Armed with Reason: The Podcast - Episode 2
This week's guest is Jennifer Mascia from The Trace.
In the second episode of our new podcast, hosts Devin and Caitlin are joined by Jennifer Mascia, a NewYork Times contributor and founding staff member and senior writer at The Trace — the only media outlet dedicated exclusively to covering gun violence information and prevention.
You can listen to the chat via our channel on Spotify, as well as watch on YouTube.
Jennifer Mascia
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.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Caitlin: Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us again here for our second episode of Armed with Reason, brought to you by GVPedia. Devin is here with me again today. Hey, Devin.
Devin: Hello. Yes, this is our second episode and our first episode with a guest. So this is going to be interesting.
Caitlin: Yes, Well, I'm very excited that we have the wonderful Jennifer Mascia here with us. She brings so much knowledge and is somebody who really knows the ins and outs of lots of nuances when it comes to gun violence and gun violence prevention. So I'm going to introduce everybody to her just in case you don't know her. She is one of the founding staffers of The Trace and she is currently a senior news writer there. And we know that The Trace is really helpful for those of us trying to learn about gun violence prevention and gun violence in general, just because they are the only media outlet that covers gun violence exclusively. And she has previously written about gun violence for The New York Times, which is super impressive. And we are very honored that you're here with us today, and we really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us for a little while here on the podcast.
Jennifer: Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be your first guest. That is so cool.
Caitlin: Yes, we did some brainstorming and I got to say, Devin is is a really big Jennifer fan. And I, there was no reason to say no, so here we are.
Jennifer: Feelings mutual. He might be the only other person who knows as much, if not more about this topic than me, and that's saying a lot.
Caitlin: Yes, he is the wealth of knowledge. That’s why I think it's going to be so great to have the two of this conversation here for us. So, Jennifer, we're just going to jump right in, and if you don't mind, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you've gotten to writing about gun violence?
Jennifer: I got into writing about gun violence by accident. I was a news assistant at The New York Times, and Sandy Hook happened, and I was working for a columnist who was really shaken by it. He had a young son and he said, you know, when the when the news coverage started dying down, as it always does, he said, "Now no one's going to pay attention to gun violence until there's another one. Who gets shot in between these big mass shootings?" And at that point, there was no Gun Violence Archive. Nobody knew, and nobody knew how to really look it up. So he said, "why don't we?", He wrote a column where it was just a line from every shooting from like the last 24 or 48 hours. And he's like, and it was really powerful. There was no commentary. It was just- these are the shootings. And I got a huge reaction. And he had a blog. All the columnists have a blog, and he wasn't using his. And he said, "What if you do this every day?" And we did for sixteen months and we called it the gun report. And when I was done with it, I was suddenly like a subject matter expert. And, you know, funders came forward and said, we think that there should be a Marshall Project for gun violence, there should be an outlet. How is there not an outlet that covers this all the time? It's it's scattered among all these different beats criminal justice, public health, but nobody was focusing just on this. And, you know, eight years later, we're still the only outlet that does this. So that is how the trace was born, and we started, we actually had to move up our launch. We were supposed to launch on a Monday in June, and we had to move it up to the Thursday before because Charleston happened. So it was just tragic. And then of course, 2015, 2016, 2017, one after another after another, it was a baptism by fire.
Caitlin: Well, if I can say, I would assume the reason that you're still the only publication is because you guys do such a thorough job, right? So it makes a big difference. Some people try to find these niche areas and report on them, and for whatever reason, they are passionate about it for a short period of time and then it kind of falls by the wayside. But clearly…
Jennifer: It was remarkable, though, we actually- I feel like if we had ten more people, we couldn't hit everything we wanted to hit because there were so many shootings and there's just so much going on on this beat that touches on almost every other beat- campaign finance, economics, everything.
Caitlin: Absolutely, yeah. There's a, it's very intricate and there's a lot of different branches of of why this happens in our country. So I'm actually going to let Devin get into some of that.
Devin: Yep. And go full nerd mode.
Caitlin: You need a little button that blinks when Devin wants...
Devin: Yeah. Yeah. We have no sound effects yet, but we can just, like, pop one in. That's, like, "nerd mode with Devin Hughes". Yeah. And so, like, one of the things that comes up because you've been doing this for around the same amount of time I have. So like more than ten years now since the Sandy Hook tragedy. And even with like the Trace being there, with focusing purely on gun violence, there's still so many misconceptions about guns out there. And honestly, it doesn't seem to be getting much better. And oftentimes when you're looking at polling like it's going the opposite direction of what the research says. So what do you kind of feel are the most prominent misconceptions about guns among the general public, just as you've been doing this work over the past decade?
Jennifer: Let's just start with background checks. I have been inundated with, you know, Second Amendment trolls, I guess we can call them.
Devin: "Enthusiasts."
Jennifer: Not trying to be light about it, but there are people from the gun rights sphere, here who don't even know that the Brady Bill in 1993, our federal background check system, does not require background checks on private sales. And this is huge because if people think that background checks are comprehensive and we're still having this level of gun violence, they're not going to think we need new gun laws. They're going to say gun laws don't work. So these kind of misconceptions are really, you know, harming the discourse and kind of their barrier to policy background checks is the first. You know, most people don't realize only federally licensed dealers are required to conduct background checks. Now, 21 states have closed that loophole. Like I live in New York, you have to go through a vetting process that lasts almost a year to legally own a gun. So background checks are a part of that. But Oklahoma, you know, does not have them. Texas, they're not required. So that's nearly a quarter of gun sales. There are, I realize that there's misinformation barriers here. When I was I was just talking to a family member in Florida, a gun owner herself, and she was curious why I was concerned about permanent less carry, which went into effect in Florida in July. She said, "what's the big deal? I mean, guns are registered with the federal government at the point of purchase. So what, like when you buy a gun, it goes into a government database with the serial number, well, I don't get it. What's the big deal?" And this is a smart woman who's in the health care field, but she consistently votes for candidates who, you know, Republican candidates who don't really do much on gun reform, not realizing that, no, that is absolutely not the case. When you buy a gun, it is not stored anywhere. In fact, there are laws against that very thing. And I realized if she felt this way and believe these things, then most, like many Americans, also do not understand. You know, a lot of people, I'll be watching television shows and, you know, they'll be in a red state with loose gun laws and talk about, "well, your handgun wasn't registered." Well, we barely have handgun registration in this country, barely. Like a couple of states really do the European style gun control. So, yeah, those those are just those are just a couple. I could go through 30 of them. To carry a concealed gun. Most Americans, most gun owners, you know, might think that you need to go through training, required training. Only something like 16 states require that. So we have a situation where you can get a gun in a private sale so there's no record. And in 27 states, you can carry it in public with no permit or training. So these are the kind of inexperienced gun carriers that our laws allow to be in public. And people need to know that. They need to know there's a problem before they can embrace a solution.
Devin: Yeah. And one thing on that is just oftentimes you'll hear from the pro-gun side generally is like, "oh, how are all these law abiding citizens who are just carrying guns for self-defense the problem, like they don't commit crimes." And what people tend not to recognize is, one, the data is not actually there, like there have been in-depth news reports looking at, like the data surrounding permit holder crimes and finding that like, it's not capturing something like 75% of the actual incidents. And two, it just ignores like gun thefts, basically where you have these inexperienced people like, in Oklahoma, I tomorrow, or actually I could probably do it by the end of today- go to Walmart or look online, go to a Walmart parking lot, get a handgun and start carrying it tomorrow and with zero training. And if I think, oh, this gun kind of like a magic shield that is only to protect me, just leave it in my car along with the NRA bumper sticker and it's going to get stolen. And that happens 200 or 300,000 times a year. Unfortunately, we don't have exact data on that either.
Jennifer: And it's not just that law abiding gun owners, you know, we're not angels throughout our entire lives. You know, there are times when, you know, a gun is around and it's very impulsive. People will reach for it. Instead of having a fistfight, they'll end up in a shooting. You know, when people are in crisis, you know, sometimes it's just not a good time to be in the same room with a gun. We're not the same throughout our whole lives. And there's this very like, you know, binary view of, you know, your good or your bad. You're stamped with good or evil on your head. And all gun owners who get who pass a background check, they're good. Well, not necessarily. You know, there is a website that, Violence Policy Center, that counts up, you know, people with concealed carry licenses who kill other people. And it's it's not an insignificant number. You know, our gun laws are such that, you know, if you really wanted to vet people, you would check in with them every year and recertify them for owning that gun. That's something they do in Europe. We don't do that here.
Devin: Yeah. Or check with their family members to say like, hey, is this person abusive like they do in Canada? And yeah, there's all sorts of like…
Jennifer: Interview your family.
Devin: Basic things that just don't happen. And so with those kind of misconceptions, I'm wondering whether, like you've seen any distinctions between the misconceptions, say, on the political left and the political right about firearms and whether there's not how big the differences are there.
Jennifer: The misconception I think- when I hear somebody like President Biden or a senator, a Democratic senator, get something wrong on guns in public, you know, it's embarrassing because the other side will pounce. But it's also the biggest misconception I feel, maybe it's not really a misconception, they tend to focus, the lawmakers, you know, tend to focus on assault weapon ban. And this kind of bothers me. They'll take up all this valuable real estate where they could be talking about gun access and vetting gun buyers and they're talking about a particular weapon. The truth is that it's about who's buying the weapon. You know, I have family members, again, in Florida where they have many of these weapons. They are responsible. They keep them in safes. No one knows the combination. You know, you can have responsible gun owners who own AR-15's. We're not doing the vetting. It's the vetting of who you're giving these guns to. And when lawmakers focus on the gun, that that really does bother me. But I hear all the time, you know, misconceptions. I used to keep a folder of them. I do wish that people on the gun safety side, sometimes, mostly lawmakers, I do wish that they didn't make so many mistakes in public when it came to- you know, I'll find myself yelling at the TV sometimes. But the ones by omission, you know, those are those are the really damaging ones. When I see people, you know, news anchors, you know, they'll just talk about something and they won't- they'll get an answer from somebody and they won't go back and correct it. So you have this misconception that just keeps other news outlets, other reporters will look to that reporting and repeat that misconception. And it just goes on and on and on and on. And it's like, no, we have to be really precise when we're talking about this topic. Precision is so important because there are so many nuances.
Devin: Yeah. Well and like, with like assault style weapons where and there is kind of the misconception on the right that it's like, oh, it's a made up turn by left wing liberals who are about all the guns. It's like, no, it was initially marketed on the pro-gun side. Then they realized it wasn't politically correct and decided to do a 180 on it. But at the same time, you do have politicians are like, "Oh yeah, all semiautomatics". Not recognizing that like, many handguns are semiautomatics, or not knowing the difference between automatic and semi-automatic. And for a long time, like automatics are still regulated under the NFA and from 1934. And like they haven't really been used in that many crimes until auto sear technology came around and stuff like bump stocks which is a whole 'nother realm. But you just had this whole conflation of like automatic and semi-automatic that just played in to the space where it looked confusing and like everybody's doing misinformation about guns, so who to believe?
Jennifer: Well, the absolute worst one you just mentioned, semiautomatic rifle. They don't say rifle. So now the NRA says that Biden and all these lawmakers want to ban semiautomatic handguns and that's what they're running with and they are running with it. Nobody can correct them at this point. So they think that, you know, Biden wants to take your your Glock away. That is not what he's talking about. And that is just echoing down and down and down and, yeah
Devin: Yeah. And it should be so easy to just add the extra word because like, we all know what he means by it, but when you just leave that off, it lends itself to misconceptions and kind of on that front, like there tends to be, like a lack of, a distinct lack of knowledge, particularly among politicians on guns with like what actually works in terms of saving lives, like to plug GVPedia for a bit- we had created the Denver Accord, which is a roadmap to reducing gun violence and has all the research base means to reducing gun violence. And so stuff like permit to purchase is at the top of the list. But when you look at what's at the top of the list for many lawmakers, like it's not permit to purchase it's like universal background checks without the permitting system, which is decidedly weaker. And it's just like what's causing that disconnect fundamentally between the evidence and where people are on it.
Jennifer: Democrats have come a long way in embracing gun control and running on gun control. But they are not going to revert to the gun control position of yore. In the seventies and eighties, they talked seriously about banning handguns, and registration is seen as something that is just as severe, and they are really not ready to go there. Yeah, we know permit to purchase is really the only, like the not the only, is one of the most effective, you know, really just vetting a gun buyer before they get a gun and training and you know, you have to re-certify. You know, lawmakers are not willing to go to the registration and licensing place. I have not heard of rarely- you know, you'll have Chris Murphy and Blumenthal, but everybody knows their position. You're never going to have a moderate come out and say we need permit to purchase. And it really is still you know, there is a limit to how far they will go. And I think it's that they know what's not going to pass the Senate. We are at a stalemate federally, and I think that a lot of people in gun violence prevention have realized that. So they're going to, you know, different avenues, state laws, local funding targeted like community violence prevention. They're like the federal government's not going to help us with this. So when they when they say those things, you know, and they come out with these weak, they are relatively weak, you know, moderate solutions, it's because they know that it's not it's just not, it's still not going to play. We are a long, long we are generations away from really fixing this on the federal level.
Devin: Which is super depressing and also kind of weird because it's like, who are you going to get on your side with just universal background checks versus permit to purchase, even because you can do permits purchase without registration. And so it's like who are they hoping to convince there? Because there doesn't seem to be all that much room. Kind of as a follow up on that- Oregon, last year, passed their permit to purchase and large cap magazine restrictions. And as from what I could tell, and you're far more in tune with like the gun news than I am there was like very little in the so-called mainstream media or other outlets about what I would consider the most important gun violence prevention victory in a generation, if not multiple generations. So what's kind of going on there from the media aspect?
Jennifer: It's interesting. Oregon got a permit to purchase and North Carolina did away with theirs, you know, And so I feel like we know Oregon is going to at this point, it's firmly blue. We know Oregon is going to pass stronger gun laws. I think the news is really the gun laws that are being taken away. You know, 27 states are permitless now. Several of those have been in the last two years. Blue states passing strong gun laws is not news. And we are becoming two Americas. In one America, you're much more likely to be shot. But, you know, where red states are going way in the other direction to the point where they don't even want to honor federal laws anymore. And blue states are going to have really strong gun laws. The problem is our borders are porous. There aren't metal detectors when you cross over into a state with bad gun laws or state with good gun laws, we are one country. So that raises the risk of violence for all of us. You know, I feel fairly safe in New York, but you know that that could easily change.
Devin: Yeah, and with Oregon, it's kind of interesting because like the even though it is like you would think solidly blue in terms of like the legislators, like they have nearly a supermajority. Yet the lawmakers themselves weren't picking up permit-to-purchase or large cap magazine restrictions, even though it was proposed multiple times until it went to a ballot initiative. And one would think because you see all these polls on how people think about gun laws and permit to purchase will consistently score like 60% or above. And yet there really hasn't been to the turn of turning to, well, just ask the people to like go through the ballot initiative process. And even though it looks expensive in the end it's cheaper than like funding a bunch of political campaigns to get a majority. And so it still just strikes me as odd. And there's like a fundamental disconnect between like what's being covered, what's popular and what works. And it just seems like a jumbled mess. In addition to like the red state blue state divide.
Jennifer: We are really, you know, in this country even in blue states, we are not used to what real gun regulation looks like. If you brought a European in here from any one of our economic peer countries, they would be like, Are you kidding me? Like, I we are so like when as the wheels come off, we're used to it, you know? And I think, you know, that's why you have even in blue states, I mean, the ballot initiative process is great. It's not available to every state, you know, as if it was Texas would be a lot different. But, you know, it's the people are always ahead of the lawmakers on this. The problem is that when people go into that ballot booth, they don't connect the people they're voting for to this policy. They're not with a lot of policies. I think with reproductive rights and abortion, it's starting. People are like, oh, I'm not going to vote for that person because I know that abortion's important to me and that people aren't making that same decision with guns. Even, you know, people I talk to in red states, we have a lot of common ground. They're still going to vote for, you know, DeSantis or Abbott. And that, you know, policy is just not moving their vote in that way in the same way that it does with gun rights proponents. So there's a big disconnect there.
Caitlin: And there are people here in Connecticut who will say it doesn't matter how I vote at the federal level because we have strong gun laws here in Connecticut. So it's fine. You know, my kids are safe at their schools or I'm safe going to the grocery store and the movie theaters. What? That's not exactly how this works. Just like you said, there's no metal detector when you go from one state to the other. But you- I think maybe this is a narrative we have to tell ourselves to be comfortable, right? To put our kids on the bus in the morning and to be like, Hey, I'm running out to grab eggs from the store, whatever it is. But it does matter. It's all it's all connected, right? And we we just don't do a great job of telling that story in the media and then digesting it as the consumer.
Jennifer: Yeah. Look, it even happened- at my state, your state, it could happen in any state. I mean, you're right. We are one country. And, yeah, but the big story really is the erosion of gun laws in, you know, some pretty volatile states. We talk about, you know, a national divorce, a civil war is brought up. You know, we do have major conflicts between federal and state authority. And we also have 450 million guns in this country. So...
Caitlin: Right.
Jennifer: Well, very interesting.
Devin: And just to add on to Caitlin's previous point in kind of the blunt fashion. Like, given all the misconceptions and such out there, why does gun violence prevention messaging suck and what to do about it?
Jennifer: I mean, the problem with all, all advocacy is that, you know, you're most of the time preaching to the choir. Right? People need to be, you know, schooled about an issue where they live, you know, through their the people that they trust and know. And that's a process that takes, you know, conversations and evolution of thought. I mean, it's very intricate when you're trying, especially on this issue. It's so difficult, you know, seeing, you know, activists, you know, Moms Demand and the t-shirts. I think people just kind of dismiss them. You know, I don't know about their- every group kind of tries to reach a different audience. You know, every gvp group, you know. The really effective ones I find are like Students Demand, you know, when it really is like grassroots groups, you know, like, like Everytown and like Brady and Giffords, they will pick an issue. And that's the issue and that's the strategy they've decided on for the year. It's not necessarily where the majority of the American people are, but I know you what what types of messaging do you want to talk about? Because I'm sure you have examples.
Devin: Oh, well, just like in general, there definitely seems to be the pro-gun like can put on bumper sticker sort of thing where it's like "more guns, less crime", just, kabam, or like, Oh no into defensive gun uses, kabam, or like "shooters target gun free zones" and it's like all of these have a bunch of stuff underneath it that GVPedia tries to delve into. But like when you're doing a 12 part series on defensive gun use like we just did, like you're not expecting every single person in America to read those 15,000 words. And while I feel that work's essential, going in to the weeds and debunking it where it's out so you can build stuff up on it. There just seems to be a massive disconnect and messaging effectiveness that plays a substantial role.
Jennifer: We need, gun violence prevention needs a Frank Luntz Right? Like sloganeering. And yeah, it doesn't it's not sound bitey. They've tried with hashtags like "it's no accident" and you know, I know that and "no notoriety" has been a good one. But yeah it's these issues are so complex it's so easy for the gun right side to just simplify everything because, you know, omitting things is how they make their point. You know, out of context, taking a tiny fragment of something and like blowing it up. I mean, they're used to that. So, you know, it is kind of the subject matter for us is it is a little more complex. I don't know. You be the Frank Luntz. Come on Devin!
Caitlin: We try the best that we can. Here we are as a nonpartisan organization over here and try to be as big as we can. Totally. We do. We have come to about a half an hour. So I don't want to take up too much more of your time. Jennifer. Devin, you want to ask the last question, or would you like me to?
Devin: Sure. I'll go ahead and ask. As I've been hogging with the nerd hat so far, switching it from like, why does GVP suck to more of like, why does the media, in quotes, suck on this? Like, are there areas where you feel the media can better cover gun violence and in particular countering disinformation? Because even though, like the topic of disinformation seems to have become the topic du jour over the past couple years, there still doesn't seem to have reached gun violence prevention. So like, what can the media do better, if anything?
Jennifer: The media the media does tend to go from mass shooting to mass shooting. The national media, the local media- You know, there's a great movement out of Philadelphia, the Credible Messenger Program where, you know, they're with Temple University, they're trying to have people in these impacted neighborhoods tell their own stories. Because I think, like you said, the messaging, you know, a lot of people affected by gun violence will watch a local news story and see everything that they're getting wrong and feel like victimized again. You know, gun violence at the local level. The national level, you know, one thing they can do is, and I see, you know, some outlets are better than others- cover in between the mass shootings, you know, cover- and look, we are right now in an extremely busy news period. So, you know, we're we have former presidents being indicted. Like this is an unprecedented time. But, you know, covering extremism might help. There is a real nexus here with guns and extremism and you know it it's coming to a head in some parts of the country, and really sustaining a focus on that. But yeah, I mean, I- it's hard. There are so many shootings. You know, if you go through Gun Violence Archive, there are so many shootings, it's extremely hard to wrap your brain around it. You know, this isn't a problem in France. This isn't a problem in England. You know, you can get a grasp on the gun violence issue by reading a couple of editions of the newspaper here. You know, you would have to go through Gun Violence Archive. You'd be on there for hours going through all the incidents just from one day. It's really difficult when the problem is this big, to tell that story. One thing that they really need to focus on, though, when we have a catastrophic mass shooting. Instead of asking lawmakers and, you know, even people like me, like, what's the solution? Go to the gun companies. Why isn't anyone knocking on their door? They need to follow the money. And this has been missing for as long as I've been covering it. You know, we're working on some projects that are trying to get the focus there, but the doors that should be knocked on are, you know, the guy who runs Smith and Wesson and, you know, what are you guys going to be doing to regulate your products? Because they can control that. They can put regulations on their products and who they want to sell to, but they're not. This is a story about a special interest making a ton of money and completely overriding public safety concerns, like climate change. So we need to turn around and, you know, make these CEOs, these companies as famous as Exxon Mobil and all of these other countries, BP, oil companies. You know, we need to follow the money and the people responsible for this problem. No one is asking them what they're going to do about it. And so that's my my biggest area of improvement for the media.
Caitlin: We can probably do an entire episode on that. Maybe that will be the follow-up one later. Jennifer, thank you so much for joining us here today. I know our listeners really appreciated your time as as did we. Can you let our listeners know where they can find you and your and your writings?
Jennifer: Yes. www.thetrace.org. That's where The Trace's journalism is. And I'm still on Twitter/X at Jennifer Mascia. And that's where I, you know, keep track of all of the shootings. So that's where you can find me.
Caitlin: I'm sorry. When people say you're not the first person I've heard say that's what I'm like, I'm not X, I'm like, That's just very weird to me.
Jennifer: Sounds like you're on drugs.
Caitlin: It really does.
Jennifer: I think that's what the intended.
Caitlin: Maybe. I don't like that my DARE officer in fifth grade just pops into my head.
Devin: I take X five times a day.
Jennifer: I'm always on X, for hours!
Caitlin: Okay, perfect. Well, thank you so much. And we will get this episode up and out there and your followers on The Trace, maybe they can come here and listen to us talk with you about the media and the gun companies at some point. That would be really interesting to do.
Jennifer: Great. Thanks so much for having me.
Devin: Thank you.
Image of Jennifer Mascia via her website.