--:-- Sean Rameswaram: After last week's shooting in Uvalde, Texas, we asked you to call in with any questions or just to vent. Some of you had questions. I would like to know what average citizens like myself can do to stop gun violence. How many more of these have to happen? What can we actually do? How much power does the Second Amendment really have? And a lot of you just wanted to vent.
--:-- Tanika: I'm calling from Westchester, New York. I have a four-year-old who I had extremely hard time dropping off at daycare this morning. By the time I'd left her, I was in tears and shaking. It's just this world isn't there. It's not the kind of environment I want to raise my child in. I don't really know what we do next.
--:-- Carter Knoll: Hello, my name is Carter Knoll. I am from Indiana. I'm 22 years old. And it all just feels so hopeless. and I'm so angry. I became political in 2012 when I was a 12-year-old and I heard about the Sandy Hook shooting. That's when I decided I am against the people who let this happen as a 12-year-old. And all I can do is just try to channel that anger and that grief and that rage into action.
--:-- Philadelphia Public School Teacher: Hello. I am a Philadelphia public school teacher. And I'm obviously still processing everything that happened in Texas. thinking about coming into my classroom every day, sitting behind my desk, interacting with my students, but then also trying to think about worst-case scenario of having to then use that same desk as a barricade to protect my students and myself.
--:-- Marlene: My name is Marlene, and I'm calling from Houston, Texas. My husband and I had a lot of conversations about moving back to the U.S. My family are there. I miss them very much. We lived in Tijuana, Baja California, for over five years. But I feel so much safer. I'm living in a country that regulates guns, a country where the Wikipedia entry for school shootings has one entry.
--:-- Tanika: Hi, my name is Amy. I'm calling from London. My name is Amy. I'm calling from London.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Today Explained, we listened to you vent about guns, but several of you had questions we wanted to answer too. We asked Dr. Megan Ranney for help answering them. I'm a practicing emergency physician and academic dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University in Rhode Island.
--:-- Darren: Hi, this is Darren from Oregon, and I am cynical about anything that's going to change. I'm curious to understand how many more of these have to happen for every single person in the United States to be impacted directly.
--:-- Dr. Megan Ranney: It is so normal and appropriate to feel angry, frustrated, and even cynical right now. I've been working on this issue for almost my entire career. and I'll be honest, on Tuesday afternoon, I called a bunch of friends and colleagues in despair. You know, how many more of these do we have to go through before we actually do something?
--:-- Alex Garcia: Hi, my name is Alex Garcia from Southern California. I'm 32 years old. I have a four-year-old, and I'm finding it very difficult to explain this to him in a way that won't scare him. But I feel like more needs to be done maybe through the CDC or through some other local government organizations that can really educate parents on how to safely educate their children on what to do during the school shooting or how to, you know, frame that in a way that they can digest it.
--:-- Jill: Hi, my name is Jill, and I'm calling from Rhode Island. And I'm wondering if you could do more research or there could be more conversation about what the steps are that other countries, places have taken to do after these mass shootings that have worked for them and what kind of effects it has had on gun ownership in those countries.
--:-- Dr. Megan Ranney: There's a lot that the U.S. can learn from other countries, while also recognizing that the U.S. is a unique place. You know, I look at Switzerland, where my sister actually lives. Next to the United States and Yemen, Switzerland has the highest per capita rate of firearm ownership. But their gun suicide and homicide rates are much lower, and their mass shootings are virtually nonexistent.
--:-- Ted: Hi, Sean and Noel. This is Ted in Hamden, Connecticut. So my question for you that I'm curious is I am a local legislator on my town council, and I ran for office to make a difference and make the world a better place. And we're working on things on the local level. But while we wait for federal action to happen, what is going on in the local level? Are there things local legislators like me can do to decrease gun violence and increase gun control and gun safety?
--:-- Dr. Megan Ranney: There are a lot of things that can be done on the local level. And in fact, we're seeing most of the progress around firearm injury prevention happening on the local level right now The types of things you can do range from funding programs like Big Brothers Big Sisters or Boys and Girls Clubs to greening vacant lots and putting in community gardens It's actually been shown statistically to decrease the rates of firearm injury in a community, to, of course, working with your local police departments and courts to make sure that any laws that are in place are actually enforced, to maybe even passing new laws as well.
--:-- Sam Myers: Hi, my name is Sam Myers calling from Tucson, Arizona. And the most recent school shooting in Evalde, Texas, has got me thinking, is the U.S. system just irrevocably broken? And do we need to go back and start from scratch like Chile is doing right now, rewriting its constitution?
--:-- Dr. Megan Ranney: Gosh, we can't even get the Equal Rights Amendment through. You can't blame him for asking.
--:-- Jalen: Hi there. My name is Jalen. I'm from Canada. And watching all these mass shootings happen in the U.S., I think I hear a lot of fellow Canadians and, of course, people around the world saying, you know, this doesn't happen anywhere else but America. And to people that are pro-Second Amendment or pro-gun rights or whatever it is, what is the response when they are confronted with that objective truth?
--:-- Dr. Megan Ranney: You are exactly right that a mass shooting happens when someone with hatred or a suicidal impulse has access to that lethal means. There is a long pathway that gets them there. And there are a lot of moments where intervention can happen, both around reducing access to firearms for folks with histories of violence or hatred or various types of convictions. DUIs are actually a big predictor of hurting someone else through education of folks that are already firearm owners about how to recognize risk.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The last question I have for you was the one we got the most. And it maybe wasn't even a question as much as it was a frustration. And it was just that people have this real sense that nothing is going to change because they've seen it all before. I go back to that tweet from Dan Hodges, a British journalist who talked about once America decided slaughtering children was fine, this was over. And I really feel that's true. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm 41 years old, and since 1999, this has just gotten worse. I don't want to sound hopeless, but if we can't rally around some people dead children, then my hope is pretty low.
--:-- Dr. Megan Ranney: Thank you for your time. I don't know who will listen to this, and I know it won't change anything, but my heart is broken. I'm an emergency room physician. I take care of folks every shift who are in the worst moment of their lives. And I know that the moment when I give up is the moment when there is no more hope. I will say I have not given up for this epidemic. And not just me, but thousands of other physicians, thousands more public health professionals, social workers, counselors, parents across this country, firearm owners and non-firearm owners alike, are equally committed to fixing this. and I think you know it's really normal to be angry and frustrated and sad right now I also would implore us to keep going in whatever way makes sense to you because that's the only way that we do make progress and I believe we can get there but we only do it together love
