WBD172 Audio Transcription

Gun Violence Prevention with Texas Gun Sense

Interview date: Thursday 22nd November 2019

Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Leesa Ross and Gyl Switzer from Texas Gun Sense. I have reviewed the transcription but if you find any mistakes, please feel free to email me. You can listen to the original recording here.

In this interview, I talk to Executive Director at Texas Gun Sense, Gyl Switzer and Leesa Ross from Lock Arms for Life, whose son was killed in a handgun accident. We discuss their approach to gun ownership while still supporting the 2nd Amendment.

“There isn’t a gun owner out that that doesn’t believe safety should be the number one rule.”

— Leesa Ross

Interview Transcription

Peter McCormack: Hi Leesa, hi Gyl, thank you for coming on.

Gyl Switzer: Thank you for having us as well.

Leesa Ross: Thank you!

Peter McCormack: Okay, so Leesa, I said I would explain the background to this, so I'll give you the story of how we've got to the point, the three of us are sitting here. I run a Bitcoin show, it's probably the most listened to Bitcoin show, I wouldn't say the best, other people would say other shows are better and the thing about Bitcoin is there's a lot of alignment between Bitcoin and libertarianism. So what I found myself coming across when I was coming to America a lot, was that there's a lot of people who consider themselves self-sovereign and think about guns and gun ownership as a right.

I come from the UK where we don't really have a big gun culture. I can only think of two mass shootings, which was one in Hungerford by Michael Ryan when I was a kid and then the Dunblane shooting. There's been other smaller ones, but we don't certainly have them like the US and what happened was as I was seeing shootings on the news, I was going onto Twitter and going, "this is ridiculous, why have you got this liberal gun culture?"

And I had a lot of come back at me, a lot of people saying, "you don't understand what you're talking about, you don't understand America." So what I did is, I kind of educated myself on it and I've now shot guns, which by the way scared the living shit out of me! I actually was blown away by how powerful they are, watching the bullet go from the gun to the target, it blew my mind! 

But I also did an interview which you kindly listened to, which is great and I did that to understand a bit more from somebody who is pro guns. It is only fair as a journalist now that I hear the other side. I've written to people in Washington, no one's replied and I was coming to Texas and I was like, "I wonder if there's anyone in Texas?"

I texted Gyl the other night and she replied. So that's the background, thank you for coming on. I'm going to start with you Leesa, because you obviously have a personal story here, which I don't know anything about, but Gyl told me you have a personal story. So I think it's really important to hear that. So thank you for coming on, do you mind telling me the story?

Leesa Ross: Yeah, so my story is that I lost my 23 year old son to a gun tragedy. He was a college student, he worked for us part time at a dealership that we had up in North Carolina.

Peter McCormack: Where in North Carolina?

Leesa Ross: In a small town called Boone, North Carolina.

Peter McCormack: How far from Raleigh?

Leesa Ross: Probably about three and a half hours from Raleigh. It's really about two hours north of Charlotte, so it's closer to Charlotte than it is to Raleigh.

Peter McCormack: That's where I shot my gun, in North Carolina.

Leesa Ross: Oh my gosh, so that's why, okay. So that night he was going to go see... It was my husband's birthday, so my husband had flown in town because we owned a car dealership there, but we were living here in Texas. So he had flown in with a buddy of his to go golfing on some of the golf courses. You saw the Appalachia mountains, so you know how beautiful they are! Blue Ridge Parkway runs right through parts of Boone, it's absolutely gorgeous.

So the guy he was with had never seen that part of the country and so he wanted to take him and visit it and that kind of stuff. So they went and that night they went to go have dinner with my son, my son was going to school there, working still for us because we still own a car dealership in the town when this happened. Then afterwards my son was going to go see, I don't know if you've ever heard of the hip hop performer named Afroman?

Peter McCormack: Of course! I want to get high? I like a bit of hip hop.

Leesa Ross: Yeah, exactly! Yeah. You know who I'm talking about. So Afroman was in town, so he was going to meet some friends, over at a concert and go see that. They went over, saw the concert and then afterwards, they were going to go over and they kind of met up as a group and then I guess they decided to go over to a friend's house, which most 23 year olds do and continue to go on with the party! So they met over at another friend's house and he had two firearms sitting on a coffee table.

One of them was not loaded at all, but the other one was fully loaded with a bullet in the chamber. My son had been there maybe, I don't even know, a matter of seconds, minutes, a very short time and someone handed him the firearm, he didn't know it was loaded, he also had been drinking that night. He grabbed the gun, I don't know if he was goofing around with it, if he wasn't, it pointed towards him and it discharged and it killed him.

So at the time too, when we got the report, that we said... My husband again was there and so the sheriff came over to our business partner's home, which is where my husband was staying and said, "there's been a terrible accident, you need to come to the hospital. It's with your 23 year old son, John." So Randy got to the hospital and by the time he had gotten there, John had already passed.

Peter McCormack: What was your son's name?

Leesa Ross: My son's name was John. When he was young, here in Texas, they knew him as Jonathan. But he became John as he got to be older.

Peter McCormack: And what was he studying?

Leesa Ross: To be honest with you, I know he was an English major, but I don't exactly even remember what exactly he was studying to be honest with you.

Peter McCormack: Okay. Does he have siblings?

Leesa Ross: Yes, I have three boys. I have a middle aged son, and then I have a youngest one that just ended up graduating from Boulder.

Peter McCormack: And how long ago did this happen?

Leesa Ross: In 2009, this year was my 10 year anniversary.

Peter McCormack: Wow, so that must've been tough!

Leesa Ross: Yeah, it was, it was really tough.

Peter McCormack: And how is everybody?

Leesa Ross: You know, when you say it's tough, every single day is still tough.

Peter McCormack: I understand.

Leesa Ross: It's like, it's not even like it's... Every day is tough.

Peter McCormack: Every day is tough, but...

Leesa Ross: The anniversaries yes, if that's what you're asking me. Sometimes it's not necessarily the day of the anniversary, but it's the days leading up to the anniversary, because you know that this is what's coming. In the first few years, I didn't even leave my house.

My friends probably wouldn't see me from probably about September till January, because it was literally the day he died, which was in September and then it was his birthday in October and then it was Thanksgiving and then it was Christmas. Then it was like the New Year and I would be like, "okay, I can breathe again, because I can start over." I just went through the worst part, those four months.

Peter McCormack: I understand the anniversary thing, it's not the same situation, but I lost my mom a couple of years ago and what actually happened originally, it was the same date of every month and then her birthday and then Mother's Day and I went through exactly the same. Then I started to try and eliminate all those anniversaries, but I understand it's every day, I do, you never stop thinking about it.

Leesa Ross: There's also the little reminders that people don't realize. Mother's Day was another day that became very, very difficult for me because we're celebrated, these are our children and you're celebrating your kids and you're kids are celebrating you. So that was another part that was really difficult to have. Then the first time I attended a wedding that was a boy getting married and I saw the mother and son dance, that was another moment that I thought that I will never have with my son. So it's little things that sometimes crop up that you don't even realize until it happens.

Peter McCormack: And how is your husband and how are his brothers?

Leesa Ross: Life does go on and we are going on, but there still will always be that hole in all of us, that there's a person missing in our lives. There's a person missing in every picture I take, there's a person missing in my life forever!

Peter McCormack: And is there any part of losing your child that I wouldn't think about? You mentioned going to a wedding and how that's been painful. Is there anything else, that makes life a bit more difficult that I wouldn't have thought about?

Leesa Ross: It depends on the time or period and where you are in the loss, that makes a huge difference. Immediately afterwards, I remember being pulled over by a police officer, as my fog lights weren't on and I'm looking at him thinking, "can you not see, I just lost my child and you're pulling me over about fog lights!" 

Some things just seems so meaningless and when you put it into perspective like that or you'd walked into a grocery store and everybody's busy doing things, you're in this tremendous amount of pain and you're like, "I just lost my son!" Nobody can read what anybody else is going through at that moment.

Peter McCormack: Has it made you more compassionate to others, in that you are aware that other people might be going through a shit day for some reason that you're not aware?

Leesa Ross: Absolutely! Especially, I would say probably... I have a hard time still, even with a lot of the gun tragedies that I read, I hear about and the work that I do brings a lot of that back into my life and it's just a reminder. Sometimes it's even hard to face other survivors because of the fact that you know their pain and they know your pain and it's hard knowing that you know this.

Peter McCormack: So the news must be a very difficult thing for you to watch, especially in the US, because gun deaths are so commonplace and every time must be a trigger. I guess, again, a really poor analogy from my side, but I had a very difficult breakup over my wedding, my marriage only lasted three months. I can't watch weddings on TVs anymore and just things like that. Does it even move over into pop culture, in that if you were to see a film, are guns a trigger for you in films?

Leesa Ross: Sometimes it just depends on if it's the violence and it depends on the type of death that may be. But yes, it does and it plays over into every aspect of your life.

Peter McCormack: Okay. Well I'm really sorry you went through this and I'm hugely grateful that you would share this with me, because it's obviously something very personal and very painful. I am here to learn, but if I ask any tough questions, trust me, I'm asking these for the point of learning and because I know who the audience for the show is, I definitely won't mean to be insensitive in any way.

Leesa Ross: Okay, got it!

Peter McCormack: I just want to ask Gyl a few questions now as well. So Gyl, firstly tell me about Texas Gun Sense, because I wrote to a number of Washington Associations, no one replied and I didn't imagine finding one in Texas and here we are having this conversation. So thank you for scheduling this, but tell me about Texas Gun Sense, who they are, how they came to being, how you came to be involved with them?

Gyl Switzer: Sure! It's hard to follow Leesa and every time, I'm in pain when I hear her story, so I can't even imagine going through that and I have kids of my own, so thank Leesa. So Texas Gun Sense, we're a non-profit, non-partisan organization and our mission is to advocate for common sense, evidence-based policies that reduce gun injuries and deaths.

So that about says what we do. The organization was founded... Some folks were involved when the Texas legislature was considering allowing guns on university campuses. So there were some of the original folks who worked against that. It did pass after three legislative sessions and then after the Sandy Hook massacre, which was the young students in Connecticut, then the organization... That was in December, we just had our sixth anniversary. 

Anyway, we incorporated after the Sandy Hook murder, as Texas Gun Sense. So we do a lot of policy, we spend a lot of time with the Texas legislature, we spend a lot of time with State agencies implementing policies. Then we have an educational component, where we like to go out in the community, hand out information, educate folks. Leesa has this program "Lock arms for life", which I'm sure you'll ask her about, which is another initiative that's fairly new to us, which is just a laser focus on safe storage.

From Leesa's story you can see that if those guns had been appropriately stored, ammunition separate from the firearm, locked away, things might've been different. So she leads the gospel on safe storage!

Peter McCormack: It's a hell of a state to run an association that's campaigning for better gun laws. As somebody who comes from the UK... I actually put a tweet out when I was on my way, I was like "yee-haw Texas" and I could easily put "yee-haw cowboy, bang, bang!" Because Texas is very different from the rest of America. I've travelled through the whole of the States and it's very different. People here, guns are a part of the culture.

So it sounds like to me that neither of you are from a position of, "let's ban all guns", so can you explain to me what the policies are that you are driving for? What is the sensible approach to guns that you are campaigning for?

Leesa Ross: Sure and I'm glad you noticed, probably from our website too, we are not anti-gun, I say that repeatedly!

Peter McCormack: Well it feels like an unachievable goal as well?

Leesa Ross: In fact, my family owns firearms. So even more so, I had a gun tragedy and then I have a son who hunts, collects and has firearms. My husband too, we have a firearm as well. So again, yes it is a very polarizing conversation, but at the same time, like Gyl was saying, on both sides of our Board, we have people who own firearms and people who do not.

Peter McCormack: Okay and one of the interesting things about that is, because I'm from the UK, I don't want the laws changed in the UK to have more liberal gun laws. We have very tight gun laws and I don't see any reason to change that at all.

Coming to the US, spending a lot of time traveling, especially the place that changed me one of the most, was up in Wyoming. I also don't see any way that the US could become so tight on guns like the UK, as guns are definitely a part of US culture. Okay, so what are sensible gun laws? What are the facts? What is the evidence? What is it that you are looking to change?

Leesa Ross: For me, mine is safe storage obviously and I think that's the low hanging fruit that's the easiest to obtain. There isn't a gun owner out there that doesn't believe that safety should be the number one rule. So to me it is... You would think that it would be the easiest thing to obtain, but it still is a difficult task to achieve.

Peter McCormack: And I've heard about cases and I heard about one not too long ago, I say that, it might have been a year ago, about a four year old finding a gun and it was her father's gun, maybe it was a boy and he shot his sister. What I do know about the UK... Actually I know two people with guns, they have to be kept in a locked cabinet and these cabinets are inspected. Is this what you want here? Is this what you're talking about safe storage?

Leesa Ross: Right now, the only thing really that I want to do is I want to have a PSA, no penalties involved, but I just want the public to become aware of the fact of how important it is to make sure that they are storing their firearms safely. I think that the penalties that are there, I mean it's a misdemeanour charge, what is it? If a child under the age of 17 has access, there is a misdemeanour charge. That is rarely enforced.

The reason why that is rarely enforced is because they already feel there has been so much pain brought to the family members that they don't enforce it at all. But the problem with that is that if we don't start enforcing at least the laws we have, then we're not sending a message to our community and our public, that we're not accepting this any longer. We do this with drunk driving when there's not even a fatality, but it's even worse when there is a fatality involved, the penalty is worse. We don't do that with guns and that needs to change.

Peter McCormack: Why is that and how much do the NRA play a role in the reluctance for any formal change?

Leesa Ross: They play quite a bit of a role and I'm an NRA member too as well, so I'm a gun owner. I really joined a lot of these organizations after my son's death, because I had a son who was not going to give up his firearms and I had to come to grips with... Because I'm going to tell you...

Peter McCormack: Did you go through that as a debate as a family?

Leesa Ross: Yes!

Peter McCormack: Okay, interesting.

Leesa Ross: In fact I've got a forthcoming book that will be called "At Close Range", that the Texas University is going to be publishing for me, it should be out sometime in April or May, that kind of talks a lot about my journey. But yes, we had battles because the minute my son died, I wanted every gun melted down, there's no question about it!

Peter McCormack: But you changed your opinion?

Leesa Ross: But I changed my opinion.

Peter McCormack: And is that time being a healer or is that being practical about it? Why did you feel you changed?

Leesa Ross: I had lots and lots of discussions with my middle son who is my gun collector and who hunts and does all that. I came to the conclusion, I guess if you want to call it a conclusion, that I had lost a son to a gun tragedy and I was not going to lose another son over disagreements over gun culture. So I had to find a way that I could honor my son who died, but also honor my son who is alive.

Peter McCormack: Wow, you were really in the middle of that!

Leesa Ross: Yeah, I was really, really in the middle of it! So I had to figure it out and so I wanted to know as much as I could about both sides. So I got involved in "Moms Demand Action" for a little while, I took the "Everytown For Gun Safety" fellowship training, I'm actually a survivor, trained in that, I joined the NRA and I started going to shooting ranges. I really wanted to understand both sides so that when I went to educate and talk to young adults about why they need to store their firearms, I knew both sides of the story. Just kind of like you do your research on both sides.

Peter McCormack: Yeah! So what are the barriers that you are coming up against? Because what you're saying to me now, it's very rational, responsible storage. I can't understand the counter-argument to this, so what is the counter argument you're coming up against?

Gyl Switzer: So I mentioned before, we're not anti-gun, we're pro-safety, that's what I say. You'll notice I don't talk about the Second Amendment because there are so many different interpretations and it's a hot button term. So I say we're pro-safety and all the court cases have shown, up to the Supreme Court of the United States, that there are reasonable controls that can be put on whatever you interpret as the Second Amendment.

So just like any of the Amendments really, there's room for making sensible decisions. So that's where we try to come in, is on the sensible, decision side. You mentioned to me on the phone something about, you wanted to get the other side and I always kind of cringe when people say that, because I'm like, "who's anti-safety!?" We should all be having the same conversation.

Peter McCormack: I didn't think this would be the starting point of the conversation. I thought the starting point of the conversation is, "we don't need AR-15s", that's where I thought... Because for me it's like, if you're campaigning for gun sense and I know there are associations out there who do want the banning of AR-15s, but it's like, "how do we take a step down?"

Well do people really need automatic rivals and AR-15s and bump stocks? I think they got banned didn't they, after Vegas? But do we need all this? And the argument when I've put these to people who are pro-gun is that, "well I can still take a gun and shoot people." So I thought that would be the start of the conversation, not the safety.

Gyl Switzer: I brought with me our priorities! So our top priorities; safe storage always, universal background checks and extreme risk protection orders. We have some other priorities...

Peter McCormack: What was that last one?

Gyl Switzer: Extreme risk protection orders, which is what some people call red flag laws. We do call for a federal ban on assault weapons and the reason we say it that way is because there was a federal ban on assault weapons. It seems that that just makes so much sense. We did it once before on the federal level and of course anything on the federal level, guns can go across state lines, so it makes more sense to have it at the federal level if we can.

Peter McCormack: So you do want a national outlawing of assault rifles?

Gyl Switzer: Yes.

Peter McCormack: Okay, so one of the interesting stories that I... So a lot of the people I talk to, the libertarians, they will talk about the Second Amendment rights and because you had guns, well you were able to kick us out of the country and if ever a tyrannical government should rise up, you need weapons to defend yourself and I see both sides of that. I'm like, "okay, I understand your point, you will need weapons to defend yourself against a tyrannical government, but will it happen?" I see both sides.

But I actually remember a story and I think it was in Nevada, of a militia who were protecting the grazing rights of a farm. I remember seeing the photos of the militia with their AR-15s and actually in some ways, they won, because obviously the government is not going to go and have a shootout because it's dangerous and crazy and I don't know if not having an AR-15 would have been as powerful, because there's photos of the militia with their AR-15s was pretty powerful. I'm not saying that as a defense of it, but that's the argument I see from other people.

Gyl Switzer: Yes, intimidation is certainly a factor and as you probably have found out, firearms are allowed in the Texas Capitol.

Peter McCormack: Is it open carry here?

Gyl Switzer: You have to have a license to carry. So some places you can only carry concealed, but yes essentially and in the Capitol you can carry. So intimidation is a part of it, but it's also how many people can you kill? It's a sad equation to talk about, but how many people can you kill? In the recent shooting in California...

Peter McCormack: Well Las Vegas I thought proved it? From the Mandalay tower, he was able to... I can't remember how many it was, was it 50 or 60 were killed?

Gyl Switzer: I think it was 59, somebody just died this week from her complications from that shooting.

Peter McCormack: But he was able to unload a significant amount of bullets in a very short amount of time.

Gyl Switzer: So let me tell you about our other priorities! Universal background checks, I think that's pretty much self-explanatory.

Peter McCormack: Who do you not want to have a gun in those background checks? What is the red line for gun ownership?

Gyl Switzer: Oh there are prohibitors on the federal and state level. Things that come to mind, is there a felony conviction in your past, if you've been involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital or found not guilty by reason of insanity, it's not a long laundry list, but it's a significant safety check on your background.

Peter McCormack: So felony is a crime where you've gone to prison or is it any crime?

Gyl Switzer: Well felony versus misdemeanour...

Peter McCormack: What would class as a felony?

Gyl Switzer: Murder, armed robbery, breaking and entering...

Peter McCormack: If you committed fraud, would that be a felony?

Gyl Switzer: There's probably misdemeanour and felony level.

Peter McCormack: What I'm going at here is, I'm trying to think of the counter arguments the listeners will put out and one of them would be perhaps, this isn't me being sexist, but perhaps a female who has been convicted of fraud, following that has been in a marriage, is now out of that marriage, it was an abusive relationship, moving home and wants to have a gun to protect herself, but would fail a background check and that person is therefore in a discriminated position compared to other people. That actually did come at me as an argument. How would you respond to that? That could be a man by the way, who's been abused.

Gyl Switzer: But one thing that might be interesting, another group I can point you to is "Texas Council on Family Violence." So they are the big person in the room for policy discussions around domestic violence. So they could give you the point by point and I can send it to you later, but the data shows that if there's a gun in the house, however it got there, a woman is more likely to die than if there's not a gun, when domestic violence is part of the equation.

Peter McCormack: But is that when they're a couple living together, as opposed to she's maybe left the home and wants to protect herself in a new home? Is it still the same?

Gyl Switzer: That's a good question. It's by a huge factor and it's the same with people having guns in their home if they're not responsible. Somebody breaking in and using the firearm against you is much more common than you been able to shoot the person who enters your home illegally.

Peter McCormack: I've heard that as well. So I'm not trying to be flippant with the questions, but the reason I'm asking the questions is that as an interviewer, pseudo-journalists, I struggle to say journalist, but I put this in the bucket of almost impossible problems in that, there is a debate here and there's always a counter argument for a point and that's what I keep coming across.

How do you get to a point where you have a rational discussion and come to some rational conclusions? This is one of those areas where I've tried to speak to as many people, get as big of a grip and I'm struggling, but as big of a grip as I can on this subject, especially as an outsider from London and it's very complicated!

Leesa Ross: It is extremely complicated! For me, that's why being a member of the NRA and also, I stick to safety because I think it's something that every single person can agree upon and so that's why my focus is always on safety and I will probably pivot back to that, because that is where... First of all, that's what I know, that's what I feel comfortable with and that's what I think that everybody can agree upon. We've got to have a starting point and if that's the starting point, then that's where we start.

Peter McCormack: And increased safety would lead to more lives saved, therefore it's a massive positive step.

Gyl Switzer: Exactly!

Peter McCormack: Whereas if you're arguing over...

Leesa Ross: AR-15s and you're arguing all this other stuff, let's start with the simplest thing we can start with and let's go back. The back step is, "you know what? Everybody is for safety, everybody wants that, so let's start there."

Peter McCormack: Because if we go back over the last 10 years, there's been a lot of shootings to the point where I remember seeing Obama pretty much crying, very emotional in The White House saying "I'm here again" and he couldn't change anything. As far as I know, tell me if I'm wrong, but the only memorable change was the banning of the bump stocks. That's the only thing I remember and therefore you could spend another 10, 15, 20 years arguing over the specifics, whereas you can make an impact with safety.

Leesa Ross: Yes and you can educate as many... I mean our police force can educate and it's not something we have to penalize people with, all we have to do is get them to start changing the way their habits are. Don't leave the gun unsecured, don't think that a child won't gain access to it, hiding a gun is not securing a gun, we need to make sure that means that it's locked, unloaded and separate from the ammunition, that is the safest way. If you're talking about for self-defense, then buy yourself a little safe that you put your gun inside, that you know how to access very, very quickly.

Peter McCormack: So I watched a Netflix series recently called "Unbelievable", I don't know if you saw it? Part of the story, two of the people who worked there, were the police and I've never seen this done on film before and it wasn't relevant to the story, but you saw them lock their guns away in a cabinet attached to the wall, like a safe, you saw that in it. Maybe it has been and I've not seen it, but they made a point of showing it. Is this what most homes should have?

Leesa Ross: The thing is people want easy access and that's the problem, is that we do have this fear that somebody's going to break into our home and it's going to be an intruder that's going to attack us and that is the counter-argument. So what I educate on, is that there are biometrical safes that are to your fingerprint, that you can have a key fob that you swab over the top of, that is small, compact, you can put it in your nightstand, you can bolt it down if you're concerned because theft is huge and the first thing they're going to take are your firearms. So secure it down, but make sure that you practice getting into that on a regular basis.

Peter McCormack: Is this a case of, once you enter the home you should put the gun away, or is it once you take it out of its holster, you should put it away?

Leesa Ross: Once you take it out of the holster, it's put away and secured.

Peter McCormack: So if you could sit in your house with it in your hostler, in your front room...

Leesa Ross: I do not recommend that, but yes. We do get a lot of counter stuff like that and we have to tell from our personal, what we feel is the safest thing. Again, pivoting back, safety is a thing that again, everybody can agree upon.

Peter McCormack: Because the situation you worried about is, when I'm about to go out for the day, get to my car and I'm like, "oh, where the bloody hell is my wallet or my phone?" That could be a gun. Where did I put my gun down? Sometimes to my kids I'm like, "where's my phone?" And they'll find it. You're worried about a child gaining access and very quickly hurting themselves or someone else.

Gyl Switzer: Which happens much more frequently than even our mass shootings. Mass shootings make up about 3%, unintentional suicides makeup 30%, maybe 40%. So I'm glad that you started that because one thing I always like to remind people, is when we are talking about gun violence, we're talking about gun tragedies like Leesa's son or small children unintentionally getting shot.

We're talking about suicide and homicide and a lot of people go right to homicide. But in Texas, almost 60% of firearm deaths are suicides. Then another statistic that I just verified the other day that just blew me away, is in Texas, veterans who die by suicide, 78% use a firearm. So can you imagine, with this, we could save some lives.

Peter McCormack: Some, but not all, because it's the difference between intentional and unintentional.

Gyl Switzer: Sure, but the data shows that if people pick a method and they don't usually go to a different method. I mean we are getting in the weeds on suicide prevention, but talking about the homes, I've said before, the data don't support that you're safer with a firearm in your home.

The data supports that you're not safer. Now occasionally I had my Texas Gun Sense shirt on at the mall the other day and this guy says to me, "well I have a gun, but we lock it away all the time." I said, "good!" Then he and his wife, who he was talking about and he said, "we practice at least once a month, we go and practice" and I said, "I love you!" That's a responsible gun owner.

Peter McCormack: Are you a gun owner?

Gyl Switzer: I am not a gun owner, I have my license to carry. Leesa mentioned that our Board's different approaches to gun violence and one of our Board members Louis is a pistol instructor. He used to instruct for a police department. So when I said, "I'm going to get my license to carry", he said, "oh no you're not, until I teach you what you really should know!"

So I went to the range with him many, many times and he made me go through all the motions and then I got my license to carry, which is in a classroom with a test and then you shoot and you have to hit so many things. Besides the fact that I want to talk about things that I've actually experienced, like you mentioned, you went and shot. So that was the main reason, but I will say a secondary reason is you have to go through security when you go into our Capitol. But if you have a license to carry, you can go right in. So I spend a lot of time at the Capitol and so I can just go right in.

Peter McCormack: The time I did shoot guns, I've shot guns twice now. Well actually that's a lie, three times. I've shot a shotgun clay pigeon shooting in the UK, but that felt different, that was sport. I shot them in Vietnam recently with my children, I let them have a go, but the proper time I went to the range... I explain this to people, as an outsider coming into the US, it felt like going bowling and the reason I say that, is that there were separate lanes, next to me was a couple, then there was a guy on his own, then three pals together, it was like going bowling, but it's not bowling, it was guns.

As I said to you, I was shocked by the power of them. You cannot understand the power of a gun until you shoot one. It's not like the TV. The TV doesn't give you any impression until that time you first shoot one. I remember the first time, I was literally like, "whoa!" I was very shocked by it. How do you feel about children and at what age they should be taught about gun safety and have the ability to shoot guns? Do you think that's something that should be taught to them as children or is this something where they should wait until they're an adult?

Leesa Ross: I don't know. I think it is up to a parent to decide when they should be educating, to be honest with you. But I know that I have spoken to 7th grade classes.

Peter McCormack: 7th grade, how old is that, is that 8, 9?

Leesa Ross: Yeah, that's probably about 8 or 9 years old. Mainly it's been like a civics class and they may be doing a study on Second Amendment rights and I talked to them about safety as well. I've actually given another one that I did at a Jewish community center that one of the young students had brought me in and there were parents and also probably there might've even been as young, I want to say 7th graders again. I don't think there were any 6th graders in the room, but I think they were mainly 7th.

But with them as well, and their parents were there when I gave my presentation to them and for them, I kind of gear it towards more, I talked to them about suicide more. The reason why is because to share a good story, which is what I share with them, is that a lot of them are in chat rooms that are playing video games and inside the video game chat rooms, they're with another group of students that are all their ages and a real good friend of mine's son was in one of the rooms and the boy was threatening to commit suicide to his chat room group. 

A couple of the kids did not take him seriously, but my friend's son did take him seriously and went out into the other room where his parents were and said, "I think this is serious, he's going to do it, I'm just telling you." Even his name had suicide in it so it kind of even threw up another red flag. So they ended up calling the police and they ended up showing at his house and he had tried to take too many pills and had tried to kill himself.

So when I'm talking to the 7th graders, I tell them that I hate that I even have to even do this, but it's that they may have to be the first responders. Chances are somebody who is thinking about suicide may not go to the school counsellor and they're probably not going to go to their parents. The person they're probably going to go to, are going to be their friends and I said, "if you have that in the chat room like that, this is where they're going to be saying these kinds of things and we have to take everything right now so seriously."

Peter McCormack: That seems a very mature subject to be talking to 8 or 9 year olds. I'm not even sure if my daughter is aware what suicide really is. I've never talked to her about it. It almost feels like we're losing their innocence and youth here with scary, mature subjects. I actually find... Like if you said to me they were 12, 13 I'd be okay.

Gyl Switzer: 7th and 8th graders are like 12 and 13.

Peter McCormack: Oh okay! My daughter is in year 6 and she's 9.

Leesa Ross: There you go, you are closer in age than what we know. So 7th grade, 8th grader would be like a 13 year old then I guess. But even to me, it still feels the same way when I even educate at the same time, knowledge is power. So we have to share that knowledge with them, so that they kind of get an understanding. I had all the parents in the room who were there afterwards, came up to me afterwards and said, "thank you so much for doing that, I'm so glad you shared that message." So it was very well embraced. So either that discussion had already taken place or those kids already knew.

Gyl Switzer: I guess the original question was, when do you start educating kids? Just like educating them about anything, it's never too soon and the trick is, what's your messaging around gun safety? So I think there's a lot of people and a lot of adults who say, "oh, but I hide my guns, my kids don't know" and I can only tell you how many things my kids have found that they didn't know. So it's a caution to kids and you don't have to tell it in a really scary way.

But Leesa did a presentation when I was there and it was high school students, so like 16 to 18 range years of age. So Leesa was talking about safe storage and this one young lady said, "my parents do not store their guns safely, what should I do?"

And Leesa had the exact right answer, which was, "here's some of our materials, go home and say to your parents, "I learned about this today. Can we review our policies and procedures at home?"" Then if your kids see you modelling when they go play somewhere and you say, "my kid's allergic to peanut butter, will an adult be home? Do you have any guns in your home?"

Peter McCormack: You can't argue with that!

Gyl Switzer: They see that that's something we have to be thinking about and taking caution.

Peter McCormack: And I'm assuming organizations like yours, there's a spectrum of them. Do you actually clash with other organizations because they expect you to have stricter controls? You have that clash?

Gyl Switzer: Oh, I'm shaking my head like, "yes, I know what you mean." In some ways I'd like to have that problem because in Texas, I'm talking about not nationally, we are the only Texas based gun violence prevention organization. Now there's some other organizations...

Peter McCormack: I was surprised there was one!

Gyl Switzer: Right! There's some other organizations like "Moms Demand Action", but they're based in New York and their national folks dictate their policy.

There's other folks we work with, in fact I lead a collaboration of organizations that have a real interest in gun safety and it includes "League of Women Voters", it includes "Texas Council on Family Violence", which is the domestic violence folks, NAMI, the "National Association for Mental Illness", so there's the suicide obvious connection there, the "Jewish Women's League" and some others that as far as boots on the ground, at the Capitol, making policies statewide, we're pretty much it.

The Moms participate to the extent they can with direction from their national office and they're terrific. But there are a number of national organizations and you might go to other States and hear, "this organization is here and we work with them all the time", people have written off Texas. So those national organizations don't spend a lot of time with us!

Peter McCormack: Y'all different around here!

Gyl Switzer: It's interesting because last session there were some that were showing some interest, because we had two mass shootings, the Sutherland Springs Baptist church shooting, which was in November 2017.

Peter McCormack: I tend to remember them by the name of the shooter, but I can't remember it. Was he like 19 years old?

Gyl Switzer: No, he was older than that.

Peter McCormack: I'm thinking of a different one. There was another one in a church...

Gyl Switzer: It's so hard to keep it straight! Santa Fe was the high school?

Peter McCormack: No, there was another church based. It was a white chap who went into, I think it was a predominantly black church?

Gyl Switzer: In another state, that was North Carolina or South Carolina?

Peter McCormack: That's the thing though, there are so many shootings. What it feels like, is the things that you are campaigning for on better gun safety, are great and it's going to make a big difference, but this isn't really going to change the mass shootings, unless by better gun safety, the child can't get access to the gun. But I kind of get the feeling if you've made the decision to commit a mass shooting, you probably are going to find a way to getting access to a gun. But you prevent a lot more of the accidental or maybe the ones that come out of anger and passion as well, like the quick decisions. But what gets the news headlines is the mass shootings.

Gyl Switzer: Correct, but what statistic did you say, 3%? Everybody matters or nobody matters, so we talk about all of them.

Peter McCormack: I agree.

Gyl Switzer: But you're right, there is a different story that comes with each shooting.

Peter McCormack: How do you feel that those incidents can be changed? Does this come down back to the national...

Gyl Switzer: Well again, it's very sad that for all the mass shootings, they get a little jumbled. But the guy at the Sutherland Springs, his army domestic violence records weren't entered into the system, so he passed a background check. So that's a problem that we have, which is timely entering of information that should prohibit a person from passing a background check. Then of course you don't have to pass a background check everywhere. The shooter recently in California, the student who ended up dying himself, two dead and then himself and then I think there were two others injured.

So now they're exploring whether he used a ghost gun, which is assembling pieces of it and that was a part of the, was that the Odessa shooter? This is a terrible story, but my son told me when I first started this job and I would get so mad at myself, because these are real lives and real people and I would get so mad at myself that I couldn't remember the shooter, the resolution, was he killed or whatever.

My son said, totally not joking, he was probably 16 at the time, he said, "you need flashcards." I was like, "is that the saddest comment? City, how many dead, what weapon used?" There was a good Dallas Morning news article that went through the shootings in Texas and what could have helped. We can't predict any particular situation, but every single mass shooting there's a link that didn't work.

Peter McCormack: Also another thing that comes up is the wider societal problem of mental health. There tends to be a correlation between shooters and mental health problems at times as well. Am I right in that or am I just imagining that?

Gyl Switzer: No. I'm the right person to ask actually, because for 10 years before I started this job, I was a mental health advocate and I am a person with serious mental illness myself. So the data show us that people with mental illness are more likely to be victims of crime, than the general population and that they are less violent than the general population. Now, that's not to deny that there are some people with mental illness who do commit any kind of crimes, including gun crimes and it's been unfortunate in Texas that that's always the way it goes, "oh, it's about mental illness."

One thing that I say to people that maybe jogged something in their head is, for example, hate is not a mental illness. It's not in the DSM-5, the diagnostic manual. So we want to believe that everybody who does a horrific crime is "crazy", but no, domestic violence is not a mental illness and the equation that I give people is, hate plus easy access to firearms is dangerous.

Domestic violence plus easy access, suicidal ideation, plus easy access, homicidal ideation plus easy access, what's the common factor there? It's the easy access! That's not to say we shouldn't work on hate, we shouldn't work on domestic violence, we shouldn't work on the underlying issues with suicide and homicide, but by making mental illness the target, you're going to miss the point.

Peter McCormack: What do you say to the people who will say that statistically gun deaths are very, very small and anything can be a weapon. This is one of the arguments I heard, "you should ban cars, because you can get a car and drive at somebody", which actually happened in Charleston, right? Aa car is a weapon, therefore if you're going to ban guns, then you should ban cars.

By the way, I do find that a crappy argument, but that does come up. But I think the point they're getting to is that the tighter gun regulations are punishing the majority because of a very small minority. I think what they're just saying is there needs to be acceptance that a certain amount of people will be killed. What do you say to those people?

Gyl Switzer: I don't think people say that explicitly.

Peter McCormack: They've said it to me! In going down this rabbit hole, I've actually heard it a few times.

Gyl Switzer: Okay, because usually the legislature for example, they don't outright admit that, but if you follow their argument logically, that's what it's saying. You need a license to get a driver's license, you don't need a license to get a gun in Texas. So then if you think in terms of lethality, there have been incidences of other weapons being used, but to the weapon/death ratio is much higher with firearms, than in other incidences generally.

We hear a lot of these arguments too and you can't prevent people from being filled with hate and maybe getting a knife and killing somebody. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try! Our whole legal system is based on that, that's why we have a criminal justice system is because people cross those lines and we take action against them. I guess I lost track of your question in there!

Peter McCormack: So the next thing I wanted to ask you about, there's a company here in Austin that I reached out to and tried to get an interview with and sadly they rejected me, called Defense Distributed, previously headed up by Cody Wilson and then Paloma, I can't remember her name took over. I reached out to them and they declined the opportunity to have an interview. But printed guns seems to be an area that you would probably have your eye on and be observing.

Firstly, what do you make of that as an industry? Does this make your job harder or does it not actually change anything, because... Well I guess in terms of background checks, it helps avoid that, as people who can print a gun can avoid a background check. But in terms of gun safety, it's the same things you're saying. So how do you feel about that growing industry?

Gyl Switzer: So as you probably know from your research, he had these plans, the federal government said, "no, that's not safe, you cannot share those plans." He appealed and when the Trump administration decided they were going to drop the case and for his appeal they would say, "okay, you can do it." So then there was court action around that, there's been an injunction placed, but there was a gap of a few days where the plans went out etc.

As far as our take on 3D guns, I will say again, my son, the first thing I thought was that the gifted and talented program at his school has a 3D printer! But policy-wise, security systems don't ring on them, they don't have a serial number for the police to do checks, as they do to follow guns through criminal adventures. My understanding is at this point today, they're not great guns. If you're a gun owner or a gun shooter, I feel like by next month that could change and I did read an article where somebody could successfully shoot nine bullets. 

That can kill nine people, so this is a serious issue and it's something that I wish the federal government would stay on top of because then it's not just Texas fighting the battle. There were bills proposed in this 2019 legislative session to get it to issue in Texas. Of course they didn't even get a hearing, but it's on the radar as it could be a significant problem and is already to some level.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, again I read some of the arguments and you're like, "oh, that's rational", but I think it's a slippery slope and it's quite dangerous. Is there anything I've not asked you about, that I should have covered in this? Because usually I like to do a lot of prep, I thought we may meet tomorrow, we've met today, so I've had to do a lot of this off the cuff. I think you can tell that I know a bit about this subject, but there are holes in my knowledge. Is there anything I've not asked you that you wish I would?

Gyl Switzer: It's a good and a bad thing that you're more knowledgeable than most people we talked to. Leesa agrees with me.

Peter McCormack: I take that as a compliment!

Gyl Switzer: Yes it is and it's a sad statement about people who are making policy, who don't know the data.

Peter McCormack: I think one of the things was, I'm an outsider, so this is so alien from my world and this is just so different from England, that it's fascinating, so I've thrown myself into it. But anyway, thank you.

Gyl Switzer: And in some ways, it helps to have an outside perspective. So there are people on our Board who never want to touch a gun, never have, don't intend to and I think that's a different perspective than gun owners. I'm in the middle I'll say. But when I try to think of things, what will clearly benefit everyone and just should make sense, one thing is research. The federal government, it's kind of a detailed story, but years ago there was amendment put on the budget that said, essentially that national organizations cannot study what would lead to gun control or something like that.

So in some ways, the agencies like the Centers for Disease Control, National Institute for Health etc, vetoed themselves. There's so much to study and they have not been funding. There's charts you can see where it's like, per death, isn't that sad, per death, gun violence is way underfunded for research. The reason I say everybody should be interested is that to me, if we can tailor gun interventions specifically to what we know is the pressure point, that can significantly reduce... 

That's less restrictions on you and me and any gun owner. If we know what works in certain communities... One of our recommendations is that we have these big giant research universities, let's do a detailed study in Texas of what communities we're talking about, exactly what firearms we are always talking about etc and design solutions around that research.

Peter McCormack: I understand that, but what I would say is, well two things. What I found in this, let's say new career I've had for the last couple of years, is that every argument, even fact based, research based, argument seems to draw up a counter argument with other fact-based research counter argument.

But a bigger point is that it's not like the NRA haven't been presented with fact-based arguments before, it's that nothing changes. So I fully appreciate and understand what you're saying, I just look at it cynically and go... What is it? From my cold dead hands. It just seems that there's no movement for any form of discussion. So yeah, I've not really got a point.

Gyl Switzer: Yeah, you have to stop it, because one of our Board members, our founding Board member, she laughed because I had a New York times interview, after one of the mass shootings and the reporter was kind of saying, "oh nothing's going to change. You live in Texas and there've been this horrible thing and nothing changes and how do you stand to do it?"

Was kind of the argument and the question. I said, "if you're in this line of work, you have to be optimistic." You just have to be and I think it's harder for Leesa, because she's directly right here in her face with the difference. We did get a bill for funding passed this past session for $1 million safe storage campaign.

Peter McCormack: Good!

Gyl Switzer: There was an excellent bill passed about diving deep into suicides and kind of what I explained just now about research on gun violence, and I'll be there at the tables reminding them of statistics like, 78% of veterans who die by suicide use a firearm, we have to talk about firearms. There's some movement around domestic violence, we've had a problem in Texas where not all the data that's prohibitive of getting a firearm is entered timely or not at all.

So that we're doing some work around that. Texas law, some say it's clear, I think it's clear that judges can order folks under a protective order or a domestic violence conviction to relinquish their firearms. So there's movements around the edges, even if we can't go straight onto universal background checks, which I don't think is a hard thing, but straight onto something else. There is important movement that directly impacts on gun violence.

Peter McCormack: Well that was a very good back slap you gave me, that I deserved and I'm glad you gave me that.

Leesa Ross: Mine is too that it's going to be a cultural change that really starts from the people and then moves through the legislation. So to me that's what's the most important and starting that conversation again with safety is kind of the easiest thing that we can begin with. Then for people, it's kind of like that for a long time probably didn't have safe sex talks with our kids, we didn't talk to them about drinking and driving.

We didn't talk to a lot of them about issues, STDs, things like that and we have to start doing that now and then that will bring about the change. So it's going to have to maybe start with another generation, but that's why we're here educating the youth and the younger ones, so that when they get to be at a certain point, maybe they can make that change happen.

Peter McCormack: Okay, well this has been really useful for me. It's not been the conversation I expected. Two things, I didn't know I was going to meet you Leesa, thank you so much for sharing your story with me. I can tell it's still painful for you because, if you don't mind me saying, I could see it in your eyes. I saw it entirely, I'm quite emotional myself, so you nearly triggered me, but thank you for sharing that, because that's a really personal story.

I thought we were going to be talking about banning guns, not about safety. That does seem like a much more sensible approach. I apologize for any gaps in my knowledge, there are some, I'm going to put this out on my Bitcoin show even though we haven't talked about Bitcoin because it's got a bigger audience, but I'm going to warn you that I expect there will be some counter-arguments that will come back, but I'm going to put it out on that show. Just before we finish...

Leesa Ross: It's kind of good when we get the counter, because then we know what to expect. Actually it's part of the information, because then we know what everybody else is thinking and we can kind of think logically about it and how we're going to respond to that. So it's all good!

Peter McCormack: Okay. Well I'm glad and it's been useful for me, throwing myself in both ends and learning about this and it's definitely not the end of this, as I do want to learn more. I will probably go and speak to maybe a more extreme organization, who do just want the outright ban on guns, because I want to see their perspective as well.

But just before we finish, because anyone listening to this might want to find out more information, can you tell them where they can find more information about your... Do you call it a campaign or is it an actual association?

Leesa Ross: Mine is www.lockarmsforlife.com and they can go there. They can also reach me through Texas Gun Sense, because we are partnered together. So that's where you can find me.

Peter McCormack: Okay and Gyl? Do you know what it is? I know a guy here in Texas called Gil Valentine. He'll be listening to this probably, hi Gil!

Gyl Switzer: Often it works to my benefit if people are expecting a man, if they see Gyl. So Texas Gun Sense is txgunsense.org and that will have my email address on there if you want to do that. We also are on Twitter and Facebook. The only time we ban people from Twitter or Facebook is curse words or threats, but we're happy to engage...

Peter McCormack: Cursing threats or just because they curse? Because I curse a lot!

Gyl Switzer: Well it's more like in a threatening way, we'll just cut people off. Otherwise we engage and we're happy to do so.

Peter McCormack: Well look, I really appreciate you coming on. I'm might contact you in the future, I might want to follow up and I might want to follow up with you as well Leesa, but thank you so much for giving me your time and good luck with everything you're doing!