From uclas school of Public Affairs. This runs an hour and a half. Understand theo deep connection that the issue of guns and gun violence has with the work of the school of Public Affairs. Is a the other focuses focus on Mental Health. Guns are the single biggest killer of women. They are the single biggest. Ause of successful suicide it turns out people may try to take their own life more often than we would like, and its a tragedy, but we are not very good at it unless there is a gun present. If there is a gun present, the possibility of fatalities skyrocket. Guns tear at the fabric of american society, but as you will hear in tonights lecture, you can argue they are written into the fabric of american their advocates and manufacturers would tell us. We will talk a bit more about that. Its also important to understand that guns are a racial issue. Puts a simply, puts succinctly, as the Second Amendment is made up for white people. As more than 100 armed men descend on the kentucky state capital, nothing happens. If 1000 armed africanamerican men descended on the kentucky state capital, i would ensure you nothing would be in the option of outcomes. Whether it is immigration, whether it is crime, incarceration, violence against women, Mental Health issues, suicide prevention, and many issues, guns are deeply connected to the work and challenges we try to address at the school. Tonights event was pulled together by my colleague brad rowe. Few faculty have a resume as diverse as brads. Brad has a degree in economics from wisconsin and a degree in Public Policy from the luskin school. Hes worked on campaigns for nonprofits, and educational advocacy, and for a time, his own consultancy with the late mark kleiman. In addition, brad has Motion Picture and television credits to his name. Brad has a particular expertise in canadas policy, and he worked with mark kleiman, a retired professor from Public Policy, both when he was here and at nyu. Brad has additional expertise in youth policy, particularly around criminal justice. Hes a lecturer in the department of pollock Public Policy, and this spring, will be teaching Public Affairs 136, canadas policy, in the spring quarter. After one of the latest Mass Shootings, and i honestly cant remember which, which says a lot about the size and scope of the problem, brad called me furious. He said, we have to do something. He said my Childs School has been locked down twice in the last 18 months. This is not how people in a just and Orderly Society live, and hes right. To take over the master of ceremonies job for the evening and to direct our festivities and discussion, i introduce you to brad rowe. [applause] brad you cant hit me like that. Thank you though. Those were my sentiments, and they are my sentiments. Thank you for saying that. Have aie noted, i do history as an actor. I can sometimes act like i dont feel a certain way. This is not one of those issues. I first of all want to acknowledge we are on the soil of ucla. We are a land grant institution. We recognize the native people as the traditional caretakers. We pay our respects to the ancestors, elders, and relatives of these people. [applause] late 2007, i took a trip to help out my sister heidi in nebraska. She was a floor manager for a cosmetic brand. 2007,cember 5 of tw when a 19yearold entered a mall, he shot and killed eight and wounded four. One of the employees was looking directly at my sister before he was shot and killed. The young man turned the gun on himself, a suicide note filled with a message of hate. He wrote, just think though. Im going to be fucking famous. I accompanied my sister as she accompanied four friends and coworkers. While not technically a victim of the shooting, the trauma left scars. Im not going to ask for a show of hands, but it is my guess that a lot of you dont have a clear recollection of the specific incident i referred to. If you are born after 1992, you get a hall pass. That is most of the students who are here. Thats ok. My point is though, and gary made the same point with my contact for him, how such a remarkable and tragic day has unfortunately become lost among the series of tragic days just like it. Some people talk about desensitize asian, but this is not normal. It is unlike anything else in the world. One of the catalysts for the event coming together, gary mentioned i reached out to him, and it was that my sons high school had gone on lockdown for the second time in three years. First included a suspect carrying a semi automatic rifle behind his high school. Had coffee with her last week, shared that they keep a portable toilet in the room. A work colleague of mine today shared that she lost two friends in the el paso shooting and she fears going to the movie theaters. People will tell you that they have been affected by gun violence. But we have to ask. I am here today wearing my Public Policy had. One of the first things we do when trying to analyze a Public Policy problem is we bring the relevant experts and stakeholders together. Thank you for being here today. We then have those stakeholders weigh in and define the issues. We task that group with proposing areas of investigation or action that can advance knowledge of the issues and solutions, and i proposed we first start out with points and goals that done advocates can agree upon. Recall anyone advocating against these. Everyone would like a reduction in death and mayhem. Liberty, everyone would like to be free from actual or perceived threats and the restrictions these dangers impose on our lives. In the pursuit of happiness. We want fewer moments and days impacted by toxic stress, ptsd, zaidi, depression, and other mental diseases exacerbated by the gunrelated death and mayhem. Today, we have brought that group of experts together, not only those that you will see on the stage, but Many Organizations and individuals represented in this audience today. I amyou here tonight, hoping we will succeed in better defining the issues, and i hope we can task this group with proposing areas of investigation or action we might pursue as a collective. The problem at first blush seems straightforward. Abnormally high numbers of people being killed and wounded at the hands of an assailant as in homicide or in their own hands as in suicide. Equally as tragic are the accidental deaths. As mark kaplan who could not be with us today noted, total gun deaths are almost 40,000 a year, and 60 of those are suicides. It would seem to me this is a Public Health problem, if not an epidemic. These numbers are in the same oallpark of deaths related t automobile accidents and opioid use. A small percentage of these deaths involve a mass shooting incident, as defined by four or more dead. It is the senseless killings of others that causes society the greatest grief and outrage and mobilization. We need only mention the names columbine or sandy hook or parkland, and it evokes the worst images of fear we have around gun violence. What seems clear is we cannot depend on the rush of adrenaline, the indignation, the to carry uswe feel through the hard work of policy reform. In preparing for this event, the speakers wanted to make sure we included a discussion on mass casualty events, but we wanted to offer more of a broader view of the issues. What we are angling to do is to share some of the collective wisdom that exists on the stage and open it up to questions with you all. We are very fortunate to have a gathering of so many brilliant and very talented groups. I do want to acknowledge the gun advocates. We need you here. We need your voices. We need your background. We need your histories. Our policymaking and pr efforts have become too antagonistic and disrespectful and not enough to put on a bumper sticker. It is not that simple. You are entitled to a voice and to be heard, and please do not be shy. If we hope to develop longlasting gun reform, it cannot be done without consideration for the legitimate claims of gun advocates. As you listen to our speaker and think about how you want to engage and consider that this can be a hopeful story, the house has earmarked 25 Million Dollars for gun research recently, which brings me to the point that state and local reform may not be as effective as federal regulation. Our keynote speaker, roxanne dunbarortiz, she hails from the state of oklahoma. She talks about in her most recent book loaded a disarming history of the second minute, she grew up in a gun culture. Wildlyeading her successful on Indigenous Peoples history of the united comments she made about the Second Amendment, she was asked if she could write a book about that, and she said yes. She includes concepts in this fetishization of amendmenthe second after the civil war. Characters like jesse james and billy kidd and the romance we had with these ideas that were missourip in the postconfederate guerrilla warfare groups. She speaks as deftly as she does about the black panthers as the emerging image of the mass shooter being a white male. The idea produced in that book will illustrate how embedded and complex the gun issue has become throughout our American History, and somehow, she makes it digestible. Wordsmith, a true dedicated researcher, and a seeker of truth, it is my honor to present to you our keynote speaker dr. Roxanne dunbar ortiz. [applause] dunbarortiz thank you, comments your enduring endearing comments. There gathered here on of on of the ancestral territory people. Ongva segarra andink dean the organizers of this event. Tommy who cant be here tonight who did so much of the work, brad and mark kaplan, and thanks to professor adam winkler and ileto for joining me in conversation following my talk. Thank you all for being here tonight and youre concerned about the troublesome crisis of gun violence. Go to the sympathies survivors of gun violence and those whose loved ones have been victims of this violence. You are always in my mind when i problem and the Second Amendment. Mentioned, essential to what informs my research talking and writing on the gun cold in lt innited states gun cu the United States is the fact that i grew up in an all white rural white nebraskan community with guns and the bible. Southern baptist. Also essential to my experience with guns, in the early 1970s, for a year, i was a member of an armed radical left group in southern louisiana. We amassed a lot of guns. We were members of outdoor and indoor gun clubs and frequented gun shows, but fortunately never had occasion to fire the weapons beyond practice, but we practiced a lot. That is to say i am intimately familiar with all kinds of handguns, rifles, ammunition, including reloading shotgun shells, and what i call gun love. A firearm slung over your shoulder or a ninemillimeter tucked under your belt create a amplified power without which you feel naked and vulnerable. Awesome, and they are beautiful objects that are addictive. Many objects may be used to kill someone, including the human hand, but only firearms are made for that explicit purpose. Love, as i of my gun call it, the 1970s, approximately 50 of the homes in the United States contained a firearm. 112 million guns and a population of 200 million. That is one or two guns per person, most of them single shot rifles or shotguns. But about half of the population owned a gun at all. Happen to not own any guns at all. Century, the1st number of guns privately owned in the United States has reached 390 million. Published, which was two years ago, it was 300 million. It is already dated in terms of how many guns, and this was within a population of 330 Million People. Is United States population a little over 4 of the worlds population or a tiny part of the worlds population, but nearly our gunrld ownership accounts for half the. Orlds guns guns, 120 one firearms for every 100 u. S. Adults, are mostly highcaliber sidearms and. Ifles, mostly semiautomatic this means each gun owner possesses an average of eight guns. Only one third of the population now owns any guns at all. 70 have no relationship with guns at all. I call these gun hoarders, people who own eight or more weapons, if they say its for selfdefense well, eight . Do you really need eight . Addicts, just as i was when i became addicted to having that sense of power. Center hasearch found that the general profile of gun owners in the United States differs substantially from the general public. Roughly three fourths of gun owners are men, and 82 are white. 61 ofogether, that is adults who own guns are white men. Men make upwhite only 32 of the u. S. Population. What are the majority of white so afraid of . They are real scaredy cats. Of gunot to make sense hoarding and the cult of the gun if we dont deal with White Nationalism. We cant deal with White Nationalism without dealing with United States history. I am an historian, and i feel this is how i can contribute to the understanding of this seemingly senseless gun. Roliferation and violence centuries of racial and economic domination by white men are integral to United States culture, views, and institutions. The ongoing influence of this history is compounded by a general lack or refusal of ofwledge and acknowledgment the three centuries of white settler colonial savage violence in seizing indigenous land across the continent and the legacy of 2. 5 centuries of legalized racial slavery, followed by another century of totalitarian control of africanamerican individuals and communities through such practices as convict leasing, legal segregation, rampant institutional racism, red lighting, police killings, mass surveillance, and mass incarceration. States was born of aggressive war. The firearms industry was the First Successful modern corporation, the brainchild of alexander hamilton. The Springfield Armory was established by the Continental Congress in 1777. Ae constitution created fiscal military state, that is a state primarily designed for war. Returning retiring as chief justice of the late maureen ebert wrote a long and impassioned plea for gun control, arguing that the Second Amendment was dated and no longer needed. Lets look at the history, he wrote. The 3. 5 Million People living in the 13 original colonies depended on wild game for food. A good many of them required firearms for their defense from marauding indians. He argued that hunting for food or killing indians were no longer necessary, so the Second Amendment should be done oh should be done away with. Is, he ishis language right about firearms being used by white settlers to kill indians and violently appropriating their land, but regarding hunting, actually the early settlers, as well as postindependent white rural settlers, primarily used domesticated cows, hogs, and chickens for food. Nearly all of their hunting was , and they mostly used trapping rather than firearms, taking the skin and leaving the carcass to rot. White settler guns use was not about hunting, nor is the Second Amendment about hunting. It never was. Were used to kill indians over a period of four centuries i. The Second Amendment mandated to the settler population that right to form their own militias and carry that out. Many guncontrol advocates many guncontrol advocates and politicians maintain that the Second Amendment is about states continuing to have their own militias, emphasizing the language of wellregulated in the Second Amendment. However, the respective state militias were already authorized by the u. S. Constitution when the amendment was added. The constitution recognized the already existing britishestablished colonial militias as state militias. Given what are now the states n guards are descended from the state militias provided for in the constitution, why would an amendment be added to call for militias . The militias referenced in the Second Amendment were voluntary and self organized settler militias, not state militias. State militias were empowered in article one, section eight, clause 15 to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrection, and repel invasion, which is pretty much what the National Guard does. Militias of the Second Amendment were related to settlers seizing , thefrom its owners indigenous nations. Of even thers heller decision idealized anglo farmers as fearing big brother government, an argument being taken up by some antiracist colonialups, but what anglo settlers considered oppressive was any restriction that colonial authorities put on them in regard to obtaining land by violence. The United States authorities, gave freeer hand, rein to settler militias as the shock troops and foot soldiers of empire. Wrote,an Charles Sellars cheap land held absolutely under the seaboard markets capitalist conception of property swelled a patriarchal honor to heroic. Imensions in Rural America the fathers authority rested on his regal title to the family land. Where european Peasant Holdings were usually encumbered with obligations to some elite, the in simple. Rmer held simple land, the augmenting feature of the patriarchal persona, sustained his honor and untrammeled will. This extraordinar