Congressional reporter Laura Barron-Lopez interviewed leftist professor Cynthia Miller-Idriss for Monday’s PBS News Hour about a new gun control study from her group that PBS was given a sneak peak at. Miler-Idriss is well known at both left-wing MSNBC and the supposedly objective, taxpayer-supported PBS for her wacky notions.
Previously, the professor linked going to the gym with far-right extremism. That article appeared on MSNBC.com, naturally.
Monday’s ostensible subject was gun violence, but the host and her radical guest eventually arrived at a familiar destination, spouting off about the dangers of “racism and male supremacy” and misogyny in America, as if it had anything to do with the Second Amendment.
Host Geoff Bennett teased the segment in the show’s introduction: “New findings reveal startling connections among gun ownership, young Americans, and white supremacy.”
PBS’s study scoop emanated from Miller-Idriss’s American University-based left-wing outfit, the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL, as in “only right-wing peril”) as well as the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center.
Laura Barrón-López: The study [“U.S. Youth Attitudes on Guns”] surveyed more than 4,100 people between the ages of 14 and 30. Among the key findings, four out of five say gun violence is a problem in the U.S. and a majority support stricter gun laws….The report, first provided to the "NewsHour," was published jointly by Everytown for Gun Safety, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and American University's Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab. That lab is directed by Cynthia Miller-Idriss, who joins me now to talk about the study….
After Miller-Idriss linked America’s “disproportionate share of violent deaths by terrorism and extremism” to having “so many firearms,” Barron-Lopez asked her about “gun culture” among the young.
Miller-Idriss: Some of the young people in the study were very connected to a sense of gun culture, to feeling like guns made them stronger or better, or that they were really connected to who they are as individuals. And I think Americans maybe have become accustomed to that, but that's pretty unique compared to other countries, our neighbors and our allies overseas, who don't have that same kind of connection between a sense of who you are, especially as a young man, let's say, and owning a gun or feeling like that's essential and connected to your identity….
Why would Americans care how other countries perceive America's right to bear arms, enshrined in the U.S. Constitution?
Barrón-López: Now, this study was about gun -- views on guns and gun violence. But your team also explored connections between gun culture and issues like racism and male supremacy. People surveyed were asked if they agreed with statements like, women cannot help but be attracted to those who are higher in status than they are. Why track those ideas? And what correlations did you find about those views and the ones that they had on guns?
Miller-Idriss: ….So what we found is that youth who have easier access to guns, who are more committed to a kind of gun culture also have higher scores on racial resentment and male supremacist ideas, which are the kinds of ideas that you just mentioned….
Barrón-López: And how did participants' views on race in particular impact their attitudes about guns?
Miller-Idriss: ….We found, on the one hand, there's a correlation between their views about whether they, their access to guns, their views about gun culture, or their views about the Second Amendment, and having higher scores on racial resentment, so meaning they hold stronger racist views. But we also found in focus groups that we did later that their perceptions of safety are highly racialized, right?....
This biased segment was brought to you in part by investment banking company Raymond James.
A transcript is available, click “Expand” to read:
PBS NewsHour
7/24/23
7:17:31 p.m. (ET)
Geoff Bennett: Gun violence has killed more than 24,000 people in the U.S. this year, including over 1,000 people under the age of 18.
Laura Barrón-López looks at a report that researchers say is the first of its kind to explore young Americans' attitudes about guns.
Laura Barrón-López: The study surveyed more than 4,100 people between the ages of 14 and 30.
Among the key findings, four out of five say gun violence is a problem in the U.S. and a majority support stricter gun laws. On average, youth know at least one person who's been injured or killed by a gun, and more than 40 percent of those surveyed have at least somewhat easy access to a gun. The report, first provided to the "NewsHour," was published jointly by Everytown for Gun Safety, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and American University's Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab.
That lab is directed by Cynthia Miller-Idriss, joins me now to talk about the study.
Cynthia, thanks for being back on the "NewsHour."
What prompted your team to study these issues? And what surprised you the most about the findings?
Cynthia Miller-Idriss, American University: Well, we have been studying these issues related to extremism for several years, extremist violence, terrorist violence
And one of the things you see in the global data is that the U.S. has a disproportionate share of violent deaths by terrorism and extremism, more than about half the incidents and about half the lethality in the global data. And that's probably connected to guns, we thought.
So, why do we have so many firearms? How does that relate to extremist violence? Was our original set of interests in this? And so we really wanted to see, how do you address these two issues together? What can we find out by assessing some of the data and serving young people?
What most surprised me was how many young people already have access to a firearm, very easy access or somewhat easy access to a firearm. Those numbers are strikingly high, some 40 percent, as you just noted, and then another 17 percent said that they plan to have access to a firearm pretty soon in the next few years, so when they're old enough or when they have the money to do it.
So we found that — I found that to be very troubling data.
Laura Barrón-López: And in the study dives into youth perceptions of safety as it relates to guns. What did you find there?
Cynthia Miller-Idriss: Well, one of the things we found about young people is that they feel unsafe, so they do not feel safe at school. They do not feel safe in public.
Essentially, outside their home, in other public spaces, they have concerns about their safety. And that's also correlating we found with feelings of anxiety, depression and PTSD; 25 percent of them have been in an active shooter lockdown, not a drill, an actual lockdown.
And so when we think about a generation that is hypervigilant, essentially, about the possibility of gun violence erupting sort of at any moment around them, parents are scared to send their kids to school, kids are scared about going to school, and about other public spaces where they spend time.
And that's a really sad fact to assess in their feelings about firearms and their safety.
Laura Barrón-López: You also found that many young people see gun culture as part of their identity. Can you explain that a bit more?
Cynthia Miller-Idriss: Yes. Yes, people — some of the young people in the study were very connected to a sense of gun culture, to feeling like guns made them stronger or better, or that they were really connected to who they are as individuals.
And I think Americans maybe have become accustomed to that, but that's pretty unique compared to other countries, our neighbors and our allies overseas, who don't have that same kind of connection between a sense of who you are, especially as a young man, let's say, and owning a gun or feeling like that's essential and connected to your identity.
So that's an important part of understanding for our communities as well.
Laura Barrón-López: Now, this study was about gun — views on guns and gun violence.
But your team also explored connections between gun culture and issues like racism and male supremacy. People surveyed were asked if they agreed with statements like women cannot help but be attracted to those who are higher in status than they are.
Why track those ideas? And what correlations did you find about those views and the ones that they had on guns?
Cynthia Miller-Idriss: Yes, that part of the data was also very troubling and very revealing, although not as surprising to me.
So what we found is that youth who have easier access to guns, who are more committed to a kind of gun culture also have higher scores on racial resentment and male supremacist ideas, which are the kinds of ideas that you just mentioned.
What that tells us, as prevention experts, is that you can't address these issues on their own. You have to address issues of hostility or misogyny or racism toward others at the same time as you're addressing issues of gun prevention. You can't do this in isolation from each other.
Laura Barrón-López: And how did participants' views on race in particular impact their attitudes about guns?
Cynthia Miller-Idriss: Well, there were two different things we found.
We found, on the one hand, there's a correlation between their views about whether they — their access to guns, their views about gun culture or their views about the Second Amendment and having higher scores on racial resentment, so meaning they hold stronger racist views.
But we also found in focus groups that we did later that their perceptions of safety are highly racialized, right? They have a feeling that the places that are less safe, they're places with more racial diversity than the ones that they live in their communities. So this is a problem for many of them of "over there" violence, rather than thinking it's going to hit their own community, particularly for white respondents.
Laura Barrón-López: Another data point that stood out to me was that 22 percent of those surveyed said they believe the Second Amendment gives individuals the right to overthrow the government.
The study concludes that society must target supremacist and anti-democratic ideologies among this population that you surveyed that justify and rationalize the use of violence and the deployment of guns to facilitate that violence. How do you do that?
Cynthia Miller-Idriss: So one of the things we found in this data is that young people, just like older adults, are easily persuaded by false information that they encounter online, persuasive, manipulative rhetoric that they might encounter about why they need a gun, who they're keeping themselves safe from, including, they think, from the government in some cases.
And that actually is pretty easy to address, believe it or not. When you're when you're dealing with an issue of somebody being manipulated by content they encounter online, we can prebunk that with video content, with content that they review in advance and read. We can teach people to be more skeptical of the content they review online, they encounter, to be more digitally literate.
It just has to be done early and often. It's a part of basic strengthening of democratic resilience and not just a catchup afterward.
