Show Your Safety: A New Approach to Gun Violence

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Jacksonville & UNC Shootings

  • Tennessee Special Session

  • Show Your Safety with Piper Perabo and Kris Brown

  • Outside of Politics: Fall & Seasonality

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WORLD WAR II ANNIVERSARY

SHOOTINGS

SAFE STORAGE

TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:09] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth [00:00:10] And this is Beth Silvers. Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics.  

[00:00:14] Music Interlude.  

[00:00:34] We're so happy you're here for a new episode of Pantsuit Politics, where you take a different approach to the news. This week we are once again faced with tragic gun violence in America. It's hard to know what to say in response to these events that happen over and over again. So today we invited Piper Perabo and Kris Brown to talk to us about work they're doing to change how guns are portrayed in media. Before we share that conversation, we're going to talk about what's going on in the Tennessee state legislature at many listeners requests and then Outside of Politics, we will discuss the much anticipated and perhaps premature transition into fall.  

Sarah [00:01:09] As we sit down together today, we're thinking about an approaching milestone. September 2nd marks 80 years since the end of World War Two. World War Two changed everything and is so dominant in our thinking about conflict and foreign policy, our movies and our culture. And it should be. It was an earth changing event. The military estimates that across the globe about 15 million military members and over 38 million civilians died. Six million European Jews and 5 million Soviet prisoners of war, Romani, Jehovah's Witnesses, gay individuals and other victims were killed during the Holocaust.  

Beth [00:01:42] I came across an interview with James Sheehan, a Stanford historian from 2020. He said World War Two teaches us two contradictory things. War should be avoided at all cost, and democracies must resist aggression. I wanted to share this quote from his interview. The establishment of peace, the British historian Michael Howard wrote, is a task which has to be tackled afresh every day of our lives. No formula, no organization, and no political or social revolution can ever free mankind from this inexorable duty. The Second World War reminds us how essential this task remains. So we're commemorating the end of World War Two today and holding in our hearts everyone who was lost and harmed and displaced by it. And we're holding in our hearts the strength and resilience and courage required of so many during that time. So as we talk next about gun violence, we want to keep in mind that task to tackle the establishment of peace afresh every day of our lives.  

[00:02:39] Music Interlude.  

[00:02:50] Sarah, we had two incidents of gun violence this week. On Saturday, 21 year old man drove to Edward Waters University in Jacksonville, Florida, which is a historically black university. Kind of miraculously, a student observed him and thought he looked out of place and flagged down campus security, which very, very quickly responded and he drove away. It's unclear if he intended to do harm there or if it was just a stop on his journey because he then went to a Dollar General store. And this shooter had previously worked at a Dollar Tree. He goes to the Dollar General store and he shot and killed Angela Michelle Carr, while she was in her vehicle in the parking lot, AJ Laguerre Jr, and Gerrald Galleon with an AR-15-style rifle and a handgun. And this shooter left writings, making it clear that he hated black people. There's just no question about what his motivation was here. This attack happened exactly five years after a mass shooting in Jacksonville at a Madden videogame tournament on the same weekend as the 63rd anniversary of AX Handle Saturday, which involved white rioters threatening and beating black people in Jacksonville and the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington.  

Sarah [00:04:04] I was really struck by how quickly the reporting was that this was a racially motivated crime, which tells me that it wasn't just the writings he left behind, he was screaming things. I think there was reporting that he had a swastika on like it was abundantly evident that this was a hate-filled act. The incident at this college and the quick thinking of both the student and the security guard. I would think if he was putting on a bulletproof vest, he had harm in mind. So there's no telling how many lives were saved by their quick actions. But it's still heartbreaking because three lives were lost. And I think the juxtaposition of the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington just makes it even more heartbreaking and bittersweet, not because that erases the progress made since the March on Washington, but it just puts in such sharp relief that the work is not done.  

Beth [00:04:54] Then on Monday, a University of North Carolina graduate student shot and killed his faculty adviser, Zijie Yan, in a science building with a nine millimeter handgun. He quickly left campus. The two of them had recently published work together, so they had a relationship. This happened during the second week of the fall semester, put the campus on lockdown for 190 minutes, put nearby schools on lockdown, some of them for even longer than that. We've heard from listeners about their children being on lockdown on Monday and the terror that everyone felt during this situation.  

Sarah [00:05:27] Yeah. We had an incident at my son's elementary school. My friend was in the pickup line, like parents were already in the pickup line, and all these police officers in SWAT gear swarm out of the forest. They were chasing someone unrelated to the school, but the school went on lockdown. It's just those moments where you're waiting and you think something might be happening and all the visual and audio triggers are in place. The alerts on your phone or seeing the police presence, that all happens and it just sounds everyone into a panic. And it's just a terrible place to sit for 190 minutes, which is a long, long time.  

Beth [00:06:03] So we do not and cannot cover every shooting in America because we would talk of nothing else if we did. But we also don't want to give up or turn away. And so, we want to give some attention to what's going on in the aftermath of a shooting in Tennessee. After the Covenant School shootings, which involved three students and three adults being killed, the Republican governor of Tennessee, Bill Lee, called for a special session of the legislature. And we heard from a listener after our episode on Tuesday about choosing to feel cared for by our school systems, about how difficult it is to choose to feel cared for here. She said all summer, several covenant moms have been working tirelessly to meet with legislators and ask for reasonable gun legislation to be passed, such as extreme risk protection orders, red flag laws and expanded background checks. Many of these legislators said all the right things in those face to face meetings with these women who almost lost their children or whose children watched their friends die. And then the session became very, very disappointing.  

Sarah [00:07:06] that makes me so angry. And, look, that happens. That happens. It's hard to sit with someone face to face and listen to their heartbreak and be honest about I'm not going to do that. And so they say the right things in the meeting, but then they have to go face leadership. And I do think a component of what's happening in Tennessee is truly terrible leadership from the Speaker of the House. I'm not going to say that there are not systemic issues, but Tennessee does have a lot of conservative voters. So they're not going to go anywhere any more than the progressive voters in Nashville and Memphis and Knoxville are going to go anywhere. But this complete breakdown is a failure of leadership. The fact that they silenced Representative Justin Jones again and for saying something so moderate. What they're working towards in the special session is like the most moderate of proposals, and they shut him down again. And I just think it is abhorrent.  

Beth [00:08:03] I think it's even more insidious than the reporting about silencing Representative Jones, because they began the session enacting new rules of conduct to allow them to silence someone who spoke out of turn or off topic and enacting a ban on signs in the chamber. There were these videos going around of these moms with their signs being escorted out of the chamber. Little signs, not disruptive at all. They sued, and a Nashville court has already said that ban on signs in the chamber is unconstitutional. This legislature opened the session with an announcement that the Second Amendment is more important to them than the first. And that's unacceptable. I mean, that's how I view those actions, that the Second Amendment is more important to them than the first. It's wrong.  

Sarah [00:08:53] Yeah. And I think that they don't just want to be in power and they don't just want to get their way. They don't want to ever feel bad about it. Well, suck it up, buttercup. That's not how politics works. You can do a lot of things, but you can't stop people from getting in your face and saying, "Shame on you." And you know what? Shame on you. Shame on you. But that's what they don't want. "Oh, we'll do whatever we want. We have a supermajority. And also don't ever make us feel bad about it." Get out of here. You're the one who need to leave the chamber.  

Beth [00:09:24] So they did do a few policy bills. They did a bill that would help get faster updates to the background check system. They provided some incentives for safe storage. There was a funding bill for mental health and security resources, but what they didn't do is where the real heartbreak is. Governor Lee had called for an order of protection law that would temporarily let firearms be confiscated if a court deemed a person a threat to themselves or others. That did not happen. They didn't pass a bill that parents were advocating for to exempt autopsies of children from public records laws without parental permission, that had a Republican sponsor, didn't go anywhere. They didn't pass the bill to establish new practices to differentiate between fire drills and unexpected fire alarms in emergencies. So these are not extreme gun laws that we're talking about here. There's some really specific responses to the Covenant School shooting that didn't go anywhere in this session.  

Sarah [00:10:21] Well, and I think that's where you know something has broken down the political process. If you have a Republican governor calling for something that the Republican supermajority can't get through, well, then the Republican supermajority is detached, especially its leadership from where the people are. Because a statewide officer like that is going to have a much better sense of what's working statewide, what's popular, what's not popular statewide. And so, that to me is when you have a complete detachment between those two bodies, like I'm all for checks and balances and conversation, but that's not what even is happening here. To the listeners and voters in Tennessee, I know that's frustrating. Listen to the Democratic representatives in the Tennessee House, everyone is furious, righteously anger. But don't tell yourself that this is all systemic. Some of this is just the wrong people in office, and that is never completely beyond our control. There are surprising outcomes in super blue districts in super red districts all the time. All the time. But just telling voters you might need to convince that they hate kids and want them to die is not the way to start to chip away at what is broken inside the Tennessee House right now.  

Beth [00:11:37] And I have to believe that those videos of the people being escorted, the videos of the speaker and Representatives Pearson and Jones-- the obvious ways that power is being abused within the state House-- are going to have an impact electorally. I have to believe that. Gun violence is not a simple problem. It doesn't have one cause. There isn't one solution. And so we want to continue to think about all of the layers here. And today, we're going to turn to a conversation about the portrayal of guns in media. We've talked a lot about this on the show, and we're really excited to share a conversation with Kris Brown, who's president of Brady. Brady is a nonprofit organization working to combat gun violence from all angles. And Pantsuit Politics favorite Piper Perabo, a film, stage and TV actor who you'd recognize for many projects that we shall not mention due to the ongoing strikes. But trust me, you've seen Piper Perabo before. Brady is working with Piper and other Hollywood leaders on the show Your Safety Movement, which asks producers, directors and writers to revisit the use of guns in their storytelling. We found this conversation really helpful, really inspiring, and we hope that you will too.  

[00:12:50] Music Interlude.  

[00:13:07] Kris and Piper, thank you so much for spending time with us at Pantsuit Politics. I was thrilled when I found an article about your advocacy work around guns and Hollywood because I feel like a very stereotypical suburban mom on my soapbox about how I don't like the way that guns are depicted in TV and movies. And I feel like the parents of my childhood ranting about video games. But it was validating to see that you see this too. And I was reminded of how in business we say all the time that culture eats policy for breakfast. Why would that not be true? Why would Hollywood not have a role? So tell me about the work that you're doing with Brady.  

Piper Perabo [00:13:44] Sure. Thanks, Beth. Hi everybody, I'm so glad to be back on Pantsuit Politics. I was so excited that Brady was going to do this campaign to bring together a bunch of showrunners, where like basically creators of the TV shows we watch to talk about how we can put ideas about gun safety into television. What I like about Brady is they're not trying to be prescriptive. They're not saying like no guns or control the creativity of the writers. But one thing that they talked about, which they went to Washington, D.C., to talk at the White House about these ideas is safe storage. And my husband had been working on a show like a month earlier where there was a corrections officer, his wife woke up in the middle of the night in a scene on television, and he wasn't in the bed. And that was very unusual. And she rolled over and opened his bedside table drawer where there was a lock box, which she opened with her fingerprint and checked to make sure his service revolver was there. It was. She closes the box. Now she's really doesn't know what's going on. And you see her creep out of the room, like, what's going on? And I thought, that's the perfect way to do it. Because we're not saying that there aren't guns in the house, but we're normalizing safe storage and we're interlacing it right into a hero character. We're showing how it works, actually builds tension in the story. And so when I found out Brady was supporting this kind of idea about how we can normalize safety, that seemed like a great fit to me.  

Sarah [00:15:14] I still remember-- I think this movie is probably 15 years old. It was this dumb comedy called, I think, Couples Therapy with Vince Vaughn. And he does that. He rolls over and he touches his entire handprint on a gun safe before he opens it. And I don't remember anything else that happened in that movie, but it caught my attention so strongly. I still remember it straight up like 10 years later, because it was so impactful to see. It didn't have anything to do with the plot. I just thought, 'Oh, that was so smart' and it had such impact on me.  

Beth [00:15:44] Kris It seems like that is so consistent with Brady's goal of minimizing family fire. Could you talk a little bit about the connection between this project and Brady's larger campaign?  

Kris Brown [00:15:55] Absolutely. Thank you so much for inviting me on. I'm a big fan of your podcast and also of Piper, so it was a great thrill to get to work with her, others in the Hollywood community. And as she said, showrunners, those people who are really at the very genesis often of the shows that we love and are the folks who give birth to how most scenes are cut and the use of firearms. And so, the really exciting thing for Brady is that this is an offshoot of our End Family Fire campaign. That's something that we started in 2018, taking a look at other successful public health social norm change campaigns of which the United States has been a leader really in the world through an organization called the Ad Council that has brought us every successful social norm change campaign that's just embedded in the reality of how we live in America. From Smokey the Bear, the Designated Driver, to Buckle Up many, many of these campaigns that are aimed at saving lives. And this is no different. We now have a public health epidemic of gun violence. It's the number one killer of our kids.  

[00:17:15] And so, Brady really wanted to look back and see how we can change behavior around something super simple, which is if you're choosing to bring a firearm into your home, the number one way to end family fire-- and we define that is as the unintentional or intentional injury of a loved one with an unsecured gun in the home happens every day. Eight kids a day are killed or injured with guns in their own home. Seventy five percent of school shooters get their gun from a home where it is not safely stored. And suicide very tragically often happens. You have a 500 percent increased likelihood of experiencing a suicide in your home if you have a loaded and unsecured firearm. So we launched this ad campaign with the Ad Council defining this term Family Fire, and it now has over 2 billion views. If you're exposed to our ad campaign, you have a 50 percent increased likelihood of going to search for and acquire a gun safe in which to store all of your firearms.  

[00:18:31] To us, this is an absolutely critical campaign. And the work that we're now doing with Hollywood, with folks like Piper, is really an offshoot of that for us. Because as a culture, as you were saying, it's hard when we're watching movies for me anymore and TV, because of the pervasiveness of firearms in these shows is almost too often without any forethought. It's just a way to raise the stakes, but not necessarily to drive the storyline in any meaningful way. If we want to change our culture, then we know Hollywood has a big part of that, but we're not being prescriptive. And that's not the point of Brady. It's really to ask a series of questions about how guns are portrayed and justify doing that. We honestly think we can drive behavior change in the country. I know because we've done it in the past on other issues, that's how we've saved millions of lives. And firearms should not be excluded from that.  

Sarah [00:19:35] Well, that's what I always tell people when they talk about public health or how hard it is to change. I'm like, do y'all remember when everybody smoked? Babies, puppies, everybody smoked, literally everyone smoked until we decided, okay, we're going to work on our culture. And, look, that's true of Hollywood too. You go back and you watch movies and you're like, "Dang, everybody's smoking except me." Everybody's smoking in this movie. And I think that this is just another example. And I think what I'm really impressed with, because I think this is harder with gun safety, it's hard to capture, portray, harm that didn't happen. Plots are driven by harm and conflict that do happen. And so, to portray in a way that is impactful that this prevents harm, you do need creative types. You do need showrunners to sort of capture that. And I think it doesn't have to be fiction. I think all the time about a story I heard on This American Life where a girl picked up a loaded gun in her house to practice a scene in a play.  

[00:20:30] Like had been trained on gun safety her whole life and just thought, 'I'm going to just make sure and fire into the carpet.' It had a live round in it. Just in that split second she decided... I think about that story all the time, because that's a story that captures how hard it is to show what can happen and what didn't happen. But I think that creative mindset and that idea of let's just start normalizing it and trying to convey we can prevent harm, especially inside a debate that's been happening for so long, to bring some freshness to this cultural conversation about violence in movies. I remember in a class once where they show you James Cagney with his teeny tiny little handgun held like this all the way to Arnold Schwarzenegger with, like, beefed out. And that was the eighties. That was 40 years ago. So it's just this accelerated environment. Pushing back on that in any way I think is really, really important.  

Kris Brown [00:21:21] Absolutely.  

Beth [00:21:22] How is this being received? What obstacles are you encountering as you talk with people? Sarah was talking about the creative challenges. Are you hearing that from people as you do this work?  

Kris Brown [00:21:33] I've been surprised. But, of course, having folks like Piper and others involved is really important. It can't be an outsider's perspective, it actually has to come from the inside. That's very, very important. And we talked to a number of people who were executives and producers on the business side. And part of the reason that we have approached it the way we have, which is if you're in the business of making a TV show or a movie, ask yourself these three basic questions. Do I have to have a firearm at all? Just as a basic question. And what we've been so surprised is, well, you'd be shocked a lot of people aren't even asking that. So that's a Pretty fundamental question to ask. The second is, if you must, for whatever reason, then show safe storage. In the same way that Piper just said it, which it kind of gives me chills because we know that you look at the Supreme Court these days, it's not a surprise to me that their approval rating is in the garbage can, something like 14 percent. Congress is just ahead of that. But the characters that most average Americans have come into their living rooms in the evening are among the most trusted people in their life. Full stop, 100 percent.  

[00:22:58] If we have these characters that we care about exhibiting these kinds of behaviors, it's a really easy to model for all kinds of different people and different shows that appeal to different demographics, the very behavior we're talking about. And by the way, with the End Family Fire work that we've done, what we find is the people who care most about this and who often are already engaging in safe storage practices are legacy gun owners. Because if you grew up around guns, you know that while they can be a helpful tool in various circumstances, they also carry incredible risk. So most people who've grown up with guns, actually learn that their grandparents need exactly what they're supposed to be doing with those firearms. And I think because this is led from an organization like Brady, which includes gun owners and non-gun owners. Jim and Sarah owned guns. Even after Jim was shot, it gives it a much better opportunity and I think better reception than if we were simply saying ban firearms entirely from TV or movies or else we won't talk to you, which is decidedly not the approach we're taking here. So I've been very pleasantly surprised in the reception so far.  

Sarah [00:24:22] Well, and I would think among those gun owners, there's an opportunity because of the proliferation of like permitless carry. If you grew up where you needed permits and safety licenses and classes, and now all of a sudden it's a free for all and you really understand the risk as a gun owner, yeah, I can see how there would be an opportunity to start a fresh conversation. Piper, I'm under that rubric of a fresh conversation. Are you sensing any movement or momentum in Hollywood just because of the tragic death surrounding guns on sets that have happened? Is there a fresh perspective or an understanding of like, wow, we really do need to think. Like not just take that default should there be a gun here and start to make that a process that we're thinking through?  

Piper Perabo [00:25:08] The accidents that have happened recently on set, especially the shooting in the Rust film, that is so rare because the firearm safety on a television or film set is extreme. I wasn't present on the Rust set and so I don't know all the particulars of how that system went so wrong, but there are so many checks that have to happen before there is a weapon on set. And so the safety on set is not really what's I think gotten my community talking, but it's really the same thing that I'm talking about with my friends and neighbors, is what's happening in the real world. These shootings. I was talking to my mother in law last night on the phone and she said, "We've got to do something about these guns." And I said, "I know Jacksonville." I'd been in class all day. And she said, "No, there's been a shooting since Jacksonville." And I just thought like, oh my God. And so, I think when it comes to television and movies, we as a community are more like our neighbors who do every other kind of job, and that we're trying to figure out how we can be part of a solution. In fact, when I came back from seeing you, Kris, in Washington, my sister-in-law said, "Hey, so if my kids are going on a play date, how do I ask if they're firearms in the house stored safely?" And I was like, oh, let me go ask.  

Sarah [00:26:30] Just like that. Are there firearms in the house stored safely?  

Piper Perabo [00:26:34] I was like, let's put it on TV show. I would love to see that get asked on a TV show. Because my sister-in-law can ask me and I go ask [inaudible]. But that's only three people that if we can get that scene on a TV show. By the way, there's a lot of drama in that, doesn't have to be. But it's like just to see that modeled behavior. I think not everybody has access to the language to just keep it like-- if you got a kid who's allergic to peanuts, you tell them that. But when you drop your kid off for playdate and like, make sure they don't go in the pool. There's a lot of things when you drop your kid. So just also there's so many questions that we have as just a community of Americans. And I feel like we can put that stuff on TV too, so that we all have access just to non inflammatory language per se. Because we all agree on if the kids kept safe, everyone kept safe.  

Sarah [00:27:23] Yeah. Well, and I think that's interesting too. I would think that Gulf is an interesting entry point to this conversation between the safety on set and the safety portrayed in the actual productions. You know what I mean? That's a good entry point to say, like, well, wow, don't we want to make clear, even for our own industry sake? Like, this is how safely we handle guns. This is how this is done, the multiple level checks. Because that's what I always tell people especially around kids. I'm like, I'm glad your kids listen to me. My kids don't listen to me when I tell them to turn the TV off or just to stay away from something dangerous. You know what I mean? Like, I can't trust them with YouTube, much less a loaded firearm not stored safely.  

Kris Brown [00:28:04] Yeah. And I think asking the question, like Piper said, that campaign has been around for 20 plus years. Brady worked really hard to get pediatricians to include that in every child visit. But what you guys are talking about here, I think is so important because it's normalizing the conversation. To Piper's point, why is it? I have two daughters. My younger daughter is now 19, but when she was little, she was born allergic to cows milk, to eggs, to tree nuts. And not just mildly, it was risk of death. Anaphylaxis. Just awful. So I got used to being very to me-- at first as someone who's actually personally a rather shy person-- being, "Well, tell me everything that you have in your house because my daughter might die at a playdate at your house." And people would say, "Oh, thank you so much for asking." The last thing that they want is Sophia Brown having a reaction. And what I found once I got trained myself as a mom on the ASK Campaign, (Asking Saves Kids) is I could ask the question about firearms in the same exact way that I was asking about allergies. And it was so interesting doing it because I have friends who told me I never was asked before and just because you did, now I have started asking. Again, it's just interesting that can be with your sister in law. She'll start something there and then it just becomes normalized. That's really the beauty of this.  

Sarah [00:29:49] Well, and you don't have to just normalize it by asking I normalize about telling people. I tell people we have a firearm, it's stored in a safe. I think that's helpful to just normalize all of the information we share along with our cell phones when a child comes over.  

Piper Perabo [00:30:04] Well, and I think that's one of the reasons I like Beth and Sarah so much on Pantsuit is because you guys are talking about, a lot of times when I listen to the podcast, sometimes it's hard to have a conversation, but it just takes practice. You don't have to figure it all out in one go the first time. The first time you say that to another parent. Okay, maybe it's a little hard, maybe a little nervous, maybe a little shy, but you just practice it and it gets easier. And I like that you guys always talk about that because I feel like that's how we can do this.  

Beth [00:30:35] That's what I think is so powerful about this campaign too, because Hollywood creates permission structures. If I see it on my television and I have some permission to engage in it, good and bad. It is a lot of power that you all wield. And I try to do that with the ask question. I start by volunteering. We don't have guns in our home, so my kids do not know how to handle this. And I just want to let you know that and make sure that everything's safely stored because my girls don't have exposure to this. So it's not accusatory at all.  

Piper Perabo [00:31:07] That's a nice way to do it.  

Beth [00:31:08] I'm not like giving the vibe of I think you're a bad person if you have a gun. It's just I want to let you know where we're coming from. And I think seeing that on TV would just really open up a lot of conversations. I love that idea. 

Kris Brown [00:31:22] Yeah, I'd love to see more of that.  

Sarah [00:31:25] What are your goals for this campaign? Do you have set timelines? Or so many movies you're trying to get safe storage inside of? Like, what are the goals?  

Kris Brown [00:31:35] I want this campaign-- and of course I lead a nonprofit, so I have to have very aggressive goals. So I would like five years from now to look at the content that we're seeing in TV shows. And by the way, I do think Piper can answer this much better than I can. I've gotten a real education, but TV shows are our first kind of entry point. I would like to see the movies too, but I would really like TV shows that are produced going forward if they're going to depict firearms, that they do it in a way that shows one of two things: safe storage and the benefits of safe storage in saving lives. Because that's real. Or the perils of failing to safely store firearms. And I don't think that it is too aggressive a goal to say five years from now that that is the norm that we are seeing on TV. It's absolutely achievable. And from the discussions that we've had with so many showrunners, the really interesting thing is that there's a way to do it that drives the narrative, that does not take away from excellent storytelling. It actually provides even more opportunities. And Piper, you talked about this, but I think it's so interesting to hear your perspective. For actors, it makes it much more interesting, right? Instead of the gun just being a prop.  

Sarah [00:33:15] It's our reality. Good storytelling is based in reality, and that's our reality as Americans. There's a lot of guns out there.  

Piper Perabo [00:33:21] And I think Brady's so smart about encouraging that it's coming from a creative place. Brady's not saying how to do it. They're just saying we want to see it and we want to see the consequences of it. And if you let the writers-- but also when we were talking about it as the industry group that got together, we're like and the props department and the actors and everybody who's going to be a part of it, be a part of that conversation so that there are many creative storytelling ways to talk about this. Because it's not about just saying no guns. I mean, that just flattens everything out. What it's about is talking about it more, showing it more responsible gun ownership or the consequences of not. Because there are so many things that can happen there. And that's where you can really utilize the creative community. And they'll come up with amazing stories that I would have never even considered.  

Kris Brown [00:34:11] Yeah. And, look, ultimately what we're talking about is human lives here and the difference that can be made. And so I think about my friend Kristin Song, who her son Ethan had just gotten his braces off. He's 15 years old and he went on a play date at his best friend's house. It's similar to the story that you told before, but it ended tragically. The boy who is his best friend had a firearm that was actually his dad's service weapon. He thought that it was unloaded, that there were no bullets. There were. And Ethan was unintentionally shot and died an hour later in the hospital. And Kristin talks about this so emphatically. She's just an incredible warrior. She's passed a number of state laws, is looking to do so at the federal level around safe storage. But if it had been more normalized, she would have asked the question every single time because even Ethan knew something about firearms. But these are children. These are kids. Kristin didn't have any in her home, but we know as parents by the time your kids hit eight or nine years old you are not in control of what happens in other people's houses at all. And so I think as we're saying, the opportunity to normalize this by seeing this replicated in real stories that are delivered to Americans, it will make it so much easier for people to have these conversations. And really the real thing that I think we will see is an appreciable decline in these kinds of gun violence, injuries and deaths.  

[00:36:04] And if you look at those numbers, quite frankly, more than legislation, more than better enforcement of the law. I want both of those things too, and we'll continue to work on that. This has the opportunity, if we do it well, to save more lives than all of those things combined. That's why I'm so excited about this. And Brady is putting so much behind it because that's how a Designated Driver saved millions of lives. That's how Buckle Up did. It was integrated into the Brady Bunch where Jan and Greg-- I remember this because I saw The Brady Bunch. I was one of those impressionable kids and they're like, "Mom and dad, why are we buckling up when you're not?" Because [inaudible] had done this big study and seen that the kids were learning at school how to do it. But the parents who grew up without seat belts are like, "Well, my kids can do it, but I'm not doing it." So adults were still dying in high numbers from traffic fatalities. So they got the kids to hector the adults. I saw that episode of Brady Bunch went right up to my dad and was like, you're going to start buckling up. You have to do this and that. And he was like, "If I do, will you stop being such a pain?" I'm like, "Yeah, I won't ask you again." Just think about that. But that was a whole campaign. That is Hollywood stepping up. And so they had a history of doing that, except here, and that's what we really want to change.  

Beth [00:37:30] I love that. And I love the layering that came out from the drunk driving campaign or the seat belt campaign, because I could see if I am as a writer or a showrunner thinking about safe storage and the depictions of gun safety, then I'm probably going to incorporate that into the storytelling as well.  

Kris Brown [00:37:50] Yeah, exactly.  

Beth [00:37:51] My chief complaint as a mom is how many times I see a movie with my kids where killing people is used just as a device to physically move a character from point A to point B. We're just killing all these people to clear a path to get from place to place, and there's no fallout from it. And I think if you're going back to just the handling of the weapon by the character, then maybe we start thinking about all of those nameless people that we're seeing just dying onscreen without any consequence to.  

Sarah [00:38:23] Well, and I just think to like changing the ideas around like a gun that flows through your possession. I just think people treat it like an object and you have a gun in your car and you don't save store it and someone steals that and it's like they stop thinking about that object in your life. But because you didn't safe store that object and it got stolen, what did it go on to do? I think there's a real creative opportunity to say the life of the gun and your participation in it, what happened? Like, that's the gun in my life because I won it in a stupid giveaway and immediately at a police officers conference and they tried to buy it on me and I was like, no way. It's not passing through my possession and then going out into the world where I won't know what it does. It can rot at the top of my closet. Like, no way.  

Beth [00:39:08] I would love an episode of a show or a movie where someone inherits guns and is thinking about what do we do now? Do we sell them? What's our participation in that chain of custody? I think there's so many good stories to be told here.  

Kris Brown [00:39:20] So many.  

Beth [00:39:21] I'm really excited about your work.  

[00:39:22] Music interlude.  

[00:39:41] Thank you to Kris and Piper and to everyone working on the Show Your Safety campaign. And thanks to all of you who continue the work out there contacting your representatives and going to meetings, saying something when you're concerned about the health and safety of your community or a person in it. We know that it is a long and discouraging and sometimes just unbelievable road. But your efforts matter. So you're putting good work into the river and it makes a difference. We hope you'll keep going. Sarah, we always end our show talking about what's on our minds Outside of Politics. And today, just a confession, we are but mere white women of a certain age. And the situation is that by the end of August we are legally obligated to be excited about fall.  

Sarah [00:40:21] I love fall. It's not my favorite season. We all know I love winter the best, that it is where my soul flourishes. The fall comes before winter, so I'm here for it. Now, I do love the aesthetic of fall. And I think it is fascinating to watch the ways in which people make it happen even when it's 90 degrees outside. Instagram was full of late summer-early fall transition. How to wear fall colors when it's still hot. And even Starbucks is like, okay, we're going to bring out the pumpkin spice latte, but we have an iced version now. It just makes me laugh!  

Beth [00:40:57] Well, I feel like here end of August is always everybody's ambiguously sick, like a little bit sick. I feel that today, just a little bit sick. And so you're sort of thinking, can we just get out of the heat? Because being a little bit sick when it's hot it's pretty miserable. The Labor Day weekend is always a confusing one because it's hot enough to swim usually, but you feel like that should be pool closure time. Like you're really closing the book on the summer and you're moving forward. And I know that you have a lot of thoughts about the Labor Day apparel rules.  

Sarah [00:41:30] I still follow the rule. I don't wear white after Labor Day, you guys. Now, that doesn't apply to white button up shirts or winter white, but you will not catch me in my white jeans or any white shoes after Labor Day. And I think people roll their eyes at that rule. And I just want to be like, "Guys, these rules are to do what you want to do, which is move on to the next season." That's the whole point. It's like we're all done with summer clothes. We're all ready to move on. I mean, unless you live in a place like Florida, that's why I don't live in a place like Florida, because I don't want to wear flip flops all year long. I want to have seasons and I have all kinds of rules. So I have a sickness. I will admit. One time in college, I sat down with my friend Jessica, and she asked me, and I just kept going about all my color rules. Like, I don't wear forest green or pumpkin or mustard after November, and I don't wear red after February. And I have pastels in spring. You're not going to see me in turquoise or bright pink or any of those summer colors after Labor Day. And I just went on and on and she looked at me and goes, "You should use your powers for good, not evil." But I just think there's just a lot of signaling to me with seasons and colors. I mean, that's why you have like Lily, Pulitzer and stuff. And so, I like that. I like seasons. I get tired of my clothes. I want to wear new things. And so I use those rules and that color in that way. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.  

Beth [00:43:02] I don't think there's anything wrong with it either. I like change, so I'm always excited for that transition. I also realize, as we've talked about a million times, that once you get to October 1st, the year is going to be pretty much over.  

Sarah [00:43:19] So fast.  

Beth [00:43:19] So I've been thinking a lot about how to really savor September. I'm kind of on a savor September mission.  

Sarah [00:43:26] Savor September. I like alliteration. You're already on a good start.  

Beth [00:43:30] Yes. And so I have a bunch of goals for September around my house, things that I really want to get done before we get into that October to December sprint. I want to be outside as much as I can during September. I have some things I want to cook during September. I'm just really in a savor September mindset.  

Sarah [00:43:49] I do like September. It's a nice month. It's still a little hot. I like it to be less hot, but it's really cool in the mornings, in the evenings, which are nice. And you're like in the school schedule flow, you're getting your feet underneath you. It doesn't feel as overwhelming. But you're right, you're not to October where everything's over in two hot minutes. I mean, I love October and I love November and I love December and I love Christmas. That's why I stretch it all the way through Epiphany. But I agree. I like this focusing on September, because if you're not careful, it will just fly by and then you're really on the downhill slope. Okay. Savor September. I'm down. I'm here for it. Let's do it. Do you want to know my September colors?  

Beth [00:44:27] Oh, yeah, please do.  

Sarah [00:44:28] Navy is a very strong September color. Although, let me be abundantly clear. I wear Navy all year long. But like a navy and a yellow together. Navy and a little peak of fall colors. A blue. September is very blue to me. I don't know why I have this color theory about every month of the year, but it feels very back to school. Do you see what I'm saying?  

Beth [00:44:51] I do. And there's nothing that I like wearing better than navy. When we travel now, I pretty well only pack navy. That way everything goes together. It's just a plethora of navy in my suitcase. And I feel like navy just looks good no matter what you're doing.  

Sarah [00:45:04] Yeah, I don't think navy looks bad on dang near anybody.  

Beth [00:45:07] Navy and September as a good combo is a great mantra for me. I'm going to go with it.  

Sarah [00:45:14] Well, and also that tells you that September is versatile, just as a month with lots of opportunity because you associate such a versatile, basically a neutral color with it. See what I'm saying here?  

Beth [00:45:23] Well, if you have ideas about ways we can savor September, please let us know. Thank you so much for spending your time with us today. If you would like more of these conversations on a wide range of topics, we would be honored for you to check out our premium content on patreon, on Apple Podcasts subscriptions. It's a wonderful community, we would love for you to be part of it. We will be back in your ears next week for a special Labor Day episode, and until then, have the best weekend available to you.  

[00:45:48] Music Interlude.  

Sarah: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. 

Beth: Alise Napp is our managing director. Maggie Penton is our director of Community Engagement. 

Sarah: Xander Singh is the composer of our theme music with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima. 

Beth: Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers. 

Executive Producers: Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. Emily Neesley. The Pentons. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Emily Helen Olson. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago. Becca Dorval. The Lebo Family. 

Sarah: Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.

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