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"Armed with Reason: The Podcast" - Episode 7
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Devin Hughes in Bruges, Belgium
Hosts Devin Hughes and Caitlin Clarkson Pereira discuss European opinions of the U.S. gun epidemic and Stephen King's recent defeatist New York Times Op-Ed.
For our latest podcast, GVPedia founder, Devin Hughes, and Executive Director, Caitlin Clarkson Pereira, discuss Devin’s recent travels through Europe and the dismayed opinions of American gun culture he encountered there; and Devin’s retort to author Stephen King’s recent, similarly dismayed op-ed in the New York Times.
You can listen to the chat via our channel on Spotify, as well as watch on YouTube.
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 Clarkson Pereira: Everyone, thank you for joining us today on our Armed with Reason podcast brought to you by GVPedia. And it's been a couple of weeks since this podcast has been up and running. Our fearless leader Devin has been doing some traveling, and in that time that he was traveling he was in Europe. And so we were discussing what might be some interesting things to cover on the podcast. And since we know that gun violence looks very different across the Atlantic Ocean from what it does here in the United States, we thought that we might cover that for the introduction today. So, Devin, good to see you back and have you here on U.S. soil.
Devin Hughes: Yeah, I'm back and everything, and still jet-lagged. So it's always an interesting experience. But yeah, Europe was interesting. I was in both Belgium and Bordeaux, and yeah, it was interesting talking with people over there. I went and ambushed people with like, "Hey, what do you think about gun violence?" And hold the microphone in front of them. That would produce some interesting content. But just the people I talked with, most of whom had higher education degrees and such, about gun violence and it was just — instinctively to a person — they're all like, "Oh yeah, it's crazy over there."
Caitlin: Right?
Devin: And like, one of them was talking about how just a couple of weeks ago a guy had had a Texan in the group, and the Texan complaining about how he felt naked without a gun in his holster, as it were. It was just completely baffling. And, well, the police are armed there, and you can definitely see when security is heightened after, well particularly after the Israel and Hamas tragedies started unfolding. You had a situation where a couple of Swedes were killed at a Belgian, I think it was a football game. And right after that, you saw officers with bullpup rifles and such patrolling around the train stations, where you really hadn't before. Now, France always tends to have that sort of armed security at those places, but there's no civilians caring whatsoever. And particularly when traveling by train it's pretty easy to see why, because, like, everybody is just close together, bustling. And throwing guns into that mix would just be a recipe for disaster. Like, if an argument gets heated and guns are drawn, like just everybody's right there, bustling around all in the same place. If like an unintentional gun discharged, or basically anything you can imagine with a firearm going wrong, like the odds are that at some point it would go wrong, and you would have, you'd need to have far more security than they already do. And like metal detectors and basically the stuff we take for granted to get on an airline you'd have to do that for train stations in Europe. And that would just slow everything down and would just be a complete revolution -- and not in a good way for their culture over there. And so and then they see their culture and it's like, oh, yeah, crime's not really a big factor here. And like, not really concerned. Yeah, sure, some stuff happens in the cities, but that's all cities. But look at those people over there in the United States! And so if you ever like particularly in the Deep South and feeling like, "Am I the outlier here?" when thinking that, hey, we should have some more restrictions on who might be able to carry guns, more training, making sure safety courses are implemented, and safety practice in terms of storage — like, is that insane? It's like, no, that's like the bare minimum everywhere else is a, I wouldn't say purely U.S. phenomenon because we have been exporting it to other countries, but at least when it comes to Europe, it's completely unthinkable, what we have over here. Now again, like the people I talked with — not necessarily a representative sample that's double-blinded and stuff or survey methodology, But the overwhelming majority of people in Europe would vote down immediately any sort of attempt to install U.S. gun. Like very lax gun laws over there, not like we have in the U.S. So it it's not you. It's the U.S. that's crazy.
Caitlin: Yeah. You know, Canada is certainly not the same as Europe in a variety of ways. But when it comes to gun violence, I know myself personally when I've been working at some college hockey games in the area I have had parents of Canadian players come up to me and say, "There's so much security here. Should we be worried about something?" And it's very interesting because we don't see the police presence as anything out of the ordinary, especially at a sporting event. But for these folks from certain parts of Canada who are there to watch their young adult children play, it is it is startling for them. And these are people who live driving distance to where I am in New England. So geographically, not all that far from here.
Devin: And while over there, I even met a couple fellow Canadians traveling over there, and like, they're all the same about the U.S. It's just like, that's insane when I tell them what I did. And it's just like, Well, good for you, but good luck.
Caitlin: Right. Well, I'm sure you could write a dissertation about all the fun things that you saw and learned when you when we were in Europe about a variety of issues. So thank you for just enlightening us a little bit about what you learned while you were over there. The one other main topic that we wanted to talk about was an opportunity for us to focus in on the Firehose of Falsehood, which I'll let you explain a little bit more about in a moment. But the reason that this opportunity came up this week was because at the end of last week, Stephen King ran an op-ed, a rather brief op-ed in The New York Times in response to the mass shooting in Maine. And in that op ed, he basically said, you know, there's nothing left to say. And in using the word "say" he meant do, like, what do we do? Or, we're out of options here. And I guess we could have just left that out there in in the world and let it be the final word. But we know that that's not the case, right? That's not true. And you responded in a piece that ran yesterday on our Substack. And your response was that you understood where that point of view was coming from. But it's not that there's nothing left to say, it's just we've already said the easy things. And so now it's time to respond with the things that might take a little more work. So do you want to spend a couple of minutes indulging us in the Firehose of Falsehood, and why you responded to Stephen King's op-ed in The Times?
Devin: Yeah. And kind of where two of the interesting parallels — one, the shooting in Maine happened on my second to last day of vacation, and it was just like jerking back to the United States reality in a way, after having spent like a gun-free trip over in Europe. It just made it clear that it's omnipresent in the United States. And with Stephen King's response, like a lot of that pessimism was shared by the people I talked with over in Europe. It's like, "Oh yeah, like the U.S. is gun crazy. What are you going to do about it?" Like, it's just accepted as a defeatist fact, basically, that the U.S. is exceptional in the bad way on this issue, and there's nothing to be done to change that. And while I understand that pessimism, I do reject it. For one, because back five, six decades ago, banning handguns — which would be seen as politically impossible today — was a majority support position back then; and just about most states either banned concealed carry or had may-issue laws that greatly restricted on who could carry and making sure the proper safety mechanisms were enforced. And so we were in quite a different place like 5 to 6 decades ago in terms of public opinion. And it shifted. And so if a shift one way can happen, it could definitely occur to the other way, but it's going to require a lot of work. And over those five decades is when the U.S. experienced the gun lobby's Firehose of Falsehood campaign, which is basically a coordinated effort to spread disinformation and make Americans believe that firearms make them safer -- despite the academic evidence showing the contrary. And this campaign was quite successful in flooding the information zone with a lot of disinformation, and either, one, convincing people that guns do make them safer; or two, to become apathetic and just basically, well, there's nothing that can really be done here and we might as well give in and go on to another issue. And while I don't think Stephen King's going on to another issue potentially, it is bordering that sort of apathy, and apathy is a win for the Firehose of Falsehood because it doesn't have to convince everybody or even majority of Americans that the disinformation is correct. It just needs a strong minority, and for the majority of Americans to tune out of the issue. And if it succeeds in those objectives, then we see what we've seen over the past five decades. And countering the Firehose of Falsehood is not easy. So to a degree, I would agree with Stephen King that we're out of easy things to do, but there're still plenty of hard and rigorous things left to do -- such as countering disinformation on a systematic level, both at the individual level as well as organizational level, and basically pushing back against the tide of disinformation, indicating that guns make you safer, because we know a firearm in the home doubles your risk of homicide, triples your risk of suicide; and carrying guns in public causes homicide rates and other violent crime rates to increase. And just in general, the looser you have gun laws, the less safe Americans are. And it's important for people to be aware of that information, and then to act on that information and help spread the word about them. And now, in terms of spreading the word, that doesn't mean hopping onto Twitter and flaming any gun troll that you come across -- like that's just not going to be effective. But having respectful, in-person conversations can be quite persuasive in terms of convincing people to change their behaviors and their beliefs about things. Because if people can change their beliefs, then the Firehose of Falsehood would've never been successful to begin with. So, like we know beliefs can change on this issue and quite dramatically. We just need to start, first take a step back, look at all the information that's there, and then proceed to adopt that information and spread it in a very, not necessarily formula-based, but rigorous way to where you're having those conversations relatively regularly with people. You're staying up to date with the latest research and facts, and just knowing what needs to be done and where it needs to be done is crucial.
Caitlin: I think a really important point with the Firehose of Falsehood too is explaining the difference between misinformation and disinformation. Right? So misinformation could simply be the product of playing the proverbial game of telephone. Right? I tell you something, you tell your brother something. Your brother tells his friend something, right? By the time it gets four or five people away, the message is different, but it's not intentional. Versus disinformation is an opportunity that somebody has to communicate, and they take that opportunity and intentionally spread information that's not true.
Devin: Yeah. And the main difference there is basically the first one to two people who spread it. So I have no doubt that when surveys come out thinking or showing Americans thinking that guns keep them safer, those are genuinely held beliefs based off of inaccurate information that they've been presented. And so, but once you peel back the layers on, well, who provided that inaccurate information, who provided that person with that inaccurate information all the way to its core, it's coming from a handful of discredited and dishonest scholars that have been amplified by the gun lobby, and knowingly amplified by the gun lobby. And so when you peel back the layers, it's that first layer of the dishonesty and deliberately spreading information that, you know to be false or you should know to be false. Like once you have a Ph.D. in the topic and such, like you should know. Like, ignorance is no longer an excuse there. Yeah, just peeling back those layers, showing where the disinformation has come from. And that can even like help correct the disinformation. Just shining a light there alone is a crucial part of countering the Firehose of Falsehood, and showing people like, Hey, like it's definitely understandable that you held this belief. You know, we're not calling you an idiot or anything negative for believing that, you were just trying to do what you felt was best to protect your family. But you were misled by a very deep and dark marketing campaign. And that needs to be corrected. And something very similar occurred with countering the tobacco industry and smoking back, well, I guess before I was born, but like sixties, seventies, and eighties. I still remember a time where smoking in public was common, and now it's close to unheard of. And a lot of that required, firstly, initial research showing that, yes, smoking does cause cancer. Incidentally, the same type of studies that showed that smoking cause cancer showed that a gun in the home greatly increases the risk of homicide and suicide. So it's the same type of evidence that showed that smoking causes cancer. And then taking that evidence, pushing it through the public, countering all the industry, basically paid lobbyists and lawyers and allies saying like, "No, no, there's no evidence that smoking's a problem and stuff and look at all these great benefits it gives people." And then it just took a whole lot of time to counter that and steadily push back to where now smoking is seen as very negative for one's health and a public health concern that needs to be addressed. And the same thing needs to happen with gun violence. And unfortunately, the gun lobby has a five decade head start on us.
Caitlin: And lots and lots and lots of money. And politicians, which is tied to money. But that's a story for another day.
Devin: Oftentimes same thing.
Caitlin: Right, exactly. And you stressed, which is is really critical here, well, there's a lot of things you can do to push back against the Firehose of Falsehood. Having those intentional conversations is one of the most important pieces to that. And as we are here in November now, which is hard to believe, and people are going to be spending more time in intimate spaces with family, for better or worse, these are these are things that do come up. So we will be sure to share our resources that we have. And as always, anyone listening to this who thinks, you know, Uncle Joe's always talking about permitless carry or whatever it is, like, all right, well, we have, you know, some facts that you can nicely deliver to Uncle Joe if he brings those up at Thanksgiving.
Devin: And he shows up, plops the AR-15 down on the table, and starts cleaning it...
Caitlin: Yikes! If someone does that, you're all welcome to come to my house for Thanksgiving because it's certainly less intimidating around here. But we are proud of the work that we have done to put together resources, factsheets, and we have information that can use research to shine a light on on the truth when it comes to some of these gun violence hot topics. So with that, any final thoughts for this episode, Devin?
Devin: Not particularly, though we're definitely going to be starting to get back into the swing of things and posting the podcast regularly. It just so happened that the Internet where I was at in various hotels was horrible. So there is no opportunity to record anything well over in the great gun-free zone that is Europe.
Caitlin: Well, I mean, we do have some some people who have reached out to us about being on the show and some folks that we have reached out to as well, and people that were were excited to give us an opportunity to speak with us. So we will be putting those together, like Devin says. And in addition to our podcasts on Substack, we are running content Monday through Friday on Armed with Reason. So we hope that although you might like to check us out on YouTube or Spotify or wherever you're listening to this podcast, that you'll also take a look at some of what is written and published on Substack as well. All right, Devin, we'll get your body back on your time zone. I'd say I feel bad for you, but I really don't, so...
Devin: Yeah, it's like, "Oh, no, I have to have jetlag after drinking all the beer and all the wine and all the cheese and, yeah, very good food."
Caitlin: Yes, I can only imagine how good some of that was. But again, glad to have you back, and thank you for taking a couple of minutes to recap your your travels and talk to us about what we had published on Substack yesterday about Stephen King's op-ed and the Firehose of Falsehood.
Devin: Thank you so much, Caitlin, and I will see all of you very soon.
Image courtesy of Devin Hughes.