America’s Half a Billion Guns: Jonathan Metzl

Apr 25, 2024

51:50

forum

Ask episode

view_agenda

Chapters

auto_awesome

Transcript

info_circle

Episode notes

Jonathan M. Metzl is the Frederick B. Rentschler II Professor of Sociology and Psychiatry and the Director of the Department of Medicine, Health, and Society at Vanderbilt University. His most recent book is What We’ve Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms. We discuss lax gun laws and gun ownership as an identity.

The public health narrative is about how guns pose a health risk, a threat to mortality to our bodies. Those who vote based on guns see guns as symbols of power or protection. In fact, many people in the South own guns because they’re afraid of government tyranny. Unfortunately, gun laws have become more and more lax in a country that has almost 500 million civilian-owned firearms. Metzl shares that “We've had a dramatic erosion in the ability of states and towns and the country itself to limit who can own and carry a firearm.”

Follow Jonathan on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/JonathanMetzl

Follow Mila on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/milaatmos

Follow Future Hindsight on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/futurehindsightpod/

Sponsor:

Thanks to Shopify for supporting Future Hindsight! Sign up for a $1/month trial at shopify.com/hopeful.

Love Future Hindsight? Take our Listener Survey!

http://survey.podtrac.com/start-survey.aspx?pubid=6tI0Zi1e78vq&ver=standard

Take the Democracy Group’s Listener Survey!

https://www.democracygroup.org/survey