Stephen Gutowski  0:01  
An interview with Northwestern University's James Allen Fox and a deep dive into the first ever gunmakers. Much that more on this week's episode of the weekly reload podcast. I gave him poison. Just looking for another episode of the weekly reload podcast Ladies and gentlemen, I am your host, Stephen Gutowski. I'm also the founder of the reload Comm. This week, we have several big stories that I'm going to bring to you here including one that we just published a big original story over at the reload calm. But first, let's talk a little bit about Louisiana. The Bayou state this week rejected permitless gun carry permitless concealed carry after the governor's veto was not overwritten. The initial Bill had passed with veto proof majorities. But when republicans decided to go for it and override in practice, the first time that's ever been tried in Louisiana, apparently, several senators flip up there for three Republicans, one Democrat, and a fourth Republican, voted for permitless carry but didn't show up to the actual veto override vote. So it failed. And Louisianans won't get permitless carry this year, they'll have to wait until at least next year, to try again, perhaps until some of these politicians are out of office, because it's going to be very difficult, perhaps to change their minds or some of their cases, change their minds back to what they had already supported. In the first case, I did speak to one of these senators, Senator Barnard about his decision to flip flop on this vote. And he told me essentially that law enforcement officers had come and spoken to him and the time between when he voted for the permitless carry and when he voted not to override the governor's veto of it. And they stressed that they didn't believe it was safe. And he changed his mind to agree with them. Although presumably there was that discussion had already happened before the first vote. But regardless, there were three republicans and one democrat who changed position in order to make sure the override vote failed. And now, advocates are going to have a difficult time overcoming that likely in future legislative sessions down there. And it just goes to show how difficult it is to pass permitless carry in states where Republicans do not have total control of the lawmaking process. In all but two states that have adopted the policy thus far, there have been republican control of each house and the governorship. In order to get that policy through. You've seen 21 states adopted, the two that weren't republican trifectas at the time were Maine, which had a republican governor and Republican Senate in 2015, when they passed it by the democratic house. And then Vermont's which has had permitless carry since the very beginning of the state. That's why it's also often called Vermont carry. So from here, there's only seven states left that have republican track factors, but don't already have permitless carry. So there's still some room for advocates to make progress in these other states like Florida and South Carolina and Georgia, Alabama, but

with five states adopting it this year alone with how quickly republican states have moved to permitless carry, it might not be very long until there aren't any left to adopt the policy because they all have. So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out from here on. And certainly, it'll be really interesting to see how things unfold in Louisiana next year, or in their next elections and see how these senators who change their votes fare when they're put up, you know, against their constituents and see what kind of reaction that draws. But the other big story we have is an original piece that I published from my trip to St. Augustine, Florida, to visit the first ever gun makers match. And that was the end of June. did several interviews with a number of people who attended this event. Watch the whole thing got to see a lot of interesting firearms get to experience with That community is like and, and for a lot of these people, it was their very first time meeting in person their very first time, really fleshing out the community, putting names to screen, real names to screen names, right? That was a pretty amazing experience, it was extremely hot and humid, I'll tell you that much. It's amazing that some of those plastic guns did not melt. But of course, they are more durable, I think, than most people realize. And they've come a lot further, in the last several years, than I think people realize, as well. And so I spoke to a number of those guys about why they like to build their own guns, print them in a number of cases. And as well as you know, their political beliefs, and you get a mix of people who are really into the engineering aspects of building your own firearms, especially from 3d printed components. And then you get the other side, which is very much into the political philosophy behind printing your own firearms, right. And, and I think for most of them, it's it's a meld of the to write. It's not just one or the other, but oftentimes, it's, they really enjoy tinkering, they're builders, they might work on their own cars, or have had experience with 3d printing, either at work or in their private life before they got into printing guns, and view the the challenge of 3d printing a structure that can withstand the gunshot, right, the forces put on that material by a gunshot. And then at the same time, they're also have this, you know, fairly, fairly radical, I guess, I'm sure a lot of them would even say, fairly radical belief in Liberty, personal liberty, personal freedom, they don't view themselves as a risk or threat to society. And and they don't think that laws that try to regulate the building of firearms, the making of firearms, which To be fair, of course, has been around for literally entire history of the United States. And really, for centuries before that, you can legally build your own firearms in most societies, certainly here in the United States has been legal to build your own firearms for personal use, since forever. So there's there's nothing necessarily radical about that idea. But certainly, today, there's a lot of consternation over this concept. Now that it's become not necessarily easier. That's another interesting thing easier in some senses. But there is a lot of work that goes into actually putting together a 3d printed firearm and you can't 3d print every single part.

From plastic, it's not, it's not possible, those forces are too much for some components like barrels, but in most every circumstance, but there's a lot of interesting things that are being done at the forefront of both the technology of this and the legal and political debate over it. You've had President Biden himself is trying to make it more difficult for people to build their own firearms without serial numbers on them. Because he argues that it makes it harder to attract gun crimes. Whereas these guys think it said, of course, a fundamental human right to be able to build your own weapons for self defense, and that societies that restrict firearms, wholesale are authoritarian and despotic by definition. And so they they see this as a, this activity of building your own firearms is kind of an unstoppable way around any sort of government restrictions. But which they think coherently believe is something that criminals will find a way to do anyway, criminals will find a way around gun laws and certainly do in America all the time. And so they don't often believe everyone should be restricted in an attempt to restrict bad actors. And if you read the piece, you'll see a number of different attendees make this argument. There are more, there's more good that comes from the availability of homemade firearms and 3d printed firearms than there is bad and that they are comfortable with the trade offs. So you should head on over to the reload and take a listen, your ticket taker read that piece, you'd get a lot more than I can cover here on the podcast. But there's some really, truly fascinating points of view that these guys have. And really, really interesting political philosophy, they talk to you. And then also the engineering aspect is fascinating as well. So I encourage you to go and read, it's a fairly long piece, a lot of good pictures in there, too, that I took. Speaking of which, with my camera that I've upgraded to take pictures for the site. And I've also upgraded the audio equipment here. For the podcast, I know there was a, you can hear my refrigerator actually running. On the last podcast, I thought, well, I need to get a dynamic mic to make sure that that is not a problem anymore. And so hopefully, I sound a little bit better and a little clearer, with a little less background noise than I previously did. But anyway, we've got this week, Professor James Alan Fox from Northeastern, he's also contributed to USA Today. He's on to discuss mass shootings, how we count them how how counts can be misleading, and especially how they have been misleading in the last several years from many media outlets. And we also talk about the causes of mass shootings, the proper ways to respond to them, the improper ways to respond on them things that don't work. He's got decades of experience, tracking mass shootings and researching them. So I think he gives a lot of really interesting insight. Also, if you are a reload member, you will get this podcast that date early. And if you're not a member, you should join so that you can hear this podcast day early, in addition to getting exclusive access to posts that you wouldn't otherwise be able to see analysis pieces. I've got a second piece on my personal experience at the gunmakers match down in Florida. If you are read through the free version of the report, and you can go in and read the members only piece that gives a little bit more insight a little more personal flair to what was going on down there in St. Augustine. We're seeing a gusset I don't, never could. I think it's St. Augustine right. I don't know you guys, you guys can tell me. Somehow, if you record, record yourself saying it. And

if you meet me in person, just tell me how to pronounce that city's name because I, I still can't get it to this day. Anyway, we're going to move on here to hell, to the interview with Professor James Allen Fox. All right, we're here with James Brown Fox professor at North Eastern University. We're gonna talk a little bit about some of the misconceptions surrounding mass shootings. And some of the ways that the media covers them, and how that could be contributing to the issue and how it may be misleading people as well. But I think we're gonna have a really interesting discussion on that front. It's something that a lot of people are, are very, in tune with these days, for sure. But James, Professor Alan Fox, Professor, if you could just give us a little bit of background about yourself, tell my audience who might not have heard of you some of the things that you've done.

James Alan Fox  13:41  
By the way, the reason why I do is James Allen fox is supposed to James James fox is but I graduated with my doctorate many years ago, 45 years ago. There were eight header criminologists, professional criminologists, and four were named James Fox. So I use my full name to distinguish myself from the others.

Stephen Gutowski  14:03  
That's pretty remarkable.

James Alan Fox  14:04  
So anyway, as as I've indicated, I have been in this field for 45 years, I've been a professor at Northeastern University for that entire period of time. I started studying mass shootings, mass killings and serial murder as well, in the early 1980s. That my first book on the topic came out in 1985. Interesting, no one was interested in mass shootings back then. Not that they didn't happen. They did happen. We, you know, we had 14 people killed at a post office in Edmond, Oklahoma, the first of a series of shootings, which led to the term going postal. We had 21 killed in McDonald's restaurant. They weren't cases back then. But people were obsessed with with Bundy and Gacy, and Berkowitz the serial killers. Nothing's changed in the last few years. Yeah, now there's a it's a very crowded room. Other people who are studying mass shootings, I've been doing it for 40 years.

Stephen Gutowski  15:06  
And you you maintain a database, or you're one of the principals on a database that tracks mass shootings over the years. I think one of the things that has certainly become a media, you know, media creation, perhaps or immediate, you get the impression watching a lot of cable news or even reading print newspapers, that mass shootings are massively on the rise. And, you know, in my experience writing about this, it seems like that's largely due to a change in how most media outlets now define what a mass shooting is, rather than the actual incidents themselves becoming more common is that what you found in your research, or how great

James Alan Fox  15:52  
extent for decades, the traditional definition of a mass shooting was actually mass killing with gunfire, four or more people killed by gunfire in 2012, was sort of a watershed year. That's what we had a shooting at Oilers University, we had their shooting at the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, and of course, the Sandy Hook, elementary school shooting, that's when people really started paying attention. And because there wasn't any official database, budget organization, so Mother Jones, Washington Post variety of organizations started around, including USA Today. One of them being

Stephen Gutowski  16:36  
right, which is where you're

James Alan Fox  16:38  
at See, it's the Associated Press, it's a combination of Associated Press, USA TODAY AND Northeastern University. It's collaboration from the three organizations. And get that back to that later. But what I want to point out is that the gun violence archive, as well as the mass shooting tracker, which were launched in 2013. basically said, Well, you know, there's nothing in the phrase mass shooting, that implies death. So they decided to, they kept the threshold of four more people shot. They said, well shot, they could either be injured or dead. Well, it's great that they collect these data. So voluminous data set. The problem is it's it's confusing to people. And part of the reason why it's confusing is those those statistics a form of people shot and not necessarily killed. They are always brought out for context in the press, and on television, in the wake of a mass killing, but 10 people are murdered, right? Like, for example, Boulder, Colorado, the next day, you see all these citations? Oh, there's hundreds of mass shootings a year? Well, they're different those a difference. In fact, in the gun violence, archive mass shootings, on average is one person killed per case, that's half of the cases, no one gets killed. It's three quarters. It's either none or one. So I don't want to minimize the pain and suffering of these victims. But let's not confuse the issue by conflating it with these deadly mass killings that truly drive the news, news stories.

Stephen Gutowski  18:24  
Yeah, and you know, somebody else I would note, their two points, actually one, you know, when this first started to happen, and I really started to notice in 2015, there was there was a Reddit group that had popularized this, this definition of mass shooting mass shooting tracker advertently. Yeah, and they were an overtly that came out of an overtly anti gun, Reddit subreddit, where it kind of felt as though they were trying to get to the point where they could say that mass shootings happen every day. That's what it felt to me at the time. I, you know, I don't want to impugn everyone's motives, but that that certainly mean that was extremely popular talking point at the time that well, if you count them in this certain way. There's one every single day and I agree that this seems to be extremely misleading, because when people the average person thinks of a mass shooting, yes, they think of something like Sandy Hook, or Las Vegas, or Parkland or something truly horrific, you know, randomize violence against innocent people in a public space, which is, you know, to some degree, that that seems to be what a lot of people think I know that there's still there's still plenty of debate over what the best way to measure it, but

James Alan Fox  19:50  
let me give an exam where it gets really distorted. About six weeks ago. The New York Times did a story in the headline was a partial list of 13 mass shootings this already this year, and elicit 13, all of which were mass killings in Atlanta, Boulder, Indianapolis FedEx facility, all of them were mass killings. And then they said, this is just a partial list. There are many others that that aren't here. Well, that kind of implies that there many others are just like these, that it sort of flies. This is like a random selection. There's not those, all of the mass killings, all the hundreds, other ones are much less severity. And again, people he's easily get confused. The other thing about the the, the gun violence archive, and this definition of for more people shot is we don't have any data prior to 2013. So when they say, oh, there's more of mass shootings and days, which there are probably true back in 2005, and certainly in the early 1990s, when the homicide rate was much higher than it is now. So there's no long term trend and perspective. So people think this epidemic, well, you don't have a lot of data that to suggest that now with mass killings, mass shootings perform where people are killed, which is what we collect it with the Associated Press USA Today, Northeastern database, we collect all cases, a form where people killed with guns or without guns, whether it's private space, like a home, or a public location, whether it's a stranger or a husband is doing the killing, no matter what the motive. So we collect all these cases, we do categorize them. So we have, you know, you can look at how many were public, how many were in family, that kind of thing. But we have data that goes back decades. And there has been some increase, but marginal. I mean, for example, the kind of shootings that people really think about the public massacres. On average, they're about half dozen a year. In 2018, there were 10 2090, I believe they were nine. So we see a little bit of an increase. But you know, when I'm in a population of 330 million people, you certainly can't call the actions of nine or 10 people, an epidemic is still a rare event. But when you when you most oppose that with the fact that Oh, there's over 600 mass shootings last year, according to the gun violence archive, that's where people get to exaggerate our view of the risk. And that's why over half the population surveys over half Americans fear that truly fear that they'll be a mass shooting in their neighborhood, about 1/3 avoid certain places because they are concerned about being killed in a mass shooting. And as many as 25% of Americans think that mass shootings are responsible for more gun deaths than any other kind of gun crime, or even suicide. Right. Which is just why a lot of a lot of misinformation, a lot of myths.

Stephen Gutowski  23:14  
Right, and and, you know, I would say even what constitutes most mass killings? Because, you know, I looked at the, the incidents back in 2015. Right, why I read a piece on this. And I imagine this remains true today. Most of them are our family sides, right where there were solving murders their entire family inside their home, which is, again, not necessarily what most people would even associate with the word mass shooting, not that, you know, the point here isn't obviously, that those sorts of killings don't matter or that other kinds of, you know, shootings that don't take four lives don't matter. It's just an it's about consistency. And it's about not misleading people. That's what really bothers me about it as a reporter, you know, going out and trying to tell everyone that something like Sandy Hook happens every day in the United States. I mean, it's a lie is what it is. And you know, that they don't buy into it anyway, like they use most people in media who use this talking point. Their their networks don't change, to adapt to this idea, because they still, they'll still cover the mass killings, wall to wall and live right. But they don't do that for every one of the what they now are defining as mass shootings like you can tell by their actions. They don't really believe in this change in definition. They don't really believe that something like what happened in Minneapolis happens.

James Alan Fox  24:50  
It was interesting in Oregon called mashery versus mass killings where I started out by saying, why is it that so many articles and columns stopped By saying there's hundreds of mass shootings a year, and then every single example they give are mass killings, because those are the ones that people recognize. That's why there's this confusion. Now when there's a change, so it did say there's a slight increase in public mass shootings the past couple of years. And I will agree with you 45% of mass killings are in the family, I'm actually in the family. They don't get the same kind of publicity, because most people think, well, that's not my family. That's not going to happen to me. They don't relate to it.

Stephen Gutowski  25:34  
Right. There's no randomness nature to you. You're not I mean, you know, there's sort of a an extra disconnect between the average person and someone who can who commits a randomized public shooting that makes people curious about that makes people interested in then it could

James Alan Fox  25:52  
happen with anyone at anytime, anyplace. Right? And that's why it's scary. That's why people are those the ones that scare people, those are the rarest. Now, one thing I do have to say, is that there have there have been some particularly large scale killings the past few years, for example, we've had in our history, we had eight we've had eight mass shootings with 20 or more victims. six of the eight have occurred is 2016. So you know that we have course Las Vegas and and Paulson, we have El Paso. So that's that's just asserting

Stephen Gutowski  26:34  
you've written a bit about Yes, certainly, that's very concerning is very real. And you've written a bit about why that might be. I think you've written also about some of the misconceptions about what drives these sorts of Acts. Right? commonly you'll hear things like mental health is the main driver or a history of domestic violence. Now, you've looked at research, you've done research on that front. And you think that that's not necessarily at least the way that we talk about it in media is not necessarily accurate.

James Alan Fox  27:11  
Very people would like to find an easy explanation like all they're all in mentally ill well, very few are. The percentage that severely mentally ill, depending on which study you go by, could be 10% 15%, maybe even less, it's not not the majority, you know, to carry out this kind of methodical bloodbath takes some degree of control and, and a clear headedness. In fact, there was like there was a case years ago, someone who really wanted to commit a mass shooting at a McDonald's restaurant. And he drove for the restaurant. And he locked his car. He locked his ammunition in the car, he was so confused, he couldn't even get that far. So it does. So it's a myth that they're, most of them are mentally ill. Now the other thing is they, what's true about mass shooters, is they see themselves as the victim of injustice. They feel that everyone else getting all the breaks, not them. And they want treatment, they want to treatment, they want fair treatment. They don't want psychological treatment, because they don't think there's anything wrong with them. And even even if we offered it to them, they generally wouldn't take us up on it. You know, after Sandy Hook, rock, Obama went to Hartford, and he gave a speech and he said, We need to do something about the mentally ill, before it's too late. Now, why is that? Is it that we so was so concerned about the well being of the mentally ill? Or is it because we're so concerned about the well being of the people they may shoot? It's really the ladder, which only reinforces the stigma associated with mental illness by by conflating mental illness and mass murder.

Stephen Gutowski  29:04  
Okay, and what about the connection to domestic Well,

James Alan Fox  29:06  
this came up after the Sutherland springs shooting, which is a case that in Texas 26 were killed. And it turned out that the shooter had previously had a conviction while in the military for domestic violence. And I won't go through all the details about that. But in the wake of that, there was a study published by every town for gun safety that basically said 54% of mass shootings are connected to domestic violence. And I remember being on a CNN show, when this study came out, and this other person on the on the show, who is the missing violence expert said, Oh, the majority of mass shooters have a history of domestic violence. And I said, That's not true. It's more like 18 20% What happened was it people miss So the word connected, the 45% of mass shootings are in the family, like you mentioned, that is an act of domestic violence. The percentage who have a history of domestic violence? Well, that might be some warning sign is, again, somewhere in the teens in terms of percentages, not a majority.

Stephen Gutowski  30:21  
Really, it's that well, because a

James Alan Fox  30:24  
lot of these guys live alone, and so they don't have related on in relationships, where they would be committing domestic violence.

Stephen Gutowski  30:33  
And so what, what is it that you think, is driving this, people to commit these sorts of acts? We've obviously heard a lot of talk as well about sort of the contagion effect, this sort of almost a copycat kind of effect, where I guess it's, it's similar to the right effect, right. And so you know, where the bar gets the first person that, you know, the the 50th person to ride is not the most likely to person to do it, but they see a bunch of other people do it, and that lowers their bar to participate. And I guess that the theory is when we cover these mass shootings, which with so much intensity, that it makes it a more realizable goal for someone who was perhaps doing this than that. Maybe they Yeah. Is that something that you find credible,

James Alan Fox  31:30  
there is a contagion but it's not related to the media. Fact I recently published a study looking at the timing of mass shootings and publicity about mass shootings, and there's lots of publicity after a shooting, but not leading up to them mesh publicity does not generate mass shootings. Now, there is copycatting that's a little different. That's someone who admires someone else who had committed a crime like that. But, but

Stephen Gutowski  31:58  
you don't see the clustering again. Like, like, for instance, El Paso, and yeah,

James Alan Fox  32:04  
that happened two days in a row. But it's hard to say that that was that can happen randomly. In fact, they cluster that you do see is not connected to the media. Now, where, where there is some connection, in terms of contagion is the extent to which we obsess over it. You know, the people constantly talking and worrying about mass shootings, and talk and writing about it and social media. And we have political debates where mass shooting is it brought up as a topic more we obsess over it. The more we remind people who are angry, disenchanted, feel that they're there being the victim of injustice, that this is what people do to get even. And I'll give it a good example, to demonstrate that kind of contagion, not media contagion, just a public obsession with it. Back in the late late 1990s, from 1996 to 2001. We had eight multiple victim school shootings, more than we've had more recently, eight of them. And it was Sandy, West Paducah, and Pearl and Columbine and Springfield, a whole slew of them. And it was so bad that Bill Clinton had an advisory committee on school shootings. I was a member of that committee. They It was a constant topic on the news, school shootings. And when there was a shooting in March of 2001, Dan Rather, CBS News declared mash school shootings and national epidemic. There was not another one for four years. You know why? Well, months later, September 11 2001 happened. And Americans stopped thinking about school shootings. They started obsessing over terrorism, Al Qaeda. And once America's focused on that, and stopped obsessing over school shootings, they didn't constantly remind teenagers that the thing you do is to be a gun to school.

Stephen Gutowski  34:18  
Okay, so so from your point of view, it's not so much the immediate flood the channel coverage of every mass shooting, as it is a more general focus and obsession over the topic that reminds potentially, you know, people who might potentially carry this out

James Alan Fox  34:38  
further, though, you know, there's this campaign called a no, no, no notoriety campaign. They advise right, the media, not to show the face of the killer and not to mention their name. Well, first, it was kind of impractical. We mentioned the names of all other kinds of criminals. So it's not really Practically as part of the story, the basic information about the perpetrator. See, it's and the thing is this, it's the act, not the actor that like minded individuals admire and applaud. There are white supremacists who were thrilled what happened in El Paso they don't know the guy's name. They would they wouldn't take us face out of a lineup. But they know what he did. So we're not going to tell the media Oh, don't cover these crimes because other people might get ideas. Now, that said, sometimes the media does cross a line, going from news reporting to celebrity watch, where they humanize the individual by writing feature stories about their lifestyle, or information that's totally irrelevant to our understanding of the crime. Take, for example, the Las Vegas shooter. We know what casino games he liked. We know about all his prior relationships. We know about his jobs that he had had. We know what what he ate, the night of the shooting. We know what shoe size he wore. there's a there's a photograph out there of him on his high school tennis team, as if that's a warning sign or something. That's irrelevant information. We know more about him than we know about our next door neighbor. That's a problem. So, copycatting does exist. It is not about the face of the name. It's really about the extent to which we turn someone into a celebrity that we shouldn't be doing. If nothing else, it adds insult to injury in terms of the victims.

Stephen Gutowski  36:41  
Okay, so it's less about never naming the attacker, and more about not trying to turn them into a bite. The basic facts are fine, but I guess that's okay. But not the fluff. Right. Okay. Yeah. Cuz obviously, you know, as a journalist, I've certainly have sympathetic views towards the idea of not giving notoriety to these people. I have always been a bit skeptical that the notoriety is what drives someone's a fringe benefits. I don't think it is not the primary reason, right. But at the same time, I don't Yeah, I agree that there's no need to make them famous, or make them, you know, some sort of cost celebrity. Like, I mean, this is a bit different, but the Boston bomber, the Rolling Stone cover that they did for him. Perhaps their intention wasn't to glamorize him, but you know, can be hard to look at it and not see that as the outcome. So I've always tried to avoid using their names as much as possible. Maybe it's not possible to completely avoid it at all times. Certainly, if you're reporting, you're trying to report on the details of what happened, it's going to be very difficult to never name, the perpetrator or any of

James Alan Fox  38:05  
this. So what's the Sofia shoot for people? You shouldn't have your name in the paper. But if you shoot too, you do. What's the dividing line? Or if your serial killer should name serial killers, or maybe we just shouldn't make movies about them? Or documentaries about them? Or what about people like whitey Bolger? We write about criminals, is I don't see why someone who shoots for people and more should be dealt with differently than other criminals. That's

Stephen Gutowski  38:38  
right. But so 2020 to go back to your point here on the post 911 ball when school shootings 2020 had a obviously very significant role in mass shootings, generally mass mass killings. Presumably that has a lot to do with the Coronavirus. But interestingly with your point, perhaps it's not just the lockdowns or the lack of large gatherings that led to it. But perhaps also the fact that everyone was talking about something else, which was the

James Alan Fox  39:14  
GRE also, for people it was less people are less apt to think that they're the only ones suffering in this life in this country, but so many people were suffering in 2020. So yeah, we only had three public mass shootings, in 2022 of them were before the pandemic, only one during the pandemic, right. Unfortunately, the numbers have bounced back up this year. In 2021.

Stephen Gutowski  39:45  
Yeah, people kind of I guess took that as a dark reminder that we're returning to normalcy I guess. I remember that. Obviously when the first ones happened in Atlanta and and called Colorado. That was sort of a remark that people had, we're getting back to normal American Life. Do you think? I guess going along that lines? Do you think that mass shootings or mass, you know, mass shootings, that lead to mass killings, or that our mass killings are just a part of American life is just the way things are going to be? I mean, it's obviously we've talked at length here about the fact that they're not accelerating to the degree that the media has often portrayed. But they are still certainly happening and perhaps increasing to some degree. What is that just part of living in this country? is there is there some magic silver bullet that will,

James Alan Fox  40:45  
you know, we could virtually eliminate mass shooting this country, but we won't be in some, for example, Australia did keep off the point was Australia, they had a big mass shooting in 1996, it virtually eliminated private ownership of guns and had a huge gun buyback and they only had one mass shooting since then was a couple years ago. But we're not Australia, we have a second amendment. Yeah, obviously, and that's not going to go away. If we really wanted to eliminate mass shootings, we would round up all the guns, round up all the people who scare us, anyone who writes ugly things on the internet, but we're not going to do that. Because we value our personal freedoms that are fought this is unfortunately, one of the prices that we pay pay for it. So

Stephen Gutowski  41:37  
okay, so you do see it as sort of a byproduct of living in a, I guess, a freer society where people have the right to own guns and do bad things in their minds, because that's another thing that they restrict in. In European countries with fewer mass shootings, they restrict free speech as well. And you can be arrested for saying anything, but there

James Alan Fox  41:59  
are other factors, we have seen as country, an eclipse a community, and that's not going to change, you go back into, you know, several decades, if you will lost your job, your next door neighbor would be over the casserole, anything I can do. But now, you don't even know your next door neighbor, they don't even know what you do. And if you don't work, they don't know that either. We so the unfortunately, people are suffering, they oftentimes don't have others around them to help them get through the hard times. That's not Unfortunately, that's not changing. You know, one of the factors you find in almost every mass shooting is someone who doesn't have a strong support system. They don't have others around them to help them get the hard times they don't have other people to help them put perspective. So when they feel like, oh, they're ever there, again, the raw end of the stick, and only them. There's no one round to say, hey, wait, let's think about this logically. You're not the only one who got laid off. So that's not changing. Unfortunately, we have we have this society has changed, we become a lot more mobile, a lot less interconnected. And we don't have a lot of affinity and connection with our neighbors.

Stephen Gutowski  43:18  
Right. But to your point, we haven't seen a massive increase in these sorts of incidents. So it's sort of I guess, it's just kind of hard to look at the last several decades, and we have these incidents persisting but not necessarily growing, where while we've had a myriad of other variables change at the same time, and they don't necessarily seem to be making things better, or perhaps worse by a large degree. You know, we've obviously sold a lot more guns over the last 30 years. Then when murder gun murder was at its peak in the 90s. We've we've seen all sorts of changes, like the ones you've you've mentioned here. But but the it almost seems like from what from what you've said, like just a fact of life in America that we're going to have to deal with these things, which is a very depressing notion, I suppose. I mean, it's good news that they're not increasing in the way that media has portrayed it. But it's obviously bad news that perhaps there isn't a way to get to

James Alan Fox  44:29  
only have one year with the zero realistic vehicle back the 70s and 80s. We tend to have like one or two year, now we have six to 10 a year. So it has an increase, but so is the population is increased. So I don't wanna say there's been no increase of long term over the long term, yes. But over the past 15 years, not so much. There's not an epidemic that the point that there is a government here, there's an epidemic, not an epidemic. There's another epidemic of fear, but not an epidemic of shootings of mass shootings.

Stephen Gutowski  45:07  
All right. So there has been a difference going back further, but just not as much in recent recent years, and certainly not in the way that's been portrayed in media. And so maybe there are factors like the ones we discussed that that are, you know, the sort of disconnect Bowling Alone, I guess, was the famous sociology paper on that. But But, yeah, certainly there perhaps are factors that are more societal than individual that are made, perhaps not something you can legislate, fix to, but that require more of us communal effort, outside of government, perhaps to to return to the days before mass shootings,

James Alan Fox  45:50  
we don't have a very good support system, the safety net in our country. Yeah, that would help. Yeah, that would help. That's another countries are doing a lot better job than we do. Helping people who are struggling.

Stephen Gutowski  46:07  
So that that's perhaps another factor that people need to look at, although, I guess it's not necessarily that someone is mentally ill and struggling, it's just that perhaps they're going through a period of depression, something like that. That's less of a severe mental illness and more of a something that they need. Helps working.

James Alan Fox  46:26  
It's interesting is that, besides here, in the wake up and mass shootings, you're here, we need to improve mental health care in this country. And we do. But the reason to do it is not a mass shooting the reason to do it other millions of Americans who could benefit. I wish we talk about improving the mental health system. On a day when we haven't had a mass shooting the day before. It's an important thing that we should be doing, but not for this reason. And the same thing I feel about guns, I mean, you and I may not may differ. But you know, one thing about mass shootings is they do get a lot of attention. And they sparked debate about about gun control. But the ironic thing is that the kind of gun crime that's least impacted by gun control, or, or the mass killings, because these individuals are very determined. They don't pick up a gun on a whim. They're very determined, they plan their crime for weeks months, and they find a way to get the weapon that they need. Now, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do something about guns this country, I do believe we should do it. And the reason we should do it, other 32 people, on average, who are killed every day in America, you know, homicide, gun homicide. That's the reason that's the way to do it.

Stephen Gutowski  47:53  
Ya know, it's interesting to see how our politics are driven, or gun politics are getting almost entirely by mass shootings, when they make up a very small percentage of the actual gun crime in the United States, and are really a wholly different sort of policy problem to tackle. Then, if you want to try

James Alan Fox  48:16  
remember, we had debates this past few years, the date debates of the presidential campaign, and the topic of guns comes up, they start talking about mass shootings. That's less than 1% of the victims of homicide, die in these mass killings. Less than 1%. We have we have big issues, when it comes comes to crime and gun crime in particular. Absolutely. This is this is perhaps the most visible kind of gun crime. But it's also the least common.

Stephen Gutowski  48:54  
Well, I really appreciate you being on I don't want to take up too much of your time. And I add one more thing. What

James Alan Fox  49:03  
I don't want to be misunderstood. But when I say this is not an epidemic. But a year and a half ago, I did another podcast for a reason calm and talked about the fact that there's no evidence that there's an epidemic. And that was tweeted out by the host, and got retweeted quite a bit including including the president united states at that time. Who then concluded that there's not an issue, because I said it's not an epidemic epidemic. We don't have to do anything about it. Well, the fact is not but epidemic doesn't mean it's not a problem. It is a problem. Lots of people die, it's scary. We should be doing something about it. But let's also try to stay calm. And think about policy changes in a rational way.

Stephen Gutowski  50:05  
Right? That's the key here is looking at the actual data instead of going off of emotion, I guess would be the the sort of conclusion that that you perhaps want people to draw from this, right? So, tell me, for our listeners, where can they find more of your writing? And what if they want to look deeper into this subject

James Alan Fox  50:29  
on my website is James Allen fox.com jslafx.com McComas, the USA Today all my columns are available there, as well as the other columns I've done for other papers. done several books, this topic, the most recent called extreme killing. So there's a bunch of stuff that I've done. And again, I've been studying this topic for 40 years. And hopefully, that long term experience helps me with some perspective on what's going on.

Stephen Gutowski  51:09  
Well, that's why I brought you on to the podcast, because I think you do have some really good perspective on this and, and really bring in a much more informed opinion on the topic than a lot of other people who discuss this. That's why I wanted to have you on I think you're very knowledgeable. So I really appreciate you coming on and sharing some of that knowledge with with me and listeners. And hopefully we can have you on again in the future as well, to talk about more subjects. So yeah, we really appreciate it. Thank you for coming on. All right. Well, I think that was actually really fascinating, maybe a little bit depressing. Some of it, that we can't, perhaps, instantly solve all the issues that we discussed. But I think there was a lot of insight there from somebody who's studied this topic for decades now and really knows what he's talking about. And I can back a lot of it up with data, which is important. That's that's the kind of person you know, that I want to have on the show for sure. Speaking of which, if you have suggestions for who else you would like to hear from on on this podcast, make sure you leave a comment over at the reload comm or or email me reply to the members, email if you're a member. And I'll try my best to get on who you guys want to hear from. So that's it for this week. I think it was a really good show. I think we've got a lot of good stuff. Got that great piece over at the reload about the ghost gunners down in Florida. And their time together. It's called Halloween in June. Right ghost guns happened in June. Good. It's very clever. I'm very clever. Anyway, talk to you guys. real soon on the next episode.

Unknown Speaker  53:06  
I gave him poison, just for fun. I had one friend. Now there's none. I made the devil broke so many bones. But none of them were out on my own army. I was alone. I broke so many bows.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai