Quite understood just, i assume that Mass Shootings which are the things that get most attention, that that was how much people, particularly young people, died. And i didnt really, i hadnt really given enough thought to the aggregate number of people around the country who would be killed in this, in this way. And so the disparate nature of accidental shootings, that toddler who finds a gun behind a pillow when his dad is asleep, friends who are fighting, accidents, all of these kind of car okay, so this is going on all the time, and so that featured that you see in the news every two or three days, you know, just before the weather. And meanwhile, in such and such a place, this is going on all the time every day. So it forces a kind of readjustment of your understanding of where you are. Host right. I find it interesting that you said you were endeavoring to create context, right, because we do have a lot of official reports on crime, the fbi, the cia, everyone at doj, numbers everywhere. But what i say doing meticulously was trying to figure out what is it about these environments. Can you talk about the context that you found . Guest so 10 children were shot dead that day, which was november 23, 2013. Children and teens. And with each one what i try to do, there was a fact of the death and wasnt trying to litigate their death, maybe he was walking from the east to the west, you know. Host it was a forensics. Guest it wasnt csi. But then, in all these cases it was a context, and sometimes there are a broader thing. But everywhere there was a context, what else is going on . Who else can i talk to . So just to give a couple of examples. In newark where a young man was shot dead. These come into his apartment with his girlfriend, he shot dead. Its assumed that killer thought he was somebody else, and it was drug related. And they thought, he had a red hoodie. They were looking for someone with a ready. So then you look at where he was shot dead, and a block up housing projects near where he lives, and you, where his mother lived. Thats where you were shot dead. This is where he grew up, and next door is a factory thats been closed down. You start looking at this, the statistics, and you see the painful effects of being industrialization, and in that context, selling drugs becomes an occupation of one like it into your economics, drugs, drug gangs are up more than come as like a classic american corporation. In freakonomics its compared to mcdonalds. And so just to say not to excuse anything but just this is what was going on around that time and place. And for every young person in this book, there are those broader things that one can say, not to excuse, sometimes not even to explain, but just to describe that these deaths do not generally fall out and die. They are kind of a set of circumstances have collided and coincided to the impossible. Host thats one of those myths about the innercity, quarter and quote. But he also found similar circumstances in suburbia where just access to guns. Guest well, right. I mean, sometime to think how many. One of the chili, there was only one who was killed in a rural area, but then there are a couple who were killed in either suburbs and small towns, very small town. Yeah, basically nobody is immune to this. There is a sense that people should be. There is a battery general says that areas, low income areas of color, where people of color live, that that is when things like this happen, and that if a young person is shot dead in one of those areas, it doesnt challenge your understanding of the way America Works but confirms it. You speak to a journalist and you say dg followed that up . Its not so surprising that someone would get shot in that area. And so it becomes not news. Theres that phrase, when dog bites man, thats not news. Its when man bites dog that is news. But after a while people are being shot in an area just ask, who owns these dogs and why do these dogs keep biting the same people and what can we do about it . I think one of the reporters said you become desensitized to it. The People Living in areas do not become desensitized, its their children at risk. Host im going to read from the samuel bright chapter because this really caught my eye. You said that the indifference towards violence that plagues some areas is less a byproduct of allied neglect than unconscious own nation board from the dead weight of power and privilege. That makes it a dark in america and in his obit thats a pretty big finger you are pointing. Guest it is. It is, but, i mean, you know, if it fits wear it. Im talking mostly about the media, and that if youre in a media that is overwhelming white and wealthier and, therefore, is not likely to live in areas like this, then its not that you think i dont care about these people that you just think well, you dont know anybody who has been shot. You dont, this isnt happening to you. Its not happening in your neighborhood. Its happening over there and so that dead weight of privilege, of being wealthier, of being white, of having a University Educational all the things that kind of coalesced to make you who you are, leaves you thinking, well, this is what happens to people like that. And after a while the people like that, also the way that some americans are not just journalists even, its not just that they dont know, its a different species. But in the chapter the samuel brightmon, one of the first comments after his death, the family was walking down the road and he shot dead and after Pleasant Grove in dallas, which is a kind of poor black and latino area. And with a representation for being violent. And so you know, i know where my children are all the time, and you got ask what were his parents doing that they dont know where he is. Like hes running, like his mother is not taking control. And then you find out the situation. They drank cocoa that night. They played uno. The worst thing samuel did was cheat at who know. They watched were the millers and inside the desired to walk his friend didnt sell home, did themselves grandmothers who lives six minutes away. The next day been so was taking his grandma to church. Thats what theyre doing when they got shot. It wasnt that his mother didnt know where she was. He was a sweet kid who didnt really know anybody in the area. Who had no kind of affiliation of any kind really in that area, but the first place the summary goes is well, you know, there must be a reason why that kid was shot. And im going to say is that theres. Host that brings me to wonder things i notice about the book which is that you really challenge respect billy politics. You really challenge the notion that things like this shouldnt happen in some places and to some people but that, of course, we expect them to happen to people in other places. And thats one of the themes that comes out a lot when you talk to young activists, the fact that we do need to talk about why is it so easy to dismiss some peoples death in some of the violence that goes on. I want to redo i get another piece on this that i thought really captured can be right in the kenneth millstucker chapter, this shouldnt happen to people like this, and then you say that because of sandy hook, right, because that was many children, six adults, that began to transform people, that the elevation of the worthy victim has this nifty bearing on life, someone of his most affected by gun violence, a black, brown and poor would underline themselves with the guncontrol movement. I thought he gets it. When i saw that. So can you explain how you came to that realization . Guest yet. So kenneth millstucker was shot in indianapolis, an africanamerican, less than a week away from his 20th birthday. And four or five months later there is a convention there and, therefore, the guncontrol Movement Comes in every town for gun safety. Im trying to find can this folks think maybe they will be, there was a proconference all about gun control. Now, a quarter of indianapolis is black and half of the gun victims in indianapolis are blocked. And also this weeks to somebody from india with. Theres no one there from indianapolis. Theres a white lady from karbala, a very wealthy suburb and she talks about sandy hook and mama bear protecting her babies. He kind of thing who are you protecting them from what you are probably protecting them from people like kenneth. And i think for the guncontrol movement to have a sense of the urgency and relevance, it has to be embedded in the communities most likely to be affected by gun violence. Those are black and working class communities and latino communities. They are also places where africanamericans and latinos are more likely to be criminalized, that africanamericans dont use any drug apart from crack anymore than white americans. Thats why americans are more likely to use, and much more likely to go to jail for the. The fact someone has a criminal record is not actually some kind of neutral statistic or some neutral indicator that is how the system works. If you are only looking for innocents and babes, then youre not going to find in those communities. And so you have to move from, i think, and narrative that says this shouldnt happen to kids like this, to this shouldnt happen to kids, carried. Period. And have an understanding of why some kids end up in the places they do, which is schools and infrastructure win, either, lack of day care. Which is why i think that its not possible to only talk about guns. This is a kind of broader societal thing which counts people out, dehumanizes them. That means when a life is taken, well, thats already been accounted for. But yeah, i think that there is a real problem. Once you start saying well, he was an a student, then there are those suggestions where theres a greater where it would be worthy for them to be killed or someone tweeted to me the other day after trinity day was shot dead, the daughter of the olympic sprinter, and he said she was out at 3 00 in the morning. How much of an innocent victim why she . Then you think, what kind of the did you think it would be appropriate for a 15 Year Old Girl to be shot dead backs 11, 12 . Whats the curfew after which these areas just become a shooting galleries and everybody who was killed there is guilty . Host right. That action is a great way to segregate the question that i have for you, and i promise not to ask any hard policy questions. But there is, especially in academia and the social sciences, that is a line of thought that says we should declare gun violence a National Health crisis, and a sign that cdc 100 million, go study it, come back with a real tangible data and real tangible and actionable items. I have listened to you talk about the confluence of the characteristics, right . That lead to organ result in, and then thinking maybe thats an academic. Isnt that how it would happen . Guest one stage, gary in chicago has a map of where they gun deaths are taking place and that theyre concentrated in the south and west turkey send it to a decent is exactly the same kind of map you have for cholera or he was an epidemiologist. And cunning, cdc used to do research into, because its the biggest killer of black men, the biggest killer of black youth under the age of 19, kerry did. And its the second biggest killer of all kids under the age of 19 after traffic. Host and it is 32000 deaths a year which is unimaginable. Its a city. Its like a city disappearing every time. Guest yet. And so then the question is well, what should we do about that . There is a line of thought thatd do nothing about that because guns are rights and i that the Second Amendment and thats it. What if one doesnt subscribe only to that view, and and you worry about this, then there has to be researched as to why this happened and why it happens to these people as opposed to these people, and these people as opposed to those people. The cdc used to do that, and then the nra lobbied hard against it saying that it was treating guns as a health issue, that its not a health issue. And now they dont. Host right. Guest my response to that is only for those people who dont want to do it, i think that they shouldnt do it, then tell me some of the way, some other meaningful way in which you stop these children dying. Host right guess but i dont want to argue with you about the Second Amendment because i dont think theyll ultimate go anywhere. I will argue about these kids, which my kids are american. I dont want him running these risks. And even if they were not, its unacceptable and morally intolerable toll. This is what you dont want to do. What do you want to do . Host that actually brings me to come you say in your book the gun lobby, that candidacy is need a better story, right . The fundamental argument of this is my Second Amendment right. Its not applicable. Its not the relevant. We dont live in those times so basically comes down to marketing. So you are a professional storyteller. What story would you advise them to or if they asked you to consult with them . Guest the gun lobby people, i feel the guncontrol people hav have a bigger problem actually. The gun lobby people can say, is what they say, when you say i dont understand, explain. Do you have your wife . Are you married . Do you have children yes. Imagine someone breaks into your house and shoot your wife, kill your kids. What are you going to do . Are going to wait and call the police . And there they have an appeal to masculinity, vigilante. Culture, homestead. You know, which actually has a lot of homes in american mythology, who men are. Most people who are killed by guns actually shoot themselves. After that you are most likely to be killed by someone you know. Actually what theyre saying is are you married . Then watch out for your wife, she may kill you. [laughter] guest so they have the kind of narrative that is embedded in many ways in american culture. Which we can talk about whether we like that near to or not but it is found in homes with of the kind of broader things. I dont think i think the guncontrol people have a bigger problem because they talk about background checks which i think, you know, i think thats a sensible thing. Even if you are abiding by the Second Amendment religiously and have a particular interpretation of it, it still says a well regulated militia. Background checks are popular and host a waiting period in. Guest all that kind of stuff. But it doesnt add up to, i think america has to imagine itself differently, and as a kind of more compassionate collective kind of country. And i think, i do think one way that one might do this is to say look, we are a modern country with the medieval problem. You know, we are, this doesnt happen anywhere else. I do think that might be a powerful message, but i also think one that takes seriously as a collective endeavor, not just a family, not just a person, raising children, that there are certain things that children need. They need space. They need decent education. They need youth centers. They need these things. One woman i spoke to on the south side of chicago who is a physician, she said, well, the way that parents in these neighborhoods, they are top, they put them in a cocoon. They drive them everywhere. They dont let them out. You know, they drive them to school. They drive them home. If they are in any afterschool think of a drivein fare, they drive them back. First of all, if you have the time and energy and resources to do that, you probably dont live in that area. But secondly, they would be taking childrens youth away from them in order to keep them alive. So you have someone, and i go into some detail in the last chapter like george bush when he asked about drugs and cocaine and other things. What i was young and irresponsible i was young and irresponsible. Thats a good lie. Thats a good lie and influence is good for you, george. David cameron, the british Prime Minister and Boris Johnson were at a supper club called the bullington club. They would get dressed, bow tie and tails. They would go to a restaurant. They would eat their fill and get very drunk. They would trash the restaurant the they would pay for everything in cash in full. But this was part of being in this club. Now, when you are rich you can do that. And maybe one of them will spend a night in the south but its all part of, you know. These kids dont have that luxury. That could be you debt. You decide to walk your friend home, late at night, that could be you. Its not a question of you getting into a bad crowd and maybe you start taking marijuana over, you know, maybe you have bad relation, you know, a bad relationship, you could die. So the margins are narrow. The risks are great. These are our american children. I was just on a Radio Program where somebody said, if you took four or five cities out of america, this whole problem would kind of be reduced. I like him if he took four or five cities out of america, it wont be america anymore. You take chicago, st. Louis, new york, l. A. , detroit. What are you left with . Not that the rest of america isnt important, but the notion that, well, you know, lets just imagine america without these places. Why would you . Why would you want to . Host because by now theres lot of warped nostalgia for an america that was mostly imaginary and very restricted to a certain segment of the population. Geography though. I think you find geography can be misleading for some of the reasons you just enumerated. So lets talk a little bit about you and the mapping of this book at the geography. Is a journalist, i know, theres a thousand choices you have to make before you write this. So how did the geography, location, city for several, all about of the basque country, how did that play into it . Guest they chose the kids. So then my challenge was, first of all, to evoke this space, whatever the space was to kind of, to bring it to life as a reader, but also been to reduce it in some ways to its statistical kind of definition. So to be, and the range was quite substantial, you know. So rural michigan, tyler dunn, he was shot on a dirt road. It is dark and rural. And tyler, thats the only place where people know is that area, they are all going hunting and the churches have dinners for hunting widows, for the wise of the hunters because they are all of. You compare that with houston where edwin rajo was killed and yet the peculiar courtyards were built in the 70s during the oil boom and they were like, well, the hipsters didnt exist then, but for kind of yonge wealthy people, yuppies i guess they wouldve been called in, and they had this goes in them and they were, swimming pools and he would be given a free vcr or when they took a flat. No children were allowed. And then the oil crash comes and they said okay, this issue is going to become lowincome housing and so people like edward whose mothers undocumented, come to live in those areas. They become dominated by gangs of the pool is still there. Its kind of full of green gunk but it is still there. I think the disco is now kind of a laundry room. Anyhow, so these very, very qaeda different spaces, each time kind of trying to find the history of them, san jose where one boy is killed, you know, mapping how different places, you know, how the spanish and the mexico america, how, you know, has changed hands. But then also to give a sense of, just like, you know what . In this area of san jose even though its kind of workingclass latino folks, a house is worth six times a house in new york. This is a big country. And the landscape, both physical and social, demographic, political, economic is very, very diverse. And hopefully that comes through in the book, is, if the day is a character in a book but also this kind of vast american landscape. Host that definitely comes through. The thought about neighbors. Im always fascinated. Im an immigrant myself and guest where are you from . Host the dominican republic. Where are you really from . But i grew up in new york city in the late 80s. A neighborhood where we begin at that point was mostly latinas, dominicans and Puerto Ricans but then later it was a lot of mexicans. Now it is being gentrified. But a lot of the same problems that were there in the 60s and 70s remained in pockets, right. They are less notable noticeable now. I would ask you about, was a using geography play such a role in that it cant ignore the population and maintain some of these violent identifiers, right . As many as possible of the degrees are gangrelated. Well, one can argue on one level that maybe seven of these deathers are gangrelated of the ten, insofar as one or both of the people involved, know, the assailant and the victim, were in a gang. And the person is dead. You can say thats a gangrelated shooting. But actually, if both people if one of the people is in a gang and the other one isnt, and theyre messing around with a gun and got shot, thats not a gangrelated murder. Thats a murder in which one person is in a gang. But theyre in same gang anyway, you know, or but, yeah, theyre friends. If a child in san jose, he lives in an area that is latino, i think the color is red there theyre identified with. They say he was not wearing red. He was wearing black but a friend was wearing red, walking down a road. He is wearing black, his friend is wearing red, and they shoot him. Is that gangrelated . To extent that it seems from the person who is accused, they may be from a rival gang and they shot at someone who looked like they were from an opposing gang. Nothing to do with pedro wasnt wearing red. Is that gangrelated or a stray bullet . And that most of these are complicated, actually, and that same gang just not really thinking about it. And a lot of these kids grow up in gangs in the same way that if youre in the soviet union you would be a member of the communist party, or if you were in iraq, the baath party, the kind of you in the gang dominated the block where you live, and so everybody has some kind of relationship to the gang. Now, it could be that you have a completely minimal relationship to the gang but you wear blue socks or whatever you have to do just to kind of be like, okay, leave me alone, or definitely dont wear red. Whatever. It could be that you say, you know, im against gangs and never going to do anything to do with a gang. Then you still have to live there, and how are you going to live there . So, its not like some affiliation that they dont hand out membership cards and people pay their dues. Dontwork like that. And so doesnt work like that. So, to me, when i see the term gangrelated i understand it differently. I want to say to people, well, what is the relationship between the murder and the gang . And what is the relationship, most particularly, between the victim and the gang . Because, lets say im walking down the road. Dont belong to a gang, and a gang host but youre wearing red. Guest im wearing red and somebody shoots me, and they say that gangrelated. Well, how does that relate to me . And this is how an awful lot of these deaths are not, i think their less likely to be pursued by the police, less likely to be covered by the press and are more likely to be dismissed by the general public as something that happens to people like that who do things like that. And what i hope comes out in the book is, like, well, these are not these kids are not that different for the most part from the kind of kids that you know, that mind craft, call of duty, drug experimentation, girls in a window not mowing the lawn when their dad asked them to. Duck dynasty is a big thing for the younger kids. Twitter, facebook, these are americas children, and if you can dismiss them, then you are dismissing the future. Host lets talk about gang affiliation because i am learning as i write more about what you suggested that its actually a convenient term that allows adults mostly to codify punishment. For example, in san jose, california, in the entire state of california, they have this thing called gang enhancement. So if you were charged with a crime that is somehow related to being in a gang, there are automatic enhancements, an eye ronishing term which means addition punishment and if you are charged misdemeanor, that means six months probation, the minute theyre able to tag it to a gangrelated activity it becomes minimum three years and the judge has no ability to lessen the sentence bus its now been legislated the gang enhancements. So what did you find in terms of the basically there is an abyss between what gangrelated means in real life and what gangrelated for or any other codified language means in the legal system or the way thats utilized to hand out punishment . What i found is you can do anything you want in that town. You can say this person was wearing red and they mean that maybe about gangs, might be about laundry. You dont know. Dont know. And al like a pretend thing. A couple of the parents, including pedro, justin, theyre watching to see how much red or how much blue theyre wearing, and talk about hiding certain colors, and basic clothing, and that for the kids sometimes its like, well, i am going to have to wear some red in order to get through the day. So its not like there isnt something going on. The question is, if youre going to try to codify it, then youre going to need some rules, and as soon as you start applying the rules, things are going to fall apart. Why is that kid wearing red in a gang and that kid wearing red not in a gang . Are we in a place where wearing red is illegal . Or that holding your fingers in a certain way is host a gang sign. Guest yeah. Or is kind of a suspicionproof to put someone away. Then comes the second thing, which is the book doesnt really go into this, apart from insofar as gun gang related becomes a slur, but its not like if you put them in prison you keep them away from gangs. Actually, prison has a gang culture all of its own and actually that would be a way to cement their connection and relationship to gangs. So, a lot of these things, criminal justice enhancements, much like using the Second Amendment as a crutch, they dont really engage with the issue, which is why are children joining these violent organizations that are linked to criminal activity . Some would have not just racial or ethnicity, not unique to america. But why are they doing it and what could provide them, what could be do to stop this happening as opposed to, how do we punish them . Get to the root problem. Host i want to talk to you about your methodology because i had some questions i was like, oh, i wonder if i would have made the same choice. For example, kenneth mill tuckers family said they didnt want to talk to you, didnt want you contacting them, and you chronicle all that really well. So i was able to follow you through the constant rejection basically. But ultimately you decided to write about him. So, i thought, okay, as i was reading it, i would have made the same choice . Would you have written about him . Host yes. Guest i think that i wrote about him from what was in public record. And they never said i, i mean, i found his grandparents by matching their names to people in the in white pages in indianapolis, and then looking for tucker was a fairly common name but i look america is officially segregated and you can think, where do the black people live . I will try here. So i found the number, i called them. They were actually kind of quite up for an initial conversation. They gave me his fathers number. And then i made the mistake, i think, of calling his father. Should have texted him. Of course i watched him offguard, asking to write about has son, and he never called me back. Never said no. Said ill call you back and never did. And then the grandparents, when i came to indianapolis for the nra convention, i called them a couple times, and then the called me and said, dont call again. So, first of all they didnt say, dont do this. And secondly, even if they had, all of the thing is wrote about were in public records and still in the public records, his tweeter feed, facebook page, an arrest warrant, and the newspaper clipping and the incident report. Hes already been written about. Already exists publicly. And i think the issue for me is, do you treat these people with respect . More tricky is another child who one parent does talk to me, they give me the number of the other parent, and the other parent leaves a blistering message on the phone. Im going to get my lawyer. And you are writing this book to make money off my child, and just how dare you, and im not even filling filling in the more colorful language. My feeling about it was i mean, first of all, probably a record. And secondly, one of the parents have spoken to me already, and i did the same thing for every parent. I would present them with a request, and i would say, i hear your child died. Would like to know how they lived. I would like to know who they were. Anything that you would like to tell me about them issue would like to hear itch would give them a copy of the piece i did in 2007, where possible i would give them a copy of my previous my last book, which was about Martin Luther kings dream speech, and i would say, this is who i am. Would you like to talk . And thats what i did with this childs one of the childs parents and they said, yeah, and gave me the other parents number and they were like, hell, no. So, once again i felt that i dont feel entitled to any of these to the testimony of the parents, but i think that things that are in the Public Domain are already exist, and then the question is whether you treat them respectfully or not. Host you must have had reames and boxes of documents and all kinds of things. What is the process of, like, sifting. Making this critical choice for the sake of the story . Guest that was difficult. That was difficult because there are things that you read that might be embarrassing for the family. Things you learn that might be difficult, and that you have to weigh, is this important to the story . Is this hurtful to the family . How important, how hurtful, what aim going to do with that . For every one where it was possible i would send them their quote. This is what you said. If thought there was something that were in a couple of case i thought there was something that they might be unhappy about. I said, im giving you this and its okay with you . And then otherwise you have to trust that you understand peoples dignity, and that these are in a couple of in a few ways these are vulnerable people. They lost their child, theyre not used to being in the limelight, and so you have to proceed with caution. I dont think i was cavalier with any of their stories. Their feedback ive had from four of the families now, is that they are happy with the treatment that their kid have got. Some of them its difficult to get ahold of them, but the ones i have been able to get ahold of, send them all books. Havent heard from any yet. And if theyre not, i will have to deal with that. And theres a difference between, i think, being inaccurate and being unfair, or being or something they dont like and something being unfair. So, my mother died quite young, some we not have liked people to have described her house as being a messy house, but it was a messy house. And that would have been an accurate description. Wouldnt have been unfair. Might have been a unnecessary, and that would have been different, but so you know, there are very tricky lines to walk. I hope that ive done it sensitively, and probably the way i havent been sensitive i dont know about. Ill hear about it have to deal with it. But havent been any complaints yet. Host heres a question. Do you ever fear that in the process of discovery and writing and publishing you might accidentally incriminal a nate someone . Some of these are unsolved. Guest incriminate . Host like, offer Additional Information that might not have been guest yes. Host put together in a way you put it together. Guest a couple of cases where people say they know who did it, but the people who did it are not have not been host identified. Guest were brought to justice and so on and you have to be very careful about that. Im trying to think how many of those. Theres certainly one i can think of where the name was around and around. I think there were two where people say they knew who did it. But one in particular in a small town, where the father said, yeah, ive seen that kid. Muman and i know who he is, but dont know anything about it. Host all right. Want to ask you about what im terming secondary characters, because you talk to a lot of people who were not there when the deaths happened, not necessarily related to directly to the victim, but who somehow were integral to the mourning process, that high school counselor, for example. So, in that case, all the people who were best friends or friends who grew up with the parents, things like that. Can you talk about the extended network of grief thatland . Guest yes. So, in quite a few cases it actually comes with trying to find the family. The ten kids died, eight of them i found i didnt find by going straight to in the house. It was from the parlor or someone who knew them on facebook. Do you know how i can get in touch with so and so. And that these kids arent just raised by their parents. Theres a kind of theres a support network out there for them, who want to who know them in different ways, and im thinking of sean at kinson, and i spoke to his grandmother, who come from hard to reach communities and groups where people, frankly, are not just going to kind of open up to foreign journalist, just going to wander into south side chicago and say, im looking for new who new kesean, come chat. But his godmother wanted to tell his story, and i could tell from her facebook postings how much she loved him. There was a connection there. Thought this is someone and i hoped with a lot of these cases maybe you can and doesnt always work out like that. But i think that kind of extended network, preacher, teacher, basketball coach, is very important because parents often i know from growing up, my mother probably my mother knew in the longest, i was in her womb. Didnt necessarily know me best. And other elements when youre 15, 16, you dont tell your parents everything. Im a parent. Im not sure id want to no anything my 15 and 16yearold kid is doing. So then you have to yeah, you have to look elsewhere for those stories. Host okay. Did anyone give you conflicting stories and then you had to find a middle ground for . Guest either conflicting more often it was partial story. It was kind of like, oh, okay. So, one of them i spoke to the mom, spoke to others, and they would have this kind of slight, yeah, he had not been in trouble. Really . Certainly not recently. 0 and then it was when i spoke to a friend he was like, he was in jail for a bit. And he was . Yeah, yeah, and said, well, what for . He was like, i cant remember. When . Host everything becomes fuzzy. Guest or maybe kind of like, yeah, could have been i dont know. Whatever. So, in that moment i have to decide, do i want to pursue this . Sometimes you do, sometimes you dont. I didnt have this friend for long. There were things i wanted to know. So i just in the book say, seems like he was in jail, could have been for three months or six. Like nobodys really talking about that. I guess because it didnt seem i spoke to a fair few people who knew him, and didnt seem to be a defining thing about him. Wasnt i know he went to jail. A parent wouldnt want to share that with me. But i also know that its something that is usual to know. So there were a few of those. Or just, yeah, you know, someone spend from suspended from school. What for . And kind of quickly becomes fuzzy. And you get a sense that after a few conversations with different people, i decide from what ive heard it was something stupid, not something terrible, and i can find a way to get to the bottom of it, can pursue it, i can be kind of and thats my call. And some of those things i do. I, no, i need to know what happened here. Other times, okay. So ill ask but when the same kind of fuzzy answer comes back, then im like, okay, the third time ive heard that form of words that doesnt really make a sentence. Im just going to move on. Host right. Youre like, i got it. So, final question is basically what do you know now, after having gone through this, having written it, after have something distance to think about it, what do you really, really know now with absolute certainty you didnt know before . Guest i would say three things. First of all, i know now that i didnt know before that africanamerican in particular africanamerican parents carry around the fear their children might be shot dead, rickly lowincome communities. From time and a again i ask them do you think this could happen . Then like samuels mom says i dont think it would be him. Thought it would be his brother. The father says youre not doing your job as a black father. Right. If you dont think your kid could be shot. Every single bad parent had factored that into their painting itch didnt know that. Into anywhere parenting. I didnt know that. I am a black parent. Was a black parent here and you think, yes, guess i considered this. I have kind of felt there was that. The other was the the second was the degree to which the ducks gun debate does not touch these people. Doesnt engage them. It touches them, touches their lives, the conchs sequences do, but the debate the consequence does but the debate doesnt engage them. When i ask the question, what is this about, i doesnt come up. It seems to me like traffic. My kid this is a terrible, terrible thing that happened. What are you going to do . The hopelessness. And then the final thing is how achingly normal these children are. Call of duty, mindcraft, all of this, they are while statistically if youre wealthy and white, these are unlikely to be your children. If youre wealthy, actually, wealthy and white, theyre unlikely to be your children. They are not that different either from your children or children you know. The parents are not as different as the parents know the parents. These are for the most part very, very normal people who it serves some people in the interests of the gun conversation to apologize but theyre not that different. Host thank you so much. Guest thank you. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. In 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies. And it is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. Starting now, on cspan 2, booktvs live in depth program, this month we does discuss the december 7, 1941 attack on pearl harbor with steve well toey, irry hotta, and craig nelson. And the attack left over 2,000 dead, 1,000 wounded and crippled the United States navy. For the next three hours, well take your questions. You can call in, email us at book tv cspan. Org and post on our facebook wall. Youre watching live in depth on booktv