Speaker 1: All right. I want to start today with yet another reminder based on a new study
that gun violence is dramatically worse in red states. One of the big narratives that is going
to play a significant role in the 2024 election is that of violent crime and murder and guns and
Republicans pointing to so-called Democrat cities and suggesting that urban progressives, I guess,
are responsible for violence and gun violence and crime. This is very much not true. There's a
really good piece in Politico magazine called Gun Violence is actually worse in red states. It's not
even close. And it looks at this issue in a number of different ways. And one of the findings of the
study is that gun deaths are far less common in the New York City area than in the U.S. Overall,
debunking one of the very often repeated claims from the right that New York City
is some kind of dangerous hellhole. And the article explains that if you grew up in the
coal mining region of eastern Pennsylvania, your chance of dying of a gunshot is about half. If
you grew up in the coal fields of West Virginia, similar regions, relatively rural and relatively
conservative. But you have stricter gun laws in blue Pennsylvania than in red West Virginia,
and you're much less likely to die of a gunshot. And as you read the article, whether you divide
the country up regionally or state to state, you find that historically and presently blue areas
are significantly safer when it comes to gun violence. It's beyond the scope of this segment
to go through the entire piece with you. But it divides the country up into all sorts of
different areas and looks at this in so many different ways. The Deep South has some of the
highest rates of gun death among major regions, and it's one of the most conservative parts of
the country. Great Appalachia has the highest rate of gun suicides among major regions,
and that is a right wing area. And you go on and on and you find that this is, quite frankly,
an undeniable reality. Now, one of the important things to remember about why this isn't going to
convince the deniers and will link to this in the description to the YouTube video, and I encourage
you to look at it and check it out. And, you know, maybe it will change some minds. But one of the
problems with this issue and I've explained this before, is that, number one, violence and crime
are genuinely really complicated issues that can relate to culture, but also economics, gun laws,
access to mental health services, so many different things. This doesn't mean we ignore any
one aspect or focus on only one aspect. It just means it's complicated. But the trend line is that
gun violence is much worse in red states. One of the things that will often happen is if you say,
Oh, the red states are where the problem is, you'll have some right wingers come in and say no.
But if you look at the red states where the real problem is, is in the blue cities and of course,
by sheer numbers, it can sometimes be the case that it is worse in cities. But when you look
at rates that account for population density, it stops being the case. But then if you say,
well, it's a blue city, but all the violence is in the areas represented by the conservative
city councilors or whatever the case may be, you can zoom in or out strategically
in order to get the outcome that you want, and that can also make this a difficult
conversation to have. But the big story, which is conservatives blaming blue Democrats, cities and
urban gun violence on gangs and welfare queens, and pretending that this isn't an issue in rural
and conservative West Virginia or the right wing Deep South or whatever the case may be is simply
not true. One other thing. The right loves to talk about, you know, Chicago and Baltimore as these
crime ridden hellholes. The truth is that even within cities that have gun violence problems,
the gun violence is overwhelmingly concentrated in a few areas. Most of Chicago, most of New
York City, most of Baltimore does not actually have these issues. This is aside from whether
the issues relate to a particular politics or how it relates to the state or whatever the case
may be, even within these so-called dangerous cities. The violence is overwhelmingly only
in certain areas, and this makes it a really difficult issue to tease out one particular
cause. What we know when it comes to solving the problem is that before even, you know,
just on principle, so many on the American right don't even. One to consider the fact that guns,
guns and gun availability may have something to do with it. And as I've said before, but let's talk
about mental health. Let's talk about culture. Let's talk about poverty. Let's talk about
education. Let's talk about all those things. But we can't exclude guns from the gun problem. Guns
have to be part of that discussion. And check out the Politico magazine piece. It's very, very good.