Armed With Reason: The Podcast - Episode 25
The school shootings that didn't happen
Lauren Levin (photo courtesy of Sandy Hook Promise)
Today’s brand new podcast is an in-depth discussion with Lauren Levin — the chief advocacy officer at Sandy Hook Promise. She leads the Sandy Hook Promise Action Fund, spearheading the advancement of violence prevention, firearm access, and youth mental health policy at the federal and state levels.
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!
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION:
Caitlin: Hello, everyone. Thanks for joining us here on the Armed With Reason podcast brought to you by GVPedia. We had intended to have our September podcast following a back to school theme to show appreciation for all the teachers and professionals who are so important to our children's lives.
Of course, not only in their education, but in their safety. Unfortunately — we could argue predictably — our first podcast of the month, where we interviewed teacher and activist Abby Clements, was published on September 4th, which was the date of the mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia. Tragically, nine people were injured, and two students and two teachers were murdered. So here we are yet again trying to make sense of another senseless tragedy occurring in a space where our students are supposed to be safe. But, as we usually have to do, we will continue on with our mission.
And today we are happy to be interviewing our next guest, Lauren Levin. Lauren is the chief advocacy officer at Sandy Hook Promise, a national nonprofit and nonpartisan gun violence prevention organization founded in the wake of a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. She leads the Sandy Hook Promise Action Fund, spearheading the advancement of violence prevention, firearm access, and youth mental health policy and movement building at the federal and state levels. Lauren, sorry to start off with such a depressing introduction, but thank you so much for joining us here today on the podcast.
Lauren: Thanks for having me, and thank you all for having these conversations. Like you said, it's maybe not surprising, but it's definitely heartbreaking. And we've all certainly been hard at work over the last week, but also just feeling deeply heartbroken for these students and these teachers in this community. Just it should not be the world that our kids have to grow up in. It shouldn't be what back to school looks like.
Caitlin: Right, absolutely. So the recent tragedy in Georgia is obviously a chilling example of how critical your work is. So can you maybe tell us a little bit about how events such as last week's impact the work that you do?
Lauren: Yeah. Well, last week's tragedy at Apalachee High School is all that more heartbreaking because of all of the warning signs that we've all read and learned about over the last several days continues to be reported. The amount of opportunities there were to intervene and to get help for this young person long before he ever picked up a firearm or decided to carry out this shooting. And the presence of the warning signs is really where our work starts.
We learned early after the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary that there were also warning signs; and that is the case in so many in the majority of these shootings that we see. And so Sandy Hook Promise has been working for the last ten years, particularly with schools and communities, to implement proven programing to train students and educators in the warning signs of violence and self-harm, and how to get help and to take action sooner to make sure that these tragedies never happen. And we're doing that work all around the country, and it's working.
And at a policy level, we're really taking that same upstream approach as well. In fact, we've been working in Georgia even before this tragedy happened to pass the Safe Students Act. And it's our model bill that would make suicide prevention and student violence prevention training universal curriculum in schools. These are real threats that are impacting our students every day. And we should equip them not just with lockdown drills, but with prevention measures to make sure that they know how to get help, that they know how to reach out, that they know how to see warning signs in their peers, and how to identify a trusted adult to do something. So if we are able to pass the Safe Students Act in Georgia and in more states around the country, students will get access to that evidence-based prevention programing every single year. And I know we'll see more lives saved because of it.
Caitlin: Yeah, it looks like that legislation is timely then in Georgia.
Lauren: Yeah, absolutely.
Caitlin: You mentioned raising awareness of warning signs, and these are the signs that tend to proceed gun violence, school shootings, suicides. Can you tell us about your efforts, and how you're able to measure whether these opportunities where you have to raise awareness are successful?
Lauren: I mean, we definitely have a lot of evidence of their success. Gun violence prevention is always a hard thing to measure what doesn't happen. But one of the things that we offer is our Say Something anonymous reporting system that we pair with our programing in schools. And the anonymous reporting system is a way for students to report any kind of threat of self-harm or violence through an app, a hotline, or a website to our national crisis center. And our national crisis center to date has fielded over 260,000 tips. And they're hearing from students all day, every day who are reporting everything from self-harm behavior — like cutting, suicidal ideation, and plans — to there is a gun or an active shooter threat at our school.
And because of the interventions of our crisis counselors, we know that we've stopped 16 credible planned school shootings and over 700 student suicides. I recently visited the crisis center in person. And I had only sat down next to one of our trained crisis counselors for about a minute and a half before a tip came in of a gun at school and a threat of violence. And I know how often these things happen, but I still was shocked at how quickly that happened, but also unbelievably grateful to our crisis counselors who know exactly how to intervene, how to talk with students, how to get the information that we need in order to de-escalate and hopefully connect people with mental health services and support social services and support so that we're not just doing, you know, law enforcement intervention, but we're really talking about how do we get people help so that we, you know, we aren't ending up back here again.
Devin: And to kind of go off of that and continue on for a moment there. Your website says there's 5000 school communities using your anonymous reporting system. And I'm curious what the actual results kind of look like when tips are received in that process. And to also throw a bit of commentary on there as well. Oftentimes in the wake of school shootings or mass shootings, there tends to be the rhetoric around how, Oh this was unimaginable and who could have seen it happen here. And it always frustrates me because it's like, how could we not imagine it like anywhere at this point? Like the past decade, unfortunately, has taught us that this can and often will happen anywhere with preceding signs that your organization is picking up on and can often prevent from happening. So I'm curious what the actionable side is once the tip is received and what that looks like.
Lauren: Yeah. We we really believe that it has to be a holistic approach in how we're intervening and giving solutions to students and to schools. I think that the only people who are probably still calling it unimaginable are the adults. I don't think I've heard a lot of students say that after a shooting has taken place at their school, or students we talk to every day who are working on gun violence prevention with us. They know that their classmates are struggling, whether it's with mental health, or suicide, or self-harm; or that there are threats that are happening all of the time about bringing weapons into school and interpersonal violence. So I don't think it's a surprise to them. I think what's surprising to them is that the adults aren't doing more about it, and that the only thing that they're meeting them with are hardening solutions, or lockdown drills, and reactionary things that are just, frankly, too late.
So when it comes to our crisis center, when they receive tips, they are really taking a multidisciplinary and holistic approach in working with the school, working with mental health counselors, working with law enforcement, teachers about how are we getting more information about what the threat is; but then how are we also making a plan to to intervene and kind of get long term supports for that student. In the case of our anonymous reporting system, we also are requiring that all of the schools that use that app in that program with us are also proactively training in our Know the Signs programs. So we want the students to be reporting tips, but we also want there to be a community and a school conversation about what are the early signs we're looking for to begin with before we get to the point where there needs to be some sort of life saving intervention. And that's where our programs are so powerful in teaching the creation of more inclusive school cultures and environments, in teaching us to look for the smaller signs of behavioral change — absenteeism, social isolation, the things that are precursors — and opportunities for much earlier intervention for these students to make sure that they're getting any kind of help that they need to take them down a different path. So it's really about pairing a lot of this early prevention and upstream programing with certainly the reporting system or opportunity to capture a threat in real time that is active. You need both. And we see that in examples of this Georgia shooting as well as you know. Calls came in, tips were reported, but there were so many opportunities to intervene so much earlier to prevent the shooting.
Devin: And with the Georgia shooting in particular, it was kind of, not odd because it's happened before, but seeing that the FBI had been called, they showed up, and then were like, Can't do anything here. And then after that, I think I have the timeline correct, but after that then the father gives his son an AR-15 for Christmas. And so it's like there seemed to have been an attempt to intervene earlier, but it didn't lead to anything. And so kind of as a follow-up question, I guess, is how does your holistic system lead from intervention to follow through to make sure that it's not a one-time check in sort of thing that we saw in Georgia that failed?
Lauren: Yeah. I mean, what we saw in Georgia was law enforcement just doing the full extent of what they could do in that investigation with no other information to go off of. And it stopped there. And schools have such a big job. Educators have such a big job, and they're taking care of so many students. And we think we need to have a lot more support coming from a federal level and a state level to make sure that we have these wraparound systems institutionalized, so we're not just coming in with law enforcement, but we're coming in with mental health, social work, social services, and support.
So one of the policies that we're really proud to be working on right now at the federal level is called the PLAN Act. And we've introduced this on a bipartisan basis, and it's saying that every single state needs to have a school safety center that is providing technical assistance and resources to schools to help them make plans. They're the ones that are first hearing about this student who is having issues at home or this student who is making threats. They need to be able to have a plan in place to respond to those threats. And to get their students the help that they need. So by providing schools and districts with technical assistance to both build in proactive programing that helps ensure that fewer of these instances happen in the first place and that their students are getting more early interventions and supports, and what to do when a threat happens. And it's not just from a law enforcement approach, but to ensure that there is that interdisciplinary approach that's coming in to the home, and to the investigation, and the follow-through as well.
And just expecting our schools to know what programs to deploy, or to have the resources to do it, or to know what appropriate follow-up looks like, that's not fair. And so we're really hoping that through the PLAN Act, we can create these central hubs that say, Let's bring everybody together with all of the expertise and and make sure that every school knows what to do when they're getting that call. They want to get their students help, but it's a whole nother full time job to manage the needs and and social supports of their students outside of the classroom and outside of school time. So we're looking to make that a real standard nationally. We've seen some states make some big investments that are paying off and by prioritizing that help to schools and districts. And it needs to be happening everywhere.
Devin: It's really important. So to shift the conversation to another aspect of what Sandy Hook Promise does — and one of the favorite topics of GVPedia — is countering disinformation and misinformation that is very widespread in the conversation around gun violence. And so to kind of start with this, what are some of the most common myths that you encounter in your work?
Lauren: Yeah, that's a great question. I work with elected officials and with advocates every day, and I certainly hear a lot of well-intentioned but misguided ideas about gun violence in those conversations. One of the biggest myths that we need to combat, though, is that gun violence won't affect me or people I know. That is one of the biggest pervasive myths that I hear in almost every conversation that I'm a part of. It seems that still the majority of people think that gun violence is just an issue of crime. It's just an issue in big cities, and it's not an issue that can knock on my door or affect me or my family members. So what does this have to do with me? And and the reason that that's a problem is it prevents so many opportunities for us to have positive culture change, for us to see improvements in gun safety in our communities because they don't understand the nature of the threat itself.
So in particular around secure storage, as an example, we want people to know that the majority of gun deaths are suicides. We want people to understand that their friends and their family members are vulnerable when they're in crisis and there's a firearm that's within reach and that's not securely stored. And by teaching and educating, building awareness that about the links between suicide and firearms and the way in which secure storage can save lives, we can really make a lot of headway in keeping people safe. Same goes for accidental shootings and protecting kids at home. Whether you own a firearm or you send your kids to homes where there may be a firearm, understanding that that is a threat, and that we need to be having conversations about secure storage.
That's a real reason we need to debunk these myths, is that there's common sense, everyday actions we can take that would really save a lot more lives than people are thinking. So laws are important and we need to pass all of these laws, but they are only as good as the education conversations and the cultural change that follows. If people still don't understand that their firearm could be used in a shooting, that their firearm could be used against them, that their firearm could be used by a loved one to hurt themselves, then we're not we're not making as much progress as we'd like.
Caitlin: Yeah, I remember hearing, when my daughter was very young, someone suggested to me, when she's old enough to drop her off for a playdate somewhere, just like you might ask, let's say she has a peanut allergy and you would say, Hey, are there any food products, peanut butter around? Like something that she might have a reaction to? It's just as important to ask, are there guns in the house, and are they secure?
And I think because of the political implications that unfortunately come hand-in-hand with that with this conversation, that thinking of asking that question is anxiety provoking. But the reality is that it's extremely important to know because we, unfortunately, working in this field have met parents who have lost children because they didn't know there were unsecured guns in the house. So it's definitely a shift in what we think about, and how our children are safe, and how we can keep them safe.
Lauren: Yeah, and I love the way you frame that, and that's really how we try to start these conversations that Sandy Hook Promise is talking much more holistically about how are we keeping our kids safe at home. And they're things that every single parent cares about. Every single parent wants their kid to be safe at home. And so when we don't go at these conversations just about a firearm, or just about blame, or starting from a place of politics, we're just talking about how do we keep our kids safe today. And just like I'm locking up the liquor cabinet or I'm checking about allergies, I'm also making sure I'm asking about firearms and that things are stored safely. And I think that's that's the best place we can start with having these one-on-one conversations and making sure that we all know we're coming from a place of just wanting our kids to be safe.
Devin: And so a couple elements of that. One, I definitely agree legislation's quite important to solving the problem. But even if we passed every single gun law that was, say, in GVPedia's Denver Accord or any of the major organizations were pushing, it would reduce gun violence, but it wouldn't eliminated until the behavior of gun owners shifts more. The overwhelming majority of gun owners are responsible. But there's still enough who aren't to where you have 200,000 guns stolen every year, and who are leaving unsecured guns where kids can come across them, or they get stolen, or like any sort of happenstances. And oftentimes that's unfortunately putting the burden of safety on the kid, where it's like my kid knows not to touch that, which seems to forget what it's like being a kid and a teenager. You tell me not to touch something, and like a pink elephant, the first thing I'm thinking about is touching, and that sort of thing. And so shifting the burden of responsibility from kids knowing don't play with this to make sure it's not an option in the first place and keeping it stored; and that the firearm can be stored but still accessed quickly if somebody feels like they need to.
And also the point on people feeling, Oh gun violence is something that happens over there sort of thing. It's quite important to debunk, not just in terms of suicides, but intentional shootings and even homicides. And one of the things GVPedia is doing is with our Data Visualization Tool, allowing people to search down to the street level on gun violence. And unless you're living like in the middle of nowhere, Alaska on an island, if you put that radius out to five, ten miles, there's almost certainly going to be an incident that happened near you. And that's not including suicides where unfortunately the Gun Violence Archive doesn't have access to that specific level of data.
But even with intentional and unintentional shootings. It's everywhere and pervasive. And I think people would be quite surprised if they just take a look and see, Oh these shootings occurred within 5 to 10 miles from me, I thought it didn't happen here. And I think even that can be eye opening. And so from there, I kind of want to shift, as you mentioned, to the power of conversations. And when GVPedia produced our guide to countering the gun lobby's firehose of falsehood, as we call it, which is a coordinated disinformation campaign, we provide guidance at both the organizational and individual levels based on the academic literature that was available. And at the individual level, the primary focus is on in-person conversations, hearing the other person out, finding areas where someone is willing to change their mind, and just like forming those connections and not shouting at each other online, which basically never works. So how much of a role do such personal conversations have in your work, particularly given the nationwide scope of Sandy Hook Promise's work?
Lauren: Yeah, I think one-on-one conversations is the the root of our work, whether we're having them with elected officials and policy decision makers or we're having them with advocates who want to get more involved in this movement. Sandy Hook Promise has been so effective in our work because we are a nonpartisan organization. And I think we've we've taken such an intentional approach at starting these conversations differently of focusing on what we agree on first and finding common ground with Republicans and Democrats, with people with whom might disagree on the surface, with, you know, with the idea of stricter gun laws or additional safety measures.
We have to meet people where they are and bring them in. And one-on-one conversations, face-to-face conversations, that's just the most powerful way to start. And it has helped us as an organization to really lead the way in bringing Republicans and Democrats to the table and keeping them there together at the table to pass some major federal and state laws that are saving lives.
We were proud of our work in in helping to lead those negotiations on the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. We needed both sides of the aisle at that table. You have to get the votes at the end of the day, and that's only going to happen through really hearing people out in conversation. For example, as you know, as part of that conversation and in so much of our work with with Republicans in the House and Senate over the years, we've heard them when they have said, I think we need to be making investments in mental health. And so often when we hear mental health brought up into this conversation, it becomes kind of this re-polarization of the debate. Is it mental health or is it guns? Is it people or is it guns? And and it misses the opportunity for connection and common ground. It is important that we emphasize that mental illness isn't the cause of gun violence.
But then to go the step further of understanding what are your concerns? What are you hearing in your state and in your district? And Republican lawmakers, like Democratic lawmakers, are hearing about more and more mental health needs in their communities, more needs for crisis response. They're hearing support for suicide prevention and intervention. And so when it came to the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and post-Uvalde, we sat down and had those conversations. How about we make investments in crisis response, and let's expand 988 and suicide prevention text line. And then will you join us in a conversation about what it would mean to strengthen our background checks? At the same time. We can work on both of these things, and it's all going to save lives.
It's part of a bigger problem that we're facing as a country. And and I think by going in, you know, with putting politics aside and saying where can we all agree that we need to do more work, that's how we were able to come to a deal. And that's ultimately what we saw was great investments in mental health infrastructure and really strong steps forward in enhanced background checks and strengthening our background check system. And that's the only way we're going to get things done.
Devin: Yeah. And I definitely think one of the biggest areas or first step areas is on suicide prevention and the conversation around mental health. And as somebody who has depression, anxiety, and probably a whole host of other things that my therapist and I are working on, like it's a challenging but important conversation to have because too often in the online debate and such, it's like, a mental health problem. It's meant to be those people over there are the threat. And no, that's not how it should be framed. But if it's taken from the suicide prevention [angle], where it's like these are people who are likely to be far more likely to harm themselves than others, and they need the treatment and care.
And also recognizing that a firearm in that situation makes things vastly more lethal, to where there's not going to be a second chance. I think that conversation can flow quite naturally to where it's like, okay, here's where we put these investments, with also the recognition that a firearm in this case is a specific risk factor for this.
And one of the areas that I've seen surprisingly lacking is within the medical professional realm with doctors and nurses, where they've done surveys. And many of them don't consider the firearm a risk factor in the suicide conversations making that knowledge known in that field. And also there's this great case study, I think it was like in the Ford Health Center, where they did a lethal means reduction along with comprehensive therapy for a target population that should have had a suicide rate higher than the general population. And for a series of several years, they dropped the number of suicides to zero where there should have been 20 or 30, if the baseline statistics held. And it was just really powerful showing, hey, there needs to be this comprehensive approach, but also lethal means does matter. And I think it can be a good gateway, an introduction to like everything else and continuing those conversations.
Lauren: Absolutely. Education is just at the heart of it. And conversations, as you said, and you all are providing so much leadership on that, and and having conversations, and in showing people literally visualizing, helping people visualize the problem. And and I think those one-on-one conversations that we've had through Sandy Hook Promise on the Democratic side have been just as powerful as well. I mean, I think I hear more often from frustrated supporters and advocates who have been, you know, supportive of change in gun laws for a really long time who just don't understand the lack of progress. And they get really stuck in, you know, in kind of their their camp or, you know, their ideological side of, I don't understand why we can't do more faster. And those are equal opportunities for important one-on-one conversations about I need you to stay engaged and we can make incremental progress. We can save lives today by passing this small bill or having this initial conversation with our legislators about what change looks like in our community. By having conversations with our friends and neighbors about the steps we can each individually take to make our homes and communities safer.
I think it's really empowering on both sides to be having these conversations and bringing people in to talk about what progress looks like today. There's not fast wins, none of this is easy. But it's important that we're building a bigger, broader, more ideologically diverse movement for gun violence prevention. That's how we've seen all social change happen in this country, is by widening the tent and bringing more people into it, because this is a threat that's affecting all of us, and it does not discriminate based on ideological preference. And so I continue to be proud of the work that we do to bring everyone in, and particularly as we continue to go to some of the states like Georgia, and Texas, and Kentucky, and Tennessee that are that are most impacted by gun violence and try to start these conversations about safer lives.
Caitlin: Lauren, can you tell us if we have any listeners who are interested in learning more about See Something or any of the other programs that Sandy Hook Promise has available? Can you tell us where they might be able to find those?
Lauren: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. So as we've talked about, we all have a role to play in preventing school shootings and violence. And it really starts with knowing the warning signs. So I would urge all of your listeners and community members to go to SandyHookPromise.org. We have free educational resources and learning materials from our programing that are available now that you can start these conversations at home, with your schools, and in your communities.
Caitlin: Anything else you would like to share with us before we wrap up?
Lauren: I thank you so much for continuing the conversation. I'm sorry that, you know, this last week has has led us to such an urgent one and a tragic one. But we're going to continue to do the work. And I know you all will as well.
Caitlin: Yes, absolutely. Last week, certainly tragic in so many different ways. And it also is revitalizing a reminder of why we do what we do. And, of course, a reminder of that also most of our gun deaths don't occur from mass shootings or at school, they're by suicides or in communities where gun violence is part of their everyday life. So to be able to make progress for everybody, for sure.
And I know for me and for Devin, actually, both of us, the shooting at Sandy Hook really was what pushed our involvement in the gun violence prevention movement — both of us personally and the work that Nicole and Mark started and what Sandy Hook Promise has become over the past almost 12 years now, is really incredible to see. And, you know, I was saying last week to Abby Clements, it's really easy to to shut down when things like this happen, right? That's certainly the easier thing to do. But to take a tragedy that impacts your life in the most devastating way and to go about making change for so many people and saving so many lives is is just truly amazing. So thank you, and thank them for starting Sandy Hook Promise as well.
Lauren: Absolutely. Well, I'm so proud of the work that we're doing and we want people to feel really hopeful about it. I know it is hard in weeks like this. I know it is hard after these tragedies happen. But we are passing new laws every day. We are bringing more people into this movement every day. We are training more kids and stopping more shootings and suicides every day. Gun violence is preventable, and there's a lot of reason to have hope.
And I'm not stopping this work. I'm a mom of two kids, and I've got one on the way in two weeks. And this issue couldn't be more personal to me too. I don't want to be a parent that has to think about a school shooting every time I drop my kids off. And we're going to keep doing the work so that that's not the reality we live in.
Caitlin: Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time, Lauren, and enjoy some baby snuggles for us.
Lauren: Thank you. I will.
Devin: Thank you.