Hey everyone, it's Raheel.
Normally we would do a Food Tuesday episode here, but following the tragic mass shooting
events in Cleveland and Allen, Texas just eight days apart, I wanted to bring in Evan
Mintz, who was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his series on gun laws, to break down where
our state falls short in gun safety and what can be done.
It's Tuesday May 9th, I'm Raheel Ramz-Nali and here's what Houston is talking about.
Hey Evan, welcome in.
How are you man?
Doing alright.
You know, it is another somber day here in the city of Houston and in the state of Texas.
We've recapped everything that's happened, so let's jump right into it.
What is up with the gun violence in Texas?
It seems like it's really acute here in Texas.
Is that the case?
Well looking at the data on a per capita basis, firearm deaths in the state of Texas are about
3% higher than national rates, but that data is just from 2020.
We as a nation do a very bad job of collecting information on gun violence and given the
fact that the open carry laws in Texas went to effect in 2022, it's going to take us
a few years to really get an objective sense of what the effects of those laws are.
Alright, so with those numbers that you pointed out, we've seen mass shootings in states with
stricter gun laws as well, so our stricter gun laws really the solution to preventing
another mass shooting?
Well, that's a funny question because for 20 years the federal government refused to
fully fund research into gun violence policies.
Some gun laws are written differently than others.
Some may be more effective than others, but we have a 20 year gap on data and research
to really identify what works and what doesn't.
But if I'm looking at a state by state map of gun violence, California rates much lower
than other states, New York much lower.
We really do have evidence that some gun laws work and some gun laws may or may not
be effective at preventing mass shootings as well.
This is a scientific problem in that while mass shootings are tragic and awful and get
headlines, there aren't really a lot of them in a way where you can collect data around
it and apply it to policy.
But looking at brands, gun policy and America Institute, there is a growing set of research
finding that bans on the sale of assault weapons and other high capacity magazines may reduce
mass shootings.
We need more research there, but I think that's an avenue that we need to look at critically.
Where does Texas compare with other states when it comes to gun laws?
Like just breaking it down.
How easy is it to buy a gun in Texas?
Oh, it's very easy, particularly after we pass the open carry law.
All you have to do to buy a handgun in Texas is be 21 years old and not have a prior felony
conviction and a few other things.
And it's even easier if you buy it in a personal to person purchase because then background
checks don't really apply.
There really aren't any prohibitions on it besides sort of specific prohibitions on owning
any firearm.
Okay, so Evan, when somebody goes out and buys a gun, do they have to go through a training?
Is there a class they have to sit through or is it it's my gun and I'm ready to go?
Well, it used to be that if you wanted to get a concealed carry license, you had to
take a class to get that license and involve some training.
But ever since Texas got rid of that and just said you don't need a license to carry guns,
no, you can just go and buy it and then it's yours.
So what are common sense gun laws?
We always hear about that phrase when shootings happen unfortunately and we say let's enact
just common sense gun laws.
What exactly does that look like laid out for the listeners?
Well, one thing to keep in mind is that the majority of deaths by gun in the United States
are suicides.
So the laws that work there are going to be different than other laws.
But just looking at the state of research, child access prevention laws are strongly
shown to prevent violent crime, unintentional injuries and deaths and suicides.
Waiting periods may reduce violent crime.
Red flag laws, rendering of firearms by prohibited possessors may reduce violent crime.
Also, there's a growing body of research showing that stand your ground laws and concealed
carry laws increase violent crime.
So as we look at this research, as we're starting to build out this body of evidence,
we are seeing some laws that may be the things we need to help keep Americans safe.
You mentioned red flag laws and Texas Republicans in DC, they were willing to approve a bill
that would enact those laws.
What happened there?
Well, after the Volde shooting, John Cornyn was able to help usher through a bipartisan
safety law that had many components to it.
One of them was closing the boyfriend loophole.
There are federal prohibitions on gun ownership for people who have been convicted of domestic
violence, but there's a difference between married having a kid being a boyfriend and
making sure that boyfriend applies there.
But also part of the law was an incentive program to encourage states to have red flag
laws, which prevent individuals who are deemed dangerous from obtaining guns.
Usually involves a judicial hearing, making sure that people's due process rights are
more respected in there has to be a triggering event reporting by police, reporting by family
members, but it's the sense that you can have a really narrowly targeted gun prohibition
on specific individuals who are shown to be a threat to communities rather than riding
a law across the board.
And ideally, this would be the sort of thing that you would hope that people who really
care deeply about gun ownership would take more seriously.
They would say that this is something that gets at the underlying issue itself while
allowing overwhelming majority of people who have guns to keep them.
But it's just really depressing that this hasn't gotten too much traction.
And I'll point out that John Cornyn was willing to sign off on this law, along with 14 other
Republican senators, as he said at the time, doing nothing is an abdication of our responsibility
as representatives, and he pointed out that the choice between public safety and right
to bear arms is a false choice.
It is not an either or, but at the same time, John Cornyn and many other Texas representatives
said, oh, absolutely not, that this is stripping away of Americans constitutional rights.
Why are they so afraid to implement any kind of laws and at least try them from a Texas
lawmaker standpoint from congressmen, why are they so afraid?
You know, you'll have to ask them.
I will say from a good faith perspective, they really do believe that Second Amendment
is critical to larger issues of liberty and democracy and that the right to bear arms
should not be compromised in any circumstance.
And they view that these homicides are not committed by law abiding gun owners.
They are committed by a criminal class and that all we need to do now is enforce the
laws as they are written.
But you know, the thing is, I've noticed a lot of people who commit these mass shootings
don't actually have criminal records.
So the next thing we always hear is mental health being brought up and that seems to
be the new go to phrase for a lot of lawmakers and for citizens in general, right?
So let's play that game for a second.
If there are mental health issues that are plaguing our state and our city, what are
they doing to fix them?
Well, first I would point out that that's a really good argument for red flag laws.
That if there's someone out there who's suffering from mental health issues, that you want a
legal process, but you can say you're not going to have your guns until you're feeling
better.
And but we would need to have those laws in place.
And I'll also point out that the state of research does show that mental health services
does reduce crime.
And typically we see that expansion of mental health services through the expansion of Medicaid
at a state level, which Texas hasn't done.
As Scott Braddock of the Quorum Report and Jeremy Wallace of the Houston Chronicle pointed
out on their Texas Take Podcasts, Texas is dead last behind Mississippi on access to
mental health.
It just feels like some type of big political joke.
If you're going to have the governor say, well, we need to expand mental health and
then refusing to take the low hanging fruit and by expanding Medicaid.
Why does it have to be one or the other?
Why do we have to either enact reform or new mental health policies?
Why can't we do both?
Why not tackle this issue from multiple angles?
You know, we should be able to and I wish that Texas could.
But I really think that we have this underlying problem in the way that our state politics
works, which is that the most important election is in the Republican primary.
As long as Texas is going to be cherry-mandered Republican, as long as the state wide results
are going to be presumptively Republican, then all you have to do is win that Republican
primary and the people who care deeply about gun ownership who don't want to see any laws
passed who don't want to expand Medicaid are the ones who matter in those elections,
then none of this stuff is going to happen.
When it comes to our lawmakers, when we talk about why aren't things being done, right?
A lot of people immediately go, oh, NRA, they're definitely lobbyists.
They're definitely funding this politician.
Is that the case or is it, as you mentioned, that they truly believe that you cannot strip
anybody of their rights when it comes to the Second Amendment?
I think that right now, the NRA is perhaps the weakest it's been in my lifetime.
They've had their own internal scandals where leadership was misusing funds.
But the base of people who care about gun ownership in this way, they have a life of
their own.
They are activated on their own.
If the NRA didn't exist, it would be created.
All right, Evan, so let's talk about solutions.
If you had a chance to implement new policies, new laws, and they said, Evan, you are our
guy, how would you tackle this problem?
I mean, the first thing I would do is expand Medicaid.
Other red states have done it.
It has benefits beyond this immediate moment.
But I think it's an obvious answer that everyone should be able to get behind.
I'd also roll back our stand-your-ground laws.
I think those are shown by evidence to expand violent crime.
I also think they send just a bad message to society.
They should feel entitled to take deadly action against other people.
I'd also make sure that we have concealed carry laws that you have to have a license
to be able to carry on public.
I know that the recent Supreme Court brewing case put some interesting bounds about what
is allowed and what isn't allowed.
But I think that the conservative concurrence made it clear that shell issue licensure is
still allowed.
And I know law enforcement defined it to be very useful.
I'd also like to see waiting periods put in place.
There's a lot of research showing that those can be very helpful.
And I'd also just like to see support and expansion of red flag laws.
I think that's something that should have a bipartisan basis, that we have seen it bipartisan
by John Cornyn in DC.
And I think that his colleagues closer to Austin should be able to get on board.
With the red flag laws, where does social media come into play there?
And look, there's a lot of private conversations.
There's a lot of public conversations.
We've seen with multiple shooters that they've posted things on social media before committing
these heinous crimes.
Where does all of that come into with social media?
You know, I'd have to say, like my towards professor would often remind us that's for
the judge to decide.
But I also think there's a bigger issue here too that's hard to get it in law, which is
that we have this odd cultural fascination with gun ownership that isn't matched by
responsibility.
That you see people taking up their arms almost as a cultural signifier, or as to be
like your part of a team, almost in the same way you'd put on like a rocket's jersey or
an asterisk hat.
I'm a gun owner and this is who I am.
This is what I do.
And if that's how you self-identify, it really falls on that cultural of gun ownership to
emphasize the importance of responsibility, the importance of safety, and working with
our lawmakers to pass laws that will ensure that the most people possible are kept safe
from gun violence.
Evan, anything else that I might have left off that you want to hit on?
No, I don't really have anything else to add.
This is always such a tough topic because we keep saying the same stuff over and over
again.
And each individual tragedy is awful in its own unique way.
But what we keep saying over and over again is someone with an AR-15 style weapon goes
in somewhere and just shoots a bunch of people.
And if you look at the data that we have on mass shootings, big public mass shootings
like that are less than 20% of shootings where a whole bunch of people are killed.
Almost about half of them are family shootings.
Someone usually does murder suicide and kills a whole bunch of family members or they're
mass shootings that are part of a different felony happening that someone is trying to
rob someone and a bunch of people get shot.
So looking at these things as their own stand-alone problem is really tough because each
one of them makes headlines, but there's not a whole lot of them to really try to figure
out what policies work and what don't.
And your just gut instinct is to say, why is it so easy to get a weapon like this?
Even if you want to say, well, I believe in the right to bear arms, I believe gun ownership
is a bulwark against tyranny.
Okay, well, make it legal to have one and you have to keep it in your home.
You know, for the moment that society collapses and you need to go like shoot the evil police
or whatever this looks like.
But to say that people can just walk around with these things knowing what they do, knowing
the only thing that they do, I just have trouble getting through that cultural barrier, I guess.
I'm just not part of that world.
Evan, thank you so much.
I know it was another tough episode to do, but we had to talk about it, so I appreciate
you jumping on it.
Well, you know, I wish I could be here under better news, but I'm glad I can try to add
a little data and research to the moment.
That was Evan Mitz.
While you might know Evan as our political contributor, he also works for Arnold Ventures,
a company focused on funding evidence-based research in various categories like gun violence
research and criminal justice.
One note, after we taped this episode, the Texas House Select Committee on Community
Safety passed a bill that raises the age from 18 to 21 to purchase a long gun in Texas.
So what are your thoughts on gun violence in Texas?
Text messages or leave us a voicemail at 713-489-6972.
That will do it for today.
Thank you so much for listening.
I'm Rehil Ramz-Nali and I hope you learned something new.
Thank you.
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