 To Think Tech, I'm Jay Fiedel and we're talking about American issues take two today, Joe Biden's new Office of Gun Violence Prevention. And for this discussion out of the Brady Group, we have Liz Dunning. She does lots of development for the Brady Group and various other things we'll talk to her about. And Erin Davis, she's a lawyer doing litigation and legal research regarding gun violence prevention in the United States. Welcome to the show, you guys. Yeah, Jay, thanks for having us back. It's always a pleasure to be with you. Well, let's talk about Joe Biden's effort to, you know, call it an effort by Fiat to establish an Office of Gun Violence Prevention. What does that mean for us, Erin? I mean, what exactly does that entail? What will happen with that Office? Yeah, Jay, happy to answer the question. First of all, I mean, us at Brady are so, so happy that this is happening. It is such an important step in the overall gun violence prevention space to have, you know, the president and the executive branch really engaged and focused on our issue. It is such a priority defining issue of our generation as both Liz and I very strongly feel. And having the president really focus in on this issue is just hugely important to us at Brady to the to the movement and certainly for saving future lives. What is this office going to do? And have either of you been contacted by the White House? Other members of the I am Liz, other members of the Brady team have been working pretty closely with the office in its first couple of weeks. It's not really my lane, so I haven't been engaged with them. But I think, you know, to answer your question about what it's going to do, I think it's two really important things at a high level. One is that when you think across the, you know, this is a public health epidemic. This is the number one cause of death for kids. So this is the kind of thing that we need a strategic comprehensive response to. And so one of the big pieces of the office is ensuring that there's a central point of contact to coordinate across the entire apparatus of the gun of the federal government to work to implement strategies within the body of the federal government's work to end gun violence. So imagine, for instance, and you think about, you know, HHS or Veteran Affairs or even Department of Commerce, they all have a piece of this problem. Unfortunately, just about every department does. But instead of having the effort be piecemeal, siloed, deprioritized, you have, you know, the office under Vice President Kamala Harris ensuring that leaders across the government are working right now to save lives using the existing budget, existing staff, existing priorities that they have in front of them. So that's pretty exciting. And then the second big bucket is one that really resonates. It resonates personally for me. As you know, Jay, I'm a survivor of gun violence. My mom was shot and killed just about 20 years ago coming up on that horrible anniversary and just answering the door of my parents' home. And in the wake of that horrible, horrible day, you know, I and, you know, I'm pretty, I'm not uncommon in this way at all, but I needed a lot of help and a lot of support. And I think when you, when you see a community on the news because something has happened in that community, that whole community is going to need support. And so the other big bucket of the work underneath the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention is how do we engage survivors? How do we support survivors and how do we support communities that are being impacted either by a single terrible event or by the grind of daily violence? And that is something that I am very, very grateful to see the president prioritizing in the way that he is. Why was your mother killed? You know, that's a great question. I don't have a really firm answer. The murder went unsolved for about 12 years and it was only after this person killed two more people that he was, that the ballistics matched up and such that he was ultimately convicted of all three murders. A working theory for why, at least from my mother's death, was that my dad was the elected sheriff at the time. And in that sort of auto penway in the city of Alexandria in Virginia, the sheriff runs the jail in the courts. And so that means that my dad's signature was on a piece of official paperwork that separated this person from being able to have unfettered access to his child because of a domestic violence-related issue. And this person had a variety of different challenges but also had access to firearms. And so what we know is that he followed my mom for at least a few hours, but probably a couple of days and then ultimately killed her in the hall of my parents' house probably to even the score with my dad. It sort of makes life cheaper in the United States that we have this, that you can open your front door. You know what reminds me of that killing in Maryland of a judge? He was a family court judge and one of the litigants shot him was unsatisfied with his decision on some family court issue. So being a judge is dangerous and then you have Trump's stochastic remarks calling on his followers to do violence. I wonder actually, this is a far thought, Erin, but of course we had the First Amendment, but when Trump calls for violence and he's really talking to his base who would follow him, he is predictably calling on them to do violence. And in fact there was an article at the Times a couple of days ago saying if he keeps doing that, somebody is going to get killed as a result of his comments. If that hasn't happened already, I know it's hard to draw a legal connection between stochastic remarks and killings, but do you draw that connection? Do you think American law will follow that? So independent of the law, I think that that's one of the things that's so unique about the U.S. and why our work and what we're doing is really so important because, you know, if you were in a foreign country, you know, and you said something and you were in a democratic place, you wouldn't have to worry about being shot and killed the same way that you would in the U.S. because there's not the access to firearms in the way that the U.S. has. So I really do think that, you know, this gun violence epidemic is unfortunately a very, very unique problem. And I do think that people have to worry about, you know, things they say because somebody might be armed. And as, you know, obviously we're working very hard to pass important life-saving laws, but in the moment that we're in and certainly with some of the interpretations of the Second Amendment, you know, I do think it's going to become more and more challenging. I'll let you talk about how the number one cause of, you know, deaths for children is gun violence. But can you give us an update on how we're doing here in 2023? Is gun violence on the increase to decrease? What's the demography look like? So far, this has been an incredibly deadly year, unfortunately. I think, you know, we are now north of, I believe, 600 mass shootings here in America. So that's one more than, you know, more than one a day by a considerable number. And we don't expect the numbers to decline, you know, between here and the end of the year. We expect this year to be an incredibly deadly one. But I'll say, you know, there's also progress that, you know, that we're also seeing. So, you know, we've passed meaningful laws in a variety of states across the country, including, you know, assault weapons bands, including laws that begin to poke holes in gun industry, you know, liability or lack of liability. We've, you know, we've had incredible progress, including in partnership with the White House around the implementation of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. But I think the thing that we're up against and the thing that makes all the work, not just that organizations like Brady are doing, but also, you know, the conversations that we have with each other, with our friends, with our families at our dinner tables, all of that becomes incredibly important because we've got 400 million guns in American homes. So the volume of access to firearms is is an absolute danger. And so having conversations about how guns are stored, having conversations about how people who have access to guns are doing, and whether there are things happening within the family that might suggest that those folks pose a risk to themselves or to others, we have to take those conversations off of the kind of the proverbial high, high shelf, right, where you hide your kids' birthday presents, and we need to bring them down and talk about them because it's through those conversations that we begin to change the culture of guns in America. And that is, and that is just as important as changing the laws. Laws and culture in any major change we've seen in America really go hand in hand. And so it means that even if you are not a voting member of the United States Senate, you have an incredibly important role to play in creating a safer world for your kids. Yeah, COVID hasn't helped. You know, back in the day, people would sit around the crack of barrel like Abe Lincoln, and they would talk to each other, and they would compare notes on public issues. But we don't have the same kinds of relationships. We have the same friend-to-friend, candid relationships. And I think that has actually undermined public policy because people, as you say, they put it on the shelf. But I want to tell you a story that relates to your comments from a minute ago. A few days ago, I was at a dinner party, and this family, let's say, they live in a rural area, the West, and got into the subject of gun control. And this wife agreed that they had to have as many guns as possible. And they had the whole playbook open on me about why this represented democracy and freedom in the American way of life. And they had to have all these guns, not one gun, not two guns, but all kinds of guns, everything. When I asked him if he had an assault rifle, he declined to answer, which I thought was interesting. Later on in the conversation, and you know what? I was caught. I was in a dilemma, should I argue with this guy and ruin the dinner? Because it would have ruined the dinner. It was otherwise affable. But later, toward the end, I found that the children, and there were a number of children in this family, were all homeschooled. Why are your children homeschooled? Well, one of the reasons was what schools are dangerous. So you get this sort of incredible dichotomy, a huge inconsistency. Anyway, I just thought I'd tell you that. Any reaction to that story? Oh, that's tough. I mean, the first thing that I'm thinking about with those kids in the home is whether or not every single gun is stored locked, unloaded, and separate from ammunition. I mean, we know that eight kids a day are shot in their own homes because of unintentional death and injury because of firearms. And so that's on my mind. The fact that, you know, that access to a gun in the home can increase the risk of suicide by 300%, that's on my mind. I mean, I don't know, you would know better than I whether it makes sense to dig in and have, you know, what probably would be a futile argument. But I do think that, you know, the root often of those moments or those decisions is the desire to keep your family safe. It usually comes from love. And sometimes that love is mixed with fear, whether it's fear of a dangerous school or fear of the unknown or, you know, or different broader kind of fear and discomfort. I've found in those moments myself, when I'm able to have conversations that respect that intention, the intention to keep, you know, your family safe, the desire to keep your children well and healthy, starting there usually helps. And sometimes you can weave in a statistic that won't be useful in the moment, but might plant a seed or some kind of smaller change later. Those are the things on my mind. What's your reaction to it, Erin? Yeah, so it's funny. As a lawyer, I come to it from certainly a different place. And one of the things that kind of jumps out at me is that I would probably have both of you on a jury. And what sort of commonality would you all agree with? And what jumps out at me? And what I also think is so unique about this issue is there's so many points where I think gun owners and non-gun owners can unite over, you know, conversations and subject matters where there's just not that much disagreement. I mean, you'll hear people that are very loud on one side saying certain things, but at the end of the day, I think both gun owners and non-gun owners alike really value the same things. I mean, you know, they want common sense gun safety laws. Like nobody wants somebody who's a danger to themselves or other having access to a firearm. And gun owners are one of the groups that know that best because they know how dangerous they are. I think most people probably, as Liz pointed out, would, if you're a gun owner, non-gun owner would want your guns to be locked up safely so that kids can't get access to. So I think there's a lot of points of commonality in this discussion. And, you know, in my practice, I represent a ton of, you know, gun owners who are also victims of gun violence. And I work with attorneys who are gun owners. So I don't think being a gun owner or non-gun owner necessarily defines how you feel about this issue. And it's, you know, that voice of the gun owner is incredibly important to be a part of this movement. You know, I was watching YouTube as I often do, and I saw a, it's called American Dynasty. It's a series of these, you know, robber baron type families that started in the turn of the 20th century and became incredibly wealthy. And one of them was Dupont. And Dupont has made, you know, a fortune with smokeless gunpowder at first, and that all kinds of weapons and still is making a fortune. I mean, unbelievable fortune with that. And it reminded me of you, Erin. It reminded me of your litigation where you try to stop these. Okay. Your litigation where you try to stop these incredibly profitable companies that have made more money than God. And so, Cleary, how are we doing on that? How are juries reacting to the claims you make against the gun manufacturers, for example? Important part of the stuff that I do in my daily life is, and certainly in my practice at Brady, is really, you know, trying to sort of change a movement through impact of litigation. You know, every major, you know, movement has reacted, whether it be, you know, the opioid industry, tobacco, flammable pajamas, whatever it is, it's two acts of litigation that have really forced or been a part of that cultural change. So that's sort of the piece at Brady that I hold. And so what we do is, unlike any other industry, which is sort of a totally crazy thing to say, the gun industry has certain special protections, which make it very difficult to, you know, bring lawsuits and litigate against them. So, you know, instead of just looking at how a gun got into a shooter, or instead of just looking how the shooter used the firearm, what we do is we look back and look at what role a manufacturer, distributor, a gun dealer may play in leading to that act of gun violence that injured our clients. So, you know, I think we're doing pretty well in the scheme of, you know, what we have to work with. There are certainly things that there's tremendously more that we can do. And one of the really interesting things that, you know, as a movement at Brady that has sort of come forth is, you know, in recent, in recent, you know, last session and moving forward is there's been sort of an effort to proactively, you know, repeal certain gun industry special protection laws, as well as pass new laws that will allow us to work within these special gun industry special protection laws and be able to bring more cases and be successful at work. So that's one of the exciting things that sort of have happened, you know, in the past few years, with the on moving forward. Yeah, I think we really have to look at the larger picture, the comprehensive how it affects large numbers of people, how it offers them opportunities for violence they wouldn't otherwise have. And I, again, I'm reminded, this is a pre-association show that I mentioned that to you, the movie called Painkiller. And it's the story of the Sackler family. And it's the story of oxy content. And they, one method or another, they lobbied themselves into all kinds of protections. And it wasn't until some jury got hold of them and really let them have it. But it was on the notion of they should have known that these people would get sick from oxy content and that they would have, you know, terrible suicidal lives as a result of oxy content. And it's the same thing. It's a matter of looking at it broadly and having a judge or a jury understand this is, you know, beyond one weapon, beyond the balance sheet. This is affecting America in general. And I want to offer one other thought to you, listen, this trip is something you said, is that people are afraid. And that drives them to the guns. And it drives them to take their kids out of school. We have a lot of fear in our country. And, you know, it's the result of gun violence, but it's something else to it, like your reaction. It's a lack of confidence in the system that the system will protect them. So they have to, you know, the American way, so they have to protect themselves. I heard that strain at the dinner party, I mentioned, but I wonder what your thoughts are about. I think there's a piece there too, that is really a product of the gun lobbies marketing over multiple decades, right, that have really pulled apart the notion of risk and danger from the presence of a loaded firearm. I mean, if you look at polling now, Americans overwhelmingly say that guns make you safer. When all of the statistics underneath that are actually pointing the opposite direction, right, the presence of a gun makes you less safe in basically every way. And so, you know, yes, that there is fear, and yes, it shows up in this work time and time again. But I don't think that it's necessarily just sort of endemic to our culture. I think it's also been placed there by folks and companies that now profit from it. And so it's sort of what do we do as a community, as a culture, as individuals who want a safer and better world, what do we do to then start to change the cultural shift to sort of turn the tide and say, no, no, no, guns are risky objects. Yes, yes, yes. There are reasons to store them safely. There are sometimes reasons to not have access to them. There's certainly reasons to really set a high bar for who should. And I think thinking of guns as risky objects is foundational to moving our culture to a place where we can all be more safe. Yeah. And we have to inculcate that into the population in general. So, what Liz was saying right there, you know, we have several lawsuits against gun manufacturers that were actively litigating because they are intentionally marketing these kinds of firearms in ways that are appealing to young and vulnerable people. I mean, like vaping, just like vaping. Exactly. It's a similar marketing campaign where, you know, they're displaying firearms the same way you would see them in a video game. And, you know, that's attractive to people. And if you look at sort of the history of who's committing some of these large shootings and with AR, with AR-50 firearms, which are the subject of our lawsuits, you see the same type of patterns. And, you know, as these lawsuits develop and continue to move forward, I think we have another show together at a minimum, but there's a lot of interesting stuff that I think will come out of them in terms of, you know, really the intentional role that, you know, the gun industry has played in certain areas of our community. I don't understand how they can sleep at night, honestly. But that's just me. What I want to ask you is something we really need to discuss there. And that is these state legislatures that seem to pass horrendous bills, like in Texas, like in Missouri, which we will hear more about. And these bills are pro gun ownership. And they're ridiculous in many ways. They go far beyond the parameters we've talked about, but these state legislatures are passing these bills now, today, despite your efforts at Brady. And at the same time, Congress is dysfunctional. It hasn't really done anything. It needs to do a lot. This is a federal issue. May I say that I go on record? It's a federal issue. It's not a state issue. And Congress should take care of it. What's your thought about that, Erin? You know, I think that we were all really surprised and quite surprised. Actually, when they passed the bipartisan labor communities in Congress at the moment that they did. But the way we look at it is it's not a ceiling, you know, federally, it's really a floor and it's a starting point to all the other places where we hope to go. And it is a long game. It is not a short game. And I also think to, you know, all of the laws that you mentioned on the state side, which might be negative, there are also an extremely amount of positive gun safety laws being passed across the country. And laws that really will make a difference. I mean, what you alone had a tremendously successful session last year and passed some absolutely fantastic laws that are really hopefully going to keep, you know, Hawaii as a safer place. And, you know, as they get challenged, you know, we're there working right, right next to the governor making sure that they get defended and they stay in place. So that's certainly one of the efforts that Brady is doing. And, you know, I think in the spot that you are, I mean, I think as much bad stuff is coming up, there's also good stuff, which is, you know, for me inspiring and very reassuring as a sort of navigate the next phase of that. I would be remiss if I did not mention that unhinged judge in California that just struck the longstanding California ban on assault weapons and on large magazines. I do not for the life of me understand how he could be on the bench anyway. But query, what are we going to do about that? We can do about judges like that. What are we going to do about, are you guys involved in appealing him? We are, you know, Brady is involved in writing very thoughtful and briefs, you know, in response to all these cases that really that the community and people reading it and the judges who are deciding it can, you know, be aware of all the issues that work. So I think we play a very important role in advising the court of, you know, certainly the scope and the meaning of what the second amendment actually is. Yes, it is something that we are actively doing. I think as in any case, there are bad judges and good judges, and that's why our system is set up in a thoughtful way with multiple opportunities to appeal. And my hope is that there are enough rational judges out there that, you know, there will be thoughtful interpretations of the second amendment ongoing. I mean, there is a case up there right now that's of the U.S. Supreme Court level called the Rahimi case that's set to be heard on November 7th. And I think that's the first case after the Bruin case, which sort of redefined the second amendment. So I think as these lower courts address this issue, we'll come up with a stronger line of precedent that will hopefully, you know, reduce the challenges because they're incredibly important. You know, Erin, I'm waiting for the time when we have one of these shows with you when you tell us you're just about to go to the Supreme Court and argue one of these cases, or that you just did appear at the Supreme Court and argued one of these cases and you came back successful. Will you make a note to give me a call when that happens, please? I will make a note to give you a call when everyone is successful, but certainly when it's me. It may be after November 7th. Okay, I think it's almost time to shut this down. So we have a couple minutes left. Let me ask you here your final thoughts that you would leave with the public. Liz, you first. And I hope you can tell us what we can do. What we can do in terms of engaging with the Brady Group, what we can do in terms of engaging with state and federal organizations, including Joe Biden's new office of, you know, gun violence prevention. What can we do? Instead of just sitting and watching, what can we do? So really, our website is the one-stop-shop here, right? So if you go to bradyunited.org, you'll be able to find a variety of petitions and connect with legislatures around all the policy issues that we're working on right now, state and federal. You'll be able, including giving the White House the direction that it needs to make that office as effective as it can be. It'll also give you an opportunity to give, which is really important. We are a grassroots supported organization. So it is regular people that make it possible for us to do the work that we do. There's no, you know, separate pot of gold there. And it also will provide some resources, including podcast episodes and some, you know, one-pagers that give you tools to talk, to have those uncomfortable conversations, whether it's at a dinner table or, you know, at a grocery store or at a parent teacher conference with the folks in your life who need and who you want to have this kind of conversation about keeping our kids safer. Yeah, you know, Aaron, it's really important that you guys and that we in general keep this at the top of the priority list. And these days, there's so much violence in the world, and I am thinking of the Middle East and I am thinking of Ukraine. And it sucks out all the oxygen in the media. So if you have some, you know, horrendous shooting in a, in a, you know, Ubalde kind of situation with school kids and crazy shooting people, it may not be at the top of the headlines simply because the oxygen is being sucked out with other violence. What is your advice to us to make sure that nobody ever forgets this issue in the United States? In America, there's someone in our country is shot every 11. You know, some of them are mass shootings that get a lot of media coverage, but a lot of them are everyday community violence. So I really think, you know, it's important to just recognize what a big impact this issue will have, you know, on every generation. And certainly, you know, the generation that my kids and Liz's kids are in, where they're growing up through it. I mean, this is a part of their everyday life. This is something that, you know, they're thinking about in their schools, you know, they're thinking about in their community. So I really think just continuing to lift up this issue. I mean, it's horrible to turn on the news, but you know, this is an issue that whether it's front and center or not on the news, it's something that's going on. Really, you know, as Liz mentioned, the Brady website has so many resources for all types of people, you know, impacted by gun violence. We have to keep remembering and we shouldn't get paranoid, but we have to think of it like, for example, when we open the door and when Nancy Pelosi's husband opened the door. There are people out there that are really outside the fold and our society is complex. Well, thank you, Erin Davis. Thank you, Liz. I really appreciate coming around. We'll do this again because it's an issue that keeps on going. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jay, for having us. Aloha.