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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. We now turn to the gun control protests in Tennessee and around the country following the deadly shooting at a school in Nashville last week. Yesterday, more than 300 demonstrations across 41 states kicked off a week of action as it's being called by the advocacy group, Everytown for Gun Safety. Three Tennessee representatives have been removed from their committees in the state legislature after standing with student protesters. They now face expulsion from the House, that being reported by The New York Times.

While advocates are demanding tougher gun laws, Republican-led states in many cases are relaxing them. Just this Monday, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida signed a permitless carry bill into law, permitless carry. The move means that, now, a majority of states no longer require concealed gun permits. Joining me now to discuss the latest gun-related news is Jennifer Mascia, senior news writer and a founder staffer at The Trace, which covers gun issues. Jennifer, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Jennifer Mascia: Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Let's start with Tennessee, where, of course, that latest school shooting was. As I mentioned, three Tennessee representatives, their names are Gloria Johnson, Justin Jones, and Justin Pearson, are facing expulsion from their House in the legislature for supporting gun control protesters. Can you explain what's going on there? It sounds like a free-speech issue, at very least.

Jennifer Mascia: Yes. Well, after the Nashville shooting, there was a movement among Democrats in the Tennessee State House, which is dominated by Republicans. Democrats have a tiny minority. The three representatives you mentioned, who represent Knoxville, Nashville, and Memphis, they represent largely Democratic-leaning areas. They're Democrats. They feel free to speak their minds about gun control, which is very different from Republicans in the state.

They staged a protest where they stood in solidarity and allowed. There were protesters. A lot of them teenagers and children who had poured into the statehouse and they were showing their support for them. They linked hands. They raised their fists. Republicans immediately swooped down. They accused them of fomenting an insurrection like we saw on January 6. Now, if you look at the footage, you see Republican lawmakers not running for their lives like lawmakers of both parties did on January 6.

You see them filming and putting this on social media. Everybody looks pretty relaxed. Apparently, these lawmakers, "incited" is the language that Republicans are using, incited the crowd, encouraged them to commit violence. As we saw, it was pretty recorded. There was no violence. Now, they're facing expulsion. This is the first time in Tennessee history, expulsion of lawmakers from the statehouse would not be bipartisan. This is one party asserting its will over lawmakers who represent about 200,000 people in the state.

Brian Lehrer: What's the context for that particular protest? Can you talk about yesterday's day of action around the country organized by the group, Everytown for Gun Safety?

Jennifer Mascia: There were a number of walkouts in high schools. This was very similar to what we saw during March for Our Lives, although it wasn't quite on the same scale. It did get a lot of participation. It wasn't just yesterday. There were individual non-affiliated with Everytown walkouts in schools on Monday. Pretty much every day since the national shooting, there has been some kind of action.

This group, Everytown, and also Students Demand Action, these are local chapters. A lot of times, they're run by young people of these gun control organizations, but they're pretty independent of thought. This is a generation. We didn't grow up with this. They grew up with active shooter drills, the shadow of school shootings, the fear of going to school every day, and some of them have now experienced shootings in their schools. We're getting a generation of survivors who's just young and they're fed up.

Brian Lehrer: In the midst of the fallout after the Nashville shooting, nevertheless, GOP-led states in some cases are relaxing concealed-carry laws. What does permitless carry actually mean?

Jennifer Mascia: Permitless carry means that you can carry a gun in public with no permit or training or additional background check. In most states, you buy a gun. You get a background check at a gun dealer. In some states, you have to get a license first, although that's the minority of states. To carry in public, you used to have to get another permit that, usually, a local sheriff will look over your record.

Local law enforcement officers know more about their communities than the federal government or the FBI agent doing a criminal background check. The idea was that these local sheriffs, they know what's going on in their community. They know, "You know what? So and so has a history of domestic violence. I think I'm going to reject this permit." Well, over the years, we've seen lawmakers take away the ability of local law enforcement to reject these permits. As long as they have a clean criminal history, it must be issued.

Now, we've seen a movement where permits are not being required at all. Our Brady Bill, our federal background check bill, only covers guns sold through federally-licensed dealers. Private sales are legal in 29 states, including Florida. In states that are going permitless, you can buy a gun from a stranger, carry it in public, and never go through a background check. Now, we really have two Americas. One America with strong gun laws and one America that doesn't seem to want any gun laws.

Brian Lehrer: It's another example of the extreme sorting that's taking place. We talked about it last hour with respect to states that have various kinds of trans rights and states that are restricting them. We know this is happening with abortion rights and also with gun laws, so maybe it's time to revive that conversation about a national divorce of blue states and red states.

Jennifer Mascia: The unfortunate thing is that we have family members who live in these red states. I have family members throughout these red states. This self-sorting, I'm sure you discussed, it's going to cause a brain drain in one part of the country where you're going to see people who need gender care who want to live with strong gun laws. They're just going to leave.

Brian Lehrer: I'm curious, listeners, and we only have time for a couple of calls in this segment. Has anybody been participating, or if there are no high school students listening right now because you're in high school, are there any parents listening whose kids have taken part in any of these school walkouts since the Nashville school shooting? If so, how frustrated are people?

Our guest, Jennifer Mascia from the news organization, The Trace, which covers gun issues, just referenced the March for Our Lives. Remember that movement after the Parkland, Florida school shooting, and yet they keep going on and yet nothing keeps happening? How frustrating is it? How hard is it to motivate others to stay politically active on this if you say the same things over and over again and the same kind of horrors, crimes, tragedies happen over and over again and lawmakers are continually resistant? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, if someone you know or if you yourself participated in any of these school walkouts in recent days.

Jennifer, I see there's a list that made the media rounds recently of all the US senators who were funded by the NRA. At the top of the list is Mitt Romney with over $13 million, Mitch McConnell next. Now, we get Ted Cruz down less than a million, but still plenty of money. Lindsey Graham, $55,000. Susan Collins, $19,000. How much does NRA funding really influence politicians anymore? Some of those amounts are actually not that much.

Jennifer Mascia: Yes, they're also slightly out of date. The truth is it's not really a great surprise that the NRA contributes to Republicans. Very few Democrats take NRA money nowadays. For Republicans, though, it's almost like you don't even really need the NRA anymore because this is an issue where the Republicans are in lockstep. If the NRA went out of business tomorrow, you still have NRA-ism. Really, that platform has been absorbed by the Republican Party. A pro-gun vote is a guaranteed Republican vote. This is an era where Republicans need every vote they can get. They're not going to jeopardize a gun-right supporter.

Brian Lehrer: Can I jump in on that? Because we always hear that the polls show that common-sense gun reform like more universal background checks has widespread public support. The narrative used to be, "Oh, the public supports this, but members of Congress won't because they get too much money from the NRA." Now, we're saying they don't, in most cases, get very much money from the NRA, and yet they're afraid of their voters who are pro-gun rights. If the polls show the voters aren't that pro-gun rights, I'm confused.

Jennifer Mascia: The voters are not connecting this issue to the candidates they support. Guns are not a leading issue. It's not an issue like the economy or even abortion as we saw in the last election that gets people to the polls. A lot of people say, "I support these policies," and then vote for personalities that they like. A lot of times, not a lot of research goes into votes.

That's everyone's right. You tick off your box and that's fine, but there is a disconnect here. The Republicans are finding that there are no political consequences for continuing to vote away gun laws. However, we saw last summer that there was an exception to that. There was a federal bill that passed, the first significant one in nearly three decades, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.

It did instill some policies that will save lives. It didn't go quite far enough. It's not universal background checks. They banned guns for abusive dating partners, something that Republicans would never move on. The difference was after Uvalde, all the Republicans went back to their districts. Their pro-gun Republican constituents rang their phones off the hook and said, "Do something."

That is the one exception. Republicans will move on this issue. Now, we're seeing at the Tennessee statehouse, you have people who are saying, "We're not going to move until you do something." Let's see if that happens. If there are finally political consequences for voting away gun laws, that is what will move the needle. That is the only thing that will move the needle when they feel their jobs are in jeopardy.

Brian Lehrer: Jeff in Dallas, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jeff. Thanks for calling in.

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Brian Lehrer: Do we have you, Jeff?

Jeff: Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Now, I can hear you. Hi there. Yes, you're on. We got you.

Jeff: Hi, how are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good.

Jeff: As somebody who is an admitted gun rights supporter, I'd like to point something out that I think gets lost in the wash oftentimes. This country has been awash with firearms since its inception. We have really only recently, I think, experienced a surge in gun violence, especially with mass shootings and the other horrible events that really shouldn't be happening.

Brian Lehrer: Let me jump in for a sec, Jeff, because I don't think that's true. I think when you look at the United States compared to any, let's say the countries we tend to compare ourselves to, western industrialized countries, compared to any other where washing guns and we're washing gun violence, and it's not new, it's been that way.

Jeff: Right. Well, of course, if there's no guns, there's not going to be any gun violence. It's not realistic to think that the guns can be taken off the streets. What I think has changed over the last 50 years is that there's been a major push from the left to eliminate mental health institutions where, oftentimes, a lot of these people who-- Let's be honest.

If you shoot up a school, you're crazy, would receive treatment, would have been institutionalized, and wouldn't have the capacity to be on the streets committing these horrible acts. I think we can all agree that nobody wants to see gun violence. If you look chronologically at the issue, over the past 50 years, the surge in gun violence has coincided with the elimination of the mental health facilities that, oftentimes, these people would have been accommodated in.

Brian Lehrer: Jeff, why shouldn't I hear this as an example of whataboutism in the sense that let's say that what you're saying is right and has been a major contributor to the problem? Other people might debate that, but let's, for the moment, accept that premise. Why isn't it both/and? Why does it have to be that solution and do nothing about the guns?

Jeff: Oh, the guns are a constitutionally-protected right for Americans. You have to find a framework where you can reduce the gun violence. I think doing what can be done is better than doing nothing at all.

Brian Lehrer: Jeff, thank you very much. Well, there are a number of things in there, Jennifer, that are worth discussing, right? One is, is mental institution deinstitutionalization been scientifically tied to the increase in gun violence over the last 50 years is the time period he cites? Also, an assumption that the Second Amendment prevents any kind of gun regulation.

Jennifer Mascia: Well, even Antonin Scalia, Supreme Court Justice, said in Heller, the Second Amendment is not unlimited. Gun laws are within the scope of the Second Amendment. You don't have to just have guns for whatever purpose and no restrictions on them. That's been settled by the Supreme Court. Around the same time period the caller was discussing, gun laws have been systematically eroded over the last 30 years. 20 years ago, we had two states that were permitless carry. Now, we have 26.

We didn't even use to issue concealed-carry permits like 40, 50 years ago. There were very few states. Even Texas didn't for a long time. The same time that we've lowered the barrier to gun access, gun production has soared. Since 2008, just the last 15 years, gun production has soared 152% in this country. We now put at least 20 million guns into the marketplace every year. Lawmakers are eroding the barriers to access. I have pro-gun family members in Florida who don't understand how weak our gun laws are.

When this law passed, one of them said to me, "When you buy a gun, it's still automatically registered with the state when you buy it, right?" I had to explain to this person, a DeSantis voter, who's very intelligent but hadn't made this connection that, no, there is no automatic registration when you buy a gun. In fact, you don't even need a background check in Florida to buy a gun. I think a lot of Americans don't understand how weak our gun laws actually are.

Brian Lehrer: One more call. Rashmi in Manhattan who grew up in Nashville, the scene of these protests and, of course, the scene of that latest horrible school shooting. Rashmi, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Rashmi: Hi, thanks for having me. I was calling because my family lives in Nashville still. My mother is one of the Democratic captains of the Williamson County Democrats. She has been at the statehouse since last Tuesday. They had a gun rally planned for that Tuesday because of the permitless carry law that was being voted on. They did not have that vote that day due to the shooting the day before.

I just think that everyone's very frustrated obviously. The supermajority in that House is able to do at will what they want with the gun laws despite maybe what public opinion might be. I know that they had a run-in with William Lamberth in the hallway, the day after that shooting on that Tuesday where, yes, a group of grandmothers and young mothers, he's like, "How are you doing?" They said, "We're doing horribly." He just lost it. He said, "I'm just being polite."

Brian Lehrer: I didn't really want you to answer the question. Rashmi, thank you very much.

Rashmi: I'm sorry.

Brian Lehrer: No, I'm not saying that to you. I'm saying that's what that politician said to those parents. Thank you, Rashmi. Thank you for telling that story. We've just got a minute left in the segment, Jennifer. President Biden, a couple of weeks ago, did announce an executive order, intended to help curb gun violence to some degree. As your colleague, Chip Brownlee at The Trace, writes, "It includes directives to increase public awareness and the use of red flag orders and safe storage laws, address an uptake in firearms stolen during shipping, and beef up direct federal support for communities affected by gun violence." That will be every community, I guess. How much can the President move the needle by executive order? 30 seconds.

Jennifer Mascia: Executive orders can only do so much, but you really need Congress to do anything substantial. However, Biden did lay out a series of executive orders in 2021. He actually accomplished almost all of them and these are an extension of those executive orders. This is basically just making sure that they're enforced. He directed DOJ to issue regulations on ghost guns.

They did and it took effect in August. He directed DOJ to propose a rule for regulating stabilizing braces for pistols. That happened in January. ATF has issued annual reports on gun trafficking. He actually has accomplished some things behind the scenes with executive orders. This isn't just futile, but his power, unfortunately, is limited without Congress.

Brian Lehrer: Jennifer Mascia, senior news writer and founding staffer at The Trace. Thank you so much for coming on.

Jennifer Mascia: Thanks for having me, Brian.

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