Gun Violence Prevention with Reed Alexander

Gun Violence Prevention with Reed Alexander

In 2018, thousands of young Americans took to the streets to advocate for tighter gun laws following the devastating mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida. But over two years later, gun laws are still a contentious topic in United States politics, and many people headed out to the polls with this issue at the forefront of their minds. 

On October 13, with less than a month to go leading up to the 2020 election, The Conversationalist Founder and CEO Sophie Beren spoke with Reed Alexander and Gen Z panelists about gun violence in the United States. The panelists shared how gun violence has impacted their lives and how they want to see lawmakers address the issue going forward. 

I rue the day...

Our panel host, Reed Alexander, is a journalist who currently covers Wall Street at Business Insider. Previously, he was best known for playing Nevel Papperman on Nickelodeon’s iCarly. Reed’s journalistic experience brought the conversation to new depths and encouraged the panelists to break open their echo chambers and speak on their experiences with courage. He introduced the conversation by providing statistics that demonstrated the deep national divide surrounding the topic of gun violence.

What are some direct experiences you’ve had in your life that have illustrated the impacts of gun violence? 

Joshua Turner is a college student and gun violence prevention advocate from Baltimore, Maryland. In his work, he looks to address the root causes of the gun violence that plague Black communities scarcity, institutionalized racism, trauma, and how these are different from the causes of high profile mass shootings. He also spoke about the way gun violence has touched him personally. “I can tell you all across the board, especially when it comes down to gun violence that plagues the African-American community at an alarming rate, is that it's a fight for survival,” he said. “I remember growing up and hearing that my brother was shot and killed as a result of gun violence, as a result of him fighting to survive.”

Alexander expressed his condolences to Joshua and asked him how his family had rebuilt following his brother’s death.

 “My father now is slow to speak in conversation. He has never been the same since. It shattered him,” Joshua said. “I think it's something about when you lose your firstborn son. You know every parent loves their child equally, but it's something special about your firstborn where you expect him to be the first to do everything [and] for the first to be able to pave the way for the people coming behind him. His life was sadly cut short as a result of gun violence.” 

He added that he couldn’t be angry at the perpetrator because of the systemic abuse and racism that factored into his life position. 

Isabella D'Alacio, a junior at George Mason University and Federal Policy Associate for March For Our Lives thanked Joshua for sharing his story. Isabella grew up in Parkland and Miami, Florida, and has personally felt the effects of gun violence. “To see one of the deadliest mass shootings in our country happen just 20 minutes from where I grew up, it shook me to my core,” she said. “It was like, ‘Wow, I once knew these kids, and now if I look into the yearbook, they're dead.’ That was insane to me and so it kind of opened my eyes to the issue of gun violence in America.”

In addition to this experience, Isabella has also witnessed gun violence while living in Miami, addressed stereotypes about her home state, and spoke about the lack of structural solutions. 

“Florida man has become a national joke, but it's also my reality growing up,” she said. “Florida man is the man who killed my friend's mother when I was eight years old, a man who has shot someone I’ve known,” she said. “I blame lawmakers that have blood on their hands for their inefficiency in addressing these root causes of gun violence and preventative solutions,” she said.

Should officials step in to regulate and start solving these problems?

Noah Howard, a senior at the University of North Texas, said that he has never been directly impacted by gun violence, so his opinions on the topic come from statistics and studies. However, restrictions placed on these studies make it difficult to get a clear picture of what’s going on and emphasized the need for more activities such as the CDC investigation President Obama ordered following the Sandy Hook shooting. “Those steps should be a bipartisan issue,” he said. “Everybody can agree that having more honest and true and down-to-earth research that provides us with information to make a proper decision about how to prevent these things is the best way going forward.”

According to the group Everytown, at least 100 Americans are killed by guns every single day. If Sandy Hook and Parkland weren’t enough to enact meaningful legislation to prevent gun violence, what will it take? 

Zeb Harshbarger, a student at Lycoming College and State Chair with Young Americans for Liberty, said that he believed those events were not caused by a lack of laws to prevent gun violence but a lack of security. “We have been taking it too many steps forward, restricting even law-abiding citizens’ ability to express their second amendment rights. I know this as someone who is a concealed carry license holder and a gun owner,” he said. “There are a lot of restrictions that go into purchasing a gun, but those restrictions can be overpassed by just lying or cheating or some other forms that can allow people to bypass the legal system without even trying. But obviously, those restrictions will keep law-abiding individuals from being able to express their Second Amendment rights.”

Reed respectfully challenged Zeb’s answer and pointed out that it’s difficult to say who has the potential to become dangerous. So, in that case, how do we weed out the possibility for dangerous people to get firearms and aim them on innocent people?

Zeb emphasized the importance of increasing security, which he believes would prevent any person with a gun from using it to inflict violence on others.

If you were in Congress, how would you work with your right/left-leaning counterparts to find common ground on gun violence?

“Gun violence prevention shouldn't be a partisan problem. We are working to save people's lives, and if that becomes partisan, that's a huge problem,” Leora Greene said. Leora is a Colorado State University student and Western Regional Coordinator for a youth-run non-profit called Not My Generation. Politically, she leans to the left. When it comes to policy, she advocates for banning assault rifles and assault weapons and fighting to enforce extreme risk protection orders to ensure people are safe inside their own homes.

Raegan Meguiar is a high school student from Bowling Green, Kentucky, who, like Leora, also leans left politically. She said that in her experience, many of the gun owners in her state are uneducated about gun safety and protection, so this would be her area of focus as a representative.

Abigail Leyden, a high school student from Chicago who is involved with After School Matters, agreed with Raegan’s points about gun safety. When it comes to preventing mass shooting events, she brought up credible threats. “I think it's important that we take every threat as something that could be probable and could happen,” she said. 

Who is your candidate, and why does that person have it right on gun violence? If you’re not comfortable sharing, what is one thing we can do in 2021 to have a safer country? 

Choosing to answer Reed’s second question, Abigail spoke about the importance of after-school programming as a tool for gun violence prevention. Her organization, After School Matters, allows students to get involved with their communities and keep busy. 

Zeb planned to vote for Donald Trump, even though he believed the President could do better when protecting individual gun rights. He expressed that a Biden-Harris presidency would mean fewer rights for gun owners. “I feel that if Biden and Harris were to win the Presidency, then there would be more laws put into place without there being any effective way to solve the issue of gun violence,” he said. 

Noah chose Donald Trump. He believes the conversation around gun violence doesn’t encapsulate the issue of the crime itself. “If you compare statistics between other countries when you look at just gun violence, it would seem that America does have a severe gun violence issue,” he said. “But what we forget about that kind of framing is that America is one of the only countries that have as lax gun regulations as we do, and if you look at crime data, you find that America is well within the range of normalcy.” 

Leora said that she would be voting for Joe Biden and believes that he has a strong record on gun violence. She also encouraged everyone to look into the various down-ballot races. “I know that people are voting for senators and representatives and local positions,” she said. “In terms of gun violence, those are just as important if not more important than the presidential election because that's where we see the most change happening.”

Isabella agreed with Greene and said that she would be voting for Biden but wanted to remind everyone of the importance of down-ballot races. “Right now, universal background checks have passed in the House for over a year, and it's up to the Senate to decide,” she said. “It's been in the Senate for over a year. This is critical, life-saving legislation that needs to pass.”

Raegan is too young to vote but said she would vote for Biden and Harris if she could. However, she said that she’s put much of her energy into the Senate race between Mitch McConnell and Amy McGrath. “I think that voting in your state and making sure that you have people in your state that believe in what you believe in and are there to help support states’ rights and can help enable policies even closer to home is important,” she said. “So please go vote for the people that can't.”

Joshua planned to vote for Biden because he believed he is more equipped to address gun violence in Black communities. However, he said that if Biden won the election, he planned to hold him accountable consistently. 

“What's happening to black people in this country is beyond atrocious,” he said. “There's no good way to look at the numbers when, in reality, a disproportionate effect falls on people like me.”

After a Q&A and chat with his best friend Sophie, Reed left The Conversationalist community with some powerful parting words:

“I think what's amazing about The Conversationalist is it's taught us that it's okay to have a diversity of thought and a diversity of opinion, so it's a good way to develop your conversational skills,” he said. “Find one [person] that you can have an open bond with. I think that will help people understand that [many] of our fears are based on the idea of rejection. If you have one person who's willing to listen to you and respect you and respect what you think, that can go a long way in diminishing the fear of rejection. So for those people searching for their voice, find that one person to be your anchor, and then hopefully, later on, whether it's a month, a year, or ten years from now, you will find that proverbial megaphone and share your voice with all of us because I can tell you, we are eager to hear it. We are eager to listen, and we're eager to talk back.”

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