Today is launch day for WHAT WE’VE BECOME: LIVING AND DYING IN A COUNTRY OF ARMS.

The book begins in the early morning hours of April 22 2018, when a naked white man with an AR-15 burst into a Nashville Waffle House and shot and killed four young adults of color. I spent five years learning everything about the case – reading police reports, interviewing families, going to court hearings, studying how a man with a highly lethal gun ended up at a Waffle House, and what happened after he left.

My research changed much of what I thought I knew about #gunviolence in #America and the best ways to prevent it. #WhatWeBecome started as a book about #guns – and evolved into a terrifying, infuriating, and
exceedingly unexpected story about race, politics, and sanity in the US South.

#tnpoli #gunsafety #WhatWeveBecome @wwnorton @McKinnonLit Mass shootings happen so frequently in the US that we’ve tragically normalized them - even the worst shootings stay in the news for just a few days.

But looking in depth at a single event, led me to a startling realization: while experts like me have built a knowledge base around the horrific mortal effects of firing guns, we have done not nearly enough research into the meanings of guns never fired, or the social and political meanings of owning guns and carrying them. That blind spot has profound implications on many levels – from the inability to define and defend the American public square, to difficulties stopping once unimaginable expansions in gun sales, to the problems health-based arguments counter in refuting even the most extreme public carry laws.

My reading of the Waffle House tragedy ultimately leads me to the conclusion that guns represent more than health problems: they are problems of race, of history, of plurality. They are precursors to authoritarianism. Yet the prevention frameworks through which Democrats and liberals often understand guns can block recognition of these larger issues—with huge implications for the 2024 election and beyond. And that it’s time to change course – by broadening our alliances, supporting what I call gun-safety entrepreneurialism, and following the lead of activists and researchers who join gun safety with investments in lived environment.

huffpost.com/entry/opinion-…

Dont think ppl have fully grasped implications of horrible #SCOTUS #gun decision. "As of today, in order to be constitutional, any such law must have a specific historical precedent from the 18th or early-19th century." Ie the end of modern gun control.

nymag.com/intelligencer/… As @voxdotcom @imillhiser puts it: “The future of gun control in the United States could be quite grim—and Bruen could mark the moment when lawmakers’ power to fight gun violence falls apart.” vox.com/2021/4/26/2236…

Loosening gun policies in Missouri went hand-in-hand with the loss of over ten thousand and five hundred years of productive male life in the state between 2008 and 2015.... Between 2008-2015, a person in Missouri was 11x more likely to die by gun suicide than in an accidental house fire, and 14.5x more likely to die by gun suicide than by “natural/environmental” causes ranging from...

For anyone wondering why Trump would even consider holding a WH balcony serenade while he remains infected and infectious...the #DyingOfWhiteness reason would be, yet again, that he drives and is driven by the politics of racial resentment..... By this logic, signaling his devotion to a hierarchy that keeps white people on top is more important then what might seem from the outside like self interest or communal well-being....

Core Trump base no more likely to start wearing masks than they are to support healthcare reform, saving the planet, gun safety, etc. Rather, getting #COVID19 now takes on new political meaning--becomes an expression of self-sacrifice and a way of showing devotion to the cause. To put it another way, getting and transmitting #COVID19 is the 'logical' next phase of not wearing masks. Public health becomes politicized and weaponized for the cause.

We need a leader who will flip the switch on divisive rhetoric, and who sees our diversity as our superpower @MarkRuffalo #WithBidenWeCan I grew up in Missouri. I’ve seen neighbors and communities work together in common cause! It’s preposterous to think we can’t do so again when faced with these monumental challenges

New Trump HHS ad campaign aimed to put a positive spin on disastrous #COVID19 response will use slogan from Tim Burton classic, Mars Attacks: "Don't run, we are your friends..."

politico.com/news/2020/09/2…

The fact of the matter is this: it is incredibly expensive for insurance companies to pay for pre-existing conditions. It’s much cheaper to let you die. ACA *remarkably* made that illegal, against all odds. For people who have been critiquing the ACA for the past eight years for not going far enough....try getting that back after we lose it.

Having interviewed GOP supporters for years - many care mainly, only, about courts. Little else matters - people I’ve interviewed literally lay down on the tracks of life for the courts. While everyone else is concerned about trumps tweets...they follow his judicial appointments They will see this as - providence, restitution, the payoff for their sacrifice, I believe

I take back everything nice I said about the cardboard @Royals fans. Start booing, you always-smiling one dimensional lackeys. Scream out cusswords, get wasted on cardboard beer and get thrown out of the K. Light a fire under this losing team - do us real fans proud. I want to see cardboard Balboni, smiling baby, Cookie Rojas, weird red lobster thing, and somebodys grandpa puking their guts out by the end of this game.

Dems missing a huge opportunity by not reaching out to trump voters and saying “here’s what we can do for you” in terms they care about. The point is not to win anyone over, but to force Trump to explain himself to his base - which he never has to do. Exactly

Ive watched this #DNC2020 for 14 seconds and Im already convinced - think Im gonna vote for Biden It is too bad they couldn’t make this seem a bit more live action tho. Some fake fans? Fraggle Rock extras?

Where is the stong Dem voice right now countering the bogus narrative linking BLM and looting? Dems need to be in front of this, craft alternate narrative. Where is the Dem leader? Honestly, frigging get in front of the headlines - where is your response? Say what you will, but if Trump were the Democratic candidate would he be sitting back and letting the other side define key urgent issues?

Repectfully, do not do this. Stand up for the principles of universal healthcare in a pandemic, articulate why, rally support - but do not demand fielty to a slogan that is already polarizing. It won't work.

politico.com/news/2020/07/2… Some things Biden should do:

*Clearly acknowledge how much the pandemic has hurt all of us, how awful it still is-let that unify
*Clearly explain how we can do better-let that unify
*Reject zero-sum formulations of suffering-that's a Trump trap. Instead, listen and reflect

@RachelBitecofer - at some point, and def not now, Dems need to realize that the best way to mess with Trump is to pitch/market the positive effects of Dem antiracist policies - for Trump voters. Go after his base with messaging on healthcare, education, jobs, etc Craft slogans that put Trump on the defensive *with his base* and that cost Dems nada (since we already want univ hc, education, etc; and since we're not voting for him ever anyway).

Trump Tulsa rally is quintessential #DyingOfWhiteness :

*Performativity of whiteness inversely related to working-class white wellbeing
*GOP demands human sacrifice from its supporters as a show of fielty
*... 2/
*Many in the crowd whose lives on the line suffer bec of other GOP policies - no healthcare, etc

*Risk ripples outward to impact communities

*All to the benefit of a select few (who will almost certainly *not* be *in* the .crowd.)....

Trauma, like grief, comes in stages. Phase 1 is an outpouring, an autonomic hemorrhage, a response to shock-like that of seeing a murder in real-time. Phase 2 is a reckoning-what can be done? This is where constructive action, new/unexpected alliances, change can begin. What are those alliances?

History teaches us that images blk “unrest” are also crafted/used to foment white anxiety, justify incarceration/hospitalization/silencing of blck men while deflecting attention from the reasons for protest in the first place. After Newark 1967, antipsychotic ads looked like this nytimes.com/2020/05/30/us/…

1. Keep hearing "if" cv becomes a pandemic. Get real-this is more of a pandemic than anything in recent memory. When declared:
*Global response requires unprecedented global cooperation. Hard to imagine but-all fighting a common enemy.
*Key players: orgs, govts, business, pharma 2. Understand the drive to make political critiques-I myself wrote a book slamming Trump on healthcare and other critiquing pharma. But for this moment again, we're on the same team, need to do the best we can with what we have in an urgent situation. How can I help?

Trying to understand -

1 - what is stopping Iran from closing the straight of Hormuz and disrupting world oil supply?

2 - doesn’t this just draw Iran, China, and Russia closer together? How in any way does that benefit us? 3 - we get expelled from Iraq. How is that in our interest?

In other words what is the strategy?

Among the many layers of tragic irony surrounding tomorrow's SCOTUS case:

1. The law in question has already been changed in the plaintiff's favor - they have nothing left to gain, and the case is, by definition, moot.

But... 2. Trump admin urging Court to decide the case anyway, telling the justices the dispute is still meaningful because **residents could seek damages** for not being able to drive around with their guns.

But...