Front Burner - ‘A sickening déjà vu’: Two US mass shootings in one weekend stuns reporter

Episode Date: August 6, 2019

This past weekend saw two back-to-back mass shootings in the United States: one in El Paso, Texas, and one in Dayton, Ohio. At least thirty-one people are dead. Dozens more injured. Today on Front Burner, we talk to writer Jennifer Mascia about gun violence and reform in America. She’s a reporter with The Trace, a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to covering gun-related news.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. It took less than one minute for a man to kill nine people and wound 27 others in Dayton, Ohio's Entertainment District early Sunday morning. Had this individual made it through the doorway with that level of weaponry, there would have been a catastrophic injury and loss of life. Hours earlier, another man accused of posting a racist, anti-immigrant manifesto drove from Dallas, Texas to a Walmart in El Paso and opened fire, leaving at least 22 dead and more than two dozen injured.

He wasn't breathing hard. He was the calmest person ever. He didn't say anything, just plain hatred and just anger. And just days before that, three people, including two kids, were shot dead and 13 more injured at a garlic festival in Gilroy, California. It can all feel like too much to comprehend, and yet it also feels incredibly familiar. Today, I'm speaking with Jennifer Macia about these shootings and what they tell us about the perplexing state of gun violence in America. She's a writer with The Trace, a newsroom dedicated to that very issue. I'm Jamie Poisson. This is FrontBurner.

Jennifer, thank you so much for joining us today. I know that we've reached you in your newsroom in Brooklyn and you're incredibly busy right now. We're so appreciative. Thank you for having me. So I understand that this weekend you were covering the mass shooting in El Paso when another mass shooting occurred. A second mass shooting in the United States in less than 24 hours. Two in 24 hours. You are waking up now, I am so sorry to tell you, to nine more people who've been killed.

And can you tell me what your reaction was when you looked at your phone and saw what was happening in Dayton, Ohio? I got a text message from a friend at around six in the morning. And I don't know if that's what woke me up. It must have. I saw it. And then I saw the AP and the New York Times alert right above it. And I said to myself, I must be dreaming. This isn't really happening. It was a sense of deja vu, but it was a sickening deja vu. Not Again doesn't even quite cover it. It was like, immediately my thought was, not only how can our small newsroom handle this, how can the country handle this back to back? It's just one on top

of the other. I don't think I've ever experienced that, like that. And I've been covering this for six years. You know, I thought in close proximity was having Las Vegas, and then five weeks later, having Sutherland Springs. That to me was close proximity. We go like a few weeks or even a month without, and when I say mass shooting, I mean a public multiple fatality, random mass shooting. And I'll start to get like a little itch. Uh-oh, we're due. You know, like people in California, they live with earthquakes. We haven't had one in a while. That's what it's become in this country. So a few weeks, a couple weeks ago, I said to myself, you know what, we're due.

Parkland was huge. Santa Fe. We're going to have something really catastrophic again. And then, you know, sure enough, two weekends with back-to-back mass shootings. Sure enough, two weekends with back-to-back mass shootings. Make it to the west side of Walmart, please. He shot eight more rounds. And all I can say is, God, please take care of my children.

Oh, ****. My cousins did not deserve to lose their life. They had children, hardworking people. All they was doing was enjoying a night on the town and they're dead. Never to come home again, never to see their family again. They're gone. Can I ask you, how many mass shootings have you covered since you started this? We have covered 40 active shootings. Those are shootings that we stopped the newsroom, all hands on deck. That is not a comprehensive list. But since we've launched, which was the day after Charleston, 40 active shootings. What about this year alone? We have had 251 mass shootings. Oh, excuse me, 252 mass shootings. And we have had 18 of those have been what the government defines as mass murder or the FBI has defined as mass murder, which is four people killed.

And it's only July, August. It's only July. August. It's only August. I have been following this over the weekend, and there have been several moments that have really stuck with me. But one was listening to the mayor of Dayton, Ohio, Nan Whealy, talk about how she's received calls from mayors all over the country who are just telling her that they've gone through the same thing. It's quite stunning. There is a bevy of mayors that are able to give great advice and feedback.

I think that's, quite frankly, a little sad, if you think about it, that they've learned so much because all of their communities have gone through these terrible mass shootings. It's stunning. It's a fraternity nobody wants to join. And I wonder, I see this happening in city after city, and I see law enforcement officers and hospital officials who never imagined that they would be standing in front of a bank of microphones talking about a number of dead people at once.

So I'm the chief of police for the city of Gilroy, Scott Smithy. Obviously, this is one of those press conferences that you never want to have to give in your community. And it puts them in such an unexpected, uncomfortable spotlight. And you can see the pain. And I have noticed that as these things have gone on over the years, that as these things have gone on over the years, more and more local officials and law enforcement officials have started to state in the press conference, we have a problem with gun violence in this country. And this is the result. And that is something that I didn't see happen. Everyone was, and it's so funny to say in America that there's a gun violence problem

is a political statement. It shouldn't be. It's a public health problem. But it is seen as a political statement. So the fact that public leaders are starting to say this more and more is significant. I said, Mr. President, I'm from southern Ohio. People have rifles. They have handguns. We're not East Coast or West Coast folks that say no guns at all. I said, but I don't understand why anybody, why any citizen would need that gun. Of course, the mayor said that. Also, the chief of police of Dayton,

Ohio, I noticed today at a press conference said that he thought it was essentially unacceptable for the shooter in the Dayton shooting to have had the weaponry that he had. It is fundamentally problematic. To have that level of weaponry in a civilian environment, unregulated, is problematic. There's a movement, including among military veterans, that these weapons should not be available to civilians. I know the power of this weapon firsthand. Firsthand. Firsthand. And there is no reason. No reason. No reason. Why anyone other than military and law enforcement should have an assault weapon like this. And I find it very interesting when military veterans and law enforcement officials speak about this. They

understand the power of weaponry. They know what gun violence does. They know what bullets do. And if they're saying that civilians should not have these weapons, people tend to listen. I want to introduce the mayor, DeMarco, who's next. Eight of the individuals who have lost their lives come from our sister state of Chihuahua, Mexico. We're one region and we will honor every victim like they were a member of our community. I'm hoping that we can talk about the El Paso shooting for a moment. The suspected killer seems to have written a racist anti-immigrant manifesto, some of it echoing President Trump's language around immigrants. It's three pages of hatred against immigrants and people, you know, viewed as basically invaders to the United States. He shared that manifesto online on 8chan, a message board where there's a lot of Internet hate.

And this also happened at a Walmart in the proudly open carry state of Texas, where guns are very much part of the culture. And as far as we know, all of these threads came together in this one horrific massacre. You know, have you ever covered a mass shooting quite like this before, where it feels like multiple fault lines are converging at once? Well, Trump wasn't president, but Charleston, the Charleston church shooting, definitely. What was said in this manifesto is incredibly hateful. This is what it says. I have no choice. I am not in the position to alone go into the ghetto and fight. I mean, the fact that both gunmen from El Paso and Charleston were charged, or possibly the El Paso gunman will be charged with federal hate crimes, which is what the Charleston gunman was charged with. You know, there is there is some similarities in those two cases.

But the rhetoric has never come from the top. I know a lot of people are pointing to President Trump. You know, that's not our job here at The Trace. However, the rhetoric has been out there, even when Barack Obama was president, and domestic terror has not been given the same amount of energy by the federal government that foreign terror has. So pointing out this strain of domestic terrorism from Oklahoma City all the way up to El Paso is extremely important because then the government can dedicate resources to fighting it. And they're definitely, if you compare to foreign terror, the resources are not there. In fact, they've been cut

in recent years. I'm also interested in your perspective on the site 8chan. So in the manifesto, the suspected killer references the Christchurch shooter who also wrote a racist screed and posted it on 8chan before he killed 51 Muslims at prayer in New Zealand. What are we to make of these shooters drawing inspiration from one another in this way? Well, the contagion effect is real. Researchers have studied it. Researchers have studied it. Part of the reason researchers think, part of the reason that they do what they do is because they're trying to achieve some kind of an infamy. And as we've seen on these message boards, little cults kind of form around each individual shooter's infamy.

Specifically, I've written about this, the incel phenomenon, gunmen in that vein, like the Isla Vista killer, they have really gotten a lot of adoration on these sites. You know, it's tricky because one gets shut down, like we saw with HN, and another one, they'll find another server. I mean, another one will pop up. And when you say HN was shut down, we're talking about the decision made yesterday by this company called Cloudflare, which essentially was protecting 8chan against cyber attacks. And so Cloudflare pulled its services, right? And then 8chan, I think it might be popping up a little bit on Monday afternoon, but it had gone dark as of sort of Sunday morning. It had gone dark as of sort of Sunday morning. Cloudflare issued a very, very strong statement citing the fact that A-chan has been used as an inspiration for future shooters and kind of an incubator for this kind of violence.

Cloudflare's chief executive, Matthew Prince, calls A-chan, quote, a cesspool of hate. We draw the line at platforms that have demonstrated they directly inspired tragic events and are lawless by design. HN has crossed that line. And they distanced themselves very strongly from the site. And they did mention Christchurch because past gunmen have posted screeds before opening fire. But they did mention that when they terminated their business arrangement with Daily Stormer, a white supremacist website, it popped up on another server. Right. It's like a game of whack-a-mole. Exactly. To go back to President Trump for a moment, on Monday, he condemned white supremacy and racism.

These sinister ideologies must be defeated. Hate has no place in America. Hatred warps the mind, ravages the heart, and devours the soul. But then he also ascribed blame to mental illness and violent video games. It is too easy today for troubled youth to surround themselves with a culture that celebrates violence. Mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun. I wonder, what do you make of those comments? Blaming the media has been around since the 90s, since Columbine. Every country has the same video games, media, and social media.

Only America makes it this easy to get guns. In terms of mental illness, Only America makes it this easy to get guns. In terms of mental illness, research has shown that mental illness is not necessarily a predictor of future violence. In fact, most mentally ill people have violence perpetrated upon them. What it really is about is access to guns. That is a finding from a researcher quite recently. And we've also found that anger takes much more of a role in these kinds of shootings. And from your perspective, this is what you think is going on in the United States,

this deadly mix of access to guns and anger. That's exactly it. And that's actually what's going on in everyday shootings as well. Before I came to The Trace, I was covering gun violence at The New York Times. And I noticed that a lot of the people that were getting shot every day were people who would probably get into a scuffle

and a fist fight, but they had a gun in the glove compartment. So it became a shootout. And that's the key, the fact that the gun is there. At the beginning of this conversation, you mentioned that you're seeing an increase in calls, particularly from public figures. And so, you know, what are these calls for change asking for? In a way, what I see really is just, and it sounds crazy, but it's kind of just revolutionary to state the problem, which is something that wasn't even being done before. So when local law enforcement officials say, you know, gun violence is an epidemic in this country. And, you know, this

is why we're sitting here. A lot of police chiefs do say we need to regulate access to guns. City police chiefs, urban police chiefs, they absolutely do speak out about that. But what's interesting is hospital officials, like people who are not necessarily political actors also are using their time to inform people about victims to say, look, this is a problem. Do you think that that's going to move the needle? You know, another moment I noticed over the weekend was Governor of Ohio Mike DeWine was essentially heckled at a vigil. People were screaming, do something at him. To tell you that we care. at a vigil, people were screaming, do something, at him.

To tell you that we care. My wife, Fran, and I. Wow, that's, since Parkland, I think, since those teen activists kind of paved the way for what activism on gun reform looks like. We're going to make this the voting issue. We need to pay attention to the fact that this isn't just a mental health issue. He wouldn't have harmed that many students with a knife.

I think that it has spread to adults, but the problem is that we are represented by a political minority. If you look at the country, like 90% of Americans want gun reform, stricter vetting for access to guns. And if something's not being done, I mean, that's not translating to lawmaker action. I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised. Whether that's actually going to do anything is a completely different story. I wonder if you might be able to explain to me,

is a completely different story. I wonder if you might be able to explain to me, as someone who lives in Canada, why it is that there is so much public opinion in support of gun reform in the United States, and yet nothing can get done. You know, I do have a hard time wrapping my head around it, even though I keep hearing the same arguments. Nothing's getting done on the federal level. But on the state level, there are laws that are being passed. The problem is, your state could have strong gun control laws, and the state next door could have weak gun control laws, and then you have a flow of guns into your state. So that's why people focus on federal action. And there has been very little federal action since the Brady Bill in the 90s because people fear the political repercussions of clashing with a very powerful gun lobby. But it's not just a gun lobby. It's not just one organization now.

It's a pro-gun strain that mobilizes voters. And no politician wants to end their career. And it really is fear. A lot of people say it's money. It really is fear of the electorate. Why would it ruin their career? You know, how is that possible if 90% of people support some kind of gun reform? Because they're not voting. The people who are mobilized to vote are the people who are pro-gun advocates, activists, and extremists. They're the ones who will go to the polls. I don't want to belabor this point too much.

I still struggle with it because 90% seems like such a large number. We struggle with it too. It's hard to understand how the electorate can believe in something, but it's not translating to legislative action. That is starting to change. I see Democrats, especially since Parkland, but a little bit before, come out for policies that they weren't talking about for decades. Gun registration, federal licensing to buy a firearm. These are no-brainers in most countries. But the fact that Democratic candidates for president are openly speaking about them is significant.

We can ban the weapons of war, but we can also double down on the research. I will give the United States Congress 100 days to get their act together and have the courage to pass reasonable gun safety laws. If you need a license to drive a car, you should need a license to buy and own a firearm. They've been too scared for decades. Joining us to discuss what path our political leaders could or should be taking, Gerard Valentino, co-founder of Buckeye Firearms. Where we draw the line is taking away somebody's fundamental right without proper due diligence and without some type of legal process to do that. Taking away somebody's fundamental right, any of the fundamental rights,

we happen to be talking about the gun rights here, but it really wouldn't matter whether we were talking about First Amendment rights, without some type of due process is something that I don't think any American would want to stand for. What are the concrete changes that you'd like to see made that you think could actually make a difference? The only thing that will actually make a difference is by restricting gun access. And that means restricting gun access to only people who are qualified. And we're talking comprehensive vetting. I mean, we have job interviews that are comprehensive. For a gun, all you need to do is submit to a background check that tells the gun dealer whether you have committed a crime that's bad enough to disqualify

you from owning a gun. That doesn't tell you anything else about the person, whether they're an alcohol abuser or whether they are going through a contemptuous divorce, there is a system called permit to purchase where they require gun buyers to get a license before purchasing a gun. And that is really the only system that's going to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them. And what about the guns that are already out there? So I think the number's 300 million, right, in the country? Yeah, it must be just mind-boggling for people outside the country to hear that. And it's mind-boggling for me to hear that. More guns than citizens in America, but they are in fewer and fewer hands. If America suddenly decided to ban guns from here on in, it would take generations for gun violence

to calm down because of all the guns that are out there. Guns last a long time. They're built to last. It's a problem. We wouldn't see any progress on any major gun reform legislation for at least a generation, which is why it is not a sexy issue. If it ever passed, gun rights activists and Republicans would call it a failure because it didn't make everything better overnight. It would be difficult. What would it say to you if this, I think it's fair to call this an intolerable situation, a situation in which there have been 250 mass shootings in a year, in which dozens of lives were snuffed out in 13 hours, continues to be tolerated. Tolerated by Senate Republicans.

The one impediment right now to gun reform, aside from Trump's veto, is the Senate. The House passed a universal background check bill. Well, for the first time since the Clinton administration, the House of Representatives passes significant gun control legislation. On this vote, the yeas are 240 and the nays are 190. And the Senate will not take it up. Right. It's essentially sitting on the desk of Mitch McConnell right now, right? Yes. He is the one block.

Do you think it's likely that that could make it through the Senate? I'd like to say I've seen everything in the last few years of American life, but it doesn't look likely. Mm-hmm. One last thing I wanted to talk to you about, as a journalist, For me, I know what it feels like when I cover something often. It has this way of taking a certain toll on me. And so as someone who's covering this issue day in and day out and speaking with the families who have lost loved ones and also, I imagine, countless victims who have had their lives torn apart even though they

have survived these shootings. You know, what kind of toll is this taking on you personally? There was a time in every mass shooting where I would read a detail and I would have to excuse myself and compose myself. It's happening less and less. I'm building up, I guess, what you can call a callous, an emotional callous. Does that bother you? Yeah, it bothers me. But I wonder how many more of these we're going to have, how much it's going to continue to bother me. I can sit here and say that we will definitely have another catastrophic mass shooting before the end of the year. And imagine living in a country where that's true.

Yeah. Sorry, that was hard to listen to. Jennifer, thank you so much. Thank you. So before I let you go today, I want to focus on some Canadian news because it was a bad weekend in Toronto for gun violence as well. A shooting broke out at a busy nightclub after an altercation on Monday morning. Five people were injured with one male left in life-threatening condition. And according to Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders, from Saturday to Monday,

police were called to 11 separate firearm incidents, which left 13 people with gunshot wounds. This is not a normal weekend in the city of Toronto. And rest assured that I'll be providing the resources where they need to be to solve these cases and also working with various stakeholders to see what we can do to help reduce the gun violence that's happening in the city. Data is quite sparse on this but it's largely believed that the majority of guns used in crimes are smuggled from the United States into Canada. Canadian source guns are an issue too. Several cities have been calling for a nationwide handgun ban. We recently did an episode about this, which you can find in our feed. We'll tweet

it out as well. That's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson, and thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner.ca slash podcasts. It's 2011 and the Arab Spring is raging. A lesbian activist in Syria starts a blog. She names it Gay Girl in Damascus. Am I crazy? Maybe. As her profile grows, so does the danger. The object of the email was please read this while sitting down. It's like a genie came out of the bottle and you can't put it back. Gay Girl Gone. Available now.