Rob Wilcox: Guns in America – Violence, Rights and Politics
Rob Wilcox is the Federal Legal Director at ‘Everytown for Gun Safety’, the leading gun safety movement in the United States (https://www.everytown.org).
A qualified commercial lawyer, Rob’s life changed forever when his family was tragically touched by gun violence.
Misha Zelinsky caught up with Rob for a Chinwag about the US gun violence epidemic, the political polarisation underpinning this issue, what sensible reform looks like, how to build a movement for change from the ground up, the role of the Second Amendment in gun ownership, misinformation online and whether meaningful change is actually possible.
It’s a really insightful conversation on an issue that touches many people. A big thank you to Rob for coming on the Diplomates Pod to share his personal story; he’s a great guy and he’s tackling an issue that needs to be addressed.
Show Transcript:
Misha Zelinsky:
Rob, welcome to Diplomates. Thanks for joining us, mate.
Rob Wilcox:
Oh, thank you so much for having me. It’s my pleasure.
Misha Zelinsky:
And you’re joining us from the United States. So, much appreciated given the time zone differences. Now, we’re going to dig right into the issue of gun violence and gun control and gun safety. It’s an issue that I’m very interested in. I know a lot of Australians are very interested in particularly sort of scratching their heads at the size of this problem. So before we get into the problem itself and the solution, I’m going to start with some of the stats around guns and the stats around the gun violence problem.
Misha Zelinsky:
I mean, just looking before we were getting ready for our chat, there’s more than one gun, for example, in the United States than people, so more than one gun per person. When you think about the fact that there’s kids, obviously, there’s elderly, there’s people that are in hospital, there’s people that are in prison, and so there’s more guns floating around. So there’s people with multiple and multiple firearms. Maybe you can start with some of the stats about how bad the problem is and maybe whether or not it’s getting better or worse.
Rob Wilcox:
Yeah. Look, I think there’s two points there. One is gun ownership in America and one is gun violence. And I think the best estimates are that about a third of American households have firearms. So even though you’re right that there’s one per person, that doesn’t mean that there’s one in every home. And this country does have a long and rich tradition of gun ownership. And in fact, my family owns guns. So it’s not something that I haven’t been around that I don’t know about. But that’s very different than guns that end up in the wrong hands and the tragedies that are just far too frequent.
Rob Wilcox:
So the second point about gun violence, the issue we have here is that 100 Americans are dying every single day from gun violence, over 200 are injured. And it’s about 40,000 a year. And that’s every single year and it’s all types of gun violence. It’s the mass tragedies that maybe breakthrough in the national, international news, but it’s also everyday gun violence in our communities, and it’s firearm suicide that happens in the privacy of our homes, and intimate partner domestic violence. So, the firearm in the wrong hands has ripple effects throughout our communities in all sorts of different ways.
Misha Zelinsky:
I mean, you’ve been activist in this space, would you say the problem is getting better or worse? Because I mean, from an outsider’s point of view, it feels like it’s getting worse. I know we’re not that supported empirically in the data.
Rob Wilcox:
Look, what we’ve seen during this COVID-19 pandemic, that’s been a global health pandemic, is an epidemic within that in this country. And that’s the fact that gun violence has gotten worse. We saw more gun violence in 2020 than in the decades preceding it. So, even if some of those mass shootings that might not make the headlines haven’t occurred with the same frequency, we’ve seen the same terror happening day in and day out to families and communities. So, from my perspective, it’s getting worse and it demands immediate action.
Misha Zelinsky:
And I suppose you’d be looking at the problem in America, but no doubt you benchmark yourself against other nations like Australia, comparable nations like Canada and European nations. Do you think that America is somehow more violent society or do you see this as a problem about guns themselves?
Rob Wilcox:
Look, America is exceptional in terms of its gun violence. If you look at 25 peer nations, our rates of gun violence are multiple times higher. And that’s because we have easy access to guns. For people who shouldn’t have them, we have loopholes. Do we have more mental health issues? No. Do we have more violent video games? No. Do we have more violent movies? No. But what we do have is access to guns for those who are a threat to themselves or others. And that to me is what is fueling our uniquely American problem.
Misha Zelinsky:
And so, we’ll get back to, I suppose, this macro problem. If you don’t mind, you might share a little bit with us about your personal story and what prompted you to perhaps become an activist for change in this space. Your family was touched by gun violence very deeply, very tragically. I was wondering if you might share that story with us, please.
Rob Wilcox:
Yeah. No, I appreciate you asking, because I think it’s important for us to share our stories so that we can see the humanity and hopefully inspire change. But like I said, I mean, I grew up with guns and I grew up learning how to shoot for my father. And so, I see the family tradition that comes with gun ownership, but I’ve also seen the other side of it in my life. And I saw it before I even graduated college.
Rob Wilcox:
I grew up in Brooklyn and so I saw gun violence in my community both being aware of it, seeing it on the everyday local news. But it wasn’t until my senior year in college back in 2001, when I was abroad actually in Australia visiting, touring, being with friends that I got a call that I never expected to get, which was my 19-year-old cousin who was at home for winter break from her college in Northern California, kind of a safe, sleepy place, was killed. And she was killed by someone who shouldn’t have had a gun.
Rob Wilcox:
She was home from winter break from Haverford College and she was volunteering at her local mental health hospital, just checking people in, being of service in their community, that’s who she was. She was this bright, brilliant light. And the day that she was killed, she wasn’t even, I suppose, to work. But somebody called out sick, she stepped up. And what we learned is one of the former patients walked in with firearms, walked up and killed her, killed others.
Rob Wilcox:
When the police responded, he then made his way to a restaurant and killed others. It was a deadly day for that community. It didn’t make national news but it inspired me and inspired my aunt and uncle and inspired other advocates to get involved. And that’s kind of fueled me and allowed me to learn about this issue from a very personal perspective and meet thousands of survivors along the way and take a number of steps to make myself educated about our gun laws and about the solutions that would be effective at preventing the tragedy that I’ve seen.
Misha Zelinsky:
And just you’ve touched on them in these incidents, and I’m so sorry, obviously, for your loss, man. It’s an awful story. It’s all too common, unfortunately, in the US. This occurred at a mental health hospital. I mean, what’s the role of mental illness in gun violence do you see? I mean, are these things correlated to the wrong people having access to firearms? Do you see those things closely linked?
Rob Wilcox:
It’s definitely not correlated or not their causation. Folks with mental illness are much more likely to be victims of violence than they are to be perpetrators of violence. So I don’t tell that story to cast aspersions on those who have mental illness, especially those seeking treatment. But for individuals who are in crisis or a threat to themselves or others, well, then we need to do something to make sure they don’t have access to guns. And this individual, his family was concerned, his brother was in law enforcement, knew he shouldn’t have had guns but there was no steps that could be taken.
Rob Wilcox:
They actually tried to go through a mental health process to get him involuntary committed, that didn’t work. And so what they really needed was the law that we call an extreme risk protection order, which is a court process to temporarily remove firearms from someone who’s a threat to themselves or others. And frankly, that’s a law that my aunt and uncle worked to get passed in California. And it’s a law that we see in 19 states now, red, blue, and purple. And we’re working on at the federal level as well.
Misha Zelinsky:
And so, I mean, that’s a good time to raise this organization where for Everytown, for listeners that are familiar with it, maybe you can explain who that organization is, what its purpose is, and why you see that as the place to, I suppose, affect the change you’re trying to make.
Rob Wilcox:
Yeah, Everytown for Gun Safety is an incredible organization. It brings together data-driven research, evidence-based solutions, as well as a grassroots component. It brings together this notion that we need to be fighting for evidence-based policies that respect the Second Amendment, not just with our words and on paper, but with the power of people. And so we brought together survivors of gun violence activists around the country, mayors, students, law enforcement, gun owners, all to join in this effort. And right now we have six million supporters that we work with around the country at that local state and federal level and in boardrooms all looking to make the change that will make the difference.
Misha Zelinsky:
And so, just want to turn to US gun culture. You talked about at the beginning a little bit about the culture of gun ownership and how it embedded in, I suppose, US cultural identity. I mean, how do you see that as being critical to this debate? Because I mean, many times this gets raised, the Second Amendment gets raised and people go right back to 1776 and the Declaration of Independence and the war of independence against the British and that don’t take away my guns because it’s going to stop us from being able to overthrow tyranny, et cetera. That is a very powerful cultural touchstone. It’s obviously important legal theme. This cultural link to gun ownership, why do you think it exists and how does it influence, I suppose, to the work you’re trying to do?
Rob Wilcox:
Yeah. I think if we look back and really take a long view, what I would say from the beginning of this country, guns were tools, guns were around, they were tools for freedom, as you mentioned. They were tools for survival, for hunting and defense. They were also at times tools for oppression. It’d be that violence against others or in kind of keeping alive the slave system that we had in this country.
Rob Wilcox:
So I think all of those were parts of our founding or all those are pieces that we have to reckon with. And yes, we have a Second Amendment on the books, and that’s been interpreted. And what we fight for the policies that respect the rights of law abiding responsible Americans to own firearms but seek to make it more difficult for those who shouldn’t have access to them. And if you both look historically and at the public opinion, it all fits. For as long as we’ve had the Second Amendment, we’ve had laws about gun ownership in this country about who can and can’t have guns, about the regulations about how you store them and how you use them.
Rob Wilcox:
So, these gun laws aren’t new and that’s why they’re consistent with the Second Amendment. And the truth is, even though we have a small minority of vocal advocates who think that we shouldn’t have a single gun law on the books, the fact is 90% of Americans think we should have background checks. And that includes vast majorities of Democrats, Republicans, independents, gun owners, even NRA members. So, if you think about the policies we’re fighting for, they’re both constitutional and they’re popular. And that’s our work. That’s the work of a rather new organization, which is to bring that power to fight for the change that we want.
Misha Zelinsky:
I’m keen to dig into that political change piece. And I want to have a long conversation about that. Just staying with the gun culture piece, the other bit that you’ve talked about sort of this the right to bear arms and the importance of law abiding citizens having that right, which I think people wouldn’t argue with, the other bit that I want to touch on is from an Australian point of view, I’d call it the John Wayne fantasy, if I can call it that. It’s this notion that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, and therefore having armed citizens is the best way to stop someone doing something horrendous in the community opening fire on innocent people, et cetera. Is this a real kind of construct or is a bit of a fantasy that never actually plays out in that fashion?
Rob Wilcox:
The best way to stop a tragedy is to make sure that the person who’s arrested themselves or others doesn’t have a gun in the first place. Are there situations when someone with a firearm can stop a tragedy from happening? Yes, those have occurred. They occur with law enforcement on the scene. They’ve occurred with law abiding citizens who have used a firearm in self-defense. Those things happen. But the truth is, if you really want to address gun violence and what we see in our country, then we need to focus on the interventions that work. And that’s about intervening before someone takes that step to commit the act and to prevent them from getting guns in the first place. You think about school shootings in America, I mean, it’s something that’s horrific, it’s uniquely American and it’s prevalent.
Misha Zelinsky:
Yes.
Rob Wilcox:
But if you look at the data, you actually look at the data of all of these incidents over the past 20, 30 years, things become very clear very quickly. One is that those shootings are almost always committed by students. Two is that those students almost always show warning signs that concern people around them. And three is that 80% of the time that guns coming from the home. So, what that means is we got to think about our students and those who are in crisis. We got to take steps to intervene to put them on the right path and sure, they’re not on the wrong path. And as parents, we need to make sure that our kids don’t have access to guns in our home.
Rob Wilcox:
That’s how you can actually get at that issue with school shootings. And it has nothing to do with do we need teachers who are armed? Do we need high school seniors carrying guns? Do we need to turn schools into prisons? Do we need to have a zero tolerance policy? None of those things will actually work or get at this root cause, which is kids who are in crisis and taking the steps to make sure that they both are getting services but also don’t have access to guns.
Misha Zelinsky:
And so, we’ve touched on the Second Amendment, as we’ve been going along with, it’s the sort of the elephant in the room when it comes to this debate and any sort of policy changes. For those that aren’t super wonks in this space, maybe you can just explain a little bit how it impacts on it. But also, I suppose, the way that the Supreme Court plays a role within this process, because its interpretations of the Second Amendment the way it’s been perhaps advances and setbacks in that process, how do you see it as essentially a sort of immovable roadblock in terms of actually making changes that you’re talking about?
Rob Wilcox:
It’s definitely not an immovable roadblock. That’s the first thing I would say. But if we actually were to look at the text of this amendment, it says a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. And so, there’s a lot in that one sentence including multiple commas in a pack. And our Supreme Court has looked at it and ruled that it protects the individual right to have a firearm of common use in your home, but that there is room for reasonable regulation.
Rob Wilcox:
Even the justice who wrote the opinion that defined the Second Amendment, Justice Antonin Scalia, he talked about the type of regulations that are permissible and in terms of felons in possession of guns, keeping guns out of schools, and other kind of common sense regulations we can put in place that will keep guns out of the wrong hands. So no, I think that while we’ve had the Second Amendment for as long as this country has been around, we’ve also had gun laws that get at this very core point of how do we keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them.
Misha Zelinsky:
Well, I think that’s right. Interesting point raised, because I think the well-regulated militia piece, I think, is what point that a lot of people tend to ignore as opposed when you’re talking about the people’s right to bear arms should not be infringed. I mean, it doesn’t strike me as inalienable because we say you can’t have a nuclear bomb, right? So there is some sort of a tank, so there is a limit already there easily. And I think anyone that’s not completely crazy would agree with that. So that is where you are drawing the line. But I guess the question I have for you is the way it’s being interpreted, given the way that the court is currently composed now with more conservative justices, are you confident that if gun laws… Let’s imagine a world where Congress were to pass gun amendment type laws, are you confident that the court would uphold those types of changes?
Rob Wilcox:
Yeah. Every single law that I’ve been working on at the federal level, every action that’s being proposed by President Biden is constitutional. And multiple courts have upheld them. The Supreme Court will be taking up a Second Amendment case this year. And so we’re going to potentially get another decision from them about the scope of the Second Amendment and what it protects. But the truth is, I mean, as you said, different types of weapons are regulated in this country in a host of different ways. You have on the one hand bombs and tanks, but even when you look at firearms, you have fully automatic weapons, machine guns that have been regulated since the 1930s.
Rob Wilcox:
You’ve had regulations and prohibitions on semi-automatic rifles that are military style, so they take detachable magazines and have the features of a military style weapon. And you’ve had background checks on gun sale on just your handgun and hunting rifle. So we’ve had a host of different types of regulations based on that type of weapon. And they’ve all been upheld as constitutional. So, I think the things that we’re working on that will make a real difference would all be upheld by this court.
Misha Zelinsky:
And so, what is sensible reform? And then you touched on, I suppose, is probably what you consider to be perhaps ideal and maybe that’s not achievable. So, what do you firstly see is achievable and what would be an ideal outcome? And I suppose the other thing I’m curious is now Australia went through this process itself a long time ago. Now, when I was young, we had the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania where 30 people were shot. That’s our largest mass shooting and it startled the country at the time. We had a conservative prime minister, John Howard, who amended the gun laws. And thankfully they remain in place today, though there are attempts to weaken them. Is Australia a bit of a model in this space or is it a kind of, again, we have compulsory voting and other sorts of things that are just impossible in the United States?
Rob Wilcox:
Look, I focus on this issue of gun violence in America through the lens of the constitution, laws, tradition and history of the United States. And so, while I’m aware of what’s happened, internationally and other countries, what I focus on is what we have to deal with here. And I think when I look at that history and I look at our culture and I look at our constitution and I look at the laws we have on the books, and frankly the loopholes, I see a lot of opportunity to make significant progress.
Rob Wilcox:
I’ll give you one example. Right now in this country, since 1993, we say that if a gun is sold at a licensed gun dealer, there has to be a background check. That’s effectively stopped over four million folks who are prohibited from buying guns from those dealers. And most people go to a dealer to buy a gun. But there is a secondary market and that’s not insignificant, where people can go and buy a gun without a background check. And I’ve taken a look at this. And on just one website I found 1.2 million ads over a year where you could buy a gun without a background check.
Misha Zelinsky:
So can I just ask a question? In Australia, I wouldn’t even know how to start to get a gun. I’ll be honest with you. I mean, if I looked I’m sure I could get one and my grandfather owned guns and he was part of a gun club. But I would not even know where to buy and what permits I need, et cetera. How easy is it if I just decided and woke up and I’m a citizen of the US, I’m living in the US and so I want to buy a gun? Maybe you could just step out how easy that would be.
Rob Wilcox:
Each state has different laws. So, I think just for simplicity, I’ll focus on the federal laws. And under the federal law, if I want to buy firearm, I have to go to a licensed gun store. And there’s thousands of those in this country and they’re not easy to find because they’re all publicly listed, they’re businesses. If you want to buy a Nintendo, you go to Best Buy. If you want to buy a firearm, you go to the gun store. And when you go, you pick out the firearm you want, then you fill out a form, a Form 4473. You put your information down, you have to show your ID to prove who you are, and then that gun dealer will submit that information to the FBI or the state agency to run a background check.
Rob Wilcox:
And they’re going to check to see if you’re prohibited under a number of categories federally or under your state law. And if it comes back green, then you can buy the gun. If it comes back red, then you can’t. And then you’ve been denied that purchase. And one of the things we think is that information needs to get out to law enforcement basically so they can investigate those cases. So if you’re law abiding, you’re responsible citizen, that’s the process. As you go to the gun store, you pick out the firearm and you pass your background check.
Misha Zelinsky:
How long does that take?
Rob Wilcox:
So for 90% of these cases, it happens within minutes, because it’s a database that is searched by the FBI and it can occur with alacrity.
Misha Zelinsky:
And so, if I knew that I’d likely be knocked back, you sort of talked about these loopholes, how could I get a gun going around that system?
Rob Wilcox:
So that is the loophole. You can go on to this website and you can search for exactly the gun you want and you can say where you want to buy it. And a bunch of ads will pop up and say like, in this city, these guns are available. So you click Contact Seller and you get connected to this individual, this perfect stranger. And maybe what started as an email becomes a phone call and you say, “I’d like to buy that handgun. I have $400 in cash. Where can we meet?” And we’ve done some investigation and I’ve seen how these transactions go. And the person will say, “Meet me in this parking lot.” And so you go to the parking lot, a guy shows you the gun. I’ve seen this videotape footage. You hand over the cash and the transaction is done in two to three minutes.
Misha Zelinsky:
And is that gun registered anywhere, I’m just trying to understand, or is it disappears into the community?
Rob Wilcox:
Yeah, there’s no record that comes with that firearm or that transaction. Each firearm that’s commercially made in this country has a serial number. So if it’s ever recovered in crime, you can trace it back to who first made it, what company, who that company distributed to, and who that dealer first sold it to. But after that first sale, that trail can go cold pretty quickly. Because if they sold you a gun from the dealer and then you sold it to me, and then I sold it to someone else and that person sold to a third person, even if that gun is traced, maybe they find you and they say, “Okay, who’d you sell that gun to?” And you say, “It was this guy I had on my podcast. We met for about an hour, never in person.”
Misha Zelinsky:
I wouldn’t buy gun from, mate. I think I made it pretty clear, I wouldn’t know where to begin.
Rob Wilcox:
But you might not even remember my name or where I live. And so, law enforcement can’t do anything with that. The trail goes cold. And that’s one reason we need background checks on every gun sale, so that even if you and I meet, however we meet, online or at a gun show or at a neighborhood, there’s going to be a background check. And then that record of that sale would be stored at a gun store.
Misha Zelinsky:
And so, I probably derailed the conversation there slightly. But just getting back to the keynote, what are the three things maybe? Because I know there’s so many, but if there were three things you can say these are three things on Rob’s wish list to fix the problem of gun violence tomorrow, what would be the three things that you want to get done?
Rob Wilcox:
Look, I think the first thing is we need a background check on every single gun that’s sold. There’s absolutely no reason that a stranger should sell a gun to another stranger with no background check and no knowledge if that person is prohibited or not. The second thing that I think is really important are these extreme risk laws, which are tools that family members and law enforcement can use to temporarily remove firearms from someone who a court finds as a risk to themselves or others.
Rob Wilcox:
And the third thing that I think is critically important is regulations on what’s called ghost guns, these firearms that have escaped regulation exist without any serial number and any information about them that should be regulated just like firearms. And I think those three things would be really critically important and can make an impact in all types of gun violence, from gun trafficking into mass shootings, to firearm suicide. And I think that could make a real impact.
Misha Zelinsky:
Do you have an issue around the types of guns? Not all guns are the same, right? You talked about automatics and stuff. I mean, there’s a lot of talk about AR-15s, which have been used in some of these mass shootings, which is essentially a paramilitary type weapon. It’s very sophisticated, very dangerous weapon, right down to a shotgun, AR-22 or whatever. Do you draw lines around that?
Rob Wilcox:
I mean, look, what I can tell you is any gun in the wrong hands can be deadly. And from a handgun to a hunting rifle to a shotgun to an automatic weapon, they can all cause harm to whoever’s hit with that bullet. But you’re right, there are particular guns that have capabilities that allow for you to kill, frankly, more people easier, faster, quicker than another type of firearm. So yeah, a rifle that can take a detachable magazine that can accept 100 rounds of ammunition that has a rifle barrel that has a velocity, that means that when the bullet hits the body it’s going to cause tremendous damage, and that has the type of features that allow for kind of assault style activities, yeah, those are particularly dangerous. Those should be regulated. Because we see what happens when those weapons are in the wrong hands and that’s when you see these mass murders, like we saw in Las Vegas or we saw in Dayton where high capacity magazines attached to a rifle can just cause massive amounts of harm.
Misha Zelinsky:
And so, I just want to turn now, I suppose, to how this gets done. I think we’ve talked a lot about the problem and some of the solutions, of course. Regrettably, this is where we bump up against politics and getting things changed by politicians in legislations. And you think you’ve sort of touched a little bit around the complexity of this issue around the Bill of Rights but also federal state laws, different jurisdictions, et cetera. We’ll stay with the federal space.
Misha Zelinsky:
But Everytown is, I suppose, the advocates for change in this space and dealing with this crisis of gun violence. The other side of that coin is, of course, every organization will have some kind of opponent as the NRA. So, without giving your view of them, I can imagine I’d have a reasonably assessment of it. But I mean, maybe you could just give how powerful is the NRA in this debate and how much of a roadblock are they in terms of making any meaningful change in this space?
Rob Wilcox:
There’s kind of three things I want to say about the NRA. One is that they brought me back into this movement space. After my cousin was shot and killed, I went right to a gun safety organization and volunteered my time first as an intern and started working more in communications and with volunteers. And then I went off to law school and was practicing in that New York law firm. And when the shooting at Sandy Hook happened, I remember seeing President Obama give his remarks. And they were so powerful and so clear and I thought to myself, wow, gun violence survivors are finally being seen. We’re going to see change.
Rob Wilcox:
And then the NRA’s executive vice president spoke a few days later and said there’ll be no change, no way, no, how. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. And I remember just thinking to myself, that can’t be right. The only thing that I can offer is my time. And so I’m going to re-devote myself to this mission of gun safety. And once I came back, what I saw was that the NRA has really morphed itself into a whole new organization. When it was formed 150 years ago, it was about marksmanship and gun safety and hunting.
Rob Wilcox:
And then in the late ’70s, it was taken over by radicals, and it became an extremist political organization that said, we’re not going to stand for any regulation of any type. And when they put their thumb on the scale, it made for a really tough political fight. But more recently, what they’ve become is they’ve morphed into a whole new organization, which is a personal piggy bank for their executives where they have now been alleged to have engaged in shady mismanagement, self-dealing, and they were just in court for a week and a half having to air all their dirty laundry, trying to escape responsibility by filing for bankruptcy. That case was-
Misha Zelinsky:
And constituting themselves in Texas or something, as I recall. Yeah.
Rob Wilcox:
Yeah, they want to escape the regulation that every organization and company should face when it comes to how their executives are spending their money. So, I think they went from a hunting organization to an extreme organization to a corrupt organization. And so, what do I see now? I see a national rifle association that’s weaker than it’s ever been. And I see my movement stronger than it’s ever been. And so, yes, will there be a fight? Yes. Will they object? Do I think we can win? Yes.
Misha Zelinsky:
And so, you’re making a strong case there for change. Now, anyone that’s followed this issue would sort of identify the last time there was meaningful reform in this space was in ’94 under the Clinton presidency in terms of the crime bill then. But it was a 10-year law that was extinguished and not renewed when George Bush was president. Do you think there’s ever going to be something like this ever again? Because one of the things, I scratch my head on this a little bit, you touched on Sandy Hook and you kind of thought this is the moment now that America is going to say, we’re having our infant children being shot, is this the moment, and yet nothing changed.
Misha Zelinsky:
And then you talked a little bit before about 90% of Americans support sensible gun reforms, and yet the politicians did not act. And that was probably a moment for me where I thought to myself, well, if you can’t trust politicians to do the right thing, you can only trust them to do the popular thing. And so, I thought, I said, man, the sectional interests in this space, the NRA, is so powerful that they can bully politicians into not following voters, 90% of voters, who feel strongly on this issue. So, I suppose, what confidence do you have that there will be change from politicians given this disconnect between popularity or support for an issue and inaction and perhaps the way people vote?
Rob Wilcox:
Look, I think there’s two lessons I’ve learned. One is that this is a marathon, not a sprint. There’s going to be no single moment, no single incident that just flips the switch. It’s going to take day in and day out organizing. And that gets to my second thing that I’ve learned is that this is a ladder. I mean, at the top rung is congressional action, but we had to start climbing that ladder from the bottom. We had to start with local change. We had to start with state change. We had to start with change in the boardrooms, changes in school districts. We had to build this momentum from the local level on up. And that’s what we’ve been doing.
Rob Wilcox:
So yeah, the bill failed after the shooting at Sandy Hook. Frankly, there was no Everytown at that point. No Moms Demand Action, no six-million strong organization, so we took the fight to the states. And what we saw was we were able to pass background check laws in states. We were able to pass extreme risk laws in states. We were able to pass laws keeping guns away from domestic abusers in states. And so right now, 21 states require background checks on all gun sales. Nineteen states have those extreme risk laws I mentioned. About 30 states have laws on domestic abusers and guns.
Rob Wilcox:
And so yeah, that progress is slow and the lives that are lost every single day are absolutely tragic. But do I see progress? I do. And I see that when I look at the Congress we have now. I can tell you that when Donald Trump won the presidency, the NRA thought that they were going to be replaying 2005. I bring up 2005, because after George W. Bush was reelected, they thought and they did run the show. They were quoted as saying we’re going to work out of the west wing. And they passed a number of laws, including one that gave very significant legal protections to bad actors in the gun industry who imperil our community through their business behavior.
Rob Wilcox:
The kind of civil liability protection, no one in their industry gets. Huge wins for them. They elected the president. They had their Congress. They got their win. When Donald Trump was elected, they spent more money than any other outside group. So they had the president, they had their Senate and they had their house, and they thought they were going to do the whole thing over again. And they were trying to pass their top priority, this thing called concealed carry reciprocity, which says if you can carry a gun at one place in this country, you can carry it anywhere.
Rob Wilcox:
And they were all geared up to do it all over again. But what they weren’t ready for is that our movement had changed. And so we stood up and we fought and we flipped so many votes in the Senate that didn’t even bring it up for a vote, because they would have done worse in 2017 than they had done in 2013 on that policy. And so to me, it just shows how far movement came. And then after that, we put in place a Gun Sense Majority in the House of Representatives that was unafraid to pass gun safety measures.
Rob Wilcox:
We then elected a president who ran on the boldest gun safety agenda ever and has governed like it. I mean, just today, he announced a whole new set of gun safety measures that his administration was going to take to reduce gun crime in our cities. And that’s on top of the things that he announced in April. And we elected a Gun Sense Senate putting Majority Leader Schumer in charge winning two races in Georgia where we now have a Gun Sense trifecta governing Washington DC.
Rob Wilcox:
And so, does that mean we’re going to be able to pass everything we want? No. Does that mean we’re going to have to fight? Yes. But does that mean that this issue is radically different than how I got into it in the early 2000s? It absolutely does. And so, since this is a marathon, not a sprint, and we’re in it for the long haul, then we’re just going to keep fighting until we get to that top rung, which is congressional action.
Misha Zelinsky:
One of the things been debated quite a bit now in US politics is the political reform agenda and Republicans are making changes to state legislators around rights to vote, et cetera. But do you believe Washington is too gridlocked to achieve sensible gun legislative changes or do you think it could be done with the system that currently exists? And frankly, do you think it should be done in a system that currently exists so that it remains, I suppose, broadly supported and embedded?
Rob Wilcox:
Look, we played by the rules that exist. And I do think that there’s opportunity for bipartisan compromise on the issue of gun safety. There was incredibly productive conversations about advancements that we could make just over the past few months by senators from both sides of the aisle. Does that mean that we’re going to get to the deal that gets enough votes to become law? I’m not sure that’s going to happen in this moment. And I hope we see a vote fairly soon. We’ll get the test it out. But the truth is we see more action and more conversation than I’ve ever seen before.
Rob Wilcox:
And that’s really the first step to getting a legislative deal is actually having people at the table. I can tell you, when I was first in this movement space, there was no one at the table for our side, even the elected democratic leaders. Senators and representatives were on the side of the NRA. They had power in both chambers of Congress and in both parties. And that’s slowly chipped away. And right now, we have a table of people who are talking about gun safety reforms. Even the last president, for how little he did on this issue, still took the action to ban bump stocks, which is an accessory that turns a semi-automatic weapon into an automatic weapon. And I think that was-
Misha Zelinsky:
That was after the Las Vegas shooting, right?
Rob Wilcox:
That was after the Las Vegas shooting, because that individual climbed to that top floor. He equipped his rifles with this accessory, a bump stock, and hos guns turned into machine guns. And he sprays the field of innocent folks who were at a concert. And again, something different happened in that moment that hadn’t happened before. Typically, maybe a president of either party would propose a regulation and the other side would flood our regulatory system with comments opposing it saying you shouldn’t do this, it’s unconstitutional, you can’t do that.
Rob Wilcox:
And that’s what happened at first. And then all of a sudden, something switched and our movement got active. And by the end of that process, that regulatory process, we had about 70% of the comments saying you should regulate these bump stocks, you should take this action. So again, it just showed that our movement is showing up and that we’re doing that work to make our voices heard, and bump stocks got banned. And they got regulated. So, while we’re still fighting to get to that top rung of big comprehensive federal legislation, I’m seeing changes that hadn’t happened in 20 years all the time now.
Misha Zelinsky:
And so, I just want to unpack a little bit. Like anything, I mean, I would have thought the issue of the pandemic would be about politics but somehow it’s become part of these broader cultural war that exists in US politics now whether you wear masks, you don’t wear a mask, you get vaccinated, don’t get vaccinated, guns sits firmly within these cultural prison and has for a very long time. You’ve talked a little bit about the state changes. I don’t know, I’m not familiar with it. But I imagine a lot of those changes would be if I can call them in blue states.
Misha Zelinsky:
Do you see this issue of polarization as being a problem in terms of actually seeking these changes in the communities that perhaps more sort of instantly support this type of agenda? I mean, I’m reminded of Barack Obama and I’m sure he’d say he regret the comments now, off the record, comments which are never off the record about people in rural America clinging to their guns and their religion as part of this sort of safety net in terms of a changing world. I mean, so I suppose it’s a long way of asking like political polarization, how does it impact on this? And is it important to try to bring those people along with you and think that’s impossible in the current circumstances?
Rob Wilcox:
I think it’s completely possible and I think it’s about being an advocate who meets people where they are, because the fact is 58% of Americans are survivors of gun violence of one type or another. And so there is something that unites us there and that if we meet people where they are and we talk about our experiences of being survivors about being advocates about what we’re actually asking for, then there’s opportunity for compromise. And I have two stories. I mean, this isn’t just kind of speech. These are things that I’ve seen in practice.
Rob Wilcox:
After the shooting and the terrible shooting in Parkland, Florida, we actually saw the Republican Florida legislature take action. We saw them put in place the extreme risk law that I mentioned earlier. We saw them take a couple of other important gun safety steps as part of a comprehensive package. So, you then had a Republican legislature that did respond and take action. You could argue that Florida is a purple state, you can argue with the red state, it definitely was run by Republicans who the NRA thought they could tell don’t do anything but they in fact did do something.
Rob Wilcox:
In my personal experience, I’ve seen this up close. I was working in Tennessee a few years ago and I went down there to find some gun safety solutions we could work on together. And when I got assigned to Tennessee to work there, I thought to myself, wow, how am I going to get anything done? This is ranked the most conservative state legislature in the country. And so I went down there and I got to know people, and I let them know who I was, a survivor, a gun owner, someone that just wants to hear about the issue they want to solve.
Rob Wilcox:
And one of the things I heard loud and clear was domestic violence was an issue that bothered a lot of people in Tennessee, including their elected officials. So I took a look at their gun laws and what I saw was, yeah, they prohibit people who were domestic abusers from having guns, but the problem was when those people went to buy a gun and failed a background check, that information sat in the database in the capital of Tennessee and didn’t get to the court that issued the domestic violence order, didn’t get to the law enforcement who could intervene before that person went and found a gun through a different way.
Rob Wilcox:
So we proposed a bill, work with legislators to have our Democrat and Republican working together. And we got to the Tennessee House of Representatives like this. We got through quickly. There seem to be kind of universal acceptance. I could tell you, it actually passed unanimously for the Tennessee House of Representatives, a bill that was being supported every time for gun safety. And then we get to the Senate. And this Tennessee State Senate, which the NRA thought they deeply controlled.
Rob Wilcox:
And so, we made it out of committee and we were about to be on the floor of the Senate with this bill. And the day before the vote, there was Republican caucus meeting. And in that caucus meeting, the NRA’s number one ally stood up and said, “You can’t do this. You can’t pass a bill that’s supported by Everytown for Gun Safety. You can’t change our gun laws.” And the sponsor was a woman, stood up and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Yes, I’ve worked with them but I can tell you what this bill is really about. It’s about domestic abusers in our communities that are failing background checks that were not doing anything to stop from getting the gun. And if you don’t support that, you don’t support the women, daughters, sisters and mothers of our state.” And she sat down.
Rob Wilcox:
And we all went to bed not knowing how that boat was going to go the next day. And we won 26 to 4. And then we had a signing ceremony with the Republican governor who I was proudly on stage with. So yeah, I see opportunity for change in states across this country. And it might not feel huge or substantial at the moment, but that’s why we’re on this ladder. We just got to go up one rung at a time because this is still a young movement, it’s still a young organization, and we’re just building and building and building to get to that big congressional change.
Misha Zelinsky:
And so, one thing I just want to pivot to and it’s a little bit off topic but directly relevant, and I talked about it a lot in the show with various different guests is this problem of misinformation in the information in the public sphere, in the social media, in sort of far right type voices. I mean, how is this impacting on the problem in terms of actually building consensus in achieving sensible reform?
Misha Zelinsky:
So for example, you have that lunatic Alex Jones on info was talking about the fact that Sandy Hook didn’t happen, that it was a, I’m sorry, Obama conspiracy to try to take away people’s guns. I mean, this is sort of frankly crazy bullshit people then believe and then it’s sort of part of asking people to sort of dig in more tightly around the Second Amendment rights and not allow any changes. How do you see that problem impacting on your campaigning, or is it not really one?
Rob Wilcox:
Look, misinformation, disinformation, the inability for us to agree on the facts so that we can fight for the solution is a huge problem. The folks who are paid to be public figures and intentionally trade in this disinformation are both disingenuous and disgusting. And they’ve completely polluted our attempts to achieve what all of us want, which is the freedom to live our lives, the freedom to be successful, the freedom to be healthy, and the freedom to stay alive. And so yeah, I think it’s a problem and I think it’s one that we have to fight through by showing up being authentic and being straight with people about what we’re fighting for and what we believe in.
Rob Wilcox:
But I think that’s an issue that’s affected a lot of the things that we do and when you asked about the NRA earlier, that’s the biggest roadblock to the progress. It’s not that 90% of people agree on this solution, it’s that the disinformation that gets out there makes it so it’s not about that solution. It’s about something else. I’m talking about background checks. You’re talking about that I’m trying to confiscate firearms. I’m not, that’s not what the bill does. There’s no argument that that’s what the bill does. But all of a sudden, that’s what the debate becomes about. And so I think our job as advocates is to focus on the debate on what it is and then break through.
Misha Zelinsky:
And so, probably the other day, we’ve just talked quite a bit about Sandy Hook throughout. That was we thought it might be just a moment, I suppose, that you’ve… I know you’ve said there’s not going to be one big moment, there’s not going to be a Port Arthur type massacre in the United States. And if that was likely, probably order would have happened. But one thing I want to get your reflections on is how do you keep people urgent on this problem, or people becoming numbed to this problem? It strikes me, I mean, the regularity of these horrific events is now pushing them further down the news cycle. They’re not front page news perhaps in the way that they once were. Do you think people are just numb to this problem now? How do you tackle that issue?
Rob Wilcox:
I don’t think people are numb at all. I mean, the advocates who I’m around are more passionate than they’ve ever been. And part of it is that it’s not just about the singular event. It’s about the everyday gun violence that’s occurring. And what we’re fighting for are the solutions that are going to save all of those lives. The 100 lives a day are not made up of individuals from a single mass shooting. They’re shootings that happen all across this country.
Rob Wilcox:
And so we fight for solutions that will deal with that, because the truth is, is that gun violence in this country, especially homicide, disproportionately affects black Americans. It disproportionately affects underserved neighborhoods. And so we got a partner and we got to stand together to fight for the resources for the community-based interventions that we know work on the one hand while also taking action upstream to deal with the guns that are being flooded into communities.
Misha Zelinsky:
And just pivoting to the political debate, we’re seeing a little bit playing out nationally but also local level, state level. More in order, crime is coming back onto the agenda in a way that it probably hasn’t for a little bit of time now, and these things always ebb and flow. How do you see that impacting on the challenge? Because we saw throughout COVID, the lines, the people wanting to purchase guns, how do you sort of address the challenge where people think, well, I’m unsafe in the community, the solution is not trying to fix the wrong people having weapons, the solution is me having a weapon and that kind of continued escalation problem in the community in that general, I suppose, fear or discomfort building in local communities about how safe they are at present?
Rob Wilcox:
Look, everyone has a right to feel safe in their communities. And that’s what we have to be fighting for. And the president, President Biden, just laid out a set of steps that he was going to take at the federal level today that I think get right to your question. He laid out a five-pillar plan, a strategy that both deals with the flood of illegal guns into communities and the steps that we could take to get at gun trafficking, but also investing in community policing, investing in community-based organizations that have been proven to be so deeply effective that they can reduce shootings by 40, 50, 60%.
Rob Wilcox:
And these are just strategies that we know work but haven’t been funded in a way that would make the difference where a community will in fact become safer. And so I think the biggest difference I see is we have a president and we have a Gun Sense Congress that’s willing to fund and fight and support for those solutions. And so, that to me is the hope is that we both put in place the right policies that we know work, because they’ve been shown to work, but then we go and talk about them.
Rob Wilcox:
So folks know that this work is happening, and that we in fact have leaders in our communities that are fighting to make them safer. Because if we don’t talk about the things that we’re doing, then it’s easy to think that nothing’s happening. And it’s easy then to retreat into yourself and think that you’re the only person that can help yourself to stay safe and to stay safe in your home and in your community.
Misha Zelinsky:
And so, I mean, you’ve touched on Biden’s presidency, it seems that you’ve got some hope that he can get the job done. Do you think he can get the job done?
Rob Wilcox:
Absolutely.
Misha Zelinsky:
And so, you’ve spoken, and in my professional life I’m a union campaigner, so I’m very familiar with the sort of ladders you’re discussing. I’m probably curious about if you and I were talking five years’ time on what do the markers look like for success in your mind, five years from now, what does success look like in this moment? What does success look like for Everytown when it comes to tackling this horrendous problem of gun violence, gun deaths, gun injuries, and all the associated aftermath?
Rob Wilcox:
Everytown’s theory of change is that by passing laws, changing culture, we can make for a safer country. But to me, honestly, the true marker is have we in fact saved lives? Have we in fact reduced shootings? Have we in fact made our city safer? I think that’s the only measure that truly matters to me is that families don’t feel like mine felt, communities don’t feel like mine has felt, and that that is how in five years’ time we can measure the success and we could measure the mark we’ve made is that in fact to your very point, people feel safer in their communities. People feel like the solutions we put in place are working and we continue to invest in those and we continue to fight for those to keep going down that path.
Misha Zelinsky:
Now, there is no simple way for me to do this given the heavy nature of our conversation, but I am prompted to do it and I’m also a shocking host. So, my inability to transition to this last question, we’re talking about foreign policy or gun violence is notably terrible. But this key question that I asked every guest is compulsory question. You’re a foreign guest so you regrettably have to invite three Australians to your barbecue. But I know you mentioned at the beginning of that chat that you’ve been in Australia, so maybe easier for you than others. Three Aussies alive or dead at a barbecue with Rob, who are they, and why?
Rob Wilcox:
That’s a great question and that’s a great transition. So, I think by my first guest has to be a guy named Rob Bartram, Australian close friend, met him in law school over 10 years ago, stayed in touch. He works for this incredible company called SOURCE, which uses hydropanel technology to create water out of air. It is one of the most incredible things that I’ve ever heard of. He actually partnered with Patty Mills to bring it to rural parts of Australia. It’s an international company. They do incredible work. I don’t get to see him nearly enough.
Rob Wilcox:
And so, if I had a chance to have a barbecue, he’d be guest number one. I think second, I would probably be bringing in Chris Hemsworth, because my son and I have been watching the Marvel movies and the Thor character is just someone that my boy loves. And I think he’s a great actor and would love to spend time with him and hear about his roles and how he approaches his work. And probably the last is Neville Bonner, who I think is just a really incredible political figure who went against the odds and it will be someone that will be great to learn from and hear from.
Misha Zelinsky:
Well, mate, fascinating choice. But Hemsworth has not come up on the show yet, surprisingly enough. So you’re the first person who’s actually raise him, but I’m sure he’s very pleased. No doubt that he’s listening. But a great series of guests there at your barbecue. Now, mate, look, just congratulations on all the work that you do. As an Australian, it’s a huge student of the United States, a fan of the US. I’ve spent a lot of time there. I’ve had family lived there for a long time. The issue of gun violence is perplexing to me as an Australian. I think it’s perplexing to many Australians. So congratulations on the work that you do. And I certainly wish you all the best from where I sit, mate. So thanks for coming on.
Rob Wilcox:
I appreciate the invitation. It’s been a great conversation.
Misha Zelinsky:
Cheers mate. Take it easy.
