Evan Osnos (2016)

You're absolutely right about the preponderance of gun deaths coming from handguns, not long guns. Often, this gets lost in the moments after a mass shooting that involves a long gun (usually semiauto, obviously). But I wouldn't characterize the NRA as "low-hanging fruit." They have been the most successful advocates for gun rights in the last century. The organization is essential to any discussion of guns, and they would agree with that (though not with criticism of them, of course).

I hope you'll have a chance to listen to the whole thing. The guns vs. swimming pool analogy has been dealt with pretty well elsewhere (pls see link below), so I won't rehash other than to say that it's difficult, but not impossible, to use a swimming pool to kill a spouse in a domestic dispute -- or to use a swimming pool to kill your neighbor, or, if you're unwell, to massacre people in a movie theatre. I'm not trying to be facetious; it's an important point: Bringing a gun into the house raises your risks of homicide and that's precisely the point. It's not just the risk of homicide to a home invader, obviously. https://respecttheblankie.com/2015/09/19/no-swimming-pools-are-not-more-dangerous-than-guns/

Thanks -- fair question. In my view, it's about lethality. Not all weapons are created equal. Some products are capable of doing much more harm, more rapidly, more often, in the hands of either unskilled people or sick people. We regulate the otherwise ordinary components of Meth, for instance, because people do harm with them, even though they are harmless in the right hands. I'm fine with that. I'll take the inconvenience.

No reason why it's "worse" -- as you say, it's part of the democratic system. I think what bothers critics is that politicians seem to ignore evidence that public attitudes are at odds with many NRA positions. Every public servant has to make the calculation between serving specific interests and the general interest; that's the job. And people are well within their rights to criticize politicians who they don't think are setting the balance in the right place, no?

By "office culture" I suspect you mean the yogurt that I left on my desk for too many days. It acquired speech and locomotion, and it devoured the sandwich nearby.

Lots of unpack here, but I would honestly recommend (if you have a rainy afternoon) to read Mike Weisser's book on the myths around how often people use their guns to defend themselves. Mike is an NRA life member, a gun dealer and instructor. He knows his stuff. And he thinks people are being sold a false bill of goods: https://www.amazon.com/Great-American-Argument-Guns-America/dp/0692336354?ie=UTF8&Version=1&entries=0

To encompass some of the comments below: Car companies, and oil companies, and gun companies, do, in fact, have a responsibility that extends beyond just sending the product out the door. Even if my product works as I designed it, there are areas of liability (e.g. "negligent entrustment") that we, as a society, generally agree is warranted. Nobody wants gun companies to be held to a higher standard; they just want gun companies to be held to the usual standard. Why should they be exempted? It's an honest question? What makes them unique?

There are myths on both sides: Many gun-control advocates imagine gun-owners = NRA. They're not the same. As I write in my piece (link below) many gun-owners are turned off by the fear-mongering, the insults to their intelligence. At the same time, I met a lot of gun owners who are convinced that urban elites want to confiscate their guns. The truth is that urban elites, if you want to call them that, could care less what others have stashed in their safes -- they just don't people getting shot all the time. There is so much room for people to meet in the middle on this, but it requires putting aside some myths we are convinced are true.

I appreciated the fact that the NRA welcomes journalists to the annual meeting etc. It's a fair way of ensuring people understand the organization. But the leadership, and the businesses that support the NRA, are oddly secluded. Wayne LaPierre gives very few interviews, and gunmaker CEOs almost never talk. It's too bad because they could make a case for themselves.

Anybody -- especially people who favor free markets -- should conclude that the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act was a big mistake. Imagine if Exxon was protected from liability after the Valdez? That's not how markets should work. It will probably be revised or repealed to make sure that companies are doing safe work -- as with any industry.

Also, on TNY pieces, Patrick Keefe has been on a tear. Read and diagram and study anything he writes.

The NRA is making a big push on marketing to women -- and it's been doing this consistently for two decades. But it's been an uphill climb. The General Social Survey shows that gun ownernship among women has barely budged. This data drives the industry crazy, because they say they are seeing more women customers. So what gives? Multiple gun dealers told me they think that women are coming in more often as part of a group or a family. But it's hard to get them to buy in the long term. So the core gun owner remains: white, male, aging.

I miss China all the time, and I'll be back before too long for some reporting. Favorite restaurant is a Vietnamese place with Chinese characteristics: Susu.

This is an important point, often overlooked, that the NRA's influence in Washington doesn't just come from direct donations to politicians. On that measure, they rank way behind, say, the real-estate-agent lobby etc. But on other measures of influence, including dark money, there is a lot more cash in play. The honest answer is that it's very hard to measure the full corpus of cash because it's dark, but, importantly, yes, the answer to those who ask how to challenge the power of the NRA is that voting is the way that gun-control advocates will ever achieve parity. They have to close the "intensity gap" and that means getting people to the polls. It's happening but not that fast. (thanks on age of ambition.)

The first challenge on a story so vast is to figure out the boundaries of the known universe of information. What's the point of writing a piece that says things people already know? It baffles me. You HAVE to know what's known in order to know what's unknown, and then invade Iraq. I mean, then write a piece. So you read an absurd amount. But eventually reading becomes procrastination. You say, "I can't write until I finish the three volumes of the Fink Study" or whatever, at which point your wife tells you to stop reading and start writing.

That's a good analysis of Chinese nationalism vs. American nationalism. I agree with you that the Chinese variety is more about expanding regional leadership and the American form (these days at least) is about recovering a sense of our relevance and vitality. Someday, when I have a moment to think, I'd like to write on the comparison between the two. As compensation, I'll send you a check in the high single digits.

Actually, strangely perhaps, I have a different view: Studying guns reveals just how NON-static American political history is. Nothing stays the same for long. The strength of our system is, in fact, the resilience and flexibility of it. It's the gay-marriage principle. History happens slowly, then all at once. I'm increasingly convinced we're on course for a rapid shift of opinion on guns.

First the book question: Best fiction I've read in a while is the upcoming Jonathan Safran Foer book, "Here I am." We have a copy kicking around and it's powerful. Best nonfiction: Steve Coll's book on ExxonMobile, to recall an earlier theme from today. To extend the metaphor, you can't understand oil/climate/foreign-policy without understanding the business dynamics at the heart of the industry. I'll apply the same rule to guns. You gotta grasp the business.

As for the legislation, I respect the objections to using the no-fly list. They are serious. I also think the bill should've come up for a vote in the House. I wrote about some of the latest drama here: http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/forget-congress-the-gun-business-faces-a-judge?mbid=social_reddit

The GSS expresses its number on a per capita basis. I think it has more to do with WHY women are going to classes and the range, and whether they ultimately become gun owners.

This is a really interesting issue. In the days of Dodge City, of course, the local sheriff was worried about concealed, not open carry. He wanted total information awareness, to borrow a phrase. But, as you say, intuitively we are more anxious around open carry than around concealed. The psych literature has good studies on how we're basically hard-wired to fixate on weapons in our presence -- so in experiments, people pay way more attention to a gun in the room than they otherwise should. Our eyes go to it over and over again. My guess is that, once guns became a rarer presence in our lives (decline of rural life, closing of the frontier, etc.) we became much more attuned to the oddity of a gun in the room -- and thus we became less comfortable with open than with concealed. But, interesting note: After a few months of working on this subject, I've found that I barely notice if someone is open-carrying. It performative. It's designed, in part, to make you ask and engage. The person I worry about is the person more like me: Who attended 4 hours of training, with no range time, and then (unlike me) started carrying concealed, ready to use that weapon in a pinch. I don't want that guy being my "sheepdog." For more on this, my article goes into some depth on this.

I haven't heard the Reagan story, but his comment, in 1967, arguing against civilians carrying loaded weapons, which I reference in the piece, is a telling measure of how far the gun world has moved in the last half century.

I think this case is very interesting. It has a long way to go before it really changes the way guns are sold, but courts are not immune from the changes in society. Attitudes are changing, and some gun owners are beginning to believe that the best way to preserve gun rights is not to fight for marginal needs (do you really want to burn your powder on protecting the terrorist-watch-list access?) but to make reasonable compromises and protect what really matters. Absolutism can alienate allies.

I've lived in countries with weak authoritarian regimes (Egypt) and countries with strong authoritarian regimes (China), and I don't think the CCP will lose power quickly. But I also think it will have no choice but to adapt to a slower mode of growth. That could be a profound adaptation, on the order of 1978-1979. BUT it might not be in the direction of openness. My profile of Xi Jinping in TNY looks at some of these dynamics: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/06/born-red?mbid=social_reddit

We are allergic to the writing sin known as "indirection." That's the kind of fashionable writing that begins a piece with, say, "He was only in it for the tips." Or whatever. Even if the reader goes along with it, the reptile brain is screaming: "Who is he? Why the hell is he working for tips? What's he trying to do?" So we say, let's assume as little as possible -- even if it means that we occasionally overidentify Paul McCartney. It keeps us honest.