 In July, legislation took effect in Florida loosening firearm restrictions as gun violence across the state continues to surge. Gun rights advocates and constitutional attorney Eric Friday recently spoke to us about the importance of the Second Amendment, contending it's one of the most important rights granted to U.S. citizens. Today, Jacksonville residents and policy advocates join us to discuss the human impact of the Second Amendment and the consequences of lax gun restrictions that it has on our community. So joining us today are Katie Hathaway of Moms Demand Action. She's a volunteer. Hello, Katie. Good morning, Al. Thanks for having us. Of course. And Crystal Turner, local gun violence survivor and Moms Demand Action volunteer. Hello, Crystal. Hey, Al. Thanks for having us. And on the phone, we've got AJ Jordan, outreach coordinator for Mad Dads in Jacksonville. AJ, how are you? I'm doing good. Al, how are you? Good. Thank you so much for calling in. So before we dive into the nuts and bolts of this conversation, because it's a really big and meaty conversation, I want to ask all of you like how you got involved in this work, like what called you to it? And I'll start with Katie. People come to this movement all the time for various reasons. And I will share how I came to Moms Demand Action. It was back when my now seventh grader, he was seven years old at the time. I picked him up from school and he told me his classroom was going to be the first shot up because it was closest to the front of the school and my heart sank. And I knew I could no longer sit on the sidelines and continue to watch the devastation play out on the news every single day and not do anything. So I scheduled a meeting with my state lawmaker at the time. He called himself the Florida gun lawyer, and I knew I was going to need some facts going into that meeting, not just my sheer raw emotions as a mother who was outraged. And so that's where I found Moms Demand Action. And I was able to bring those facts to that meeting with my state lawmaker. And I started a local group here and I since met far too many survivors of gun violence. And these are mothers and fathers who've lost their children using their pain and their voices, quite frankly, for change. And so once I met them, I knew I could not step away and I'm in this for the long haul. AJ, can you tell me how you ended up in this line of work? Well, actually, I come from my family has a nonprofit in Long Beach, California, my adopted father was in the Black Panther Party and started a nonprofit in California. But then I moved to Jacksonville, got married and my wife was used to be a journalist here in Jacksonville, Florida. And she met Donald Floyd, a mad dad, and she came home and was excited about this man that was making a difference in our community instead. It would be a good place for me to start my service in Jacksonville. So I joined Mad Dads in 2005. And last but definitely not least, Crystal, can you tell me how you got involved in this work? I became involved in this work. April 1st, 2015, when two of my adult children, my daughter, Jenae, at that time was 29 years old and my son, Donnell, was 23 years old at that time. We're both murdered together in a double homicide. And like Katie said, being personally impacted and outraged, I began to advocate in my community because I didn't want anyone else to share that experience, the heartache, the heartbreak. All of the emotions that a victim's family goes through after they've lost someone suddenly, tragically, and violently to gun violence. I found Mom's Demand Action around 2016, where I shared my story at a local event and became joined at the hip. They have been an amazing organization to me to help educate me not on just my personal story, but how I can use my personal story to impact good common sense gun laws that can change communities and save lives. Yeah. But first of all, I'm so sorry for your loss. Thank you. In the loss of a child, I can only imagine the devastation in every single part of your life. And to lose both of your children at that time is just, I am not sure how you move forward through the day. That's got to be extremely difficult. It is. Every day is a new day. And we often coined the phrase of now living a new normal without your children. It is not just the emotion of burying a child, but it is oftentimes having to be present and understanding a system that you, from a distance, only knew of or only seen on TV. And now you find yourself sitting in that seat as a plaintiff along with whatever state you're in. You find yourself now dealing and reeling with probate court. So many different things and just trying to figure out life. And in my situation, both of my children left children. So I am now a part of what's called grand families and parenting a second time around. They also left two other siblings that while I was grieving, I had to try and figure out as a mother, how do I support them? How do I support the nieces and nephews? And how do I support my community who was also impacted in the loss of my children? Because my daughter was a business owner in the community. So in doing childcare at the time, there were hundreds of children who were impacted and having to be uprooted from a place that they came every day from a consistency of staff and teachers to now be moved somewhere else. And we don't think about those impacts when we talk about the fact that gun violence does not just affect the victim or the victim's family, that it impacts the community. There were jobs that were removed. There was income that was taken away from people for a period of time that they now had to make adjustments. There were my grandchildren and myself who had to make adjustments in how we were going to live, where we were going to live. So there are so many different difficult conversations and adjustments that you have to make in a very short time period while also trying to still figure out and take in the fact that this experience has actually happened to you. So it's being present and being aware while dealing with your emotions. Yeah. We can have all sorts of conversations about gun violence in the community. But I think when you speak to somebody who has had to live through it, it really takes on a different tone. I mean, like it's all theory and numbers until we get down to the actual human cost of it. Yes. Recently, like a couple of weeks ago, it's always been my plan to I am a firm believer in this show being a place where we can have conversations and dive into deep topics. And a couple of weeks ago, I had a lawyer on who is a Second Amendment constitutional attorney, who's very much a gun advocate, Eric Friday. And my idea was to talk to him and then, you know, talk to you guys and really kind of give shape to this to this question that we're dealing with. And when I was talking to Eric, one of the things that he brought up was the first Second Amendment and the right to bear arms. Let me play some tape from that interview so you can hear exactly what he said. Number one, we made a decision a long time ago in this country that the right to bear arms is a right that all citizens have. We've not always lived up to that. But I believe that that is the ultimate right that we have. It is the right that protects every other right we have. So that's Eric's take on Eric Friday's take on gun rights in this country and the Second Amendment. Katie, how would you respond to that? We're the Second Amendment. We're not trying to take away anyone's rights, but rights come with responsibility. And we we also have the ultimate right to go out in public and feel safe from gun violence, go to the grocery store, go to church, go to concerts, go to school and not die. Yeah, I was recently talking to a friend of mine and she was telling me that her her daughter, who I believe is in first grade, had done an active shooter drill. And it just kind of broke her heart that she has to have this conversation. With her daughter, AJ, it seems like the the active shooter drills, they've proliferated in the last, I don't know, decade or so. What do you think that says about America? I think it says that we are in a state where our children don't feel safe at school. And we have to have these drills so they would know what to do. Just to say somebody come in with with guns shooting at them. So they have to have bulletproof backpacks and deaths and know how to hide under the desk and all these different things they have to do now. You know, and it takes away from their learning because they sitting in class wondering about a shooter and seller learning their math and the English. So it has really devastated our students and America in general. Yeah, listen, listeners out there, you can join the conversation. You can call us at 549-2937. You can tweet us at FCC on air. First Coast Connect at WJCT.org. You can find us on Facebook and Instagram. Just to push back a little bit when we're talking about guns, I would say that, like, I don't think it's confined to one demographic or to one community. I would just say that, like, where we are right now with the world. It feels like it's a little bit unraveling around us. Like, all the things that we thought that were norms are kind of going away. And it makes people fearful. It makes people think that, like, I need to worry about protecting myself. And so people want to go out and they they they want to protect their families. Recently, we've seen all throughout Jacksonville a lot of murders happening and then murders, like, you know, I mean, I think that when we talk about Jacksonville and we talk about gun violence, I could be going out on a limb here. But I think that they're because Jacksonville is so spread out that it'd be really easy for a lot of people to not worry and think about gun violence if they don't live in certain neighborhoods. But then things happen that, like, cross over and everybody gets upset and wants to talk about it. But if it's not happening in their neighborhood specifically, we don't really have these conversations about the way gun violence is affecting people in Jacksonville. So those are two different things that I brought up. One is that, like, fear people. And I think that fear is not, you know, is not crazy. I think that people have genuine fear about the way the world is going right now. And so with that fear, they want to find ways to protect themselves and their families. And then the second part of it is that gun violence in Jacksonville specifically tends to be concentrated in certain neighborhoods. And the rest of the city just really doesn't want to think about it a lot. You got to take either one. It's multiple choice to choose your your your adventure. So when you speak about. Gun violence happening in Jacksonville and different communities. That's an accurate statement and that unfortunately, until it actually knocks at your door, we don't necessarily get involved because we like to believe that it would never happen in our community. But we also know it to be very true that in certain zip codes, it is happening more frequently and more often than we would like it to have. Then we would like it to have and it's happening in two different forms that is also very challenging. We first have what we call community violence, which is just a gun violence that's happening in a community for a different array of reasons, which doesn't excuse the fact that it's happening. But it's something that we have to deal with. And when we deal with that, we have to also think about economics. We have to think about housing. We have to think about job security. We have to think about the systemic racism that our communities go through in some of the areas here in Jacksonville. Then we have the other set of violence that's happening that is more on the arise than we all like to think about. And that is when people of color are now being targeted simply because of the color of their skin. That's even more hard to acceptable to accept because I happen to be a black woman and there's nothing I can do about changing the color of my skin or asking someone to not like me or want to be my friend simply because of the way I was born. And I happen to be born with a little bit more melaton than someone else. When we think about that type of gun violence, that's a gun violence that we don't like having that uncomfortable conversation because to have that conversation, then we have to talk about and admit that racism still does exist in our communities. And as someone who's migrated from the north to the south, it has been a very big concern to me for my grandson. And now I have to say even for my granddaughter, there was a period when we thought that the black man simply by being born was a concern that we thought that as that black young man grew up and became a young man, that his life was going to be taken, that he may not make it to the age of 18, let alone 25 because of gun violence. That fear is real for black people every day. And when we think about the most recent shooting, which was the shooting at the Dollar General over by Edward Waters University, personally, I was impacted because it took me back to my own loss. But it made me even more fearful because I work in a local grocery store here and since that day, my emotions and my anxiety is probably on 200 percent because I keep thinking I could be the first victim because I'm near the door. Yeah. Katie, when I'm thinking about like what I was talking about earlier with the idea that like people are afraid and when people are afraid and and worried about taking care of their family, you know, a gun having a gun in the house feels like feels like an action that you can take to like protect your your children. Absolutely. And I will just I people have that right, obviously. But I also have to point out that the gun lobbies extreme interpretation of the Second Amendment has helped get us to the situation where we have more guns than people in this country. And we have lawmakers sitting on their hands, refusing to take action. And we can we have to stop voting for these people because we know action can be taken to address this crisis that we're in. Children are literally bearing the burden of inaction from our lawmakers. And it's unacceptable. Yeah, we're going to go to the phones. We've got Jeff in Arlington. Jeff, how are you this morning? I'm well. How are you? Good. Thank you. So and I'm sorry to ask that. I know it's radio and you shouldn't ask that. But so you can totally ask how I am. I think it's friendly. It's good. Well, yeah, but you're not supposed to do those things. So gun violence. So so I the only gun I have in my house is a 12 game shotgun that has I can put three shells in. And and if somebody comes into the house, that's a deterrent. But I don't believe that you need like what we have in. Well, the the. Culture that you need a handgun that holds. I don't know how many rounds. And you don't need it to go out with. And that's the problem with what's going on. And I don't think it's a a community thing, because it happened in Arlington. It happened at Deerwood. Kid was shot, you know, I don't know how long ago now. But for playing his music too loud at the at the gas, the gate in Deerwood. So these things happen all over. It's not. To me, it's not a particular neighborhood. It's everywhere. I you know, I think worldwide. Yeah, no, Jeff, it definitely is an epidemic throughout the United States. I think that when you look at like the statistics and numbers of where it happens in Jacksonville, it leans towards certain areas of town. But absolutely, like it definitely affects every part of Jacksonville. Yeah, just the idea that, like, you know, when you look at like the zip codes of where the majority of the violence happens, it tends to happen in certain neighborhoods. But yes, your point is well taken. Thanks so much for calling in, Jeff. Thanks, Al. And we've got another call. We're going to go to Stanley on the north side. Stanley, how are you doing this morning? Yes, I'm doing fantastic to everybody. We can talk about this crime situation, but I'm a little paw about the attorney when he made the comment. It's the utmost law that needs to take place in America. I thought freedom of speech, the right for people to be able to say what needs to be said. And the reason why I'm saying this for the simple thing that when it comes to guns, until we do something about the guns, we need to decrease guns in America because it's so easy for people to be killed. Thank you, Stanley. Thank you so much for calling in to Stanley's point. And Katie, something that you said earlier, that like we have more guns in this country than we have people. And so, you know, but I guess the bigger question that I have when it comes to that is because gun culture is so much a part of the fabric of American life, how do you take that out? And it feels to me like it has to be a national solution because when you look at like, let's say a city or a state like Illinois that has really gun laws on the books that they that they absolutely, you know, I don't want to say administer, but they absolutely enforce. And you see the violence happening in that state. And then when you look at like the gun violence, the guns that come in, they tend to come in from states that don't have as much gun restrictions and gun laws like literally like you've got Illinois right here that Indiana is right next to it. And Indiana does not have the same laws. So if we do it state by state, it doesn't feel like it's actually going to decrease the violence. You're absolutely right about that. And people love to point to Chicago when we're talking about the gun violence and those states surrounding Illinois, like you said, do have lack of gun laws. And so we absolutely need to tackle this at the federal level, implement stronger laws at that level. But we also know that our advocacy work, the way we do it is a top down bottom up approach. We need sustained investment in the communities most impacted. And we know that change happens first and foremost at the local level. And so I want to point out to you, too, like Florida has a preemption law. And so our local governments are completely their hands are tied. They can't do anything to regulate guns or ammunition. But I always say that action can be taken still to reduce violence. And that's sustained investment. And then also investing in community violence intervention programs. These are the boots on the ground organizations doing the heavy lifting in this movement every single day to reduce violence in Jacksonville. I want to understand a little bit about the the takes that your organizations have on guns in the community. So as moms demand action, are you guys asking like specifically? Let me not put any words in your mouth. Specifically, what are you asking legislators to do? Like what is the number one thing on your legislative agenda? I mean, like I said, we absolutely need change at that federal level. But we are most and foremost advocating for those community violence intervention programs, the funding. I want to point out that our governor vetoed five million dollars from the state budget that was earmarked for community violence intervention. It was passed bipartisan this past session. So that's shameful. And he's also one of few states that has not applied for up to 15 million dollars in federal grant funding to come down here to address gun violence. And those are our taxpayer dollars not coming back to our state to address this. So I just want to highlight that. But also, like you said, federal, we need to close background check. Blue polls are law was written well before there was an online marketplace. Federal red flag law. We need to reinstate the assault weapons ban, the bipartisan assault weapons ban that we had in place back in 1994. And Congress let sunset after 10 years and didn't renew it. But then we also, like we said, state level, we need to advocate for stronger laws. They rolled them back last session. They passed permitless carry and went against the will of the majority of Floridians in the state. We're going to go to the phones. We've got Dave. Dave, how are you today? I'm doing great. Thanks for taking the call. And before I say anything, I just want to offer my sincere condolences to the lady who lost her children. You have lived my worst fear. Recently, we had a scare at the school where we're located in Georgia. And my wife called. She was picking our children up and she said, the police have surrounded the building. There's about 40 cops here and they are clearing the buildings. And the horror that, you know, just as a parent, there's nothing you can do. And it, you know, one of the things that came forward, but there was a young man and he had made a threat. And we had a small community in it, you know, really got me thinking the young man has no father is, you know, his mother's working all the time. And so he's fallen through the cracks. And so I and I'm a huge advocate for common sense gun laws. You know, I'm, you know, I'm conservative. Yeah, sure. Great. All for the second, then wonderful. Fantastic. There's no reason we can't have common sense gun laws. One of the things I always, and this is my question is, is, well, you know, what are we doing to really impact these young men's lives because violence tends to be perpetuated predominantly by young men. And just to just to thought, you know, the rampant fatherlessness and the lack of good role models in these in these children's lives is really contributing to the problem. And I'd love to hear, you know, if there's a program or any any type of organization that's really attempting to address those familial bonds. Thanks so much, Dave. Thanks so much for calling in. AJ, do you want to take this one? Yeah, I take this one. Madness, we have a program called Black Top and those coincide with our Santa Clause of Life Skills program. What we do, we take young young men from five to 18 years old. We get them on the basketball court just to get them in. We teach them fundamentals of basketball, you know, team playing from there. We take them into the classroom and we teach them the conflict, resolutions, we teach them how to self-evaluate themselves. We teach them how to apply for jobs. We take them on field trips. We have mentors that come in and talk to them from the sheriff's department to the fire department, to lawyers, to the TV radio personality. So we have we have programs. I guess what we are lacking is like most nonprofit organizations, it's funding. We have a good program to get the kids in. But without funding, it's hard to maintain that. Crystal, you nodded your head when he was talking about funding. Yeah, that's the biggest problem. We have amazing nonprofits that are boots on the ground, that are doing the work every day that unfortunately, we don't get. We don't hear a lot of conversation about those local organizations such as Mad Dad, such as Silent Women's Speaking, such as families, the slain children, all of these organizations. The problem that we have is that when it comes to funding, oftentimes we are blocked because of the application process. We're blocked because of restrictions that make it difficult for the funding. As Katie mentioned earlier, when our governor did not take advantage of the federal funding that was allotted for the state of Florida. That is a hindrance when we talk about programs like Mad Dads who are out there and they're doing the work 24 hours a day. We receive phone calls. Some of the other programs that are existing that are being created in terms of intervention intervention is we're working towards the mental health pieces by putting together more peer support groups for families who need the emotional support, whether that be the perpetrator, the perpetrator's family, as well as the victim and the victim's families, because we also understand that when violence happens, gun violence, especially in a community, it is not just the family that's impacted. It is the whole community. So we have to look at this as a whole piece and the funding has to be there in place to help these small, local boots on the ground, nonprofit organizations with millions of dollars, not just a couple of thousands of dollars to fund a program. So we are talking about gun violence today. And with me, I have Katie Hathaway from Moms Demand Action, a volunteer, Crystal Turner from a local gun violence survivor and Moms Demand Action volunteer and AJ Jordan, outreach coordinator for Mad Dads in Jacksonville. So a couple of weeks ago, I had Eric Friday, who is a gun advocate and a lawyer who talks a lot about the Second Amendment. And one of the things he said was really interesting to me. And I want to play this for my panel. This is Eric just talking about the numbers when it comes to gun violence. There's a saying, figures lie and liars figure to come up with 400 mass shootings. We have to include things like gang violence, which is a very disparate and definite, separate thing from active killer situations. The solutions that we need for active killers, like the dollar general situation versus what we need to address gang violence are two very different things. The same solutions do not work for both. Katie, I'm going to give that to you. What do you think? I just want to remind Mr. Friday that these are human lies we're talking about. These are not statistics. And I know Crystal can weigh in on that on personal standpoint. I would say to Mr. Friday, say that to the mother. Who is getting notification that her child's life has just been taken. Say that to the sibling. Who hears on social media that their sibling has just been murdered. Say that to the mom who's standing over a white sheet and wondering is that her child? Say that to me who drove up to the scene. And seeing my daughter's body laying in a pool of blood in the middle street and my son covered in a white sheet when I had only been away from them for 20 minutes. And the last thing I remember is them smiling and us laughing. We're not just numbers. Our loved ones are not just numbers. They are people who we not only loved. But now we're finding ways to live without them that will never, ever get them back and that people like Mr. Friday have turned into a number. But these are people who have names. These are people who were loved, still are loved and are very much missed. When it comes to gun violence and to the people who lose their lives over it, I think what happens and I'm just, you know, speaking about society and the whole like you just had the mass shooting here in Jacksonville and I think, you know, for a couple of weeks, we're all thinking about those families and we all, you know, we care and I think we continue to care. But our focus goes away from that because life is busy and everybody gets caught up in their own lives and their own, you know, things that are going on or something else in the news takes our attention and and as journalists, like we move on to the next story, like we don't stay on that story as long as the pain that the family has to feel like that doesn't end. Like it doesn't like like the moment we report on it and then we move on to the next thing that family is left with that tragedy with that black hole in the middle of their family that they have to figure out and reorganize their whole lives around. And then it gets turned into a number and then that number doesn't have names. It doesn't have heart. It doesn't have emotion to it. And we just keep going. And it seems that in this nation, even as the numbers go up, the action stays the exact same. We don't do anything with that. I'm going to go to the phones. We've got Susan on the east side. Susan, how are you this morning? I'm great. This is Suzanne. How are you, Al? I'm good. I knew this was you. How are you doing? I'm doing pretty good. Thank you so much for having this conversation, my condolences to those families who've lost loved ones and kudos to those who are being proactive in this mission. You guys are aware of the challenges that we have in the east side of gun violence, whether it's gang related, gun violence or community rated gun violence. I agree that gun violence is just that. And I echo the sentiment and I'd like to ask of the gentleman that has mad dad to come to the east side to assist us in this work. We have two apartment complexes that we purchase, lift jacks with a partner. And there are several issues of gun violence in those apartments, but there are also several youth not in those apartments, but also just in the neighborhood as a whole that can really use the mentorship and the assistance. Suzanne, thanks so much for calling in. I have a bigger, like harder question, right? So when I think about gun violence and and politics and all of these things, I tend to I tend to be pessimistic. I tend to think that like it's not going to change because we saw what happened in Newtown with, you know, all these kids who were killed, horrible, horrible tragedy that, you know, for me, like just thinking about it, just, you know, and we didn't do anything. Let me rephrase like our politicians didn't do anything. We talked about it. We had big debates, but nothing actually changed. And so my question to you, my panel is, how do you keep doing this work when examples like that tell you that like this country or at least the political class of this country really has no power or let me say rephrase that no will to change anything. I can echo that 100 percent and it's it can be extremely frustrating. This work is not easy. It's we organize through tears a lot of the time because we are humans as well. And we are seeing that our nation is traumatized. It's literally bleeding and and our lawmakers are not doing much on this. And I I know it's hard to say like not changes in happening, but there are little increments happening. We passed the bipartisan Safer Communities Act last year, Congress first time in decades. So that was significant, even though it was a baby step and we know there's more work to do. And unfortunately, change is set up to happen very slowly, especially at the federal level. And that can be extremely frustrating. But I refuse to let this be our norm over the only nation in the world that has this crisis. And has normalized children guns being the number one killer of kids. That's not OK. And I'm a mother and I will do whatever I can to enact change. We're going to go to the phones. We've got Jean and Jack speech. Jean, how are you this morning? I'm good. Thank you. I just wanted to do a little commentary about Mr. Friday's comment about one solution isn't doesn't address all gun violence. And I think the people that you have on today absolutely show that we're talking about violence, interruptors and supporting young men and young children or young people growing up that addresses some of the socioeconomic issues and the mentoring issues, the laws, gun laws, like background checks. Background checks help stop gun trafficking, which then stops some of the gun violence, the crime gun violence. So I think all of these groups are working at multiple ways. No one's saying there's one magic solution. There are multiple solutions, just like in every safety organization or every safety program, we have to plug all of the holes. And I think all of these organizations are doing just that. Jean, thanks so much for calling in. One thing that I think I'll go ahead, go ahead, AJ, go ahead. And I just want to address issue with the gun issue here is we also have to deal with illegal guns that in our community, that's really when we talk about community crimes and stuff like that, a lot of those guns that's being used are stolen out of cars and houses and in nature. So we have to educate, we have to continue to educate our public to take their guns out their cars and lock them up in their house safely and and and keep them out of reach of children. We we haven't really talked about that. And that could help reduce some of the gun violence if we just do those simple things. Yeah, thank you, AJ. We're going to go to the phones. We've got Beko and Jacksonville. Beko. Oh, hey, how are you doing, man? Thanks for allowing me to come on here today. I'm good, but you can't come on and I mean, not introduce you. Beko is a young man that I've mentored back when he was what? How old were you, 12? Yeah, 12. And now he's a grown man calling into my show. How you doing, man? Hey, man, I'm doing well, man. Good to hear your voice and you are doing well. And I'm glad that I called in, you know. So I've been working as a gun as an outreach for a gun violence prevention program here on the East side. So, you know, I hear a lot of callers calling in and just, you know, some of those are great. But we still what I have been struggling with is our city leader not able to have that urgent, that urgent response when some of these some of these youth lead that have been sparing for gun violence. Instead, you know, we we go through hurdle as an outreach. I have to call a million people have to go this have to go that when a lot of our issues that a lot of young young people, you know, go through, you need a urgent response. I mean, immediate. So I deal with participants as, you know, today or tomorrow, they might pick up a gun and go kill somebody. Or today or tomorrow, they might end up dying. So, you know, just just being in that work and just kind of experiencing some of the participants that have lost their lives, participants that also have killed somebody. So, you know, this this work, it takes a lot of it takes a lot of mentally, you know, spiritually take a lot of hold on me. And sometimes I just wonder, like, how do I continue to be in this work? But at the same time, you remember when I got shot. Yeah, I was about to say that you should, like, let people know that you are a victim of gun violence. You've been right, right. So being that way, I got shot when I was 15 then turn around at 17 year old, got shot again. So, you know, one of the one of the comments came on here and then said about how assess it is for youth to get guns. You know, so we live in the culture of guns. We see them advertised everywhere we go. We have gun fair come out everywhere, every year here. So if those things are already in place, so we need to work on getting to the youth and educating them at the real tender age. So if I was knowing about gun violence and gun safety while I was young, it would probably most likely prevent me from either picking up a gun or, you know what I'm saying, just thinking about me having a gun to go retaliate is a means of ending my conflict. Bika, we have to wrap up this segment. Thank you so much for calling in. I'm gonna let my panel respond to you. I think when we talk about just what Bika said and what Al said, when we think about the determined and that road to getting intervention programs, it comes from our politicians who are not well connected within the communities that they serve. And what I mean by that is that if you've never been impacted by gun violence personally, you don't see the other side of it, of how it makes you feel, then of course you don't understand that it's a real existing thing. Thank you so much. Katie Hathaway, Crystal Turner and AJ Jordan. Thank you so much for coming in and talking to me about this big issue.