Speaker 1: Hey, this is Bridget and this is Emily, and you're
Speaker 1: listening the stuff Mom ever told you. And as a
Speaker 1: quick reminder before we dive into today's episode, Bossed Up,
Speaker 1: the podcast is officially live in Apple Podcasts, so go
Speaker 1: subscribe now if you are interested in keeping in touch
Speaker 1: and getting some Bossed Up career advice and some personal
Speaker 1: and professional development in your earbuds on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: The podcast is debuting March first, but you can get
Speaker 1: subscribed right now. Thank you so much for welcoming me
Speaker 1: with such open arms as Bridget and I have taken
Speaker 1: this journey together on stuff Mom never told you, and
Speaker 1: I can't wait to hear where we go from here.
Speaker 1: And now for today's episode, so right off the bat,
Speaker 1: we have to start with a trigger warning. This episode
Speaker 1: deals with gun violence. Sadly, the topic of mass shootings
Speaker 1: is timely and it seems like it always is. On Wednesday,
Speaker 1: at least seventeen people were killed during a school shooting
Speaker 1: at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The suspect,
Speaker 1: nineteen year old Nicholas Cruise, was arrested on the scene.
Speaker 1: You may have seen on CNN a mother, who lost
Speaker 1: one of her children in this perfect shooting, pleaded with
Speaker 1: Donald Trump to do something about gun violence in this country.
Speaker 1: Here's what she had to say. How how do we
Speaker 1: allow a gunman to come into our children's school? How
Speaker 1: do they get through security? What security is there? There's
Speaker 1: no metal detectors. The gunman, the crazy person, just walks
Speaker 1: right into the school, knocks down the window of my
Speaker 1: child's door and started shooting, shooting her and killing her.
Speaker 1: President Trump, you say, what can you do? You can
Speaker 1: stop the guns for getting into these children's hands. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, I honestly do not know how anybody can
Speaker 1: listen to the raw grief and and sort of carnal
Speaker 1: plea in that woman's voice, that mother's voice that anybody
Speaker 1: with children especially must be able to relate to, and
Speaker 1: then go on and do nothing about it, or like
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, not even respond to that. Well. I actually
Speaker 1: think that as a country, we reached a moment where
Speaker 1: we just decided this is our new normal. I think
Speaker 1: after a new town, as a country, we just threw
Speaker 1: up our hands. We decided this is our new normal.
Speaker 1: Nothing can be done. We are numb to this issue.
Speaker 1: Once we decided that babies could get shot at point
Speaker 1: blank range and we were going to do a damn
Speaker 1: thing about it. I think it became clear how our
Speaker 1: country is reacting to this issue, and I think it
Speaker 1: is not at all. You're not reacting at all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it feels like we've hit rock bottom. Do you feel
Speaker 1: like that's true for politicians or the public or both both.
Speaker 1: I think when babies get killed, I think that when
Speaker 1: we as a country agreed that it was okay that
Speaker 1: babies got killed, you have so many people weren't okay
Speaker 1: with that. I feel like if it ever came close,
Speaker 1: it was then people made their voices, heard, organizations sprung up,
Speaker 1: people donated. Who I mean, the parents there got so involved,
Speaker 1: and what happened was nothing happened, right. So I it
Speaker 1: sounds so cynical, but I think that we just all
Speaker 1: agreed this is our normal and this is our life,
Speaker 1: said now, agreed to tolerate this In actual Yeah, we
Speaker 1: decided it was tolerable. And that's what I find so
Speaker 1: disgusting that we. I mean, listen, I'm including myself in
Speaker 1: this that when I saw the news of this breaking
Speaker 1: on Twitter, I just thought another one. I remember when
Speaker 1: Columbine happened. You know, I was a teenager, I was
Speaker 1: in school, and I remember the way that parents and
Speaker 1: teachers and administrators that was a big deal. We were
Speaker 1: all in a fervor. And now, so many years later,
Speaker 1: it's so interesting how it barely even registers. Well, the
Speaker 1: frequency has gone up so much that now we don't
Speaker 1: even know the names of the schools. These mass shootings
Speaker 1: no longer have individualized names. New Town was a standout
Speaker 1: and a normal in that regard. The shootings that happened
Speaker 1: nowadays happened so frequently that we can't even keep track
Speaker 1: of them or or name them exactly. When you see
Speaker 1: the name of a town trending on Twitter, you just
Speaker 1: assume there was a shooting there, and it's just it's
Speaker 1: I think it's our new normal, and it's really sad
Speaker 1: and disgusting. So let's talk a little bit about what
Speaker 1: happened in Florida. So Cruz, who is the perpetrator of
Speaker 1: this attack, was described as a troubled student, the kind
Speaker 1: of student that nobody was surprised would do this kind
Speaker 1: of thing. In fact, he was so troubled that he
Speaker 1: wasn't even allowed to carry a backpack to school. He
Speaker 1: made threats on social media. His social media presence was
Speaker 1: filled with pictures of dead animals and things that you
Speaker 1: would see and think, oh, this kid could be a threat.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't like he was someone who was hiding
Speaker 1: in plain sight waiting to do something. He was on
Speaker 1: people's radars, and according to the Anti Defamation League, he
Speaker 1: had ties to white supremacist groups as well. Yeah, on
Speaker 1: social media he hurled slurs at Blacks and Muslims and
Speaker 1: really seem that the kind of person who should not
Speaker 1: have access to gun right. In fact, the FBI received
Speaker 1: a report and YouTube was reported to just five months
Speaker 1: ago when he commented on a YouTube video saying that
Speaker 1: he wanted to become a professional school shooter. The creator
Speaker 1: of the video, which I think was about guns, flagged
Speaker 1: the comment, alerted YouTube and emailed the FBI around it.
Speaker 1: And despite the fact that his name first and last
Speaker 1: was the user name that he was posting under on YouTube,
Speaker 1: the FBI couldn't trace the lead back to anything. Wow,
Speaker 1: that is horrifying. So all these traits seemed like the
Speaker 1: typical mrkers of a would be mass shooter crews actually
Speaker 1: shares another trait in common with most mas shooters. One
Speaker 1: that often goes overlooked, and that is a history of
Speaker 1: troubling and violent behavior toward women. In fact, you'll hear
Speaker 1: an episode from US later this week about why it's
Speaker 1: so horrifying that our White House, this administration seems to
Speaker 1: be able to look past people with histories of violence
Speaker 1: towards women as something that's just a personal matter and
Speaker 1: not that big a deal. But this is a great
Speaker 1: reminder that when we treat domestic violence or violence against
Speaker 1: women as a personal matter and not a very serious
Speaker 1: predictor of future potentially mass violence, but really violence in general,
Speaker 1: we are doing the world a disservice. We are making
Speaker 1: the world a less safe place, and allowing these kinds
Speaker 1: of people to have easy legal access to guns is abhorrent.
Speaker 1: Exactly what this whole situation underscores to me is how
Speaker 1: not seriously we take violence against women and domestic violence.
Speaker 1: And when researchers say, hey, violence against women can actually
Speaker 1: be thought of as a risk factor for violent behavior
Speaker 1: towards the general public later on, it just goes to
Speaker 1: show why it's so critical to take domestic violence seriously,
Speaker 1: and we're not. Well, it's interesting, right, because that argument
Speaker 1: could also be warped into saying, is it not enough
Speaker 1: that a domestic abuser is already violent towards a woman?
Speaker 1: We have to validate the fear. We have to double
Speaker 1: down on the relevance of that kind of violence by saying, also,
Speaker 1: this could be a predictor of violence towards everybody. So
Speaker 1: maybe that you'll care about it then, right, I mean again,
Speaker 1: it goes to show that as a country when it
Speaker 1: happens but behind closed door in a home, we just
Speaker 1: think it's not our problem. But I think that there
Speaker 1: needs to be a shift that domestic violence is everybody's problem.
Speaker 1: So true, so so true. So Crewis apparently had a
Speaker 1: history of violent and troubling behavior towards women and girls.
Speaker 1: One of his classmates told USA Today that Crews had
Speaker 1: ultimately been expelled from school after a fight with his
Speaker 1: ex girlfriend's new boyfriend. She also said that he had
Speaker 1: been abusive to one of his earlier girlfriends. Other students
Speaker 1: have pointed out that he was taken with a female
Speaker 1: student to the point of stalking. Yeah. I hate how
Speaker 1: they phrased that in the press too. He was taken
Speaker 1: with her so much he stalked her. No, he's doctor Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's according to his math teacher and another student
Speaker 1: who had said that he was formally close friends with
Speaker 1: Crews but cut off his friendship after he started going
Speaker 1: after and threatening a female friend of his. Really, it
Speaker 1: sounds like, in addition to a whole host of other
Speaker 1: troubling factors going on in this kid's life that people
Speaker 1: seemingly didn't do anything about, one of those factors was
Speaker 1: violence and disturbing behavior toward women in his life. And
Speaker 1: it turns out he's not alone. Let's talk more about
Speaker 1: that after a quick break and we're back. So it's
Speaker 1: probably unsurprising to you that the perpetrators of mass shootings
Speaker 1: modern America are overwhelmingly male, but they overwhelmingly also have
Speaker 1: a history of domestic abuse or misogynistic behavior toward women. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're talking about people like Omar Matine, the twenty nine
Speaker 1: year old who killed forty nine people at the Pulse
Speaker 1: nightclub tragedy in Orlando in two thousand and sixteen. He
Speaker 1: had reportedly abused his former wife on a regular basis. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the Virginia Tech shooter in April two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: who gunned down thirty two people at a school was
Speaker 1: previously accused of harassing women two years earlier, and the
Speaker 1: Virginia police actually had to order him to stop contacting
Speaker 1: another female student. I mean, honestly, time and time again,
Speaker 1: every single time we see a mass shooting like this
Speaker 1: one look into the typically male perpetrators background, and you
Speaker 1: often see abusive, harassing, violent behavior towards women, along with
Speaker 1: the whole host of other warning signs, including, by the way,
Speaker 1: cruelty towards animals, which is certainly present in terms of
Speaker 1: this particular most recent shooters background exactly. According to Business Insider,
Speaker 1: nine out of the ten deadliest mass shooting perpetrators have
Speaker 1: a history of threatening, committing, or verbalizing domestic violence. And
Speaker 1: according to Every Town for Gun Safety, mass shooters killed
Speaker 1: a partner or a family member intent of shootings. So again,
Speaker 1: it means that this idea that domestic violence is something
Speaker 1: that's happening in the home, you know, none of our business.
Speaker 1: That kind of thinking allows people who really might have
Speaker 1: the capability to do something on a wider scale to fester.
Speaker 1: And what's especially troubling to me is how easy it
Speaker 1: is for these folks to get firearms. It's really an
Speaker 1: American form of exceptionalism in terms of our ubiquity of
Speaker 1: firearms in this country and the ease with which people
Speaker 1: can buy them. Technically, folks who have domestic violence backgrounds
Speaker 1: on their record aren't supposed to be able to get firearms.
Speaker 1: They're legally barred from buying guns in our country, but
Speaker 1: many of them have been able to get high capacity firearms. Anyway.
Speaker 1: There's a bunch of different loopholes that the n r
Speaker 1: A in particular has been steadfast and maintaining um and
Speaker 1: not closing that make it pretty damn easy. For instance,
Speaker 1: a gun shows for people to get firearms without much
Speaker 1: of a background check, and again that just goes to
Speaker 1: show that we're not taking violence against women seriously as
Speaker 1: a risk factor for MAS shootings. Take, for instance, the
Speaker 1: case of Devin Patrick Kelly back into Them. He went
Speaker 1: to the church where his wife worshiped and ended up
Speaker 1: killing twenty six people. As a convicted domestic compuser, Kelly
Speaker 1: wasn't even legally allowed to have access to firearms, but
Speaker 1: he ended up owning four. How do we allow that
Speaker 1: to happen in this country? I mean, I think it's
Speaker 1: insane that almost anybody, including people with such violent backgrounds
Speaker 1: or warning signs, or just a nineteen year old dude
Speaker 1: in general can walk in and buy firearms that easily.
Speaker 1: And I'm I'm someone who enjoys shooting guns on occasion.
Speaker 1: By the way, members of my family are proud gun owners,
Speaker 1: but none of them think that the way things currently
Speaker 1: are is even remotely okay. And you know, I'm all
Speaker 1: about the sportsmanship that comes with gun ownership. There's nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with that, but at what cost? And certainly none
Speaker 1: of us can say that the way things are is tenable.
Speaker 1: I think that's why common sense gun laws really have
Speaker 1: quite bipartisans support. The last time we did mass national
Speaker 1: polling on is after Newtown, people on both sides of
Speaker 1: the aisle agreed something needs to change. But the n
Speaker 1: r A s choke hold on our politics is so
Speaker 1: powerful it seems almost impossible to get anything done. You
Speaker 1: hit the nail on the head. I think most reasonable
Speaker 1: folks would say, if you are convicted for a violent
Speaker 1: crime of domestic abuse, you should not be able to
Speaker 1: get your hands on a gun. Going back to the
Speaker 1: situation with Kelly, Kelly was a member of the Air Force,
Speaker 1: which acknowledged that he kind of slipped through the cracks.
Speaker 1: They say that it appears that Kelly's domestic violence conviction
Speaker 1: was not entered into the National Crime Information Centered Database,
Speaker 1: which is why he was able to pass a background
Speaker 1: check for a gun. And to make things more terrifying,
Speaker 1: this case is not that unusual. According to a Florida
Speaker 1: International University report, the military mishandled roughly thirteen thousand domestic
Speaker 1: violence cases between two thousand four and two thousand twelve,
Speaker 1: including misclassifications that allowed abusers to go unreported in the
Speaker 1: n c I S. So essentially, people who have convictions
Speaker 1: for domestic violence who really should not have their hands
Speaker 1: on guns can kind of get them in. This isn't
Speaker 1: just isolated to military personnel. Spotty enforcement really does allow
Speaker 1: abusers to fall through the cracks. All twenty eight states
Speaker 1: and DC have laws prohibiting convicted domestic abusers from buying
Speaker 1: or possessing firearms. Only fourteen states require those people to
Speaker 1: give up the guns they already have. So if you
Speaker 1: have a gun in your house and you get convicted
Speaker 1: of domestic violence, it's a crapshoot whether or not you
Speaker 1: are legally required to give up a gun that you
Speaker 1: already have in your possessions. Well, not to mention, enforcement
Speaker 1: of that law is extremely difficult. Literally, all that police
Speaker 1: officers have to go on is someone else's report, like
Speaker 1: an abused, strange ex wife or partner saying, yeah, he
Speaker 1: has a firearm, a handgun. He keeps it under his pillow.
Speaker 1: They knock on his door and say, do you have
Speaker 1: a firearm. We've heard you have a handgun, we heard
Speaker 1: you keep it under your pillow. Can you give it
Speaker 1: to us? And literally they can say I got no
Speaker 1: firearm here, and that's it. Stories over, It's insane. I
Speaker 1: definitely think having convicted domestic abusers on the honor system
Speaker 1: is probably a bad plan. Actually, there was a story
Speaker 1: I was listening to about this on my new local
Speaker 1: NPR station in Denver, Colorado, and granted this very state
Speaker 1: to state, but in Denver, the police were saying, we
Speaker 1: oftentimes have to get in touch with these typically men's mothers,
Speaker 1: to ask their mothers to reason with them. Like God,
Speaker 1: the world is a broken place. If police are asking
Speaker 1: for the unpaid labor of abusers mothers to talk some
Speaker 1: sense into their weapon wielding abusive sons, it's very depressing.
Speaker 1: This is so fundamentally broken and in other countries when
Speaker 1: things were this broken, they did something about it, and
Speaker 1: they said, hey, no guns for you anymore in Australia,
Speaker 1: or hey no civilian firearms in the UK, which is extreme,
Speaker 1: and obviously we don't even need to be that extreme
Speaker 1: to make progress here in the United States. But our
Speaker 1: lack of action altogether is a global embarrassment, and it
Speaker 1: seems uniquely applied to the issue of guns, because not
Speaker 1: that long ago one guy tried to sneak a bomb
Speaker 1: onto a plane in his shoe, and now we all
Speaker 1: take off our shoes at the airport. So it's like,
Speaker 1: why is it that when that happened we needed swift
Speaker 1: change from the top down, And when it comes to guns,
Speaker 1: it's just this sort of do nothing approach. It doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense to me. The Constitution, Yeah, I mean, okay,
Speaker 1: the Constitution, but I'm sure when the Framers wrote the
Speaker 1: Constitution they weren't imagining semi automatic weapons. People who go
Speaker 1: back to that, I think, did you think that the
Speaker 1: Framers had I'm just saying, if the Framers had made
Speaker 1: an amendment about the right to where your shoes fair,
Speaker 1: we'd have a bigger argument about that. But instead they
Speaker 1: happen to write the right to bear arms, and here
Speaker 1: we are with this cluster of an interpretation war over
Speaker 1: what that really means. And I'm with you how to present,
Speaker 1: there's no way that they were talking about semi automatic
Speaker 1: rifles that could take down an elephant being freely available
Speaker 1: to nineteen year old I'm sure this isn't that what
Speaker 1: they had in mind, not that they were drafting the constitution.
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about what can be
Speaker 1: done about this issue if you're piste off as we
Speaker 1: are after this quick break and we're back. So it
Speaker 1: actually turns out, Emily, just like you were saying before,
Speaker 1: that keeping guns out of the hands of convicted domestic
Speaker 1: abusers is one of those rare issues that Democrats and
Speaker 1: Republicans kind of agree on. Senator John Cornyn of Texas said, quote,
Speaker 1: there are enormous problems with the background check system. Even
Speaker 1: Republican Senator Jeff Flake, who's now outgoing and speaking his
Speaker 1: truth in a way that he has in a long time,
Speaker 1: teamed up with Democratic Senator Martin Heinrich to introduce a
Speaker 1: bill that would require the military to accurately record and
Speaker 1: report domestic violence convictions and Republican governors in Utah, North Dakota, Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: and Michigan have all taken steps to limit gun rights
Speaker 1: for domestic abusers. So this does seem like an issue
Speaker 1: that most folks are in agreement needs to be handled.
Speaker 1: And what's more, keeping guns away from convicted domestic abusers
Speaker 1: seems to be pretty effective. And despite my reference to
Speaker 1: the NPR story that ran in Denver, experts agree that
Speaker 1: those laws requiring abusers to surrender their guns are effective.
Speaker 1: The states that have implemented these so called relinquishment laws
Speaker 1: saw a fourteen percent decline and intimate partner gun homicides
Speaker 1: according to researchers at Boston University and at Duke University exactly, So,
Speaker 1: just to be clear, and the levels had a little bit.
Speaker 1: In scientific terms, the link between domestic violence and gun
Speaker 1: violence still remains anecdotal. Just because mass shooters are often
Speaker 1: abusers doesn't mean that abusers are more likely to be
Speaker 1: mass shooters. And one of the things that so troubling
Speaker 1: about this is that this link really needs to be
Speaker 1: studied more So, what you're saying is that it's a correlation,
Speaker 1: not a causal link. We actually don't really know because
Speaker 1: we don't really study this enough. These connections only become
Speaker 1: clear in hindsight, which is pretty much too late in
Speaker 1: the case of a mass shooting. And not to mention,
Speaker 1: we'd really not like to have a sample size that's
Speaker 1: big enough for us to study mass shooters in a
Speaker 1: huge way, Like this is not a sample size that
Speaker 1: we want to increase to get better data on. We'd
Speaker 1: like to just solve this problem without having to have
Speaker 1: four thousand mass shooters to study. That's the thing, though,
Speaker 1: We already have so many mass shootings that if we
Speaker 1: were able to study the data that is already out there,
Speaker 1: we could probably get someplace on this issue. Susan B. Sorenson,
Speaker 1: a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and director of
Speaker 1: the Ordner Center on Family Violence, basically just says that
Speaker 1: same thing. She says, right now, we don't have enough
Speaker 1: data to have a pattern. The one thing that we
Speaker 1: know that mass shooters all have in common is that
Speaker 1: they have access to massive firepower. That is a single
Speaker 1: unifying force. Just a thought, maybe we shouldn't make it
Speaker 1: so easy to get semi automatic death machines in mass
Speaker 1: to like hoard these kinds of violent killing machine objects.
Speaker 1: In people's homes. Maybe that's something we all don't need
Speaker 1: to have, Emily, you sound absurd. Of course we need
Speaker 1: to have that. That's that's what makes this country great, Emily,
Speaker 1: this is America we're talking about. That's part of our
Speaker 1: American exceptionalism is making sure that people with demonstrated violent
Speaker 1: backgrounds can hoard weapons. I'm gonna use that quote someday
Speaker 1: and I'll be like, she wasn't being sarcastic, folks, she
Speaker 1: was being genuine I was. But yeah, A good first
Speaker 1: step in tackling this is really more research. But here's
Speaker 1: why that's not as easy as it sounds. The n
Speaker 1: r A has backed an amendment blocking the CDC from
Speaker 1: doing betterly funded research on gun violence. So when you're
Speaker 1: hearing your politician go on TV talking about thoughts and
Speaker 1: prayers and thoughts and prayers and thoughts and prayers, just
Speaker 1: know that it is entirely possible that same politician has
Speaker 1: taken money from the n ra A, the organization that
Speaker 1: makes it harder for the CDC to study gun violen
Speaker 1: unbelievable then, I mean, I knew the n r A
Speaker 1: was powerful, but I forgot that they have barred our
Speaker 1: Disease Control, our National Federal Center for Disease Control, from
Speaker 1: even studying gun violence and the impact it has on
Speaker 1: our country. That is disgusting. It is disgusting, and it
Speaker 1: really goes to show the stranglehold that the n r
Speaker 1: A has on our political system. And when I see
Speaker 1: Marco Rubio go on TV and say, you know, this
Speaker 1: is so sad thoughts and prayers, I am asking myself,
Speaker 1: how much money did you get from the n r
Speaker 1: if it's so sad? Get back that money almost a
Speaker 1: million exactly. And this latest shooting, which happened on his
Speaker 1: turf in his state, if he even has the audacity
Speaker 1: to show his face there, I will be shocked because
Speaker 1: the man has taken almost one million dollars from the
Speaker 1: National Rifle Association exactly. So you can understand why it's
Speaker 1: a little frustrating, and it's almost impossible for me to
Speaker 1: take his words seriously. I'm sure he didn't want this
Speaker 1: shooting to happen, but unless he does something, who cares
Speaker 1: at these sends of thoughts and prayers. No, it's disgusting,
Speaker 1: it's despicable. So if you want to take action and
Speaker 1: make your voice heard on this regard right now, we
Speaker 1: need citizen activists to step up. If we are ever
Speaker 1: going to be able to fight back against the n
Speaker 1: r a s stranglehold. We need everybody involved in this fight,
Speaker 1: and fortunately every town dot org an organization that was
Speaker 1: established after the New Town shooting. And if anybody has
Speaker 1: gotten that close to making real progress on this issue
Speaker 1: in the past, it was then with these organizers. They
Speaker 1: have a five step plan for anyone who wants to
Speaker 1: make their voice heard on this issue, and the first
Speaker 1: is to take their pledge to vote on gun safety.
Speaker 1: Know how much the n r A is donating to
Speaker 1: the campaigns of politicians you're considering, and don't vote for them.
Speaker 1: Vote out anybody who's been taking money from the n
Speaker 1: r A. Step one. They also say, please get registered
Speaker 1: to vote and make sure that your friends and family
Speaker 1: are registered to We can vote these suckers out of
Speaker 1: office if we don't like where they stand on gun
Speaker 1: violence prevention, and we should do just that. They also
Speaker 1: recommend attending a meeting to learn about the Gun Sense
Speaker 1: Candidate Questionnaire that we can use to hold our leaders
Speaker 1: accountable on election day. Basically, not everybody is very clear
Speaker 1: about where they stand on gun violence everybody sounds like
Speaker 1: we're all in it for the thoughts and prayers and
Speaker 1: children and safety and YadA YadA YadA. It sounds nice
Speaker 1: and dandy, and it's not always easy to find out
Speaker 1: who's taking money from the n r A. But there's
Speaker 1: a questionnaire that every town has created where you can
Speaker 1: really get more information and use it to go to
Speaker 1: events and ask your politicians. Ask folks who are running
Speaker 1: for office where they really stand on the issues, and
Speaker 1: their last recommendation is one I think is great. Run
Speaker 1: for office your damn self. If you don't like where
Speaker 1: your lawmakers stand on this issue, maybe you can do
Speaker 1: a better job. Maybe somebody out there listening, has the skills,
Speaker 1: has the power, has the drive to get us someplace
Speaker 1: on this issue. Maybe it's you, sminthy listeners. So if
Speaker 1: you don't like what your politicians are doing, get them
Speaker 1: out of there and take their place. I love it.
Speaker 1: I love it. And as a reminder, our friend Aaron
Speaker 1: from Vote Run Lead was here with a bunch of
Speaker 1: resources for how to do just that. If you haven't
Speaker 1: heard it already, go check out our episode called eighteen
Speaker 1: Is it Another Year of the Woman? Yeah? I know,
Speaker 1: I started this episode talking about how I'm a bit
Speaker 1: numb to gun violence and how it happened so often
Speaker 1: that it almost doesn't register. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people sadly feel that way. But I'm actually kind
Speaker 1: of inspired because I think that this new generation cropping up,
Speaker 1: they're not going to stand for this. And I really
Speaker 1: think we're talking about a generation of young people who
Speaker 1: are at the forefront of so many big political movements,
Speaker 1: me too, DOCTA, immigration reform, all the major movements. I
Speaker 1: think it's entirely possible that they won't stand for it.
Speaker 1: Well they shouldn't. I mean, it's children, after all, who
Speaker 1: are the victims in far too many of these massacres.
Speaker 1: And David Hogg, one of the survivors from this most
Speaker 1: recent shooting, put it so perfectly how he and his
Speaker 1: peers and really all of us will not stand for
Speaker 1: in action and are calling the grown ups in the
Speaker 1: situation to action to get things done for the children
Speaker 1: we proclaim to care about in this country. What we
Speaker 1: really need is action. Because we can say, yes, we're
Speaker 1: gonna do all these things thoughts and prayers, what we
Speaker 1: need more than that is action. Please. This is the
Speaker 1: one this year that's unacceptable. We're children. You guys like
Speaker 1: are the adults. You need to take some action and
Speaker 1: play a role. Work together, come over your politics and
Speaker 1: get something done. So when you've got young people taking
Speaker 1: grown as politicians to task, you know something needs to
Speaker 1: be done. And smnty listeners, we are right there with them.
Speaker 1: Please let's work together and figure out how we can
Speaker 1: be better on this issue. Let us know where you
Speaker 1: stand on this issue, what you're doing to make progress
Speaker 1: on preventing gun violence, and how we can follow through
Speaker 1: on David's call to action. Hit us up on Twitter
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