Nashville residents are gathering tonight for a vigil morning the three children and three adults killed by a mass shooter at a private Christian school on Monday a deadly rampage that police say was carried out by a 28 year old assailant under care for an emotional disorder heavily armed with guns that were legally purchased along with a Manifesto to carrying out even more violence at the school but was stopped short confronted and killed by police authorities say the killer targeted the school but believed the victims were shot at random the massacre is among 130 mass shootings this year alone in the U.S federal data show gun violence is now the leading cause of death among young children in America and that impact is wide reaching for more on that I'm joined by Michael anestis the executive director of the New Jersey gun violence research center Michael anestis thank you for joining us although I have to say I don't look forward to these talks because it often means that we've had yet another tragedy in our nation I'm thinking about the fact that you and I have had many discussions over gun violence being the leading cause of death among young children in America I'm wondering how the needle is moving in terms of the data you collect are the situations growing more dire I think that the situations are continuing to be dire um I don't want to create a grim picture that we're doomed to some horrific epidemic but the reality is we're already well past the point where there's too much gun violence of all forms and so we're not in a position where we can say we're effectively addressing any form of gun violence Nationwide you've issued numerous reports that despite all of these mass shootings it still accounts for just one percent of deaths caused by guns we've have this absolute tragedy at an elementary school in Nashville just this week does it rise to the occasion of declaring a public health emergency I think it Rose to that occasion many years ago in fact I I don't think this is anything but overdue to call it that um and and as you noted these tragedies represent about one percent of gun violence and yet think about how often we'd have this conversation about those situations that doesn't mean these situations are rare it means gun violence is omnipresent as a researcher can you point to what or why is causing um deaths among children to rise so quickly is it simply proliferation of Guns is it that simple that's the the largest factor where there's more firearm access there's more firearm injury and death um does that mean the firearm explains all aspects of every tragedy of course not um but what's unique about the United States other than our rate of gun violence is our rate of gun access um and that's not me arguing against the Second Amendment it's an acknowledgment that when you bring something into the community that comes with risk you see more of those risky outcomes well what do we know just about the exposure to this trauma for children I myself am a suicide researcher and what we know is that folks not just the folks who are close as the individual who dies but folks who knew of them or encountered the story can consider themselves survivors and be really sort of emotionally impacted by that so that same idea applies here children in New Jersey have been safer than children across most parts of the country right but they hear these stories and that's going to impact the way they think and feel I know you're passionate about the research but when we see that teen suicide side rates are on the rise some by using a firearm others not another mass shooting in our country that is now long plagued with them what does that say to you I mean it says that you know it's not unique that the United States has a lot of suffering but it means that you know we're in a moment where a lot of folks are sort of acting upon that suffering in ways that either hurts themselves or hurts someone else and we can't reduce that to zero and nothing we're going to do is going to make it go away completely but there are a lot of things we can do that can make things become a lot less common things that all of us across all sides of this sort of political Spectrum can agree upon it just requires people to take actionable steps forward to actually cause that change so you and I aren't having the same conversation you know two years from now about a tragedy that looks just like Nashville yeah but but is the United States unique in the fact that we are a wealthy developed nation and yet our children are more likely to die by gunfire uh than by any other cause it's it's not an overstatement at all to say we're unique there we we do not have higher rates of mental illness suffering we have higher rates of gun violence and Firearm injury and death Michael in essence with the New Jersey gun violence research center thank you as always thank you [Music]