First, he didn’t. It was actually a stellar episode. But we at the Liberal Gun Club have asked Adam to do another look like he has done on occasion to expand on some evidence base solutions that we can do today- with no changes to our existing gun laws:
Good Morning Adam (and crew),
First, we wanted to thank you for doing your show in your typical fashion on this topic. It was fantastic to see this discussion brought forth in a thoughtful and reasonable manner, while covering many of the challenges that both side typically miss. It’s a thing we’ve been discussing and speaking on for years as The Liberal Gun Club- systemic racism in gun laws, practicality of implementation, and frankly effectiveness in addressing the issues of violence is something we are really passionate about.
The purpose of my reaching out to you this morning is to see if you would be willing to do a follow up piece. I know that you have a limited time to cover a given topic, so you had to pick and choose a bit, but there are evidence based solutions that can make a real difference- the problem of course, is that neither side wants to talk about them- they don’t involve gun control, and they don’t involve putting tanks in schools, so it’s a bit of a tougher sell.
- Operation Ceasefire/Chicago’s Cure Violence model and Hospital Violence Intervention Programs
There are a few different iterations of these programs, with Boston, Chicago, and Richmond being examples of different ways to accomplish similar goals. They involve getting the people who are most involved in street violence (as personal conflicts are one of the biggest drivers of violence overall) to engage and go down alternative paths. In all three cities this engagement lead to a massive drop in overall violence since not only are there specific individuals that are at the center of more than one event, but by heading of the retaliation portion, the continued cycle of personal conflicts slows. Boston’s program saw a 68% drop in firearm violence the first year, Chicago by 40%, Richmond by 70%, and other cities within those ranges as well.
a) http://cureviolence.org/results/scientific-evaluations/
b) https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gun-violence-intervention-hospitals_us_5bc0fbade4b01a01d68aadc6
2) 2/3 of firearm fatalities are suicides- and none of the legislation proposed or policies proposed do anything to address it. In fact, despite leaning on the whole mental health angle, the most recent budget cuts mental health services massively
b) Instead, this trend needs to be reversed. Not only to make a real difference in peoples lives, but to help reduce our climbing suicide rate (while the homicide rates are dropping) and to hopefully help others not go down the road of murder/suicide.
c) Walk the Talk America is doing good advocacy work to engage the firearm community on this important topic, but it needs more coverage.
Racist gun laws and violence against minorities has a longer history- look at the police bombing of the neighborhood in Philadelphia in the 1980’s, the burning of Black Wall Street, and many other events- the mention of the Black Panthers was fantastic, but there was also the Deacons for Defense and others who had to take up arms to protect their families and communities from those who would do them harm
We at The Liberal Gun Club have been talking about Root Cause Mitigation for a decade now- I hope your show can get people thinking about things we can do that will actually make a difference. Thank you again for doing it.
Eric Meyers
Director of Membership and Training
The Liberal Gun Club