Another school shooting in America

Make Me Smart March 27, 2023 Transcript

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Kimberly Adams 

Hello, everyone, this is Kimberly Adams. I am Kimberly Adams. Not. Whatever. Anyway, welcome back to Make Me Smart. It’s Monday.

Kai Ryssdal 

Both of those things are true.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, it was just a weird way to get going. But it’s a weird news day. So anyway, we here and make me smart try to make the day make sense.

Kai Ryssdal 

Which will be especially hard today actually, as you will see. I’m Kai Ryssdal thanks for coming on. Thanks for being with us. Man we’re having a tough start today. It’s Monday, the 27th of March. That’s what it is, Monday. We’re gonna do a little news, talk some things over and then we’ll get out of your hair and let you get on about your day. But but yeah, this is a weird, tough news day.

Kimberly Adams 

It is a weird tough news day because there was yet another school shooting today, this time in Nashville at a private Christian school. Three children and three adults dead last I saw. According to the gun violence archive that is the 130th death from mass shootings in so far this year.

Kai Ryssdal 

And we are not yet 90 days into the year. Not yet 90 days.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I’m sorry, that wasn’t even true. That’s not even the 130th deaths from a mass shooting. That’s like the 130th mass shooting so far this year, which is just horrible. But leads us into this astonishing piece of journalism from the Washington Post, which is like what 10 stories or something, but they’re calling the series, the American Icon. All about the AR-15 and its role in America. And one, all of the pieces are really good. But one of them in particular and it is particularly relevant today, is a piece that uses data visualization and 3d imagery and graphics to show exactly what AR-15s and they’re bullets due to a human body when someone is shot. And it’s very graphic. It’s not, you know, blood and guts and gore. But the imagery is very disturbing. But it’s real. And it’s not even as bad as it could be because they toned it down. But.. Go ahead.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, and part of the amazing thing. So there’s there’s there are two parts of the to the visualization that are really remarkable. The first is is a 3D animation that shows the trajectory of different kinds of gunshots to the chest, AR-15 and the typical handgun, 9mm cartridge. The second part is a depiction of, not the actual imagery, but a depiction of the entry and exit wounds of two little boys killed in school shootings when they were hit by multiple bullets. And the remarkable thing to me and the most wrenching part of this is that the parents of these little boys obviously give permission for their children’s fatal injuries to be used. And it’s, I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell is going on.

Kimberly Adams 

I remember during the Uvalde shooting when they started asking the parents for something to help them get DNA of their kids because some of the bodies were just unidentifiable. And it’s and yes, this this shooting by the way today, to the surprise of absolutely no one, seems to be seems to have been done with an AR-15 style rifle. And this gun is extremely efficient at killing, killing lots of people at once and some statistics about the way that the actual machine works that it, you know, can move it’s… the bullets end up moving at something like 3200 feet, you know, per second, or something like that. And the “Blast Radius” is the name of is what they’re calling this piece that has all this imagery and 3d representation because, as you’ll see from the depictions, when the bullet enters someone’s body, it literally creates a blast radius with inside, within a human body. Which is horrible in so many ways. We don’t have to probably go on too much about how awful all the mass shootings are in this country but it’s worth people going and looking and reading these pieces. There’s another interesting piece in the series that I read, looking at the Sutherland Springs, Texas shooting that was like five years ago where the gunman opened fire on a church. And they talked to a whole bunch of the survivors about their lasting injuries and what their day to day life is like. People who can’t have children who are paralyzed, who deal with daily pain, who have lead leaching into their bodies from bullet fragments still inside of them. And these are the real costs. It’s not fun to talk about, but it is real life.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah. And that’s what’s in the news. That’s what’s in the news today. I got nothing left. You got anything left?

Kimberly Adams 

No that took it all out of me. And I’m hopeful for a better day tomorrow that this kind of work actually elicits some change. But hope springs eternal. Yeah

Kai Ryssdal 

We will, we will of course put that Washington Post series on the show page. But yeah.

Kimberly Adams 

And we’d love to know what you all think about it if you, if you have a look and share your thoughts, please do. Anyway, tomorrow we’re going to be back with a deep dive on something completely different. The gender wage gap since we’re winding down Women’s History Month and you know, women’s history and present is a gender wage gap. So we are going to unpack what is continuing to hold us back from equal pay.

Kai Ryssdal 

Till then send us your questions your thoughts, your comments, suggestions as well if you would. 508-U-B-SMART 508-U-B-S-M-A-R-T. You can also email us makemesmart@marketplace.org. That works too

Kimberly Adams 

This very short episode of Make me smart was produced by Courtney Bergsieker. Today’s program was engineered by Drew Jostad. Ellen Rolfes writes our newsletter. Our intern is Antonio Barreras.

Kai Ryssdal 

Marissa Cabrera is our acting senior producer. Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcasts. Francesca Levy is the executive director of Digital and On Demand. So there you go.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah. Indeed.