WEBVTT 00:00:00.140 --> 00:00:03.160 Hi, Guns Unpacked listeners. We do our best to 00:00:03.160 --> 00:00:05.500 make sure that episodes are timely and accurate, 00:00:05.559 --> 00:00:07.700 but these days, the world, including the world 00:00:07.700 --> 00:00:10.240 of firearms, is changing at a chaotic and fast 00:00:10.240 --> 00:00:13.019 -paced speed. Our commitment to building a better 00:00:13.019 --> 00:00:16.059 gun debate is not subject to change, but specific 00:00:16.059 --> 00:00:18.500 events, policies, and trends may have shifted 00:00:18.500 --> 00:00:20.620 by the time you listen to this podcast episode. 00:00:21.300 --> 00:00:23.579 Thank you for tuning in to In -depth Conversations 00:00:23.579 --> 00:00:26.280 About Guns That Transcend the Typical Gun Divides. 00:00:29.230 --> 00:00:32.969 This is Guns Unpacked, a podcast where we interrogate, 00:00:33.049 --> 00:00:35.429 engage, and elevate the terms of the gun debate 00:00:35.429 --> 00:00:38.149 as we know it. I am your host Jennifer Carlson, 00:00:38.490 --> 00:00:40.729 Director of the Bridges Initiative at Arizona 00:00:40.729 --> 00:00:42.990 State University, aimed at bringing research 00:00:42.990 --> 00:00:45.729 and innovation into the debate on guns in society. 00:00:46.880 --> 00:00:50.060 Today we welcome Dr. Gerald Higginbotham, an 00:00:50.060 --> 00:00:52.659 assistant professor of public policy and psychology 00:00:52.659 --> 00:00:55.399 at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and 00:00:55.399 --> 00:00:57.320 Public Policy at the University of Virginia. 00:00:57.979 --> 00:01:00.200 He earned his PhD in social psychology from the 00:01:00.200 --> 00:01:02.740 University of California Los Angeles and his 00:01:02.740 --> 00:01:04.939 BA in psychology with honors and distinction 00:01:04.939 --> 00:01:07.620 from Stanford University and his MA in psychology 00:01:07.620 --> 00:01:10.640 from UCLA. His work examines how contemporary 00:01:10.640 --> 00:01:13.620 cognitive processes reflect and reinforce oppressive 00:01:13.620 --> 00:01:16.159 histories, particularly with regard to racism 00:01:16.159 --> 00:01:19.200 and collective power. He uses gun policies as 00:01:19.200 --> 00:01:21.579 one site in which to unravel these connections. 00:01:22.159 --> 00:01:23.859 His work has been funded by the National Science 00:01:23.859 --> 00:01:26.420 Foundation and the American Psychological Foundation, 00:01:26.739 --> 00:01:29.159 and it has appeared in venues like Journal of 00:01:29.159 --> 00:01:31.640 Experimental Psychology, Psychological Reports, 00:01:31.879 --> 00:01:34.140 and Current Directions in Psychological Science. 00:01:34.560 --> 00:01:36.840 Welcome to Guns Unpacked. Thank you, Jennifer, 00:01:37.180 --> 00:01:39.900 for the wonderful introduction. I'm really excited 00:01:39.900 --> 00:01:43.659 to be here and engage in this conversation. Long 00:01:43.659 --> 00:01:45.379 time coming to finally get a chance to interact 00:01:45.379 --> 00:01:47.450 with you as I followed your work. for a while 00:01:47.450 --> 00:01:50.450 now. Well, the feeling is very mutual. So I'm 00:01:50.450 --> 00:01:53.109 super excited to be in conversation with you, 00:01:53.390 --> 00:01:56.849 especially as you are one of the key voices in 00:01:56.849 --> 00:02:00.090 psychological scholarship on what you have called, 00:02:00.129 --> 00:02:03.790 you use this term US firearm psychology, particularly 00:02:03.790 --> 00:02:05.950 as it pertains to the relationship between gun 00:02:05.950 --> 00:02:08.569 psychology and race. Just to kind of get us started, 00:02:08.909 --> 00:02:11.330 what made you want to start studying guns and 00:02:11.330 --> 00:02:13.189 race from a social psychological perspective? 00:02:13.530 --> 00:02:16.430 Yeah, no, great question. I reflect on this and 00:02:16.430 --> 00:02:19.110 I feel like the answer in some ways is always 00:02:19.110 --> 00:02:22.430 evolving. When did I start thinking about guns? 00:02:23.009 --> 00:02:25.849 Guns are because they're every seemingly everywhere 00:02:25.849 --> 00:02:28.650 in the US. Sometimes they kind of go unnoticed 00:02:28.650 --> 00:02:30.949 when you actually had your first kind of encounter. 00:02:31.490 --> 00:02:34.150 Speaking to, I'll start with why social psychology 00:02:34.150 --> 00:02:36.610 first and then I'll get back to the guns in particular. 00:02:37.069 --> 00:02:40.169 I learned about social psychology as an undergraduate. 00:02:40.460 --> 00:02:43.699 Student, no idea what research was, but I really 00:02:43.699 --> 00:02:46.159 love the social psychological perspectives because 00:02:46.159 --> 00:02:49.639 it basically asks as individuals, how are we 00:02:49.639 --> 00:02:52.460 impacted by the social context and the social 00:02:52.460 --> 00:02:55.340 interactions around us or that we engage in? 00:02:55.360 --> 00:02:58.560 And I came to find that that is such an important 00:02:58.560 --> 00:03:01.699 and powerful way to think about why guns hold 00:03:01.699 --> 00:03:05.020 such a strong place in our psychology and thinking 00:03:05.020 --> 00:03:08.379 not just about guns, but what context are shaping 00:03:08.379 --> 00:03:10.430 our interactions with firearms? and our understanding 00:03:10.430 --> 00:03:14.110 of firearms. I got into this particular line 00:03:14.110 --> 00:03:17.909 of research thinking about firearms and the role 00:03:17.909 --> 00:03:20.830 of race in graduate school. It was something 00:03:20.830 --> 00:03:24.020 that At the time, I felt like it kind of just 00:03:24.020 --> 00:03:28.300 fell into it. I had been noticing some disparities 00:03:28.300 --> 00:03:31.099 in terms of like whose rights to firearms were 00:03:31.099 --> 00:03:34.439 being respected and revered, particularly as 00:03:34.439 --> 00:03:38.599 it came to both kind of police killings of legally 00:03:38.599 --> 00:03:43.580 armed Black civilians, as well as some kind of 00:03:43.580 --> 00:03:46.680 legal challenges to Black Americans using their 00:03:46.680 --> 00:03:48.659 legal rights to firearms to protect themselves. 00:03:48.680 --> 00:03:50.759 So particularly thinking about stand your ground. 00:03:50.800 --> 00:03:53.419 There were a couple of cases of Black women who 00:03:53.419 --> 00:03:56.680 had used their guns to protect themselves and 00:03:56.680 --> 00:03:59.939 they weren't getting the same type of, felt like 00:03:59.939 --> 00:04:02.400 legal protection or at least program arguments 00:04:02.400 --> 00:04:05.599 made for their cases and their behalf. Those 00:04:05.599 --> 00:04:08.460 kind of insights and just kind of noticing these 00:04:08.460 --> 00:04:11.080 things really started me down this path of, you 00:04:11.080 --> 00:04:13.099 know, who are gun rights perceived to be for 00:04:13.099 --> 00:04:17.829 in the U .S.? That just exploded into where I'm 00:04:17.829 --> 00:04:21.110 at now thinking kind of broadly about guns and 00:04:21.110 --> 00:04:23.870 other rights and thinking about how do they function 00:04:23.870 --> 00:04:26.670 as something that is fundamental for some people, 00:04:26.670 --> 00:04:29.329 but may be perceived as like in reality, a privilege 00:04:29.329 --> 00:04:32.079 that should be reserved for. members of, you 00:04:32.079 --> 00:04:34.959 know, dominant groups in society. There is a 00:04:34.959 --> 00:04:37.819 longer story that I can tell, but I imagine that 00:04:37.819 --> 00:04:40.579 we'll get to these things later. Yeah, you you 00:04:40.579 --> 00:04:43.560 use this term US firearm psychology. And yeah, 00:04:43.699 --> 00:04:45.920 we'll basically be spending the entire conversation 00:04:45.920 --> 00:04:48.300 today unpacking what that means because it is 00:04:48.300 --> 00:04:51.620 so complex. But a lot of pop psychology, and 00:04:51.620 --> 00:04:53.079 I'll just call it pop, I don't know if you, as 00:04:53.079 --> 00:04:54.800 a psychologist or social psychologist, I don't 00:04:54.800 --> 00:04:57.139 know if you like that term, but I'll just use 00:04:57.139 --> 00:05:00.240 it. A lot of pop psychology on guns I think tends 00:05:00.240 --> 00:05:03.660 to really simplify, individualize people's attitudes 00:05:03.660 --> 00:05:06.899 and attachments to guns. And so to get us started 00:05:06.899 --> 00:05:09.100 in this conversation, can you just give us like 00:05:09.100 --> 00:05:12.120 the really basic overview of how you think about 00:05:12.120 --> 00:05:15.439 and define this term US firearm psychology? Yeah, 00:05:15.600 --> 00:05:19.319 no, I one I'm trying to be specific as well as 00:05:19.319 --> 00:05:21.240 kind of trying to capture that complexity that 00:05:21.240 --> 00:05:23.620 you talk about. I think there's multiple different 00:05:23.620 --> 00:05:26.639 reasons why people own firearms. And I agree, 00:05:26.879 --> 00:05:29.899 I think simplifying it to one or two things is 00:05:29.899 --> 00:05:32.720 reductive and can miss I think important nuances. 00:05:33.339 --> 00:05:37.860 I'll specifically say why say us I have been 00:05:37.860 --> 00:05:41.420 very heavily influenced by cultural psychologists 00:05:41.420 --> 00:05:45.100 that are thinking not just about people and individuals 00:05:45.100 --> 00:05:47.800 and kind of social context and social situations, 00:05:48.560 --> 00:05:50.500 but thinking about people as embedded in culture 00:05:50.500 --> 00:05:52.519 over time. And I think one of the key insights 00:05:52.519 --> 00:05:55.339 from that kind of line of thinking and field 00:05:55.339 --> 00:05:59.500 of research and thought is it's important that 00:05:59.500 --> 00:06:01.879 we're specific about what psychologies that we're 00:06:01.879 --> 00:06:06.009 describing that are maybe general. that are more 00:06:06.009 --> 00:06:09.670 universal, that kind of are maybe less context 00:06:09.670 --> 00:06:13.129 or culturally specific, and then which psychologies 00:06:13.129 --> 00:06:17.910 are derived from a particular context. And so 00:06:17.910 --> 00:06:20.589 the reason why I specify U .S. firearm psychology 00:06:20.589 --> 00:06:22.870 is one, I haven't studied outside of the U .S. 00:06:22.889 --> 00:06:25.310 in terms of the question that I asked, but two, 00:06:25.350 --> 00:06:28.029 just to highlight the unique, I think, connection 00:06:28.029 --> 00:06:31.129 Americans have to firearms. I mean, just from 00:06:31.129 --> 00:06:33.709 the data alone in terms of the prevalence of 00:06:33.709 --> 00:06:36.110 firearms that we have, where it's almost people 00:06:36.110 --> 00:06:39.949 living in the U .S. account for nearly 50 % of 00:06:39.949 --> 00:06:43.569 all civilian held firearms and globally. So I 00:06:43.569 --> 00:06:47.079 think the number is closer to 45%. in terms of 00:06:47.079 --> 00:06:49.720 people who experience or have or know family 00:06:49.720 --> 00:06:52.379 members who experience gun violence. Like that 00:06:52.379 --> 00:06:57.000 is like over 50 % of U .S. adults know someone 00:06:57.000 --> 00:07:00.180 or have personally experienced incidents of gun 00:07:00.180 --> 00:07:02.420 violence or intended gun violence. And so like 00:07:02.420 --> 00:07:05.519 we have a very unique relation to firearms. And 00:07:05.519 --> 00:07:09.240 so in kind of defining what is a firearm psychology, 00:07:09.680 --> 00:07:11.879 I think it's very important to be specific to 00:07:11.879 --> 00:07:14.379 saying U .S. and the psychological part obviously 00:07:14.379 --> 00:07:17.740 is fire. firearms are a physical object, but 00:07:17.740 --> 00:07:19.639 as you talked about in your research and the 00:07:19.639 --> 00:07:22.800 other scholars have also highlighted that so 00:07:22.800 --> 00:07:26.360 much about our thinking and connection in the 00:07:26.360 --> 00:07:29.560 perceived utility of firearms goes beyond just 00:07:29.560 --> 00:07:32.879 the tool of it itself. And it really is, I would 00:07:32.879 --> 00:07:36.420 argue, a psychological process that's extremely 00:07:36.420 --> 00:07:39.540 important to understand. Yeah. So let's dig into 00:07:39.540 --> 00:07:43.600 your work, particularly your piece, When an Irresistible 00:07:43.600 --> 00:07:46.259 Prejudice Meets Immovable Politics," which is 00:07:46.259 --> 00:07:49.420 just such a great title. You conducted a series 00:07:49.420 --> 00:07:51.579 of experiments to examine, and this is a quote, 00:07:51.959 --> 00:07:55.120 how white Americans implicitly racialized gun 00:07:55.120 --> 00:07:58.100 rights as white. Can you break that down for 00:07:58.100 --> 00:08:00.240 listeners? What does that mean? And how does 00:08:00.240 --> 00:08:03.040 this advance us beyond more simplified understandings 00:08:03.040 --> 00:08:05.660 of the relationship between guns and race? Yeah, 00:08:05.660 --> 00:08:08.839 so this was some of the first work that came 00:08:08.839 --> 00:08:11.819 out of some of these initial insights where we 00:08:11.819 --> 00:08:14.870 were just asking the question, Who are gun rights 00:08:14.870 --> 00:08:20.509 for? And that was one of the driving insights 00:08:20.509 --> 00:08:22.529 that we were just trying to really get a handle 00:08:22.529 --> 00:08:25.930 on that. And I'll say this, I usually start at 00:08:25.930 --> 00:08:28.689 the beginning, but there's so much that we still 00:08:28.689 --> 00:08:31.269 are learning. What we did learn in this study 00:08:31.269 --> 00:08:33.649 is there is this racialization of gun rights 00:08:33.649 --> 00:08:37.610 as white. Past research at the time had shown 00:08:37.610 --> 00:08:40.649 and demonstrated in other fields, political science, 00:08:40.809 --> 00:08:43.759 sociology. that there are these strong links 00:08:43.759 --> 00:08:47.259 between kind of how white Americans thought about 00:08:47.259 --> 00:08:49.539 black Americans or negative racial attitudes 00:08:49.539 --> 00:08:52.399 towards black Americans and their support for 00:08:52.399 --> 00:08:54.379 gun rights or their opposition to gun control. 00:08:54.779 --> 00:08:58.500 So you could reliably understand how much a white 00:08:58.500 --> 00:09:02.740 American supported firearms or gun rights based 00:09:02.740 --> 00:09:06.000 on how negatively their level of negative attitudes 00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:08.870 towards black Americans. And so that was That 00:09:08.870 --> 00:09:12.110 one in itself was surprising and starting to 00:09:12.110 --> 00:09:14.769 dig into the literature. But at the time, the 00:09:14.769 --> 00:09:17.629 thought that occurred to me and the collaborators 00:09:17.629 --> 00:09:20.509 I was working with is, you know, who are these 00:09:20.509 --> 00:09:22.490 white Americans with these negative racial attitudes 00:09:22.490 --> 00:09:26.169 thinking about when they're, you know, showing 00:09:26.169 --> 00:09:29.669 this strong staunch support of gun rights? And 00:09:29.669 --> 00:09:32.269 the expectation was that they were not thinking 00:09:32.269 --> 00:09:35.879 about Black people's rights to firearms. tested 00:09:35.879 --> 00:09:39.360 this and we found support for that idea. So we 00:09:39.360 --> 00:09:43.019 used an implicit association test, which is a 00:09:43.019 --> 00:09:45.299 behavioral measure, experimental measure that 00:09:45.299 --> 00:09:48.220 indirectly tests strengths of associations between 00:09:48.220 --> 00:09:50.460 concepts. So in this case, we were interested 00:09:50.460 --> 00:09:53.360 in the strength of association between the concepts 00:09:53.360 --> 00:09:56.379 of white race, white Americans, black Americans, 00:09:56.919 --> 00:09:59.440 I mean, the concepts of gun rights and gun control. 00:09:59.789 --> 00:10:03.210 And so what we found was that overall we found 00:10:03.210 --> 00:10:05.529 a stronger association amongst white Americans 00:10:05.529 --> 00:10:08.350 to associate white Americans with gun rights 00:10:08.350 --> 00:10:11.429 and black Americans with gun control. And then 00:10:11.429 --> 00:10:14.970 we looked at, you know, what impact does, you 00:10:14.970 --> 00:10:17.669 know, understanding white Americans negative 00:10:17.669 --> 00:10:19.830 attitudes towards black Americans have on the 00:10:19.830 --> 00:10:21.590 strength of association. And what we found was 00:10:21.590 --> 00:10:24.990 that white Americans who held more negative attitudes 00:10:24.990 --> 00:10:28.149 towards black people held even stronger associations 00:10:28.149 --> 00:10:31.509 between white Americans and gun rights and black 00:10:31.509 --> 00:10:34.690 Americans and gun control. In subsequent studies, 00:10:34.870 --> 00:10:36.929 we wanted to show, you know, what implications 00:10:36.929 --> 00:10:40.830 this may have for policy. And we found that particularly 00:10:40.830 --> 00:10:43.909 most white Americans, again, who were what we 00:10:43.909 --> 00:10:46.750 were finding having this strong association between 00:10:46.750 --> 00:10:49.570 gun rights and white Americans and gun control 00:10:49.570 --> 00:10:52.950 on black Americans. When we told them that black 00:10:52.950 --> 00:10:55.090 Americans were using rights like concealed carry 00:10:55.090 --> 00:10:59.090 at a faster rate than white people and very clearly 00:10:59.090 --> 00:11:02.049 said that this, you know, did not lead to increases 00:11:02.049 --> 00:11:05.830 in crime or violence. Like these were, you know, 00:11:06.110 --> 00:11:09.960 legal gun owning. Americans, those white Americans 00:11:09.960 --> 00:11:11.620 who held these strong negative attitudes towards 00:11:11.620 --> 00:11:14.320 black people, they were less supportive of concealed 00:11:14.320 --> 00:11:17.779 carry rights. And I think that that opens up 00:11:17.779 --> 00:11:20.320 an additional line of questions more broadly 00:11:20.320 --> 00:11:22.919 about rights in the US, but particularly important 00:11:22.919 --> 00:11:25.139 one when we think about something as embedded 00:11:25.139 --> 00:11:29.399 and I think as consequential as firearms. Yeah, 00:11:29.399 --> 00:11:32.600 and I have to say, I really appreciate that was 00:11:32.600 --> 00:11:35.379 such a detailed outline of everything you did 00:11:35.379 --> 00:11:38.039 in this incredible paper and you know to like 00:11:38.039 --> 00:11:40.360 take it to the other extreme and like meme -ify 00:11:40.360 --> 00:11:43.340 it of course there is the meme I'm you know I'm 00:11:43.340 --> 00:11:45.779 sure you've seen because it's it's kind of like 00:11:45.779 --> 00:11:48.559 the very crude summary of what you just described 00:11:48.559 --> 00:11:51.070 which is if you want gun control, armed black 00:11:51.070 --> 00:11:53.669 men, right? We've seen this meme. And what I 00:11:53.669 --> 00:11:56.370 think is really important about your research 00:11:56.370 --> 00:11:59.129 is that your research actually suggests a somewhat 00:11:59.129 --> 00:12:02.710 different outcome that actually it's not just 00:12:02.710 --> 00:12:05.250 gun rights in general, but the specific way that 00:12:05.250 --> 00:12:07.509 black people happen to be exercising them, which 00:12:07.509 --> 00:12:11.269 is exactly how we actually see the history of 00:12:11.269 --> 00:12:14.149 racialized gun law unfolding. For example, like 00:12:14.149 --> 00:12:17.169 the Mulford Act of 1967. And so I guess I don't 00:12:17.169 --> 00:12:18.909 know if this is a fair question to ask. to be 00:12:18.909 --> 00:12:21.769 like, what do you think of a meme? But I am curious, 00:12:22.049 --> 00:12:24.950 how does something that's so nuanced and so complex 00:12:24.950 --> 00:12:28.529 sort of get translated into the policy realm? 00:12:28.799 --> 00:12:32.720 Yeah, in terms of, yeah, I mean, right. Going 00:12:32.720 --> 00:12:35.700 back to the meme, actually, when I was working 00:12:35.700 --> 00:12:38.820 on this project, and this is maybe before people 00:12:38.820 --> 00:12:41.519 were starting to, the canceling was a huge thing. 00:12:42.179 --> 00:12:44.620 Actually, I was in Chicago at a comedy show and 00:12:44.620 --> 00:12:46.500 Dave Chappelle said the same thing. Actually, 00:12:46.519 --> 00:12:48.879 it was one of the opening quotes we start the 00:12:48.879 --> 00:12:50.659 paper with. He ended up later saying it in a 00:12:50.659 --> 00:12:52.559 Netflix special, but he was a surprise guest 00:12:52.559 --> 00:12:55.820 at a comedy show and he was talking about, you 00:12:55.820 --> 00:12:58.509 know, if you just want to... get gun control 00:12:58.509 --> 00:13:02.070 passed, just arm Black people. But he was in 00:13:02.070 --> 00:13:04.649 the show, he asked, you know, he doesn't know 00:13:04.649 --> 00:13:08.549 if Black Americans should, you know, have the 00:13:08.549 --> 00:13:11.070 responsibility to, you know, be the arbiters 00:13:11.070 --> 00:13:13.029 of gaining this gun control through that pathway. 00:13:13.190 --> 00:13:16.149 I think when people ask about, you know, what 00:13:16.149 --> 00:13:18.830 are the policy implications of this work, the 00:13:18.830 --> 00:13:21.909 first thing I say is, like, my recommendation 00:13:21.909 --> 00:13:25.840 isn't to just say like, let's use black people 00:13:25.840 --> 00:13:27.759 and arming black people as the way to get gun 00:13:27.759 --> 00:13:30.620 control passed because I am very clearly aware 00:13:30.620 --> 00:13:34.080 and I think history shows us that that puts the 00:13:34.080 --> 00:13:36.539 lives of black people in danger in ways that 00:13:36.539 --> 00:13:39.340 I think shouldn't be understated. And then also 00:13:39.340 --> 00:13:41.639 too, when you think about, you know, the particular 00:13:41.639 --> 00:13:45.419 again, thinking about the gun laws that may be 00:13:45.419 --> 00:13:48.759 targeted, you know, if it's some of the research 00:13:48.759 --> 00:13:50.940 that and some of the questions that we got from 00:13:50.940 --> 00:13:54.500 the work, right, are still even though you have 00:13:54.500 --> 00:13:56.399 white Americans saying that, yes, we would support 00:13:56.399 --> 00:13:59.240 more supportive of gun control in these particular 00:13:59.240 --> 00:14:01.820 ways. Right. Are they is there still an expectation 00:14:01.820 --> 00:14:05.340 that even if I support this law that may be restricting 00:14:05.340 --> 00:14:07.840 the right that black people are seen to be using, 00:14:08.100 --> 00:14:10.399 is there still an expectation that it's not going 00:14:10.399 --> 00:14:13.700 to impact my rights? So, you know, I think that 00:14:13.700 --> 00:14:17.590 that creates some nuance that's. One, I would 00:14:17.590 --> 00:14:22.110 argue suggests away from this meme because I 00:14:22.110 --> 00:14:24.669 am not a proponent of, you know, employing kind 00:14:24.669 --> 00:14:28.970 of black people and black lives to pass something 00:14:28.970 --> 00:14:31.850 that I think everyone is in support of, or the 00:14:31.850 --> 00:14:34.129 large majority of people are in support of common 00:14:34.129 --> 00:14:37.250 sense gun legislation. But I think it opens up 00:14:37.250 --> 00:14:41.029 deeper question of, you know, how do we get to 00:14:41.029 --> 00:14:45.429 a point where we can see rights as for everyone, 00:14:45.769 --> 00:14:47.690 including gun rights, but also to that we can 00:14:47.690 --> 00:14:51.909 pursue safety in ways that are actually increasing 00:14:51.909 --> 00:14:54.809 the safety for everyone, but not leading to potential 00:14:54.809 --> 00:14:58.370 negative outcomes where there's maybe more contact 00:14:58.370 --> 00:15:01.870 with police in ways that may be harmful, particularly 00:15:01.870 --> 00:15:04.110 if folks are thinking that most Black Americans 00:15:04.110 --> 00:15:06.730 are now walking around armed. I think the threat 00:15:06.730 --> 00:15:09.429 would just be out of this world and would have, 00:15:09.429 --> 00:15:24.450 I think, unforeseen consequences. I mean, I really 00:15:24.450 --> 00:15:26.549 appreciate everything you just said. And I want 00:15:26.549 --> 00:15:30.529 to actually now go to your 2024 piece on collective 00:15:30.529 --> 00:15:34.529 power, race and guns. This piece is just so full 00:15:34.529 --> 00:15:37.490 of such crucial history that, you know, really 00:15:37.490 --> 00:15:39.169 gets at some of the points that you just made. 00:15:39.490 --> 00:15:41.610 And one of the things and honestly, this is like, 00:15:41.970 --> 00:15:44.009 I'm asking you this question just because our 00:15:44.009 --> 00:15:47.139 listeners need to know this history. So I'm like, 00:15:47.480 --> 00:15:49.399 please just say this out loud so that everybody 00:15:49.399 --> 00:15:51.860 can hear it. At one point, so I'm going to quote, 00:15:52.100 --> 00:15:55.399 you say, guns provided an actual source of collective 00:15:55.399 --> 00:15:57.879 safety and power among Black Americans rooted 00:15:57.879 --> 00:16:00.320 in an increased sense of in -group solidarity 00:16:00.320 --> 00:16:03.019 and ability to resist white intergroup and structural 00:16:03.019 --> 00:16:05.019 violence. So you're talking about really this 00:16:05.019 --> 00:16:07.159 historical, I mean, really sweeping historical 00:16:07.159 --> 00:16:09.799 look at how we think about the racialized politics 00:16:09.799 --> 00:16:13.230 of guns. And you specifically used. armed black 00:16:13.230 --> 00:16:15.429 resistance during the 1921 burning of Black Wall 00:16:15.429 --> 00:16:18.190 Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to illustrate this. 00:16:18.269 --> 00:16:20.889 And I thought this was so powerful because there's 00:16:20.889 --> 00:16:23.750 been kind of this moment where now the burning 00:16:23.750 --> 00:16:26.110 of Black Wall Street is something that I think 00:16:26.110 --> 00:16:28.549 many, many more people have heard of as compared 00:16:28.549 --> 00:16:31.649 to, say, five years ago. But you still add something 00:16:31.649 --> 00:16:34.690 very crucial to sort of the conversation of how 00:16:34.690 --> 00:16:36.809 we should be understanding this historical moment. 00:16:36.870 --> 00:16:40.110 And so can you just tell us a bit about this 00:16:40.110 --> 00:16:43.360 dimension of armed resistance? and why it is 00:16:43.360 --> 00:16:45.840 so important in terms of your perspective on 00:16:45.840 --> 00:16:48.720 US firearm psychology. I agree. I think this 00:16:48.720 --> 00:16:52.139 history is important. And I also acknowledge 00:16:52.139 --> 00:16:54.700 that the reason why I know these histories are 00:16:54.700 --> 00:16:59.320 because of the great work of historians, people 00:16:59.320 --> 00:17:02.620 willing to share stories. In this particular 00:17:02.620 --> 00:17:06.200 history, I was able to learn both from going 00:17:06.200 --> 00:17:09.240 to visit Tulsa. So this is part of a longer story. 00:17:09.660 --> 00:17:11.200 Like bringing up the Tulsa Race Massacre actually 00:17:11.200 --> 00:17:14.079 has a lot to do with some other work that I do 00:17:14.079 --> 00:17:17.660 along how do we think about history, like psychologically, 00:17:18.099 --> 00:17:20.059 and its relation to the present. And part of 00:17:20.059 --> 00:17:24.279 it was using how are people locating the Tulsa 00:17:24.279 --> 00:17:27.200 Race Massacre in time from a psychological perspective, 00:17:27.259 --> 00:17:29.960 again, if we're trying to make people and encourage 00:17:29.960 --> 00:17:31.799 people to think about history as relevant to 00:17:31.799 --> 00:17:35.299 the present. And so this ties to a longer and 00:17:35.299 --> 00:17:38.099 a separate line of research. So after graduating 00:17:38.099 --> 00:17:41.740 with a PhD from UCLA and moving to Charlottesville, 00:17:42.019 --> 00:17:44.359 where I'm at now, we actually a road trip through 00:17:44.359 --> 00:17:47.940 Tulsa with my mom. And we stopped at the museums 00:17:47.940 --> 00:17:51.200 and also to spoke with a lot of the black residents 00:17:51.200 --> 00:17:53.900 there. They were just like these beautiful, like 00:17:53.900 --> 00:17:57.220 this important and nuanced histories kind of 00:17:57.220 --> 00:18:00.799 came about in these interactions. Also to want 00:18:00.799 --> 00:18:03.339 to give a huge shout out to Annalise Bruner, 00:18:03.380 --> 00:18:05.519 who is a writer and historian, who is one of 00:18:05.519 --> 00:18:08.339 the great granddaughters of Mary Parrish, who 00:18:08.339 --> 00:18:11.079 actually wrote a firsthand account of their experience 00:18:11.079 --> 00:18:13.039 in the Tulsa Race Massacre and also detailed 00:18:13.039 --> 00:18:16.059 this and is cited in the work that we're referencing. 00:18:16.940 --> 00:18:19.420 But the Tulsa Race Massacre happened in 1921. 00:18:20.319 --> 00:18:25.269 And although often left out of our typical understandings 00:18:25.269 --> 00:18:27.849 of, you know, wars and histories, right? Black 00:18:27.849 --> 00:18:29.589 people have been involved in every single war 00:18:29.589 --> 00:18:32.349 that's happened on US soil from the American 00:18:32.349 --> 00:18:35.410 Revolution. There were World War I veterans who 00:18:35.410 --> 00:18:39.630 came back to Tulsa and the Greenwood District, 00:18:39.630 --> 00:18:44.789 right, and had guns. When the shooting started, 00:18:45.089 --> 00:18:47.730 Black Americans who had firearms at the time 00:18:47.730 --> 00:18:51.079 and who were trained like they use their firearms 00:18:51.079 --> 00:18:55.140 to hold off the incoming mob of white Americans 00:18:55.140 --> 00:18:59.119 who were looting and burning businesses. And 00:18:59.119 --> 00:19:02.920 at least for a time, were able to to delay the 00:19:02.920 --> 00:19:06.240 mob and allow many more people to escape than 00:19:06.240 --> 00:19:08.299 would have if they didn't have firearms and if 00:19:08.299 --> 00:19:11.180 they weren't able to resist. And when we look 00:19:11.180 --> 00:19:14.559 at kind of the history of that period of Jim 00:19:14.559 --> 00:19:17.079 Crow era period, as well as even thinking about 00:19:17.079 --> 00:19:20.750 the civil rights movement, guns were a relevant 00:19:20.750 --> 00:19:23.650 part. And even in nonviolent groups like this, 00:19:24.130 --> 00:19:25.990 there's like the deacons for defense. I mean, 00:19:26.009 --> 00:19:29.089 I was talking with some folks who just published 00:19:29.089 --> 00:19:31.910 some work on MLK, right? And MLK at one point 00:19:31.910 --> 00:19:35.990 was a gun owner. I think it's important to acknowledge 00:19:35.990 --> 00:19:39.890 that at some level, there is some, I think, collective 00:19:39.890 --> 00:19:43.119 safety that has been found from Black Americans 00:19:43.119 --> 00:19:46.299 owning firearms. And there is research that even 00:19:46.299 --> 00:19:48.279 supports that. There's some work that showed 00:19:48.279 --> 00:19:52.259 that during the Jim Crow era period in states 00:19:52.259 --> 00:19:54.680 and years where there were lower levels of Black 00:19:54.680 --> 00:19:57.240 gun access or Black Americans had less access 00:19:57.240 --> 00:20:01.119 to guns, whether through state policy or racially 00:20:01.119 --> 00:20:04.519 disparate enforcement by police, there were more 00:20:04.519 --> 00:20:07.279 lynchings. So the less guns that Black Americans 00:20:07.279 --> 00:20:09.319 had at this time, the more lynchings that were 00:20:09.319 --> 00:20:11.880 reported. in the area or that happened in the 00:20:11.880 --> 00:20:15.480 area. And so they're both through these stories 00:20:15.480 --> 00:20:19.000 as well as some recent and emerging data show 00:20:19.000 --> 00:20:22.599 that they're at a collective level guns have 00:20:22.599 --> 00:20:27.720 been used to protect Black Americans from racism. 00:20:27.819 --> 00:20:29.319 But I think at the same time, it's important 00:20:29.319 --> 00:20:31.819 to acknowledge that that doesn't mean and hasn't 00:20:31.819 --> 00:20:34.940 guaranteed safety. It has been used to try at 00:20:34.940 --> 00:20:37.220 least to resist and to resist in some instances. 00:20:37.470 --> 00:20:39.789 Yeah, and I think that's what's so powerful is 00:20:39.789 --> 00:20:42.589 that the way you kind of link up history and 00:20:42.589 --> 00:20:46.950 psychology is to sort of locate these moments. 00:20:47.319 --> 00:20:50.920 where the relationship between guns and safety 00:20:50.920 --> 00:20:54.480 sort of gets forged, and that becomes iterative 00:20:54.480 --> 00:20:58.380 across history. It becomes revisited. It becomes 00:20:58.380 --> 00:21:00.980 bifurcated in terms of different groups and how 00:21:00.980 --> 00:21:02.759 they experience the relationship between guns 00:21:02.759 --> 00:21:06.059 and safety. And I think this is where the collective 00:21:06.059 --> 00:21:08.859 power thesis that you lay out is really so powerful, 00:21:08.859 --> 00:21:11.480 because I think it's very easy to kind of look 00:21:11.480 --> 00:21:14.240 at history and be like, as you said at the onset, 00:21:14.559 --> 00:21:17.619 guns are everywhere. They're kind of doing the 00:21:17.619 --> 00:21:19.660 same thing, but also doing very different things. 00:21:20.019 --> 00:21:22.799 How do we sort of how do we have some sense of 00:21:22.799 --> 00:21:24.579 like how to like how do we make sense of this? 00:21:24.599 --> 00:21:27.180 And so I guess like, you know, now pulling out 00:21:27.180 --> 00:21:30.079 of the sort of detailed history and sort of back 00:21:30.079 --> 00:21:31.799 to your sort of broader theoretical framework, 00:21:32.220 --> 00:21:35.460 can you explain how the collective power thesis 00:21:35.460 --> 00:21:38.400 advances our understanding of this relationship 00:21:38.400 --> 00:21:42.259 between guns themselves and what you refer to 00:21:42.259 --> 00:21:44.500 throughout as not just safety, but people's felt 00:21:44.500 --> 00:21:47.160 safety, their experience of safety? I think it's 00:21:47.160 --> 00:21:50.400 an important question. There's great work in 00:21:50.400 --> 00:21:53.740 social psychology, as social psychology has been 00:21:53.740 --> 00:21:56.599 over the years have been exploring this, I think 00:21:56.599 --> 00:22:00.980 more specifically that shows and people even 00:22:00.980 --> 00:22:03.599 report it, right? One of the primary reasons 00:22:03.599 --> 00:22:06.759 that people report now for owning a gun is personal 00:22:06.759 --> 00:22:10.700 protection. And that is extremely tied to the 00:22:10.700 --> 00:22:13.440 felt safety that people perceive guns to provide. 00:22:13.900 --> 00:22:17.940 The point that I think is also important to acknowledge 00:22:17.940 --> 00:22:23.019 is that what safety means and what can provide 00:22:23.019 --> 00:22:27.460 safety may look different depending on on your 00:22:27.460 --> 00:22:31.740 identities. You hold the relationship to, I think, 00:22:31.819 --> 00:22:34.000 different cultural institutions and structures 00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:37.319 in society and that that in some ways can complicate. 00:22:37.660 --> 00:22:41.240 what is considered providing safety. So I'll 00:22:41.240 --> 00:22:43.440 go back quickly because I think this is really 00:22:43.440 --> 00:22:46.519 important, it's been helpful for me. So in 2020, 00:22:46.940 --> 00:22:50.440 Nick Butrick, he wrote kind of this organizing 00:22:50.440 --> 00:22:52.859 framework around like different psychological 00:22:52.859 --> 00:22:56.920 motives for defensive firearm ownership. He focused 00:22:56.920 --> 00:23:00.670 in on kind of these world beliefs that underlie 00:23:00.670 --> 00:23:04.730 kind of turning to firearms is kind of this understanding 00:23:04.730 --> 00:23:07.029 or belief that the world is dangerous and that 00:23:07.029 --> 00:23:11.150 societal institutions won't be able to protect 00:23:11.150 --> 00:23:14.130 us or variants in the extent to which they will 00:23:14.130 --> 00:23:16.529 be able to protect us from this dangerous world. 00:23:17.130 --> 00:23:20.170 That's, I think, a super helpful framework. And 00:23:20.170 --> 00:23:23.609 I think that when thinking about what actions 00:23:23.609 --> 00:23:26.869 can an institution take to make you feel safe, 00:23:26.869 --> 00:23:31.000 I think that inherently is a question of not 00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:33.680 just how you individually perceive the world, 00:23:33.880 --> 00:23:36.839 but also to kind of different, I think, group 00:23:36.839 --> 00:23:38.880 relations to those society and structures. And 00:23:38.880 --> 00:23:42.599 so for one, I think, clear example is, you know, 00:23:43.740 --> 00:23:47.160 what do we make of different perceptions of police 00:23:47.160 --> 00:23:49.980 as an institution that can provide safety for 00:23:49.980 --> 00:23:53.200 some groups of Americans? And again, I think 00:23:53.200 --> 00:23:56.359 that this as a story about race, but also too 00:23:56.359 --> 00:24:00.480 complicated by gender and class, like for whom 00:24:00.480 --> 00:24:05.240 does a stronger police presence make feel safe? 00:24:05.500 --> 00:24:08.579 And for whom might a stronger police presence 00:24:08.579 --> 00:24:12.000 may in some ways make feel safe, but also be 00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:15.640 a threat to perceive safety. And that requires 00:24:15.640 --> 00:24:18.880 understandings of not just, again, kind of our 00:24:18.880 --> 00:24:21.119 present moment, but also to the histories that 00:24:21.119 --> 00:24:23.759 have gotten us here. For me, when I'm thinking 00:24:23.759 --> 00:24:27.420 about collective power, it's those type of questions 00:24:27.420 --> 00:24:31.819 and I think additional nuances that social psychology 00:24:31.819 --> 00:24:35.980 is, I think, geared to handle when we keep these 00:24:35.980 --> 00:24:38.319 kind of different factors in mind. And again, 00:24:38.319 --> 00:24:43.240 it's something that we're still exploring. I 00:24:43.240 --> 00:24:46.440 am fortunate to have a budding lab with great 00:24:46.440 --> 00:24:48.759 folk. in the lab that I'm able to work with, 00:24:48.819 --> 00:24:51.779 as well as collaborators here at UVA and beyond. 00:24:51.960 --> 00:24:53.920 And so these are the types of questions that 00:24:53.920 --> 00:24:56.140 we're really trying to get into. Yeah, and I 00:24:56.140 --> 00:24:59.460 think even looking at now the contemporary period 00:24:59.460 --> 00:25:03.079 and thinking about how people relate to the guns 00:25:03.079 --> 00:25:05.259 that they own, there's been some really fascinating 00:25:05.259 --> 00:25:08.960 research on gun attitudes across different racialized 00:25:08.960 --> 00:25:11.319 groups of gun owners. And so. I'm thinking of 00:25:11.319 --> 00:25:14.380 the work here led by Julie Ward. She has a study 00:25:14.380 --> 00:25:16.579 that shows that white gun owners and black gun 00:25:16.579 --> 00:25:18.700 owners actually have very different expectations 00:25:18.700 --> 00:25:21.559 in terms of the extent to which their guns will 00:25:21.559 --> 00:25:24.380 make them safer. White gun owners, I think, to 00:25:24.380 --> 00:25:27.299 use like a pun, are much more likely to see guns 00:25:27.299 --> 00:25:29.759 as like the silver bullet of safety. Black gun 00:25:29.759 --> 00:25:32.220 owners have a much more measured view. You also 00:25:32.220 --> 00:25:35.380 talk about Deirdre Bowen's work that finds that 00:25:35.380 --> 00:25:37.740 even among black women who own guns, they tend 00:25:37.740 --> 00:25:40.230 to be much more ambivalent about the fact of 00:25:40.230 --> 00:25:44.130 their gun ownership. And it seems like this ambivalence, 00:25:44.130 --> 00:25:47.150 it alerts us to, I think, a really subtle form 00:25:47.150 --> 00:25:49.930 of racial domination. So the privilege of being 00:25:49.930 --> 00:25:52.690 able to experience guns as an overall straightforward 00:25:52.690 --> 00:25:55.890 good, as opposed to something that's deeply fraught. 00:25:56.210 --> 00:25:58.289 I think it's not just an attribute of being a 00:25:58.289 --> 00:26:01.150 full citizen, but it also gets at how citizenship 00:26:01.150 --> 00:26:04.740 is experienced differentially. So my first question 00:26:04.740 --> 00:26:06.319 is like, am I getting that right? Because I think 00:26:06.319 --> 00:26:08.960 that's where coming at this with a psychological 00:26:08.960 --> 00:26:12.630 perspective is so insightful. because it gets 00:26:12.630 --> 00:26:15.390 at not just, you know, like sociologists, I mean, 00:26:15.390 --> 00:26:17.230 I don't know, sociologists, we think we do everything. 00:26:17.690 --> 00:26:20.210 So whatever. But, you know, I think there's some 00:26:20.210 --> 00:26:21.710 social sciences where it's like, you know, we're 00:26:21.710 --> 00:26:23.390 looking at the attributes, we're looking at the 00:26:23.390 --> 00:26:25.349 tropes, we're looking at the but this really 00:26:25.349 --> 00:26:27.769 gets at the experience. Yeah. What do you think 00:26:27.769 --> 00:26:30.910 about that? And also, it leads me to the question 00:26:30.910 --> 00:26:33.329 of and kind of going back to the like, what's 00:26:33.329 --> 00:26:35.750 the policy implication, which is that, you know, 00:26:35.869 --> 00:26:38.769 If that's what the issue is, I mean, are we even 00:26:38.769 --> 00:26:40.529 looking in the right place if we're looking to 00:26:40.529 --> 00:26:45.150 gun policy to solve that? Yeah, I have this often 00:26:45.150 --> 00:26:48.910 the same line of thought in question. The example 00:26:48.910 --> 00:26:50.829 you gave made me think actually to the opening 00:26:50.829 --> 00:26:52.769 of, you know, your book, Citizen Protector, right, 00:26:52.829 --> 00:26:57.829 where you have this white male store clerk like 00:26:57.829 --> 00:27:01.440 kill someone and the police are like. Good job. 00:27:01.539 --> 00:27:03.579 And you can correct me if I'm if I'm getting 00:27:03.579 --> 00:27:06.279 this wrong versus. Yeah. Right. You're the reader. 00:27:06.460 --> 00:27:08.680 You're in control of that. I don't want to oversimplify 00:27:08.680 --> 00:27:10.599 because I do think it's complicated. But then 00:27:10.599 --> 00:27:12.960 also, too, then you transition right to the story 00:27:12.960 --> 00:27:16.359 of a black man legally owning a firearm, carrying 00:27:16.359 --> 00:27:19.039 it openly. And then the police are just like, 00:27:19.039 --> 00:27:22.200 that's unusual. And like, stop him and ask all 00:27:22.200 --> 00:27:24.480 these different questions. But again, like rights 00:27:24.480 --> 00:27:27.359 for who and rights for whom. One way I think 00:27:27.359 --> 00:27:30.720 about the question is this work on firearms about 00:27:30.779 --> 00:27:34.539 firearms or something deeper in some other work 00:27:34.539 --> 00:27:36.539 that I'm doing in the, in the domain of voting. 00:27:36.779 --> 00:27:39.220 It feels like there are just these consistencies 00:27:39.220 --> 00:27:45.700 around who is. considered as worthy or good enough 00:27:45.700 --> 00:27:50.119 to be able to participate in the full benefits 00:27:50.119 --> 00:27:53.019 of being a U .S. citizen. And this is not something, 00:27:53.539 --> 00:27:56.779 this is drawing from work kind of more broadly 00:27:56.779 --> 00:28:00.420 in terms of symbolic racial attitudes and how 00:28:00.420 --> 00:28:03.940 support for different policies, even where they're 00:28:03.940 --> 00:28:07.700 racial or non -racial, still have these ties 00:28:07.700 --> 00:28:10.890 to these deeply seeded kind of pieces of racial 00:28:10.890 --> 00:28:13.970 animus that have persisted throughout our history. 00:28:14.150 --> 00:28:17.710 And I think this question about firearms is is 00:28:17.710 --> 00:28:19.890 no different. And I think this is also to why 00:28:19.890 --> 00:28:23.450 there's such a it feels like a gridlock in terms 00:28:23.450 --> 00:28:26.849 of, you know, what like, how do we solve this 00:28:26.849 --> 00:28:30.910 issue of, I think, a uniquely American firearm 00:28:30.910 --> 00:28:33.910 problem? For example, Carol Anderson's book, 00:28:33.970 --> 00:28:37.569 The Second, she highlights in black communities 00:28:37.569 --> 00:28:41.430 where you see black Americans, you know, supporting 00:28:41.430 --> 00:28:43.509 gun control at high rates. Like there still is 00:28:43.509 --> 00:28:46.690 this resistance from a policy level to get gun 00:28:46.690 --> 00:28:51.509 control laws passed. And, and it just begs the 00:28:51.509 --> 00:28:53.410 question about, you know, like in some ways, 00:28:53.470 --> 00:28:56.549 like, what are we doing? And I think also to 00:28:56.549 --> 00:28:59.829 begs a broader conversation about what are just 00:28:59.829 --> 00:29:02.230 the different inputs, both from a psychological 00:29:02.230 --> 00:29:05.869 perspective, again, why, why is it that we turn 00:29:05.869 --> 00:29:10.009 to guns? Is it because they're available? Is 00:29:10.009 --> 00:29:13.150 it because of the many ways that guns have been, 00:29:13.150 --> 00:29:17.049 I think, intentionally tied to what makes a moral 00:29:17.049 --> 00:29:20.789 US citizen? There's clearly gender dynamics to 00:29:20.789 --> 00:29:24.170 it in terms of protection of self, family, and 00:29:24.170 --> 00:29:28.349 home, and what does it mean to, again, stereotypes 00:29:28.349 --> 00:29:31.970 about masculinity. And all of this, again, is 00:29:32.119 --> 00:29:35.660 these psychological values and symbolic values 00:29:35.660 --> 00:29:41.799 that we give to a tool that's used to And again, 00:29:41.900 --> 00:29:44.039 I know people like this might give me trouble, 00:29:44.279 --> 00:29:46.960 but like guns very clearly are a tool used to 00:29:46.960 --> 00:29:50.099 shoot something, whether that is an object, an 00:29:50.099 --> 00:29:52.779 animal or a person, right? Like that is what 00:29:52.779 --> 00:29:55.299 it's used for. And so I think we should be taking 00:29:55.299 --> 00:29:58.200 this seriously and asking kind of these deeper 00:29:58.200 --> 00:30:02.640 questions about like, why is this so rooted for 00:30:02.640 --> 00:30:05.619 us? And that also requires us to dig deeper in 00:30:05.619 --> 00:30:09.559 terms of where are some of these divisions? originating 00:30:09.559 --> 00:30:13.339 from and how do they shape this simple question 00:30:13.339 --> 00:30:16.559 of what do we do about firearm violence as well 00:30:16.559 --> 00:30:19.460 as you know who firearms are for. And I realized 00:30:19.460 --> 00:30:21.839 with that question that I kind of like pushed 00:30:21.839 --> 00:30:25.640 us into the like, and now let's solve every problem 00:30:25.640 --> 00:30:27.099 that's out there. And we're like, we kind of 00:30:27.099 --> 00:30:30.180 like went very, very high level with that. Yeah. 00:30:30.279 --> 00:30:32.960 But it makes sense. Like, I feel like that question 00:30:32.960 --> 00:30:35.640 is real. I was looking at some data the other 00:30:35.640 --> 00:30:39.299 day where it's I think nearly all US states have 00:30:39.299 --> 00:30:43.740 a higher, you know, firearm mortality rate than 00:30:43.740 --> 00:30:46.299 any other country than nearly all of the countries 00:30:46.299 --> 00:30:49.880 like it like the way that we kind of have become. 00:30:50.789 --> 00:30:54.950 maybe accepting of gun violence and also to attach 00:30:54.950 --> 00:30:58.109 to the tools that obviously play a role in that 00:30:58.109 --> 00:31:00.250 violence. It's like, you know, what do we do 00:31:00.250 --> 00:31:02.529 about this? Because our kids should be safe. 00:31:02.809 --> 00:31:05.789 Our families should be safe. Obviously, there's 00:31:05.789 --> 00:31:07.650 a misalignment in terms of like how we've been 00:31:07.650 --> 00:31:10.049 pursuing that. And so I think it's natural to 00:31:10.049 --> 00:31:12.730 turn to solutions. In some ways, I think this 00:31:12.730 --> 00:31:14.910 research for me has shown that, like, and to 00:31:14.910 --> 00:31:17.029 your question, like, are we getting at the root 00:31:17.029 --> 00:31:20.759 of the problem? Right now, it's hard to say yes, 00:31:20.759 --> 00:31:24.359 because there is still so much lack of, I think, 00:31:24.579 --> 00:31:27.220 progress in it. And I guess like pulling it back 00:31:27.220 --> 00:31:30.039 to like maybe a little bit more like manageable 00:31:30.039 --> 00:31:34.380 terrain of psychology and your field. I'm curious 00:31:34.380 --> 00:31:38.480 how I mean, this is obviously I am somewhat biased 00:31:38.480 --> 00:31:40.720 and that I think guns and the issue of guns and 00:31:40.720 --> 00:31:43.509 the social, you know, dynamics of guns. I mean, 00:31:43.609 --> 00:31:46.890 it's an incredibly powerful space to think about 00:31:46.890 --> 00:31:49.930 all sorts of axes of inequality, including race. 00:31:50.250 --> 00:31:53.430 So, you know, I'm sold, of course. But I'm curious 00:31:53.430 --> 00:31:57.250 how your fellow social psychologists have taken 00:31:57.250 --> 00:32:00.509 to your work. I'm particularly I'm curious if 00:32:00.509 --> 00:32:02.730 you've gotten any surprise reactions. And just 00:32:02.730 --> 00:32:06.670 to give you the subtext of my question, I think 00:32:06.670 --> 00:32:08.970 we're in a really exciting moment where people 00:32:08.970 --> 00:32:13.210 are asking nuanced questions that go beyond the 00:32:13.210 --> 00:32:15.609 simplistic ways of thinking about guns in society. 00:32:15.890 --> 00:32:18.009 I think that over the last decade, there's been 00:32:18.009 --> 00:32:21.569 scholars asking really, really interesting, nuanced, 00:32:21.950 --> 00:32:24.569 important agenda setting and discipline -advancing 00:32:24.569 --> 00:32:28.230 questions. And so I'm just curious how your experience 00:32:28.230 --> 00:32:30.450 has been. Have you gotten encouraged? When you 00:32:30.450 --> 00:32:31.990 first were like, hey, I'm going to study this, 00:32:32.930 --> 00:32:34.970 were you encouraged? Were you like, oh, this? 00:32:35.150 --> 00:32:36.910 I mean, because of course, there's this kind 00:32:36.910 --> 00:32:40.650 of sense, at least since the 90s, that gun research 00:32:40.650 --> 00:32:43.789 is not going to get you big grants. Of course, 00:32:43.890 --> 00:32:45.529 that's not the case for you. You've gotten big 00:32:45.529 --> 00:32:48.549 grants. So I'm just curious how your experience 00:32:48.549 --> 00:32:51.970 has been pushing this field or subfield within 00:32:51.970 --> 00:32:55.079 your field. So I was like, I don't have to be 00:32:55.079 --> 00:32:57.400 misperception out there. I've gotten some smaller 00:32:57.400 --> 00:33:00.700 grants for the guns work for some other work 00:33:00.700 --> 00:33:03.220 on guns. I'm excited about the grants that we 00:33:03.220 --> 00:33:06.500 got for firearms. Still out there if anybody 00:33:06.500 --> 00:33:08.259 else wants to give a bigger grant. Just want 00:33:08.259 --> 00:33:09.900 to be clear, especially folks who are like, why 00:33:09.900 --> 00:33:11.640 are we spending money on gun research? I was 00:33:11.640 --> 00:33:13.420 like, actually, we're not, y 'all. We should 00:33:13.420 --> 00:33:16.720 be, but. there's not anyway let's include that 00:33:16.720 --> 00:33:20.339 line yeah right quoted there needs to be more 00:33:20.339 --> 00:33:40.869 money towards guns yeah So this is kind of, I 00:33:40.869 --> 00:33:42.490 don't know if this will be a curveball question, 00:33:43.029 --> 00:33:45.309 but as you were talking about that, I was thinking 00:33:45.309 --> 00:33:48.809 about sort of, you know, if you were writing 00:33:48.809 --> 00:33:51.910 the history of today 100 years from now, which, 00:33:52.650 --> 00:33:55.130 yeah, okay, so that's an easy question. No, no, 00:33:55.170 --> 00:33:58.150 do it. No, let's go. But I have like a specific, 00:33:58.329 --> 00:34:00.150 you know, specifically thinking about, you know, 00:34:00.309 --> 00:34:03.640 the surge in gun purchasing among... all sorts 00:34:03.640 --> 00:34:06.019 of groups that are not associated with the stereotypical 00:34:06.019 --> 00:34:09.360 American gun owner. So people of color, women, 00:34:09.820 --> 00:34:13.239 sexualized minorities, liberals. And one of the 00:34:13.239 --> 00:34:15.679 things that I think you get from your retelling 00:34:15.679 --> 00:34:19.000 of the history is there's something very persistent, 00:34:19.000 --> 00:34:21.099 obviously, about white supremacy, but it's also 00:34:21.099 --> 00:34:23.320 dynamic and nimble. And one of the things that 00:34:23.320 --> 00:34:25.099 I've, and something you said earlier just kind 00:34:25.099 --> 00:34:28.840 of struck me, one of the things that I've heard 00:34:28.840 --> 00:34:32.739 in terms of chatter, trying to kind of, Because 00:34:32.739 --> 00:34:35.579 you could think, and I think this is what some 00:34:35.579 --> 00:34:37.860 people actually on different sides of the debate 00:34:37.860 --> 00:34:41.639 sort of saw this surge in purchasing among people 00:34:41.639 --> 00:34:43.500 who, quote unquote, are not the traditional gun 00:34:43.500 --> 00:34:45.980 owners. I don't really like that term. But yeah, 00:34:46.199 --> 00:34:48.960 there's kind of this sense of, oh, this is being, 00:34:49.719 --> 00:34:51.539 gun rights are being democratized. This is going 00:34:51.539 --> 00:34:54.639 to be this space for exactly sort of all the 00:34:54.639 --> 00:34:55.940 things that we're talking about, that rights 00:34:55.940 --> 00:34:57.800 are going to be really rights for everybody. 00:34:58.250 --> 00:35:00.989 And what I've seen is that, OK, so no, that didn't 00:35:00.989 --> 00:35:03.409 happen. But how is that? I mean, in some spaces, 00:35:03.409 --> 00:35:05.309 it did. In some spaces, I think there have been 00:35:05.309 --> 00:35:08.050 shifts in program culture. So it's more complicated. 00:35:08.150 --> 00:35:10.809 But one thing that I've heard, at least in some 00:35:10.809 --> 00:35:15.090 corners, is this chatter that people are buying 00:35:15.090 --> 00:35:17.969 guns because basically they're being gaslit into 00:35:17.969 --> 00:35:19.489 thinking that they're going to be a victim of 00:35:19.489 --> 00:35:21.989 a hate crime, thinking that the political system 00:35:21.989 --> 00:35:24.949 is going to incite violence against them. And 00:35:24.949 --> 00:35:28.579 so actually, it's almost using the like, the 00:35:28.579 --> 00:35:30.280 protection and saying, well, you know, you're 00:35:30.280 --> 00:35:32.800 just you're just overreacting and thinking that, 00:35:32.800 --> 00:35:35.880 you know, racist far right armed groups are going 00:35:35.880 --> 00:35:38.420 to come get you. And it just seems like so I 00:35:38.420 --> 00:35:40.699 guess maybe it's two questions. One, is that 00:35:40.699 --> 00:35:42.920 something that actually is not so historically 00:35:42.920 --> 00:35:45.420 new, this like gaslighting of people's sense 00:35:45.420 --> 00:35:47.480 of safety and their reasons for wanting to have 00:35:47.480 --> 00:35:49.820 guns? And yeah, I guess just like how do you 00:35:49.820 --> 00:35:51.519 think you would write the history of today if 00:35:51.519 --> 00:35:54.619 you could look back 100 years from now? As we 00:35:54.619 --> 00:35:57.079 talked about, right, perceptions of safety are 00:35:57.079 --> 00:35:59.699 important. they're personal and they're informed 00:35:59.699 --> 00:36:01.940 by, I think, the social and cultural worlds around 00:36:01.940 --> 00:36:04.760 us. I would push back against people who are 00:36:04.760 --> 00:36:09.320 saying, right, that people's concerns about inequality, 00:36:10.239 --> 00:36:13.780 about kind of oppressive violence aren't, and 00:36:13.780 --> 00:36:16.579 the likelihood of it happening aren't real. Like, 00:36:17.500 --> 00:36:21.219 that feels like historically inconsistent. I 00:36:21.219 --> 00:36:23.099 mean, it's not lost to me. I'm sitting here in 00:36:23.099 --> 00:36:26.380 Charlottesville and I could, if I could only 00:36:26.380 --> 00:36:27.860 tell you about the conversations me and my mom 00:36:27.860 --> 00:36:30.860 have had about when I was moving here, when we 00:36:30.860 --> 00:36:33.699 went on that road trip together out here. The 00:36:33.699 --> 00:36:36.980 question is, and again, thinking like historically, 00:36:37.679 --> 00:36:41.480 you know, to what extent are guns going to protect 00:36:41.480 --> 00:36:46.440 you from this violence? And I think that's a 00:36:46.440 --> 00:36:50.139 personal decision that people have to make. themselves. 00:36:50.179 --> 00:36:52.659 But I would push back against this idea that 00:36:52.659 --> 00:36:56.699 the concern about violence based on identity 00:36:56.699 --> 00:37:01.320 is not unfounded one. Like it's not it's not 00:37:01.320 --> 00:37:04.340 this like you're making this up. I think part 00:37:04.340 --> 00:37:07.539 of that argument is a historical one. And not 00:37:07.539 --> 00:37:11.820 just a historical but maybe it's like a recent. 00:37:13.539 --> 00:37:17.130 The part about how I would write the history 00:37:17.130 --> 00:37:20.590 of today. Oh, man, I in some ways, I feel like 00:37:20.590 --> 00:37:23.110 I'm gonna be embarrassed when they write the 00:37:23.110 --> 00:37:26.650 history books of this time. I mean, yeah, I don't 00:37:26.650 --> 00:37:29.230 know. And also to just like, thinking about that 00:37:29.230 --> 00:37:30.690 type of question, I think is interesting. Because 00:37:30.690 --> 00:37:32.949 again, I think about time a lot and other research 00:37:32.949 --> 00:37:35.650 that I do. In some ways, it's like there's no 00:37:35.650 --> 00:37:38.579 way to capture the nuances of what is going on 00:37:38.579 --> 00:37:42.260 in our social world. I mean, forget the what's 00:37:42.260 --> 00:37:44.119 going on social politically, right? We've just 00:37:44.119 --> 00:37:46.539 we've been in a pandemic that like, if you didn't 00:37:46.539 --> 00:37:48.219 live through that, I don't know how that's going 00:37:48.219 --> 00:37:49.940 to make any sense to people who didn't experience 00:37:49.940 --> 00:37:52.619 that firsthand. And like how this all shapes 00:37:52.619 --> 00:37:55.280 how we're thinking about what makes us feel safe 00:37:55.280 --> 00:37:59.760 in a more, you know, socially isolated and continually 00:37:59.760 --> 00:38:05.469 so world and polarized world. I hope that And 00:38:05.469 --> 00:38:07.690 so instead of focusing on what the specific history 00:38:07.690 --> 00:38:09.710 will write, I guess I'll focus on the trends. 00:38:09.929 --> 00:38:16.469 I hope that we can write a history where at some 00:38:16.469 --> 00:38:18.909 point in the near future we wrestle with these 00:38:18.909 --> 00:38:22.710 questions. But I question that. I think right 00:38:22.710 --> 00:38:29.440 now part of what Makes i think reckoning with 00:38:29.440 --> 00:38:31.659 reality so hard is there just so many different 00:38:31.659 --> 00:38:35.239 mythologies that exist i mean beyond just misinformation 00:38:35.239 --> 00:38:39.619 i think that serve to try and keep. are social 00:38:39.619 --> 00:38:42.639 and structural in the status quo like the same. 00:38:42.920 --> 00:38:45.820 There's a lot of psychology that speaks to, you 00:38:45.820 --> 00:38:48.360 know, how do we, you know, justify systems or 00:38:48.360 --> 00:38:52.900 how do kind of mythologies, whether that's meritocracy 00:38:52.900 --> 00:38:56.139 or this, you know, rugged individualism, you 00:38:56.139 --> 00:39:00.460 know, shape how we try to justify inequality 00:39:00.460 --> 00:39:03.719 or the status quo. And I think a lot of those 00:39:03.719 --> 00:39:07.380 kind of system -justifying mythologies are very 00:39:07.380 --> 00:39:10.610 salient. now, which I think impedes us having 00:39:10.610 --> 00:39:13.150 these deeper conversations that I would argue 00:39:13.150 --> 00:39:16.389 are at the root of, and other, I think historians, 00:39:16.750 --> 00:39:18.610 again, Carol Anderson and a lot of other folks 00:39:18.610 --> 00:39:21.869 have argued are more close to the root of our 00:39:21.869 --> 00:39:24.690 gun problem. So my hope is that we would be able 00:39:24.690 --> 00:39:28.010 to have conversations and deeper reckonings with 00:39:28.010 --> 00:39:31.269 that. But in the ways that we're thinking about 00:39:31.269 --> 00:39:33.650 which history should or shouldn't be taught, 00:39:34.070 --> 00:39:39.110 I think rollbacks of explicit efforts to at least 00:39:39.110 --> 00:39:43.349 express commitment, even if it's, you know, a 00:39:43.349 --> 00:39:46.269 window dressing to things like equity and inclusion. 00:39:46.849 --> 00:39:50.570 It does kind of dampers the potential for that 00:39:50.570 --> 00:39:55.809 reality. But yeah, I do worry about how history 00:39:55.809 --> 00:39:59.449 will look back on this period. And I hope it's 00:39:59.449 --> 00:40:02.610 more of a hopeful trajectory than kind of a tragic 00:40:02.610 --> 00:40:05.059 demise that we're heading towards. Well, I think 00:40:05.059 --> 00:40:07.840 on that note, I feel like that's I think we've 00:40:07.840 --> 00:40:10.360 wrapped up. Actually, one more question. Book 00:40:10.360 --> 00:40:13.500 recommendation. Can you leave us with a book 00:40:13.500 --> 00:40:15.519 recommendation? What are you reading now? Oh, 00:40:15.860 --> 00:40:20.219 man. There's a couple. And so again, I have to 00:40:20.219 --> 00:40:22.440 shout out my mom on this one because this she 00:40:22.440 --> 00:40:24.679 just sent this to me in the mail a few months 00:40:24.679 --> 00:40:27.920 and a few months ago, but randomly last year. 00:40:27.920 --> 00:40:29.900 And I was just like, where did you find this? 00:40:30.059 --> 00:40:33.630 But it's Negroes with guns by Robert. Williams, 00:40:34.110 --> 00:40:36.670 which, you know, describes kind of a leader of 00:40:36.670 --> 00:40:41.230 a chapter of NAACP and how his perspective on 00:40:41.230 --> 00:40:45.010 firearms changed and was used to resist white 00:40:45.010 --> 00:40:48.789 supremacists and, you know, local and state violence 00:40:48.789 --> 00:40:51.130 that was targeting Black Americans. I mean, it's 00:40:51.130 --> 00:40:55.050 one of those stories that draw into question, 00:40:55.170 --> 00:40:57.590 like, you know, is this something that can help 00:40:57.590 --> 00:41:00.510 protect communities in a way that provides support? 00:41:00.539 --> 00:41:03.079 or black communities from, you know, racialized 00:41:03.079 --> 00:41:05.099 violence and ways that support that argument, 00:41:05.139 --> 00:41:08.619 but also to still show the violence that can 00:41:08.619 --> 00:41:11.760 still come even with the armament. And so that 00:41:11.760 --> 00:41:16.320 was that's one. Also reading Afro pessimism, 00:41:16.579 --> 00:41:19.400 which is part of a book club that just got started 00:41:19.400 --> 00:41:21.800 here. Sorry not to interrupt you, but I have 00:41:21.800 --> 00:41:24.059 been thinking about that book this entire interview. 00:41:24.460 --> 00:41:27.960 And so that's just. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's 00:41:27.960 --> 00:41:31.280 a yeah, that one that one's been it's not challenging 00:41:31.280 --> 00:41:33.000 in terms of the read I think it's really well 00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:35.440 written but just like having to sit with the 00:41:35.440 --> 00:41:38.619 ideas because again, it's it's literally Afro 00:41:38.619 --> 00:41:41.719 pessimism. So like not seeking for I think this 00:41:41.719 --> 00:41:44.179 hope at the end of the tunnel, which is I had 00:41:44.179 --> 00:41:47.820 to realize that I think that as a social psychologist 00:41:47.820 --> 00:41:50.019 and I think broadly around the scientists like 00:41:50.019 --> 00:41:53.219 there's this Hope that we often like a record 00:41:53.219 --> 00:41:55.679 reach for and I think this is challenging of 00:41:55.679 --> 00:41:57.900 like well What like what do you do when there 00:41:57.900 --> 00:42:00.300 isn't that hope and can you recognize and reckon 00:42:00.300 --> 00:42:03.159 with? They're not being a light at the end of 00:42:03.159 --> 00:42:07.039 the tunnel and still you know persist and make 00:42:07.039 --> 00:42:10.699 sense and find meaning and value and in life 00:42:10.699 --> 00:42:13.090 and love and that and that That's been an interesting 00:42:13.090 --> 00:42:14.789 journey, particularly as we think about guns. 00:42:15.329 --> 00:42:18.489 And the last thing I'll say is I was at a moderated 00:42:18.489 --> 00:42:22.530 a workshop with kind of three prominent gun violence 00:42:22.530 --> 00:42:24.809 scholars, both that are coming from different 00:42:24.809 --> 00:42:27.150 kind of domains, whether it's like hospital based 00:42:27.150 --> 00:42:30.969 intervention work or kind of folks doing randomized 00:42:30.969 --> 00:42:33.650 controlled trials and like how to stop gun violence 00:42:33.650 --> 00:42:37.909 and like more, I think, community research and 00:42:38.110 --> 00:42:41.110 All of them said that I think we should just 00:42:41.110 --> 00:42:43.730 get used to guns. Like, I think we should normalize 00:42:43.730 --> 00:42:45.510 the idea that everyone will be a gun owner at 00:42:45.510 --> 00:42:48.550 one point. And that to me felt like the most 00:42:48.550 --> 00:42:51.550 pessimistic view of guns. And I struggle with 00:42:51.550 --> 00:42:53.570 that. I still struggle with that today. Is that 00:42:53.570 --> 00:42:55.389 where we're headed? Where everyone is a gun owner. 00:42:56.269 --> 00:42:58.469 And to know that there are some people, again, 00:42:58.630 --> 00:43:03.789 who are more closely interacting in these spaces, 00:43:04.409 --> 00:43:08.650 that's where their head is at. I think that's 00:43:08.650 --> 00:43:11.889 something that it's important for us to sit with 00:43:11.889 --> 00:43:15.469 and reckon with as well. Well, I wish this conversation 00:43:15.469 --> 00:43:19.690 could go on and on, but it has to end. So thank 00:43:19.690 --> 00:43:22.409 you so much, Dr. Gerald Higginbotham, joining 00:43:22.409 --> 00:43:24.550 us on Guns Unpacked. Thank you so much for your 00:43:24.550 --> 00:43:25.769 work. Thank you for having me.