It's time to go on the record with WRL news. She was the sweetest little girl who did nothing wrong. She listened to her mom and dad. She always brushed your teeth. She did it. She was creative. She made things for us. She never got in trouble in school. Like I just want to know what she did to be a victim. A grief stricken father's words, we will never forget as many are at a loss for words, trying to comprehend how this keeps happening in this country. This time to the youngest victims, 19 Children gunned down in their elementary school classroom and two teachers, officials say sacrificed their bodies to protect them. We mourn with Yuval de texas though, if you understand the death of the family's pain, this is enough that this is enough. No one else needs to go through this. We never needed to go through this, but we are mm hmm. And now the debate over how to prevent mass shootings is again front and center and turns out there are solutions, proven ones, evidence based ones. And tonight we're exploring them with some of the top minds in the nation, on gun laws, mental health and law enforcement. Thanks for joining us for on the record. I'm lena to let our panel tonight is a fantastic one, Philip cook is a Duke University professor and author of the book. The gun debate what everyone needs to know which explores every angle of guns. In America chris blue is the Chapel Hill Police chief who stepped up the law enforcement presence around local schools. In light of this tragedy. Dr Michael Siegel is a professor at Tufts University School of Medicine. He led a widely used study looking at state gun laws and its impact on mass shootings. And Dr Jim Bedford is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and a professor in U. N. C. S. Department of psychiatry. We're so glad all of you are with us to discuss this absolute tragedy in Uvalde texas. I'll begin with you, Professor Cook because you really are so embedded in this research about how guns are used in America. And then we have another tragedy in You've Aldi that is just stunningly heartbreaking reminds us all of Sandy Hook how if at all do these types of tragedies affect your work. Let me let me just say that in addition to being a researcher, I'm also a grandfather and of a six year old and an eight year old ah and I share the terrifying prospect that their elementary school someday might be invaded by an active shooter carrying an assault rifle. Ah my uh my heart goes out to all of the victims. But I think in a sense we are all victims and the effect I don't think that it does have on my research is to bring it into the public focus that with everything else that is going on in this nation in the world. Of course most people don't think about gun violence all the time, but it has the possibility of occasionally bringing us to focus on this preventable tragedy. Not only of school shootings, but of the routine endemic violence in many of the neighborhoods of our cities. It's interesting you said in a sense we're all victims Chief Blue this week, you talked to reporter Sarah Krueger and you said this could happen anywhere, sadly I believe that's the case. We've seen countless incidents over the last few years. And almost to the point where we they start to run together, which I think goes to dr Cook's point earlier. I don't think any community is immune and I think conversations like the one we're having here tonight are essential. You know, I do want to ask you a piece of news Chief Blue because look, we know an evolving situations. The first information we get from law enforcement is not the final information. However, we just learned from authorities that they assumed that the gunman was in that classroom alone. And that's why police did not go in. Well, turns out there were many Children inside tragically some dead and some alive. What do you make of the changing narrative from law enforcement in texas right now? And also the time that it took to get the shooter one hour. I think the changing narrative is concerning. You know, it's understandable that in the first few hours and days after an event like this information trickles out and the story comes into focus. And so I certainly want to be mindful of the fact that we don't have the full story yet that said a preliminary reports about what appeared to have been opportunities for law enforcement to intervene or very concerning. And counter actually to the training that has been a mainstay in law enforcement really since columbine. Um, so like others, I'm watching very interested to see what we learned. Well, let's move on to discuss the gun laws and the research that many of you have done on maybe what may have prevented this. So Professor Segal, I mentioned the study you did at boston University. We have a full screen because I really want us to be able to follow through what this study showed. So you looked at gun laws in effect between 1976 and 2018 and what impact if any thing that they had in these mass shootings? You looked at dozens of state laws and generally group them in categories assault weapons bans, large capacity magazine bans permit requirements, Red flag laws, universal background checks and laws prohibiting guns for people with violent criminal history. You can see this here on this full screen here. So which laws were most effective? Well, we found that the single most effective law to prevent mass public shootings is clearly requiring a permit for a gun. And you know, if you think about it, would we let anyone just get out on the road and drive a car without having a permit. It would be unheard of? And so the idea of requiring a permit for something as dangerous, um, as as owning a gun is, I think really reasonable. And in fact, the overwhelming number of gun owners, the overwhelming percentage of gun owners supports this law. So clearly requiring a permit for a gun is the single most important action we can take to prevent this type of event from occurring. And then secondly, we found that although it doesn't prevent these events from occurring, having a restriction on the ammunition magazine capacity, um, does have an effect on reducing the number of casualties when an event occurs. So it's not going to stop this from happening, but when it does happen, having a large capacity magazine ban will reduce the number of fatalities. So again, we're looking at this list here, you're saying permit requirements and limiting large capacity magazines were the most effective. Does that mean universal background checks are actually not that effective? No, not at all. Because most of the states that had permit requirements. In fact, almost all the states that had permit requirements had universal background checks. In fact, that's how the permit requirements work. You in order to get a permit, you have to do a background check. So the way to think about it really is the combination of requiring a permit and doing a universal background check, um, that that really should be viewed as a single law. Um, and, and those those laws work in concert simply to try to make sure that that people who are at high risk for violence aren't able to get access to firearms. And that's the principle really behind all of uh prevention in fire violence. It's making sure that people are at the greatest risk do not have access to those to those weapons. So essentially a set of policies, not just one individual policy, if you have the permit, then you could have that universal background check, but not one standing alone. Exactly. We found that there's a really small suite of policies. Um, universal background checks, permit requirements. Um, making sure that people who have a history of violence cannot access a gun and then having red flag laws so that you can intervene if somebody does pose a danger. Those four laws alone, We predict based on our models, would reduce firearm homicide by 35%, which is, it's one out of every three firearm homicides. That's an incredible effect from just a suite of four laws. We have to take a quick break. Many more questions for our panelists. After that we're back with our panel now discussing the mass shooting in texas and proven safety measures that could prevent the next one. I wanted our panelists to hear this one sound bite from Senator lindsey Graham on the shooting in texas. I can't assure the american people there's any law we can pass to stop this year. This man had no criminal record. He shot his grandmother in the face. He awfully purchased a gun. I don't know how. I can't tell people that. I can't think of a law that would have stopped this particular shooting. Are the other things we can do. Yeah, let's say it again. Professor Cook. Is there a law that may have stopped what happened in texas? Well, I defer to Professor Segal on his study. I mean, I think that it makes a great deal of sense to limit the distribution of large capacity magazines and that's a very specific policy that would make a big difference in terms of the casualties in mass shootings. I think what we've seen since the federal ban on assault weapons sunset it back in 2004 that the number of casualties and mass shootings has gone up incredibly. And it really was making the difference. Even though we perhaps didn't recognize it at that time. Beyond that, I think there's a lot that can be done in terms of enforcement efforts because the shooters often broadcast their intentions in advance or at least tell friends and put it on social media. And so that there's a kind of an intelligence operation here that would be helpful in some cases. And of course that is necessarily worthwhile given the high stakes chief blue. What about red flag laws? How might that have played a role here? Well, I don't know enough about this particular, uh, suspects history to speak with any precision on that. But what I certainly know is is that law enforcement folks, mental health providers and others who have encounters with folks who we believe are sending signals that suggest they ought not have access to weapons or the weapons they have perhaps need to be secured until they're out of crisis. Just makes good common sense. Um, and Dr Siegel's mentioning of that among the other interventions as one of the top four, I believe, he said suggests to me that we ought to follow the research and if we can reduce Murders by 35% murders of this type by 35% with some common sense regulation. It seems certainly worth continuing that conversation at nationally and in North Carolina. You know, Dr Bedford, I thought it was interesting that the governor in texas said that the shooter had no mental health history, no known mental health history in terms of no known illness in his history, but then also said that these shootings could be combated. If there is more of a focus on mental illness, how can both those things be true in terms of that having any impact in a situation like this? Well, there is often an effort after a high profile shootings such as this to find some kind of mental health history or some criminal history in the um, perpetrator and often that that's a distraction and that we know that most people with mental health problems are not violent, That having a history of mental illness makes you more likely to be a victim of crime than to be a perpetrator of crime. And um into the earlier question about well what you know, what would this, what would have prevented this um incident? You know, there is sometimes we look for, well, this one law wouldn't have prevented this one shooting. So the law must not be any good. But it's this suite of proposals that more comprehensively decreases the risk by decreasing access to firearms. And in this case, if the Assailant hadn't been able to buy the assault rifle shortly on or on or shortly after his 18th birthday, well then you wouldn't have had that weapon to use. Um So whether whether any one particular law would have prevented a particular shooting, um doesn't mean that that law wouldn't be a prudent and reasonable thing to do, you know, in Australia in the United Kingdom, in New Zealand after mass shootings, they were all able to implement really strong gun laws as a result. And after those shootings, there have been many fewer shootings. Almost none in some of those countries. Why is the politics of of guns so immovable in the United States? Professor Cook. Well, first of all, let me say that I am a mirror economist and so should not be pontificating about political issues, but that this ordinary explanation for the power of the pro gun constituency is that many of them are single issue voters, that what they care about in a candidate begins and ends with the position on gun control and that those who favor gun control on the on the other hand, or some degree of gun regulation also are concerned about many other issues and so that they their vote does not rise or fall on this single issue. So the power of focus, I think in this case may make the difference between the vast majority of the american public that wants moderate gun control and the fact that the republicans in Congress are almost unanimous in opposing it. You know, dr Siegel, I saw something that was really interesting in your study. You were not saying that banning assault rifles was necessarily an effective law. Why not? Well, You don't have to have an assault rifle to go into a school and shoot 19 kids. And so just getting rid of assault rifles itself is not going to end the problem. And use perpetrator will just use a different type of gun. The magazine capacity does make a difference because it does limit the amount that you can shoot before having to reload. But what really will make a difference to prevent these events from happening is making sure that an 18 year old boy cannot walk into a store, Asked for two assault rifles and walk out with two assault rifles. No questions asked that you should not be able to do that. You know, there's no, what, what was he going to use these for? Was he going hunting? Was he going target shooting with 22 assault weapons? I mean, that should be a no brainer. And we, this, this should not be a society where that can happen. And the way to stop that from happening is to have laws that require, you know, that the laws that I mentioned before requiring a permit, having a background check, um, having a laws that anyone who has a history of violence can't have a gun and having these red flags, red flag laws in place. Um, and I just, you know, to respond to what Senator Graham said, It's really a ridiculous response to say that because you know, a certain law wouldn't prevent this particular tragedy. We're not gonna have it. Why don't we get rid of red lights? Why doesn't Senator Graham suggest we get rid of rid of red lights? Because the other day there was a tragic accident where someone ran a red light and killed, killed someone here in massachusetts. So do we look at that and say, well, we're having a red light at that intersection. Obviously it didn't help this person died anyway. So do we say, Okay, well let's get rid of red lights. We're not going to have them because it didn't prevent this tragedy? I mean, this is political cowardice and what it really comes down to is the fact that there are a group of republicans in the Senate who are not willing to stand up to the N. R. A. It's as simple as that their political cowards. Now, my research shows that all four of the laws that I'm talking about are heavily supported by gun owners. So it's not it's not that, you know, there's this misperception that gun owners are against this and that the people who are who are standing up for gun rights are against us. That's not true. The only one who's against these laws is the N. R. A. And so these these legislators who refused to vote for these laws saying that, oh, well, I need to protect my constituents interests. They're not protecting anyone's interests. Yeah, Well, I do want to ask about that because there are responsible gun owners that are concerned about some of these laws will do that after the break. Mm hmm. Welcome back. We're talking about the tragedy in Uvalde texas. Chief blue. You know, the vast vast majority of gun owners in this country are responsible. They're nonviolent. They use their weapons in appropriate ways. What do you say to owners who are worried that any new laws might infringe upon their rights? Well, I think we've heard from my co panelists already in this discussion today that the the research says that, um, restricting access and reasonable permitting and background checks all make us safer. They do not take Lawfully acquired guns out of the hands of responsible gun owners. I struggle with however, understanding why in the world anyone really needs a high capacity magazine, but particularly an 18 year old whose brain is still developing well until their twenties in fact. And so you know, I don't think any reasonable conversation about gun control um suggests that people aren't able to have guns that are legally acquired and are appropriately licensed and permitted. I think it's too easy to jump to one end of the extreme or the other. Um and politicized this conversation and really miss out on an opportunity to have a common sense conversation. I don't I haven't seen any meaningful discussions gain any traction around taking guns from people. But I also think that any reasonable sensible gun owner would be willing to compromise ah pretty seriously if they could avoid the next mass shooting. We have seen an escalation in the how quickly it appears people can be radicalized online. Dr Bedford, especially young people on these sites able to uh go down rabbit holes in racist material in bigoted material. What role do you think mental health is playing in this crisis right now? Well, I share your concern about mental health in America but I think we see across the world concerns about mental health and but we only see these kinds of mass shootings with anywhere near this frequency in our country. Um there there's the internet is available around the world, Youtube and Fortune and these other sites that people visit. Um, but this seems to be a uniquely american problem at least at this point. And psychiatrists by and large support red flag laws and background checks and extended waiting periods as well as restricting large capacity magazines. These are all things that are very reasonable, straightforward, common sense things to do because people have mental health challenges in every country on earth. But this doesn't seem to happen other places like we let it happen here. You know, you have studied the History Professor Cook of gun laws in this country. I'm going to give the final words to you because we have seen after mass of incidents of violence in this country that there have been laws implemented in the United States. I say that again, can you just provide a little perspective and maybe some hope That something may change in this country? We only have about 20 seconds. Let me just very quickly say that the number one policy that Professor Segal suggested was permitted to purchase. And speaking of history North Carolina has had a permit to purchase requirement for 100 years on the books. This is not new. It is limited to handguns, but it is not new and I think that at the state level at least there is the possibility of moving ahead on a number of fronts and it's something that I personally support. Professor Cook. Thank you all for the panelists for your insight on this tragedy in Uvalde texas. We have hope that we will see change. Have a good night.