Armed with Reason: The Podcast - Episode 20
We start our second season of podcasts by celebrating our first birthday!
Welcome to Season 2 of the Armed With Reason podcast!
In this week’s episode, Devin and Caitlin review the first year of our Armed with Reason Substack, the origins of GVPedia, and our plans going forward as we continue on our battle against gun lobby lies.
You can listen to the podcast via our channel on Spotify as well as watch on YouTube, or read the transcription below.
We hope you’ll tune in and let us know not only what you think, but what you’d like to hear more about in the future. And if you are interested in recommending a guest, or even being one yourself, please let us know!
Given the abundance of gun violence in our country, it is critical to have the ability to discuss and advocate for a safer community. This podcast is one more way for the movement to do just that.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION:
Caitlin: Hello, everyone. Thanks for joining us here on the Armed With Reason podcast, brought to you by GVPedia. This week marks the one year anniversary of the launch of our Substack, which is named Armed With Reason. And we launched Armed With Reason because we wanted to create a space to share our usual information about myths and data related to gun violence; but also because we wanted to create a platform for people in the movement, both advocates and survivors alike, to have a voice. And looking back over the past year. I have to say, I think we have met that goal and in rather impressive fashion.
Since our launch last April, Armed With Reason has grown to over 900 subscribers. We've published actually the publish the post that goes out this week will be the 300th post. So exactly 300 posts from dozens of contributors, and we've released 19 episodes of our podcast. And across all mediums we have received more than 200,000 views. So when we were brainstorming this project last winter, and honestly, even before that, I think we were unsure of how this would go. But it really seems that we have been able to share important messages with the help of Armed With Reason.
So, today Devin and I are just going to dive into this a little bit more, and I'm going to start the podcast today by saying hello Devin, and asking Devin how do you feel about hitting this one year anniversary milestone?
Devin: Yeah. So it's kind of hard to believe that it's one year, whether that's just because we're in the post-Covid time space where time no longer has any meaning. Or it's just it does not feel like a year, and nor does it feel like 300 stories. Like I was scrolling back through all the stories yesterday and today. And I was like, wow, we have really published a lot.
Caitlin: Right? A lot, considering that's 365 days, right? Like, we've covered a super majority of the days.
Devin: Yeah, yeah. I mean, basically Monday through Friday with a couple of exceptions, like we've had content out there, which I mean is basically a staggering success on its own. I mean, there aren't all that many Substack newsletters about gun violence in general out there. But even among Substack newsletters that cover other subjects, I can't really think of anybody who provides Monday through Friday content from like a plethora of sources. Like oftentimes with these newsletters. If it was like GVPedia, it'd just be Caitlin writing right these things over and over again and not like bringing in the broader community. So I think GVPedia is relatively unique in that, and I think it's quite important for there to be a space in the gun violence prevention movement to where people can share their stories without having to go from newspaper to newspaper trying to shop a piece.
And also having that piece go to a dedicated audience of 900 or so people who are in the gun violence prevention movement or very close to it. And so while 900 to us is a large number to others, it's like, oh you're not reaching hundreds of thousands. It's like, well no, but the 900 people were reaching are the heads of major organizations, people who have been in this work for not just a decade, but multiple decades, and who have real experience. And being able to share stories and connect people in that fashion is one of the primary reasons we created Armed With Reason. And I think we're accomplishing that relatively well.
So I'll turn the question around to you. So what do you think some of the most impactful stories that we've published over the past year are?
Caitlin: Well, it's certainly hard to pick from 300, but given the reason that we started Armed With Reason initially and the survivors that we have had the opportunity to get to know through the movement over the years, I would certainly have to say the pieces written by survivors. You know, people like Sandy and Lonnie Phillips, and Kristen Song, and Tom Mauser. These are names of folks who are heavily involved in the movement, have been for years, and really took the most horrific event in their life — which was the loss of a child — and have turned it into the ability to make massive amounts of change to keep other children and adults safer, now and in the future. So having individuals like those survivors and others share their stories not only is impactful to read, but I take it as a huge compliment that they would write something — whether they do it unsolicited or we've asked them to — and that they trust us enough to share it on our platform. It goes through the editing process with us. The layout is done by us. They share family photos with us sometimes to post, along with what they have submitted to us in writing. And again, it's about their children. So there's nothing more personal than that. So certainly those are the most impactful.
When I think about reading something, I think the 19 episodes that we've done with the podcast, we've been able to have some survivors on with us. And the podcast is unique because it gives us the opportunity to allow people who subscribe to listen to an interview, to read an interview through the transcripts, to watch it on YouTube. So people have very busy lives, and sometimes, you know, listening in the car on the way to work or putting on YouTube while you're folding the laundry or whatever it might be, I think that medium allows folks to participate in ways that maybe they wouldn't be able to if it was just, like, I'm going to sit down and read this article. And again, survivors — you know, last week, or not last week, a couple days ago, we had Zach Martin's podcast go out from Columbine. Oronde McClain is somebody who has been working with journalists related to gun violence reporting, and he's doing a fantastic job making sure that gun violence reporting is being covered in a respectful way to victims and their families. And again, to be able to sit down and have conversations with these people, for them to trust us with their stories, I can think of as there's no bigger compliment.
So, Devin, we're going to get into a broader subject here. I don't think we've really touched on this in any of our podcast episodes, but can you give us some insight as to why you initially started GVPedia in 2017?
Devin: So the story in a way goes back even further to 2012 and the Sandy Hook shooting. And I got involved in the gun violence prevention space almost immediately after that, though I wasn't really connected with anybody nationally. I think I've mentioned previously, whether in articles or podcast, but like, if you don't know this about me, I'm from Oklahoma, which is, like, we're gun country inside of gun country, as it were. I grew up on a farm. Family had a rifle and a shotgun, neither of which were shooting for self-defense. We had a big German Shepherd for that. But, like, guns were ubiquitous in a way. And I still remember as a kid where we would hear, our farm was next to a creek bed, and we would hear automatic fire coming from there on the weekends. And no, it wasn't semi-automatic fire. Like my dad served in Vietnam, and he very well knows the difference between semi-auto and full auto.
And so we were just in gun central, and it really didn't strike me until the Sandy Hook shooting, really of like, wow, there needs to be something that's done about this. And then it was the pushback to that. We should do something -- that really made me take a deeper look, and start doing research, and discovering that there is a major gap between where the academic research was and where the public discussion on firearms was. I remember back during that time where there'd be op-eds on like the Washington Post, and they would cite one or two studies and I would think, oh, wow, like how well researched this is. And it's, I mean in terms of some of the stuff that I later wrote, it's like if I don't have one to two studies cited in a paragraph I'm like mad at myself.
Caitlin: Yes, absolutely. But it's necessary because otherwise people will say that you're lying. I mean, they say you're lying anyway, so it's better to have the studies to to back it up.
Devin: Yeah. And so there is just this major disconnect. And nobody at the time, I felt was systematically going through and debunking these myths and really translating the academic research for a public audience.
So I, with a friend, co-authored Armed with Reason 1.0, and that lasted for four to five years. I even wrote for The Trace for a time. And then when my coauthor went off to Harvard, turns out getting a PhD at Harvard is rather time consuming. He had to step aside, so I went ahead and kind of took our original work and turned it into a non-profit setting. So we had a smaller gun database with like 100 studies. We initially released GVPedia, I think, with 700 studies, and then had whitepapers and factsheets, and it's grown from there.
So GVPedia has really been a continuation of the efforts to combat disinformation and get accurate information out there. And it's kind of been a gradual evolution since 2012 all the way to today. So yeah, that's the relatively brief form of...
Caitlin: The one-page version.
Devin: Yes. Yeah. And I could go on as people who have heard this podcast before can probably tell, but I'll pause it there for now. And kind of turn the question around to you. So you joined GVPedia at the very beginning of 2020. Back when the world was normal, before civilization collapsed on itself and time became meaningless. Yeah. Even before joining in 2020, you at least knew of us and had attended our 2019 conference. I distinctly remember you helping put together the vigil that we held there, as well as a late night session that turned into what would be the Denver record, where we were trying to figure out, so what are we going to do with this, and how is it going to be impactful, like the night before.
Caitlin: Yes.
Devin: So I'm kind of curious about your views on GVPedia before and after joining, and how we've grown as an organization.
Caitlin: Yeah, that — wow, that conference being five years ago now is another time frame that's hard to believe, as is me being here with GVPedia for more than four years at this point. So you know in looking back. Learning about GVPedia before going to the conference, deciding to go to the conference knowing that there would be survivors, and advocates, and educators there; and it was a great opportunity to network, and to learn more about the movement, and ways to get involved, and ways to make a difference. I was certainly impressed.
I appreciate data and research, and in understanding the fundamentals of having a healthy debate with somebody knowing that, like you said, citing your sources is really critical; and that there was a place to go that legitimately had those sources readily available, I didn't have to pay. There wasn't a paywall to read something, and more importantly, that there were just some easy statistics that were on GVPedia's website and on social media that applied to some of the most common myths or questions related to gun violence. That was really impressive to me.
Honestly, it seems like a lot of what we do for GVPedia it's a very niche subject. But honestly it's not, right, because anybody might wake up in the morning and learn that a certain bill has been introduced in their in their State House, and might all of a sudden need to know all these random things about concealed carry, let's say. And instead of them going online and Googling in a rush, that's, you know, the beauty of why GVPedia exists.
So I quickly, you know, Covid times came upon us quickly after I joined. And that certainly created a different set of expectations for what we were going to do in the short term and in the long term for GVPedia. But I think in some ways we really found a space to thrive in, and that was in this opportunity to do GVPedia Explains and GVPedia Explores, right. To understand that that 2019 conference that we had in Denver was really, a really important time for us to have in that space.
But all of a sudden we couldn't be together. And having online spaces where 20, 30, 40, 50 people could come for, you know, an hour at a clip, and then they could jump on our YouTube channel and watch the session if they missed it. I think we saw a need in the movement in a time when social distancing was was certainly the the rule, and we did the best that we could, and we still figured out how to make sure that the important information for the movement was out there and was readily accessible. So again, impressive, right? It's hard for organizations, any organizations, but particularly non-profits who have a, you know, skeleton crew of staff and who, you know, do the best that they can with minimal resources. It can be hard to pivot. But we, I think, did that in a way that really created the future for GVPedia. We still do, the GVPedia Explains, even though thankfully social distancing, at least at the moment, is generally a thing of the past.
So I am certainly appreciative of everything from the 2019 conversation up to the podcast today, and whoever might be listening to this conversation that you and I are having, because there're so many small organizations in the movement, and together we create this story that allows lawmakers, and staffers, and educators, and advocates to really hone in on the details when it comes to what's important in gun violence and in gun violence prevention. So it's funny that you remember me helping out at the vigil. I think I was like, putting paper cranes on the chairs.
Devin: Yes. Yeah, paper cranes, and like putting kind of lighting around…. So like I wasn't allowed in. And I just knew that like a group of people had like spontaneously agreed to help Penny Okamoto who's like one of the major brains behind the conference and whose idea The Denver record was. She wanted to do the vigil, and it was like, no, you stay away. I've got this with volunteers. It's like, okay, I guess I'll go in and see what happened here.
Caitlin: And, you know, it was a vigil for all gun violence survivors. But we were in Denver to mark the 20th anniversary of Columbine, which here we are having this conversation the week of the 25th anniversary of Columbine. But in that vigil, I sat down, and then Tom Mauser came to sit next to me. And Tom Mauser's son Daniel was killed in Columbine. And I remember, I knew who he was. And I was sitting there and I was thinking, like, talk about -- I'm not a typical I'm not like a religious person -- but talk about a spiritual experience, right? Like having a vigil to honor gun violence victims in a space in Denver. Because, you know, really that started the catalyst of Columbine. And then being next to one of the most, if not THE most vocal parent who lost a child. I still remember it. I remember thinking, wow, this is this is so powerful. And I was grateful that all of my experiences led me to that space and in that moment, because it certainly was motivating to keep up the good fight, which unfortunately we have to do more than we would like to.
As we say, the best day will be when we no longer have these jobs because we don't need to fight for gun violence prevention or gun sense legislation anymore. But obviously, unfortunately, we're not there at the moment. So, Devin. I think that's that's about it for my thoughts, as far as my views on GVPedia before and after. I could probably go on and on about after and all the the things that I'm proud of that we've done. But I'll leave it there for now.
Devin: And I do kind of like one aside as well, I remember back in 2020, because I was also teaching at OU at the time and, like, classes were shut down, and they're telling us like, well, you can go ahead and proceed with your classes on zoom. And I'm like, zoom. What's that? We're never gonna use this. That's ridiculous. And then like later in the year and to now it's like everything's on zoom. And I mean, kind of like one of the, like before major weaknesses of GVPedia I felt is how geographically separate we are, just kind of because of necessity. I mean, having a national gun violence prevention organization based in Oklahoma like does not make much sense. So but like having people closer to Washington or areas where stuff can actually get done on gun violence prevention like it's crucial. But that weakness turned into an advantage of sorts when we were all forced to be in our homes, where day after day with no physical contact as, now, like we were already kind of doing that, right? And so we were able to, I think, go rather well into the brave new world of the pandemic and post-pandemic.
Caitlin: Right. And I think that allowed us to finalize the mass shootings report, which we put out the summer of 2020. The following year, the Facts about Firearm Policy Initiative. Those were born out of, like you said, us being at home. So we communicated in whatever ways we could, but it also gave us an opportunity to really delve into some topics that we wanted to write about and put out more information for everybody.
Devin: That's like, I'm going to be sitting in front of my computer anyway, so...
Caitlin: How many TV shows can I binge on Netflix and also be productive at the same time?
Devin: All of them.
Caitlin: All of them, yes.
Devin: So to kind of follow up on the GVPedia before, so like, what's currently your favorite part about GVPedia? If you had to pick like just one, and what do you hope to accomplish with GVPedia going forward?
Caitlin: I think I mentioned on it in the last question, but really the ability to be a resource for somebody on very short notice. So whether it's somebody's understanding that they can go to our website and there's fact sheets or one pagers about a myriad of different topics in the gun violence prevention world, or somebody saying, hey, I know this this guy Devin, and he knows so much about X, Y, Z topic. And then reaching out to us and saying, you know, tomorrow morning at 9 a.m., there's going to be a hearing. And we need some rebuttals to these common talking points. And for us, for you really, to procure something for these individuals to be able to use is certainly my favorite part, because one, it's not only empowering for the right side of history, as far as I'm concerned, but it creates scenarios where the other individuals are shocked, and I can certainly appreciate people walking into a space thinking that this is going to be a one sided argument, and we have this locked up because of the state that they're in, or other laws that exist, and then being blindsided by somebody on a committee, or a staffer having a chat with somebody afterwards and saying, you know, you said all these things, but in fact, these things are true.
And I know as media goes on and more people learn about us and what we have to offer, to me, I really hope that we're able to continue to do that ,and in a larger fashion. We talk about Devin going to DC and having to testify on certain bills at certain points and like, sign me up, right? Like I would put Devin in front of a committee any day of the week. And that's, I think, it's one of the greatest things that we have to offer.
So for me, the hope for the future is, you know, the more people who know that that's something that we can do, hopefully the more we'll take, more people will take advantage of that. And that allows us to, you know, in live time, respond to so much of the disinformation and so many of the myths related to gun violence in this country.
Devin: Yeah. And one of my favorite cases of that was a couple years ago when, I'll even mention his name, John Lott...
Caitlin: No way.
Devin: Yeah. He was testifying in Nebraska. They had had, like, limited advance warning he'd be there. And one of the hard working advocates on the ground put me in touch with a State Senator. I was like, well, hey, here's some of the information that Lott will likely go into. He doesn't change his testimony all that much from time to time. But then what I was able to do is during Lott's testimony, well, I was watching, like, their live stream. I had the State Senator's email open, and each time Lott said something false -- which was like every other word -- I'd be able to pull from, like, our Factual Firearm Policy initiative and be like, okay, this talking point's false. Here's why. This talking point's false. Here's why. And even like provide potential questions. During that, which he was able to ask and like catch Lott off guard, because he's not used to like State Senators -- who have to deal with a multitude of other issues around violence -- actually being prepared to handle somebody whose entire career is based around spreading disinformation on gun violence.
Caitlin: Right.
Devin: Yeah. And it's like he's an expert at that. And when you're encountering a bunch of people who aren't experts for very justifiable reasons on something like, it's going to be a one-sided affair. And providing that balance and countering disinformation in real time or close to real time is important. Or even if like there's testimony, and then we learn about and are able to correct things after the fact; and allow for like Tennessee, for example, in like a press conference or something after like bad testimony where they're able correct things. And just making sure that the disinformation that's put out there doesn't go unchallenged, because if it goes unchallenged, like at best, people aren't going to believe it, but worse, people are going to buy into it.
So, at every one of those public cases, you have to challenge the disinformation. Otherwise, the firehose of falsehood, as we label it, is going to prevail.
Caitlin: Absolutely, yes. And again, it's always fun to catch people off guard. So, devin, any other thoughts before we wrap up today?
Devin: Yeah. And recognizing that we're over a 30-minute time limit. I'll limit myself to another half hour talk about GVPedia's future. But I do want to, joking aside, mention that where GVPedia is currently is really only -- and I used the term only loosely -- like the second or third step of our evolution. Just this year, we recently released the Data Visualization that allows you to examine Gun Violence Archive data all the way down to the street level, or the state congressional district, state senate district level, and provide really detailed information to people in just a couple seconds. And the ability for people to create like custom reports that, before the data visualizations, this would take people way months to do, now can be done with a few clicks and just copying and pasting stuff afterwards.
And our goal with GVPedia over the next two, three, five years, as it were, is to create a GVPedia AI, as it were, to where you can come to the website and ask it a question. You'd say, okay, GVPedia, tell me about unintentional shootings. And then GVPedia can pull together the data from the Data Visualization. It can pull together the studies that we have in our database, any white papers and factsheets we have -- and then combine that into an answer that can be as short as somebody wants it, where it's like two to three points, it can be a fact sheet, or it can be a larger package of information. So basically meeting somebody's informational needs no matter what they are right there. And basically becoming a central data and information nexus on gun violence.
Because I remember when starting out back in late 2012 into 2013, the sheer amount of Googling and then hopping from one resource to another resource, finding a study, looking through the studies, work cited, finding those studies, and so forth, and just the amount of time it would take to answer anything. And wanting to make sure that anybody who either had just a passing interest in gun violence, or wanted to get involved in preventing gun violence, or has been in the gun violence space for 20 years and wants to learn even more, like where they can all go to a single resource and be directed to an answer to their question as quickly as possible. And so that's GVPedia's goal.
And the more support we get from people, the faster we'll be able to achieve that goal. And the more comprehensive a resource we're going to be able to provide. And providing that resource, like, it's not just about GVPedia, it helps every other organization in the space as well to where we're removing the months upon months of potential, like, digging around and research. But quite frankly is wasted time if there's a resource there that has already done all the digging for them and compiled the best research and everything else that they're going to need into a single spot to where they can just pull on that and then get to the crucial work of having the personal conversations to change minds, or to be at the Capitol day after day, providing resources and information to legislators or talking with the media. That's the stuff that is super impactful and really matters, those personal conversations. And we want to make sure that we're empowering people with the proper information to do that, and also to have even more time to do that crucial work. That's the future as I see it.
Caitlin: I want to end this podcast today by giving a shout out to, well, frankly, the reason why our Substack exists and is successful in the ways that it is, because Armed With Reason wouldn't be possible without our contributors, but most importantly without Eric Davidson, who is our Senior Editor of Armed With Reason; and Shannon Van Easley, who is always posting on our social media and making sure that our stories, and podcasts, and posts are reaching our readers. So without Shannon and Eric, this would be a, I can't even say much less successful venture, because I don't even think it would have really gotten off the ground. So again, a huge thank you to the two of them.
And as always, if you're interested in writing for us or maybe being on our podcast, please reach out to us. We are certainly always looking for contributors, and we want to make sure that if you have an experience, or a story, or there's something important to you in the gun violence or gun violence prevention world, we we want to be a space for you to be able to get that out there.
And again to repeat what Devin was saying very, very nicely as far as support, if everybody who listen to this or subscribes to our Substack, or had the monthly subscription for just a couple of dollars, we would be much closer to meeting our fundraising goal. So if you can spare the difference of a Starbucks grande latte -- which I know because I purchased one this morning -- one a month, that would make a really big difference to us and to the work that we're trying to do. All right. So and like you said, we went over our time, so I'm going to I'm going to wrap it up here. And we will certainly be chatting again soon.
Devin: And thank you so much to everybody who listens, and follows, and helps us.
Caitlin: Absolutely.