinction Where which imposed, you know, more severe penalties on people depending upon whether the cocaine they had was Spoked or snorted They came around, you know, much more quickly than than than joe biden did for sure. Yeah So that that's I find that somewhat encouraging and of course you have a lot of objections to things like stop and frisk, right? Um, uh, which was always like they're looking for guns or drugs, right? I mean, that's right and and thing, right? So that you definitely have, you know, uh The n double acp and other organizations objecting to programs like that But of course the root cause and the rationale For those tactics is we have to get guns off the street, right? So so it doesn't seem like a leap to say Why do we have these laws to begin with that? Make it so hard to have guns for self defense And is this a sensible way to try to reduce gun violence? Yeah, I mean you have progressive District attorneys in some cities saying we need to distinguish between Somebody who is a dangerous criminal and has guns for that reason And somebody who's afraid of the dangerous criminals and has guns Even though it may be illegal for them to possess them They have guns because they're trying to protect themselves and we shouldn't be Trying, you know coming down hard on the people who illegally possess guns for self defense We should be trying to go after the the people who actually are a threat to public safety And so that's that's encouraging and and maybe that will that will catch on in the future Yeah Amy talk a little bit about the demographics of gun ownership In terms of gender Are women? Women are I think only about 20 of the gun owning population But also geographically, you know one of the things I grew up in I was born in Brooklyn I grew up in New Jersey. New Jersey does not have a robust gun culture. I did not Grow up in a household my father had fought in World War two And you know was anti-gun after that, you know kind of I think somewhat understandably But I've lived all over the country and I was always amazed when I moved to the midwest and even western new york Everybody had a gun everybody grew up with a gun So, you know, what what's going on with the demographics in terms of female ownership? And then what is there a big regional? divide Among attitudes towards gun ownership in america Yeah, well, certainly when when you look at sort of the demographics traditionally of gun ownership, it's it's predominantly male And it's predominantly at least historically been you know more centered in rural areas Especially when compared to urban areas um Now some of that sort of urban rural divide I think can actually be attributed to you know You can call it gun culture, but some of that gun culture is either fostered or stifled by Restrictive gun laws it turns out if you make it very inconvenient and burdensome and put all of this Administrative red tape between people and their ability to to keep and bear arms They're less likely to develop that gun culture. And so I think that's part of it as well Uh in terms of women, you know, again, we talked about black women in particular Over the last two three years be becoming one of the fastest growing segments of new gun owners I think you're she seeing a shift generally amongst women. It's still pretty disproportionately male But I think you're seeing more and more women Take on and again understand the importance Of that armed defense That that that importance of of death at a distance if you will be being able to to take on a bigger stronger assailant You know in a more advantageous position I think that's becoming an increasingly important At least to a certain segment of women And I I hope that continues, you know, again women are part of the people to whom the right belongs It's their right just as much as as men And and very quickly I want to circle back to something else Jacob had had mentioned You know, he was talking about how my minorities are disproportionately impacted in terms of Criminal gun laws. They they're the ones disproportionately finding themselves in being prosecuted for these crimes And he mentioned just a little bit and I I really want to bring this back up. They're also Victimized by these gun laws in the sense of they are Disproportionately likely to be victims of violent crime And so when you disproportionately impact them in that way and take away their ability to defend themselves They are infinitely More disadvantaged and and when those gun raids are taken away You see this very clearly. I think in in a place like dc Where you know, if you imagine dc, it's like a wonky trying diamond shape, right? And you can actually take a map of of demographics and poverty levels and overlay it with crime levels crime victimization levels And it's almost a one-to-one Ratio and what's very unfortunate is if you've ever tried to get a gun in dc or especially a carry permit in dc I think it took me like nine months, you know hundreds of dollars. You have to take several days off work because there's no public gun ranges in dc You know, so if you have to take public transportation or if you work weekends You know or you know, six seven hundred dollars is just not something you can come up with pretty easily You are far less likely to be able to defend yourself and again, it's it's all concentrated Disproportionately against certain demographics and certain segments of society and I think it's important that we recognize that as well It's not just, you know, who ends up in jail more often. It's who ends up less likely to defend themselves Despite the fact that they're more likely to have to be in a position where they have to defend themselves We're going to start talking about the the present the prevalence of violence in America and the and a kind of return to a more to a higher violent crime rate or at least apparently over the past few years from historic highs in the 90s, but I just want to run through a couple of Viewer questions or comments Lethal weapon asks where the calls to ban assault knives assault cars assault baths It's not the guns that kill people people kill people my guns haven't killed anyone on their own. Okay, so there's that jcs how can the government? How can the government have so much power denying rights of the founders created checks and balances to prevent this Is it because lawyers know how to circumvent the constitution and amendments? I would say, uh, you know, certainly congress does and lawmakers in general And af says isn't removing people's access to guns for getting mental help Going to make them less likely to use any resources to get help sounds like stigmatizing extra steps. That's those are all interesting comments. Let's go back to Let's let's talk about the prevalence of violence in um america Right now. Here's a Diagram or a graph of the u.s. Murder rate 1960 to 2020 Obviously there were There there are former peaks were nowhere near where we used to be But when we look at things like annual murder rates in the united states, um, they're they're cropping up again Jacob, how does how does the recent rise in violent crime impact the gun rights debate, do you think? well, I mean, I should note that that uh, the recent upward trend seems to be Going it seems to be going down again as of as of last year Although we're going to need, you know more years of data to see what's what's actually going on um, I mean you tend to think you would tend to think that when, uh Violent crime is more common. There would be more more support for gun control But uh, the problem is that people don't really understand, uh, what's going on in terms of crime rates I mean if you ask the general public at any given time, you know, what's the risk of being murdered? They tend to to greatly exaggerate it and they tend to think that things are worse than they've ever been even Even during periods when violent crime is is declining precipitously Um, and they so I don't think the public has a good sense Of the risks that people face from violent crime today versus yesterday Um, whether they're going up or down um, so I'm not sure there is a good connection there between, um There's a strong connection there between sentiment in favor of gun control and and uh The current crime rate because people generally don't understand what the current crime rate is Or which direction and I think we can we can openly or you know, accurately say that uh, donald trump in particular when he was running in 2016 Really foregrounded the issue of violent crime in a way that had been missing From national politics in a serious way since the 90s, uh, you know And certainly people like bill clinton and hillary clinton when she was emerging as a senator talked a lot about super predators Uh, and you know very kind of um apocalyptic rhetoric about criminality that that was receding even as it was being discussed so much Um, but uh, Amy what you know does You know, are you worried about an increase in violent crime? And does that you know, does that lead people to be like we should disarm more people in society? Or it's like no, let's let everybody let's you know kind of devolve Law enforcement to the individual and i'm gonna buy a gun Yeah, well what I think is very interesting about this This recent sort of spike in in homicides and other violent crimes that started around mid 2020 very sudden Spike is that it coincided with a spike in in gun purchases and specifically first time gun ownership Um rose exponentially. Um, I I think something like 10 or 12 million first time gun owners, uh over the last two years and part of that was You know, regardless of how sound the the logic is That spike also coincided with I think what a lot of people experience for potentially the first times in their life So this this feeling of the government isn't going to be there, right? It's over in the middle of covid We're seeing sort of widespread civil unrest Um, this sort of feeling that Wow, okay. If I call 911, they might not show up in time. Um, but on a broad Scale And to see the confluence of all of that, you know, I I don't think we have a clear picture Yet, but it does seem that at least to some extent it sort of tampers down this Sort of bent toward gun control, right because you just had the nation experience shoot If we, you know, gun control sort of inherently implies that we're trusting the government with our right to self defense Um, and when you don't have that trust, I think you're more likely to to not have that impulse toward gun control Now, obviously we're still seeing it From both the the president and your traditional gun control groups that call is not going To go away. I just don't know that this is necessarily the inflection point where it's going to be You know, ultra successful in a way that it would not have been six or seven years ago Yeah, for a for a long time jacob You know, and this was certainly the case under when barack obama was president Gun rights groups and particularly the nra and I kind of want to talk about them as an institution It in a second But there, you know, a lot of people bought a lot of guns and there was a lot of rhetoric that barack obama was coming for Your guns, you know, he made that comment about, um, you know Bitter clingers, uh, you know who who cling to their gods and their guns, etc But nothing really happened. There seemed to be for a long time, you know gun control Or debates was kind of like abortion where both sides talked a lot about it, but there wasn't really much being done Do you think that's you know, do you think that's over now and is you know are you know In the same way that abortion is now, you know a real live political issue at the state level conceivably at the federal level Um, is that you know, are we in for you know, a decade long kind of Legislative court public relations fight over over gun laws in a way that we really aren't that uh that used to well, I mean for sure we're going to see uh fights in the courts because uh they're trying to figure out the implications of brewing and and You know after that decision the supreme court vacated for uh decisions by appeals courts where they upheld Either assault weapon bans or uh restrictions on magazine capacity The court didn't say that was wrong. It said reconsider those decisions in light of what we said in brewing and just Uh, well in both cases, uh, you know, the court has said that the test of whether Uh arms are covered by the second amendment is is whether they're in common use for lawful purposes And there's no question that so-called assault weapons and so-called large capacity magazines are in common use for lawful purposes Right, so so now you've gotten past that test and the next question is is there some kind of uh historical tradition of banning Arms like these, right? And that's an answer. It's not clear what what the court's going to say about that Different judges are arriving at different conclusions. So you're definitely going to see that You're you're certainly going to see I don't know if you're going to see, you know more uh gun legislation passed at the federal level but the fundamental difficulty aside from the constitutional issue, which is, you know, it should not be dismissed you have when you pass the law you have to You have to be sure that it's going to pass constitutional constitutional muster Um, the fundamental difficulty is that there are already so many Guns in circulation, right? If you have, you know, 400 million or so guns Um, uh already owned by americans There's not much that you can practically Accomplish with or without the second amendment You can fiddle at the margins and you can say well these guns look scary to me I'm going to ban them or we think that if we make uh the supply of you know magazines that hold more than 10 rounds a little bit smaller That that might reduce fatalities during mass shootings, you know And ignore the possibility that that restriction might also hurt people who are using guns Their self-defense you can try to do things like that. It may may not fly in the courts But it does not have a dramatic impact either on uh, it doesn't have a dramatic impact on on on you know criminals access to the guns that they need to commit crimes And there of course, you know, if you're a criminal you're highly motivated to get guns And there are plenty of them already available. So there's really not much legislators can do about that I think a lot of americans misunderstand sort of the reality of of criminal gun violence in this country Uh, you know, it's it's not This idea of like, oh, you know, if more law-abiding peaceful citizens have guns the guns will whisper mean things to them and they will commit Crimes or or kill themselves, you know overwhelmingly overwhelmingly That the gun violence problem is one of of what I'll Call urban violence. Um, it's very concentrated not just you know within specific cities But within specific blocks and neighborhoods of specific cities and it's overwhelmingly driven by a very very small subset Of repeat offenders who largely are already prohibited from legally purchasing or possessing firearms who who nonetheless obtain them um And I think people sort of have this idea of of you know Oh, well more guns that that means more people are just going to lose their minds on the subway or you know Engage in in road rage and that that's really not what's driving most crime, you know as jakep alluded to it's It's largely criminals who already have a plethora of means You know to to continue evading existing gun laws And a lot of the gun laws that are proposed are not in any way shape or form directed at Prohibiting them in the channels that they already use to obtain those guns Despite their illegality. It just makes it doubly and triply illegal. Um, it doesn't practically intervene Yeah, and this i'm i'm showing a chart here from Carpe diem a blog that is published by ai this data is 10 years out of date But the the trend line is basically the same that and this is what convinced me from a kind of empirical or pragmatic level That not to worry so much about the increase in the number of guns Circulating because they've gone up tremendously, but the gun violence rate Not just of homicides, but just gun violence in general has has actually declined from Peek scene in the in the 70s But amy, let me ask you about you know, so here's you know, here is This is a washington post wonk blog snapshot a pie chart about Ownership of firearm by perpetrator in pittsburgh in 2008 again It's kind of old data, but I think these percentages roughly Hold up where you know overwhelmingly the people who commit crimes with guns are You know, they're not legal owners So what do you do? to You know to clamp down on you know criminals who are using guns in criminal ways In a way that does not you know spill over onto the constitutional rights of legal gun owners Yeah, so was it there has been some updated in national data on this In recent years and it and it roughly correlates with that Yeah, you know most most people who are in prison right now for committing violent crimes With firearms did not you know show up at a gun store and buy it that day Right, and it's not just most people. It's like, you know, 85 90 90 plus percent, right? I think there was something like under one in ten legally bought that gun like at a brick and mortar gun store in their their own name, um, you know most are getting it through sort of Nebulous Informal markets whether you know, they they quote barred it from a friend or or stole it or just black market Generally, however, you wanted to find that Now now what does that mean right? So there are two ways to sort of look at this one is from the offender standpoint The other is from the access to firearms standpoint, right? So you you know that in any given City and this is I mean take take your pick Um, you know any city that has looked at their their gun violence and their their gun homicide problem has come to the same conclusion that it's overwhelmingly something like a fraction of a percent often just like a couple hundred core repeat offenders who are responsible for either participating in or otherwise facilitating The majority of gun violence in that city like they it's sort of like seven degrees of separation, right? Like it all comes back to them um, so you can focus on um, it you know, whether it's Going after them criminally or going after them through other sort of intervention means things like like project ceasefire in Boston have had great effect. What is project? So project ceasefire and and its variations of that Um are essentially targeted interventions if you will where police and local leaders looked at this data Like wow most gun violence is facilitated by these core individuals and they focus on deterrence and prevention and intervention in those specific high risk Individuals. Um now sometimes it's sort of strong arming them. Um, I think the original project ceasefire They they called in gang leaders. Um, because this was the the 90s and so it was like your traditional hierarchical gangs um Now it tends to be more interpersonal Disputes like sort of loosely affiliated groups of people brought them in and said stop it, you know, like like If you so much as think About getting a gun and retaliating against people you're going to jail for the rest of your life You know the end where they they sort of took a hard ball approach Um, but there are various means of doing that, right? So not all of it is is criminalization You know, sometimes it's it's focusing Um intervention and sort of like at risk But it's it's it's good policing that's targeted to the actual perpetrators and high risk areas Jacob can I to uh kind of uh go along as we're coming to the close of our time here together? Oh, let me uh call this up, you know, one of the things Uh, yeah, how many how many deaths by firearm are there a year? roughly total uh I think the total was uh something like 40 something thousand. Is that right? Amy? Amy about 40,000. Yeah, depending on the roughly 30 to 40,000 Yeah, so and in any given year more than half of those are typically suicides. So Is that is that a A concern for public policy that can be addressed In a in a meaningful way again one that you know respects the second amendment rights of you know of legal lawful people But also, you know, if 20,000 people a year are committing suicide by gun Um, and that accounts for more than half of all deaths by guns Like is there a way to deal with that or is that a cost on society that we say well? You know, that's a uh, that's that's a kind of cost of being a free society Well, I mean the first thing you should know is that these are very different problems, right? They tend to get lumped together as all gun deaths, but when most of them are suicide um You know, whatever policies you come up for trying to stop uh gun homicides Even assuming they're effective are not going to be applicable Uh to suicides unless you go for you know, just trying to reduce the general supply which Which fails for all the reasons we've been talking about Um, they you know when you talk about red flag laws The data from the few states that i've seen uh release data on this indicate that most of these Red flag orders which say, you know, you're not allowed to own a gun for a certain period of time Are because either a policeman or a family member it depends on the way the law is written or a medical health professional says This person is a risk themselves or or the public, so we're suspending the right Right, so it's to themselves or others, but typically it's to themselves, right Um, so I think people may not realize that they assume Oh, this is all about preventing mass shootings But actually it seems to be mostly about trying to prevent suicides now if you if you look at The research on this there isn't much but uh A couple of studies have suggested that these programs might have an impact on suicides But what they indicate Is just taking these estimates of face value and there's some controversy over them is that In the vast majority of cases the people who lose their gun rights Actually, we're not going to kill themselves Um, that if you look at the estimate of a number of suicides that prevented It's a small fraction of the people who lost their gun rights. So that you know poses a question like how many Uh, how many cases you're are you willing to tolerate if people who lose the right to arm self defense? Really for no good reason in order to try to stop the few of them actually would have killed themselves from doing that And of course, you know, there's also the broader question of what role does the government have in trying to prevent self-harm Trying to prevent suicide, you know, which we don't have time to get into But even assuming that it does have such a role. This does not look like a very well targeted method Uh for trying to prevent suicide, right? Um Amy talk a little bit about how that affects things like school shootings in particular You know school shootings have a particular purchase on the public imagination because you know It's not as if you know the people who are attending a country music concert in vegas Deserve to be shot to death by some insane person, you know in a hotel room But you know kids are so innocent etc Is there a way to You know, what is what is the best way to minimize school shootings which are rare? You know are statistically Zero when you factor in, you know the number of kids in school the number of schools the number of school days etc But you know, it matters. Um, and it is undeniably tragic What are the ways to address things like school shootings in a way that will Actually help and won't and will also persuade people that the issue is not at root violence guns and circulation Yeah, you know, again, I feel like so much of this this program has been us talking about misconceptions that the general public has and this is this is a huge one um our schools at least in terms of of Fatal and and you know sort of lethal ends violence Occurring in schools during school hours at least with respect to that our schools are actually incredibly safe Kids are are far more likely to die in a car accident tour from school than they are any anywhere else in their day than school And and most of these school shootings are not parkland style events The ones that do occur overwhelmingly a good number of suicides But also like interpersonal disputes where you know, kid brought again to school because he was being bullied or because you know He's he's in a dispute over a girl with another student I mean, it's those sorts of of shootings Um, so that tells us a couple of things with respect to these parkland style Events, which again, we all agree are tragic. They have devastating effects They're they're also incredibly rare, uh, just as as our all mass shootings um overwhelmingly with school shooters in particular these are kids who Well, let's put it this way that it was not in an instance where no one saw this coming right overwhelmingly these are troubled individuals who have Whether or not a specific mental, you know, diagnosable mental illness. They have mental health needs that are overwhelmingly not being met um Now from a broader context, you know, you can say, oh, well, do we Do we try to treat this very rare specific issue? Do we take a step back as we should with suicides generally? To tie this back in right only half of suicides in the united states are with guns Right. So if you if you attack this as a gun specific problem, you're missing Much larger aspects of the overall problem of mental health. So when you attack it from a general mental health standpoint Um Instead of a gun specific standpoint, you're not only capturing those Rare but very tragic events or those suicides that are committed with guns, right? You're now capturing the much broader Reality of the violence that is occurring. Um, you know, you're capturing things when you focus on on school mental health and You know, providing those services and ensuring that the kids who are going through suicidal or depressive moments Um Receive that help You're actually treating the underlying issue Because as as we've noted right if you take a with red viagra Like if if you take someone who is actually suicidal and just remove a firearm But don't give them help and don't deal with other lethal means But you still have a dangerous person and so I think that's where you need to start is with that underlying issue Um, because that's going to impact far far more than just these rare incidents Jacob could you also talk about, you know, when you think of school shootings like of all day or or uh, the one in florida I mean if if there's a failure here, it's really not of gun control. It's the the perpetrators had multiple You know interactions with school officials with mental health officials police were on site and did nothing um, you know, is it Is it legitimate to talk about school shootings not as a failure of gun control really but of a larger set of You know, kind of government You know, kind of systems of control that just completely fail to protect the people. They're supposed to be protected In particular cases, I think it's true. They're obvious failures by law enforcement in some cases by school personnel Um, uh valdi was full of mistakes like that, right? I mean, there were basic security precautions that are not A matter of, you know turning the school into a prison or an armed camp or whatever But just basic precautions that were not taken and the police response, of course was was disastrous So and in the case of the um, uh, the florida shooting They're like you said this this the the perpetrator had a long history of Run-ins or incidents that indicated that at the very least he was very troubled Might be the sort of person who could commit a crime like this But I would caution It's very easy to look back and you know in retrospect and say these are obvious red flags some cases are the more obvious than others but The vast majority of teenagers in this case who who show signs like these Will not commit a crime like this, right almost none of them will so i'm a little bit concerned about Rushing to identify troubled teenagers as potential mass shooters And and with all the stigma that comes from that Uh, based on the premise that we're going to you know be able to predict who actually will commit crimes because generally speaking We can't do that So so and is there any reason to believe that you know teenagers today or adolescents are more violent Or more pathological than they were when you and I were teenagers jack Well, I mean just judging from general crime rates. No, I mean if anything they're less even them. Yeah, right um Yeah, I mean there's obvious there there are there's a real problem here as amy said in not helping people who need help But I don't think it should all be framed around. Um, you know, let's stop the next mass shooter. Yeah, uh, because probably you're not That's not what you're doing. You know, it's it's fine to say, you know This kid needs support or he needs help or he needs to talk to somebody Simply because you know, we're worried about him whether whether we're worried that he's going to hurt himself or hurt other people Um, uh, it's you know, it's still a situation where um, he needs help And honestly like most of these mass shooters, uh, specifically school related mass shooters Um, you know, you take the the kid in parkland, for example, right? They are a danger to themselves, right far far before they're a danger to others or at least, you know in tandem with it You know, you've got a kid there who literally called 911 saying I'm I'm in crisis My mom died. I I'm hurting myself. I don't know how to handle this someone. Please help me And nothing gets done, right? Um, so I I think that is objectively correct that everyone is better off when you take it out of this specific framing Of always, you know, we're trying to stop the next school shooting and and and frame it as like You have a lot of kids in mental health crisis You need help some some of who might plausibly become a school shooter But if you take that step back and deal with the underlying issues You're also then setting yourself up to to deal with those few issues that become school shooting related Um, if if we may uh as we uh come to the close of this Amy I wanted to talk with you about the uh database that you maintain at the heritage foundation for Defensive gun uses in the united states. Can you explain, you know, that is That's a part of the conversation about gun, you know gun ownership in america that typically doesn't get discussed very much at all But what what are you trying to accomplish by you know? Creating a database that is constantly updated about defensive gun use in the united states And what are the findings of your research? Yeah, well, so this is a huge aspect not just of the gun conversation You know as a policy perspective but but from the standpoint of what is the point of the second amendment You know, it's it's about ensuring that that people have an actual effective means To enforce their inalienable right to self-defense whether that's individually against crime or collectively against tyranny or foreign invasion Um, so so self-defense is at the heart of the second amendment. Uh, and so this started as an effort to to really Combat and and push back against the the the narrative, you know, you have those interactive maps of you know school shootings and You know, all of the things that are wrong But defensive gun used to sort of fly under the radar and on on the one hand We knew that we would only be catching a fraction of all of these when you look at the actual numbers on defensive gun use Uh, you're looking at between 500,000 to three million Defensive gun use is a year in the united states. Now. That's not my number That is actually a direct quote from a cdc report. Yes, that's cdc the anti gun cdc Um from from 2013 they looked at all of the available studies on this issue And that's what they found with with very few exceptions. It's somewhere between 500,000 and three million The most that one is about 1.6 million. Yeah, I was going to say that tells us I mean that range seems it means that the data is probably kind of shaky, right It is because it's hard to study. Um, but I'll I'll say this Um, even the two outlier studies still found about 60,000 to 90,000, which is nothing to shake a stick at Right, so we don't know the exact number Um, because it's it's much harder to quantify, you know, most people who have a defensive gun use There's there's good reason to believe they don't have to fire that weapon So they're not exactly showing up to report that I'd be like, hello 9-1-1. I Pointed a gun at a guy, right? Most of the ones that we find and you'll see this in the defensive gun use database They're they're what I'll call major defensive gun uses things where a gun is fired, you know It's hard to hide a dead body, right? That gets reported law enforcement. It gets right up in the media But what we were finding is that even with these major ones, um, you know, these these thousands of ones that that happen every every single year If you blink on the nightly news or if you don't watch the nightly news or you know, you don't physically have your local paper with your You know one paragraph right up about the home intruder You probably don't realize how often this is happening everywhere near you And so we created this interactive database. We we put on their point blank It's it's the tip of the iceberg, but here's the ones that you've missed and I think it gives a really good Way for for people to see one what's happening near them And two to see to essentially give a context a face a name um, you know A big a more specific picture that these are not vigilantes who are out there You know trying to to find criminals. These are people who are just living their lives They're being everyday ordinary americans and crime happened to them And but for their second amendment rights They might be dead injured or their livelihoods destroyed. Um, so that's what we are trying to do here Um, and again, it's it's regularly updated just the tip of the iceberg But these are all the media provided It's really fascinating and it builds on you know previous work done by people like gary cleck and other You know scholars and researchers of this and it and it seems to me like if anybody's trying to be a good faith You know a discussant or an analyst analyst of gun rights like you've got a look at costs and benefits And this is certainly You know one of the benefits jake up Real quickly and i i want to ask you very quickly about the n r a and then i want to ask each of you a final question About common sense gun control, but first can you you know And i started at reason in 1993 And whenever you know if guns came up people were always talking about the n r a the national rifle association Which you have been critical over the you know the course of your career as You know as an effective and principled advocate for gun rights in general But like where is the n r a right now because that's an organization that has really kind of hit the hit the shitter hasn't it Well in terms of their internal scandals. Yes, uh, but uh, it's always they were a major major player in politics And you know local state and federal politics I mean even even before all the revelations of what you know members money was used for There were problems with the way the n r a Defended the second amendment i.e. They did not do it consistently. I mean i mentioned All of these prohibitions for broad categories americans with no history of violence Who are have been permanently deprived of their second amendment rights. So that really does not talk about that in fact Um, they talk about enforcing those laws and how we need to go up to the bad guys meaning Including all of these people who are are What what they call prohibited persons, right? And so that that includes millions of americans who are peaceful and not threatening to others But who don't have the right to harm self-defense that seems to me to be a huge issue But it's not one the n r a is interested in pursuing, you know to the contrary Um, and uh, you know, they also do not pay attention To the way that uh drug laws intersect with gun with gun laws that uh First of all that we have the broad prohibitions that are based both on illegal drug use and on convictions for drug crimes Which don't make sense in terms of public safety and secondly you have Um drug crimes that are punished more severely when people have happened to have firearms um, I mean there was a case That I that I wrote about recently and reason that happened several years ago where a guy got a 55 year sentence He was a pretty small time marijuana dealer He had three transactions with and with a police informant where he sold I think eight ounces each time Made maybe a thousand dollars in revenue, right? Um And he had no prior record. He got 55 years because of this gun law that says If you uh use a gun in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime We're going to impose these very severe mandatory minimum penalties Uh, that's insane and it's blatantly unjust. Uh, well then angeles is the name of the guide He held it right that released Because not because he got clemency But because the prosecutors finally decided the they were willing, you know to stop challenging His his attention but that was the kind of law that the nra was pushing all the law Well, yeah, because they they they the way they see it is that we're going after the bad guys criminals including drug dealers, right? So it would include somebody like well than angeles who's not a public menace by any means um, and they sort of sweep everybody Who uh, you know violates the drug laws into that category of dangerous criminals that people we need to go after um, so they've never been good at that um and uh You know the idea I mean their positions are inconsistent because they will they are willing to criticize existing gun laws and say This is not right. It's not right that a woman who is licensed to carry a gun in pennsylvania And doesn't realize that means she doesn't mean she's allowed to drive through new jersey with her gun She get arrested can go to prison for several years. That's not right. It is not right. They're right about that, right? But they don't say, you know, what about somebody who's disqualified from owning a gun? For arbitrary reasons, you know, he gets arrested and can go to prison for up to 15 years. That's not right either um So, uh, I think that's that's always been a problem with their message regardless Of their current political influence or their current internal problems Okay, um, so a final question for you each amy. You are obviously a strong advocate for second amendment rights for gun ownership independent of constitutional, you know The history and and legislation and stuff like that Is there such a thing as common sense gun control because this is one of the things that you hear in the rhetoric Or is it, you know, should people be allowed to own whatever weapons they want whenever they want and carry them wherever they want And the reason I raise this is again as somebody who is generally, you know Very favorable towards as robust the second amendment right as possible You know, I hear people say somebody like ronald reagan in today's g. O. P. Or in today's gun control debate Would be to the left of joe biden or something like that But you know, is our what are legitimate kind of abridgements or restrictions on gun ownership that you think You know should be in place if any Yeah, look, so I I think on On the one hand you can make an argument about like who are the people To whom the right belongs but I think outside of that I think most people are going to agree right people actively in prison or mental health institutions Or who are actively a danger to themselves or others should not have firearms for as long as they are actively dangerous You know things of that nature that are very clearly in the interest of the public safety You know, I don't think that you know Your mental ill uncle has a god-given right to drive a armor plated hummer down the streets of new york city Whenever he wants with a 50 caliber machine gun on top right and I think some of that is textual You know, what went to something like a howitzer become ordinance or a bearable arms, right? I think there is discussion There with legitimate textual concerns, but I think realistically most Gun control as we think of it today is is less common sense than actually like a grass roots Taking on the mantle of responsible gun ownership and I'll give you just one example Right. So, you know, we talked about ways to sort of combat the black market of firearms Well, one of one of the most Common ways that that firearms end up on the black market is that guns are stolen You know, we don't have good numbers, but thousands if not tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of guns are stolen every year It's a huge problem. Now. You can say we're going to have gun control We're going to have this government top-down approach where we are going to mandate that your gun has to be locked up and unloaded And you have to spend hundreds of dollars On a safe and you can't have it on your person that sort of thing But we can't enforce it because we're not going to send government, you know door to door to do it And we're going to price certain people out of their inalienable right or We can incentivize gun owners Either by removing laws that have them keeping their guns in their car because they can't carry it on their person Or by educating them on like we know you don't want your gun stolen either. That's very expensive Here's the best way of doing it. I think that grassroots ground-up approach is far more common sense And far more efficient and effective in so many cases Then anything we consider like government top-down common sense gun control Jacob, uh, what about you? Is there you know, uh, as I and I'm forgetting when it was but peter bag, uh, wrote a You know reasons Kind of in-house cartoonist, uh, I think wrote an essay about a cartoon essay about this But on the cover it was like the right to own a bazooka do You know, do individual americans have a right to own a bazooka and if not, why not? On the second amendment the question is, you know, what are bearable arms because it's the right to keep in bear arms Hey, so it's not nuclear missiles Um, it's not not things that that are impractical to carry on your person to use for self-defense Um, in terms of people I think it is legitimate to say look here is, uh, an armed robber Uh, he was convicted of armed robbery. He used a gun We think it maybe it's not such a good idea for him to have guns in the future And we're gonna say either as part of a sentence or part of a more narrowly tailored law He's not allowed to have guns If somebody gets into a bar brawl All is convicted of a Felony assault and first day after he is, you know, much more stable And law abiding is still not allowed to have a gun for self-defense. I think there's something All right, uh, you know what? I think we're experiencing a little bit of technical difficulty But uh, jacob got his, uh, last comments and I want to thank jacob seldom my reason senior editor colleague His bio is in the show notes here look read through everything that he's written about the second amendment and gun rights and gun culture I also want to thank amy swear of the heritage foundation, uh, amy, thanks so much and your gun defense of gun use database and the list, uh, your book the essential second amendments also in the Show notes here. Please check them out. Amy. Thanks so much for joining us Thank you so much for having me and jacob if you're there. Uh, thank you. All right. Very good And uh, come back next thursday What i'll be uh rejoined by my regular coho sack wise miller And we'll be talking to other people of interest and relevance to uh to your life Your politics and your culture. Thanks everybody Thank you