 We have the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence on Think Tech here. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Community Matters, and we're talking with Erin Davis, who is a daughter of Hawaii, if you will, who is practicing in the gun violence, you know, gun violence practice in Washington. Welcome to the show, Erin. Thank you so much, Jay, for having me. It's my pleasure to be on, and it's always a treat to talk to people about what I consider my real home, which is Hawaii. Of course. And we will always consider you a daughter of Hawaii. So, you're doing really important, interesting work with the Brady Campaign. Can you tell us, Zoe, we'll understand what is the Brady Campaign? How did it get started? What does it do? And what do you do for it? Absolutely. And before I start, I just want to thank you for having me on and allowing and lifting up this issue on your show and lifting up Brady's work. It's really important to us for people to be informed about the issue and support our work, and Jay, thank you for that. So I work for an organization called the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, and this is a gun violence prevention organization that has been in existence really since the 70s. We started off originally as hand-violence handgun control with the name of the organization, and then after Jim Brady was shot, Jim Brady was Ronald Reagan's press secretary, and after he was fatally shot in the attempt to assassinate President Reagan, he suffered injuries that left him permanently paralyzed, and him and his wife Sarah Brady became huge advocates in gun violence prevention to try and change the law. And what they did was they worked with the organization that later became named for them, which is Brady, and they passed the Brady Bail, which is one of the most important pieces of legislation that has ever come to be in the gun violence prevention movement because it required federal background checks to occur when you sell a gun. You could no longer just walk into the store and buy a gun. You had to go through a background check, so it was the first substantial federal law related to gun safety, and it was a huge, huge accomplishment by them. And to honor them and to honor their legacy and to honor the work, our organization was renamed for Jim and Sarah Brady. Now what I do at Brady, I mean Brady is a large organization. We work across Congress, courts, and we work across the communities to really raise awareness about gun violence and ultimately save lives is our goal. And what I do is I am the senior counsel for trial and appellate litigation, and I work on a legal team that has been established for about 30 years. And what we do particularly is we bring impact driven litigation against different actors in the gun industry. So what that means is that, you know, every major social issue has been reformed through impact litigation. So what Brady does is we bring important cases, we create important precedents, and we pave the way for private lawyers to bring lawsuits on behalf of victims of gun violence. So the goal is to do this impact litigation to really change the industry, to change the practice of how gun industry actors and hopefully make our community safer. You know, a lot of people think that the federal government is broken, Erin. They think that Congress is broken. Even the gun bill that was passed two weeks ago is, it's not strong enough. A lot of people think that. And, you know, they worry about the courts. They worry about some of the judges who've been appointed in recent years during the Trump administration in the federal system and in the state system. For that matter, they worry about those judges too. And they worry a lot about the Supreme Court given its recent decision, including in gun control. And so, you know, here you are operating on the basis that the courts will do the right thing. What's your level of confidence in that? I am traditionally an optimist and I am encouraged and I hope that, you know, even within the political landscape, that good can be done both legislatively on the federal level. I think the Bipartisan Communities Act was a wonderful starting point. It accomplished a lot. And even though there was a lot that wasn't included, it will definitely save lives. We definitely have more work to do. And certainly the court system presents its own challenges, but there are a lot of good judges and there are some good laws out there. And our hope is that bringing these cases will continue to reform behavior. You know, if you had, if we all had a working Congress, a Congress that would be sensitive to, you know, the tremendous gun control problem we have in this country. A lot of the issues that you deal with in the courts would be resolved by statute. Isn't it true? I mean, I know that you wouldn't mind having, you know, those issues resolved in Congress. But what would you like to see in Congress, assuming Congress, you know, was more sensitive to the issue? Absolutely. So, you know, there are a handful of different bills and initiatives that are sitting in Congress waiting to be voted on or waiting to pass. A really important one is universal background checks. I think universal background checks is a crucial bill, as does over 90% of the country want universal background checks. Right now, many states have requirements in which you are required to pass a background check if you're a private seller. But it's not at a federal level. And given that, you know, with the exception of Hawaii, most of the United States is continuous and somebody can buy a gun somewhere else and bring it in, it's important that some of these laws become federal law. So, what about the Brady Bill? You mentioned a few minutes ago that the Brady Bill called for background checks. What's the difference between a background check in the Brady Bill and a better background check, a better statute on that that you would seek now? Absolutely. So, the bill that's currently in Congress is basically to close the loophole for private sales. So, federally, if I wanted to sell you, Jay, a gun, I could sell you the gun without you having to undergo a background check. But if I was a licensed gun dealer and you chose to buy the gun for me, you would have to come in my store, fill out the paperwork and get a background check. So, really, the hope of the background check bill is to close that loophole for private sales and that same law applies for gun shows. You can walk into a gun show and buy a gun in many states without undergoing a background check. You can also buy a gun online. There are certain websites, one of them is called Armsless, which is essentially Craigslist for guns where you can post a gun and buy a gun and there's no accountability and no background checks that are done. So, the universal background check would require everybody to have a background check if they're seeking to buy a gun. So, why would I go to a gun store anymore? It sounds like gun stores have been cut out of the equation. It's so much easier to go on the web and buy it off a website without the background check. It's almost like, why do I care about gun stores? Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting point you raise. I mean, I think that there is a, most people, most gun owners are lawful gun owners and they want a gun for the sport or because they feel entitled to it and they know and they take safety classes and they know how to handle a gun in a safe way. So, those type of individuals would absolutely go to a gun store to purchase the gun because they have the most selection and biggest types of guns and well-priced guns. But if you're in the criminal marketplace and you can't get a gun through legal means, people often seek getting a gun through private sales. They seek going on the internet to buy a gun, like a Lego kit that you can put together yourself called a Ghost Gun. They can buy a gun through, like I said, Arms List or one of these organization and one of these other types of websites or they can buy a gun through a licensed dealer through illegal means like a straw purchase, which is illegal. So there are plenty of ways for criminals to try and get guns and our hope is that some of this legislation can stop that and cut off the different black market ways in which a criminal could get gun. And certainly my goal in this interview is not to tell criminals how to get a gun but there are certainly many loopholes that exist. And I think states, especially states like Hawaii are looking to try and close some of those loopholes for citizens, which I think is wonderful. You know, I remember a TV movie about a news segment about a gun show in the South. And in Hawaii, we don't have gun shows that I know about but this was a gun show apparently that happens on a regular basis in many places in the South. And it was huge, huge. It was the biggest haul you could imagine. And there were truly thousands of people buying and selling guns. It was the biggest swap meet you ever saw. And I didn't realize until I saw that movie just exactly what kind of a problem there is in terms of trading, selling, buying guns in this country or without background, yeah. Absolutely. So like I said before, background checks are a really important bill that Congress could pass. Another bill, if you wanted me to bring up another one that Congress could pass is the Assault Weapons Band. And this was asked as recently in July of this year in the house with bipartisan support. So, you know, it's waiting to be brought up in the Senate but an Assault Weapons Bill really could stop a lot of the mass shootings that we're seeing in this moment of time. You mentioned the Lego guns and I wonder if you could help us understand what that is and how dangerous it is and what if anything could be done in Congress or by law enforcement to limit the number of Lego guns out there? Absolutely. And so I called them Lego guns but what they're formally called as ghost guns and the reason why they're called ghost guns is because they're guns that are un-serialized. So every single gun that's sold through lawful means and really every gun starts in a lawful way. It's manufactured, it's sent through a distributor, it's gone to a gun store and then at some point, if it enters into a trafficking or a legal way, it enters into that. But it all starts for the most part through legal ways and all of those guns are serialized which means that if that gun is used in crime or recovered in crime, what the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms can do is they can take that serial number and they can figure out how the gun got there. So it's called a trace. They can trace that gun back to the dealer who sold it, the distributor, to the manufacturer. So you can really keep track of how these guns ended up where they are and organizations and regulatory agencies like ATF can look at that data and use that as an enforcement. The difference with ghost guns is that they're not serialized. So individual companies on the black market are creating guns that don't fit within the definition of a firearm, that fits within the definition of a firearm it has to have a serial number. They're building these guns that have different parts of the firearm but they're not necessarily assembled together. So what that means is that you could go online and order one of these guns haven't delivered in most states. Hawaii actually has passed a wonderful law against ghost guns. But prior to that, what you could do is you could go online you could order one of these guns. It would arrive in your house in a box that looks like an Amazon box, although they're not from Amazon. And oftentimes they come zip tied together and you take your screwdriver and you screw it together and you can have a handgun or you can have an AR-15 style gun with no background check. They're not traceable. So if they're used in crime, they can't hold anyone accountable for how they got there. So it's real and what's interesting is ghost guns if you look at the statistics, they're not showing up where you can easily get a gun in the black market. They're showing up in markets like Hawaii or California and their crime scenes because it's an easy way to get a ghost gun in states that have pretty serious regulations that who can have a gun and the type of gun you can have. And they'd be seen by TSA if you walk through an airport security station. Yes, I think most of them can. There are hand, I mean, ghost guns is a broad term. Obviously they have guns that you can, you know print on a 3D printer that are made of plastic that might not register in that way but the ghost guns in general that I'm referring to are typically made out of modern parts which include being able to be picked up through a metal. Any other statutes you would support in Congress to limit gun violence? Yeah, so I mentioned expanding background checks in the assault weapons ban. The third one that I would mention which is also still pending is an enhanced background check. And this one closes what's called the Charleston loophole. And what the Charleston loophole is is the Charleston loophole is a loophole that exists that basically says if you go to buy a gun and your background check is not completed within three business days, that dealer can choose to sell you the gun even though the background check is not finished. And what that means is that, you know most good dealers, most safety conscious dealer will wait until the next background checks come back. And once they come back, it'll give you either what's called a proceed or a deny. And what a proceed or a deny is as they say a proceed means, you know legally they've passed the background check and assuming there are no other red flags for the purchaser, you can sell the gun. Whereas a deny means there's something that came back in the background check and you absolutely cannot sell the gun. So, but oftentimes, you know it takes Nick's and the FBI a bit of time to look at your record. Most of them come back very quickly but there's a few where there may be something that they need to double check to see whether someone might pass a background check or not. So what they do is they put you into what's called a delay status which means they don't have an answer right away but they're looking for it. Now the way the law is currently written is if that background check has not been completed in three business days that dealer at their discretion can legally sell you the gun under federal law. I mean, certain states have closed this loophole on a state level but on a federal level, it means you can sell the gun. And that loophole was how the Charles in the Charleston church shooting several years ago how that shooter got his gun. So closing that and making sure that you have a concrete proceed or deny prior to transferring the gun is really an important law. And all of these laws that I've mentioned the assault weapons ban, the enhanced background check closing the Charleston loophole and universal background checks are all things that gun safety advocates and gun owners all agree on as really low hanging fruit in terms of things that really could continue to stay more alive. So that's one of the reasons why they're important pieces of legislation and hopefully there will be some movement on them at some point. The bills have been drafted. They're sitting there waiting for some sort of vote and hopefully that vote is passing them. Why is it so hard to get them through Congress? There seem obvious that the fewer guns in the country the less gun violence, especially when you're talking about guns that are manufactured for war scenarios not self defense by any stretch. And why is it so hard? Who is opposing? And I think I know part of the answer here anyway. Who is opposing all these gun control measures? The gun lobby is extremely strong and the gun lobby is best served by people buying guns and that includes citizens buying more guns and it involves law enforcement needing to buy more guns to protect citizens. And it's an industry where the gun industry profits as long as guns are being sold and they have a tremendous lobbying, they have effort and they fund these politicians which sadly is a disconnect between what their constituents actually want in those cases and the money they're getting in political fund rates. So it's a tricky issue. It's certainly not a new issue. The gun lobby has been around and quite strong for a long time and it's gotten more strong and more extreme in recent years, certainly in this market. I was encouraged I have to say by the fact that there was in response recently both to the Ubalde shooting and the Buffalo shooting which were both just horrific that there was a moment that caused everyone to pause and not listen to the political lobbyists and actually get together and pass bipartisan legislation. So I am hopeful that if they weren't able to do this I hope it doesn't take more people dying to get to that moment. But I am hopeful that there will be additional efforts on the federal level and certainly on the state level we've seen a lot of exciting important bills being passed and being worked on in the state. And Hawaii is certainly one of those states that leading the charge in terms of passing really important gun safety bills. So my hope is that even if it takes longer even if it's a long game on the federal level that hopefully some of these states will pass a really important legislation in the shorter term. Mark would you know New Zealand and Australia have a statute that called for the return the repurchase of guns and pay you a fair price for your gun and you turn it in. And if you don't turn it in you go to jail and just a lot of carrot and stick kind of encouragement there. And it has worked. People have turned their guns in, no surprise. And in fact, the number of incidents of gun violence in both of those countries is down to a tiny fraction of what it was before and certainly what it is in the United States. Is there any chance that you see going you know into we're all old and gray. Is there any chance that issues the of statutes like that here in Congress? I think the gun violence problem in the U.S. sadly is very American and very unique the U.S. I think given you know certainly some of the protections of the Second Amendment and some of the interpretations of the Second Amendment which you know we'll have to do it. We'll have to do another get together on whether exactly interpreted or not certainly we could do an entire session just on that but given what the Second Amendment stands and given the gun culture in our country I don't necessarily see a parallel situation to New Zealand but I am optimistic that some of these gun safety laws will ultimately save lives if we can get them passed and hold those you know accountable under all those who are selling guns to people who shouldn't have them we can hold them accountable. Well you talk about accountable but your practice is a civil practice. You're not involved in prosecuting anybody or for that matter I suppose defending them and in gun control cases the use of guns. So I'd really like you to you know help our audience understand what the civil practice of gun control is like. Who are your clients? I mean don't tell me their names please. Who are your clients? What has happened that makes them wanna go to court and who do you wind up suing and what kind of reception you get you know in terms of the outcomes? Yeah absolutely so all of my clients are primarily victims of gun violence and they've all been through you know the most horrific trauma that they have ever gone through like most you know civil tort victims and you know we have a variety of different types of cases. You know I have some cases on behalf of family and children who are unintentionally shot because you know the gun industry is not regulated by the Consumer Product Safety Commission so they're not required to have mandatory safety features or their products can't be recalled in the same way that a water gun or a Nerf gun would be. So I have certain cases that are product that liability cases against the gun manufacturers. I have cases on behalf of victims of gun violence against gun dealers for selling guns and trafficking in the legal straw purchases. I have, I represent victims of gun violence against the gun manufacturers for their negligent marketing of cases that encourages people who are prone to violence to you know buy their types of guns and those are some of the high profile types of shootings that we've heard about in recent years. And then we also work on behalf of you know cities and states to hold the gun industry accountable. We have a case currently on behalf of this city of Gary, Indiana which is holding you know the gun industry accountable for all the carnage that it's caused in the city. So you know impact litigation is really a tool to hold the gun industry responsible the same way you know big tobacco was able to be held responsible and it became a public, it created a public health campaign and it really caused them to ultimately you know change their practices and change the voice in the country. So that's a lot of what our impact litigation is driven at and you know the other thing I would mention is that you know like I mentioned before the gun industry has certain special protections because of their lobby and they have in they were able to pass in the mid 2000s in an immunity statute which limits gun violence victims from being able to have their day in court. So a lot of our work is geared at overcoming that federal statute and creating a good body of precedence that gun violence victims have access to justice. How do you do that? If they you know the good manufacturers have immunity how do you get around that? So the immunity is limited and it certainly is limited and there are certain exceptions carved out of it. So you know we bring cases that you know established precedence showing what these exceptions are and we also argue that this statute is unconstitutional. So obviously you know our policy team is working to repeal it in court and we are working to develop a body of precedent that paves the way for gun violence victims to have their moment in court. So are your cases frequently jury trial cases and if they are what kind of reception do you get among juries and is that geographical and do they you know give you walloping verdicts because I tell you I'm volunteering now Erin I want to be on one of those juries. I know what to do. Jay I would love to have you as a juror on one of my cases truthfully. You know what's interesting about jurors in this case is even gun owner jurors even gun owner jurors and you know I have a national practices. So I have cases in urban cities and I have cases in very rural areas where the vast majority of the jury is a gun owning jury. But really at the end of the day you know lawful gun owners want the same thing they want their community to be safe. They don't like people and they don't like actors that break the rules. For example if a gun dealer sells a gun and then the legal straw purchase you know it makes it harder for them as you know a lawful gun owner to be able to use their firearm in the way that they choose. So in general it's been really interesting that jurors really do line up behind the idea of gun safety and holding those accountable who break the rules and endanger their community. What about ammunition? I remember that after one of those massacres was it Hay Mart or Walmart announced they weren't going to sell ammunition anymore or a certain kind of ammunition. Can you attack the rash of gun violence that we have by attacking the availability of ammunition? I think the ammunition is certainly a problem. In particular I think these firearms that have high capacity ammunition aren't even bigger a problem. You know if you're having an AR-15 and you add in a hundred round drum to it you know what fire is almost like an automatic weapon. If you have ammunition that you know a 10 round magazine you can't do nearly as much carnage. So I certainly think the amount of ammunition you can hold in a magazine is also an important area where you can you know create some gun safety laws and rules around that. So when you say impact you want to have a social legal, national, social, legal impact on this whole phenomenon that we have in this country with our 400 million guns. And are you getting there? And how do you choose the cases? I mean what cases would you not take when you are you know dedicated to having an impact? Yeah so I mean what I have found from doing impact driven litigation is that you know filing a case makes it really has a big ripple effect. So when you file a case even if it's only on behalf of one victim you know gun dealers around the country who want to do the right thing. And I would say that most gun dealers do want to do the right thing. They don't want to sell guns off the books illegally in trafficking. There's a handful of bad apple gun dealers who sell a lot of crime guns know they're selling a lot of crime guns and continue to sell a lot of crime guns. But most of them I would make the argument do want to do the right thing. And when they hear about incidences where gun dealers are doing the wrong thing or alternatively they hear about incidences about gun dealers performing their practices and changing their practices to have safer practices. That really can have a ripple effect on gun dealers and they hear about what other gun dealers are doing or they hear gun dealers come out and make public statements about gun safety and they copy that. And so it does really have a ripple effect is what I found in my experience. And certainly I've been against large corporate dealers and corporate dealers who have large stores in a big footprint if they change their practices that really does have a wide impact as well. It reminds me of some stock brokers who impact stock brokers who would tell you never ever buy any stock in any capacity or never buy any fund that held any stock in guns. Seems to me that you can get impact that way too if everybody followed that rule. Yes, no I definitely think that there is a role for corporate America to play in terms of holding the gun industry accountable for their role, absolutely. I think that I hope that more companies lift up their voices and do things like that and really sort of put pressure on the industry and in other ways that would cause them to sell guns safely and then back your guns with safety features and be accountable for when they don't. This strikes me that anybody who is dedicated to doing impact in this area is going to have a secondary impact. That is if people know that there's lawyers out there like you who will take these cases and will pursue these cases, will lose a draw. That's pretty frightening to a gun dealer depending on who the defendant is a gun owner, a gun manufacturer and even if you don't come out with the kind of judgment that I would give you, you're still making a statement in the community to the others who might be engaged in the same conduct. So it has, I'm sure as you said, a ripple effect around the whole community. So my last question to you, Aaron, is there are other errands around other Brady projects around that are doing the same thing? And because we need a lot of you, we need you to be a wave of accountability, a wave of litigation as the best choice to have impact on this. And I wonder if you have friends, associates, colleagues who are doing the same thing and whether they are having an effect and whether it is a growing area of practice, I'm hoping that it is. Yes, and I think, I mean, unfortunately the rate of gun violence continues to raise and remain stable in our country. So there are no shortage of cases and Brady does a lot of cases and we've certainly paved the way but we also work really hand in hand with the private bar and I encourage private attorneys to bring these cases and if they don't know how to pick up the phone and call me and I'll tell them how to do it and sort of walk them through ways that they could be successful. It's really important for us to empower the community, the private bar to keep bringing these cases because they're important. And certainly Brady views itself and wants to be a thought leader but this is not something that we can solve with the footprint of our organization. And so our hope is that we inspire other lawyers to work with us, bring cases because it really isn't an important issue. And Jay, if I may, I would definitely like to tell your viewership about our email address if you have any questions about my work or about Brady's work, our website is www.bradyunited.org and if any of your viewers are interested in the topic we always appreciate additional supporters of Brady. There are so many ways to get involved in the issue well beyond just knowing about it. So we have a really interesting podcast as well which I hope you don't mind that I lift up on your show because it really touches on a lot of these different issues and certainly looks at many, many different aspects of gun violence that it's called Red Glue and Brady. So if any of your viewers are interested in learning more about what we do or about different issues, we have detailed podcasts. I have a bunch of them on different cases that we've handled and that I've handled at Brady and we've also have detailed deep dives into all of these policy issues as well as what we're doing from a public perspective as well. Well, it's clear we're gonna have to do another show also, Aaron. We're gonna have to come back and drill down on some of these points we discussed. Aaron Davis, the Brady United organization for gun control, we really appreciate your work, appreciate your coming on the show and appreciate your contribution to the country. It's much more, much beyond just ordinary practice of law. It is practice of law for the benefit of everyone. Thank you, Aaron. Jay, thank you for having me and thank you again for lifting up our issue. People like you and voices like you who are really helping us get out our messages is very appreciated on our end. So thank you for having me. I would love to come back another time and certainly continue this conversation. Absolutely. Thank you, Aaron. Aloha. Thank you. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.