Psychiatrist advocates for reforming U.S. approach to gun safety

Geoff Bennett:

Already this year, there have been more than 3,000 firearm deaths in the U.S. That's according to the Gun Violence Archive.

William Brangham is back now with a look at a new book that critically examines how America addresses gun violence.

William Brangham:

In April 2018, a mentally ill white man took an AR-15 into a Nashville Waffle House and shot dead four young people of color.

For one researcher at nearby Vanderbilt University, a man who had studied gun violence for years, that shooting prompted a deeper reckoning. Had the various gun control approaches he and others had long championed failed?

That researcher is Dr. Jonathan Metzl. He's the director of the Department of Medicine, Health and Society at Vanderbilt. And his new book is called "What We've Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms."

Dr. Metzl, thank you so much for joining us.

The key message here in your book is that people who have long fought for better gun control measures, including yourself, things like red flag laws and background checks, that they have been arguing for this public health approach, and you argue that that approach is wrong. Can you explain a little bit?

Dr. Jonathan Metzl, Vanderbilt University:

Well, I wouldn't say that it's wrong.

I will say that I have spent the last five years doing a very deep dive into a very traumatic and racially charged mass shooting that happened here in my hometown of Nashville. And what I found was that, on one hand, I wished — I'm an advocate for gun laws. I think we need stronger national gun laws.

But as I uncovered the before and after of the case and really tracked the story of how not just a mentally ill white man, but a naked white man — he walked into the Waffle House naked — how did a guy like that even get a gun? How did he get to the Waffle House in South Nashville? And what happened afterwards?

And as I uncovered that story, I started to realize that a lot of the positions that I had been advocating for, background checks, red flag laws, they're vitally important, but not only would they have not stopped this shooting, but they, for me, spoke to the bigger issues that I address in the book about race and violence and guns in America.

William Brangham:

You mention in your book that the way we have treated or thought to treat gun violence with campaigns similar to what we did with cigarettes and secondhand smoke or with car safety is not effective. Why is that?

Dr. Jonathan Metzl:

I tracked the history of that going back to the '90s.

And I think, at some point, it made sense. We had had these campaigns in public health in the past. Here is someone whose product is killing people, and we came in as public health advocates and experts and said what we need to do is impose government regulation, we need to have commonsense laws, we need to hold the manufacturers liable.

And that approach worked in cigarettes, it worked in cars for a couple of reasons. One is that ultimately those manufacturers were liable for their products. And the second was that a lot of people across the country had relatives who had died of lung cancer or knew people who had died in car wrecks.

But, unfortunately, as I argue, it was a wrong turn in the gun debate, because guns just meant something really different. Gun manufacturers were protected from liability, the kind of liability lawsuits, but also guns really were not amenable to the kind of government databases and regulations that we were advocating because they were tied to the much longer history of the meanings of just who got to carry a gun in America, what that meant that tied into some of our deepest racial fault lines in this country.

William Brangham:

I know that, as part of your research, you talked with a lot of gun owners, people in the South, conservative, Second Amendment absolutists, as one might put them.

How do they reckon with this toll of gun violence from homicides to suicides to mass shootings? How do they see this as a problem?

Dr. Jonathan Metzl:

For white conservative gun owners, the issue is this. There will be a mass shooting in this country. Again, they don't want that kind of trauma.

But then liberals like me rush in and say what we need are more government databases or more red flag laws that empower police to put people in front of judges. They hear more regulation, more government. And so really what they hear is, for a lot of the gun owners I spoke to, exactly the reason they own guns in the first place, which is that they feel like they mistrust the government.

So I asked a lot of people in the book, well, how do you think we can resolve this? How can we make the — how can we feel safe? And, for them, it wasn't more regulation. It was basically improving community structures and improving community safety.

And so in the book, I end up being kind of a structuralist and really take seriously, what would it mean to make communities safer? What would it mean to invest in communities and really look at the upstream drivers not just of gun violence, but the upstream drivers of why people feel like they need to carry guns in public in the first place?

William Brangham:

Help me understand, though, something that I have often struggled with.

You often do see reports of large polling institutions will say majorities of Americans, including gun owners, support what we call — quote, unquote — "commonsense gun reforms," the kinds of things you have been talking about in the past.

If even gun owners support those things, why do those things have such a difficult time ever getting enacted?

Dr. Jonathan Metzl:

I think there's a misnomer in that kind of data. That data is true. Many people do support background checks, red flag laws, stronger gun laws.

But that doesn't mean that they vote on those issues. I think that's really the misperception. So if you hear somebody say, I support a red flag law, it's not like they're going to go out, if they're a liberal or a Democrat — they're going to vote based on many different things. They might support somebody who supports climate or the economy or other factors.

And the difference really is, historically, at least, Republicans vote on gun issues. That has really been the case certainly here in Tennessee and across red state America. And so part of the story is, people support those laws, but that's different from if they're going to go out and vote.

William Brangham:

We are, as you well know, entering a yearlong presidential race.

There could not be a more clear delineation in how we ought to approach guns between the — we suspect the nominee, former President Trump, and Joe Biden. How do you imagine that playing out in this year's election?

Dr. Jonathan Metzl:

I do think that shifting popular opinion, plus some of the troubles that are happening on the very strongly pro-gun side, create an opening for Democrats.

Toward the end of the book, I discuss an eight-part plan that I think can improve the ways that Democrats talk to red state gun owners that really speaks their language a lot more about gun safety entrepreneurialism, fixing larger structures, addressing the upstream drivers of why people feel like they need to carry guns.

Because, right now, what we have is Trump, who's basically telling red state gun owners, I'm going to let you keep your guns and keep your power, and Biden, who's saying, I support regulation.

And at least for many gun owners, they're going to hear that, let me keep my guns and keep my power, because it's just something that's very deep. And I think we need to really disrupt that binary.

William Brangham:

All right, Jonathan Metzl of Vanderbilt University.

The book is called "What We've Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms." The book is out tomorrow.

Thank you so much for being here.

Dr. Jonathan Metzl:

Thanks so much.