Malcolm Gladwell is a bestselling author and longtime New Yorker staff writer. He’s also the co-founder and president of the audio-production company Pushkin Industries, where he hosts Revisionist History, a podcast about things “overlooked and misunderstood.” He joins me to talk about gun culture, and what we get wrong about firearms in America. He also reflects on some of his older writing on policing, epidemics, and first impressions.
Plus, former Trump aide Peter Navarro’s sentencing is set for January 2024, and Fulton County DA Fani Willis decides against charging Senator Lindsey Graham, former Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, and others in the Georgia election interference case.
Don’t miss the Insider bonus, where Preet and Gladwell discuss life as a lawyer, and what it means to be “theory-rich.” To listen, become a member of CAFE Insider for $1 for the first month. Head to cafe.com/insider.
For show notes and a transcript of the episode head to: https://cafe.com/stay-tuned/revisionist-gun-history-with-malcolm-gladwell/
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This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
From cafe, and the vocs media pack has network welcome to stay to humphrey. Barrage of the defence of the second amendment has gotten so hilariously an absurdly arcane. They have rights.
pitched into the seventh
seventy gentry bristol to try
find someone to justify. The
increasingly elaborate and ridiculous arguments that they are making on behalf of gun ownership,
that's Malcolm Gladwell, give likely heard of him
he's the best selling author of a number of popular books, including the tipping point blank and outliers,
he's also been a staff writer at the new yorker for almost thirty years after decades of
So, with the written word, Gladwell,
the audio company, Pushkin industries in twenty eighteen
He hosts the podcast revisionist history, a show
things overlooked and misunderstood
The newest season is all about guns: how americans
about them and protect them, and ultimately what we get wrong about them.
Gladwell, and I get into some stories from his show in this episode.
The discuss some other gladwell in topics he reflects
broken windows, policing, first impressions and the club
its severity of the opium crisis. That's coming up stay tuned. Support for these show comes from crack. In reply, I was like the financial
them, but different. It doesn't care where you come from what you look like you're credit score or your outrageous food delivery habits ripped out was finance
for everyone everywhere, all the time racket see what crypto can be, not investment advice, crypto trading involves risk of loss.
We are currently services are provided in? U s? In? U s: territory, customers by favoured ventures, incorporated gps disclosures at cracking, dotcom, slash, legal, slash, disclosures if you're
This needs a new application than divide.
Members will have to write code a lot of code if
Application needs to be modernized, then you'll need time. Resources and caffeine.
If that sounds daunting, then you need watson, X, code assistant, ai, designed to multiply developer productivity. So you can generate code quickly, let's create a more modern foundation for business with watson, X, code assistant learn more at I bm dot com, slash code assistant, IB and let's create now. Let's get to your
questions
question- comes in an email from Karin scheele,
Peter navarro, has been found guilty.
Sentencing has been scheduled for january twenty. Twenty four: can you
plainly sentencing take so long. So of course
karen for into Peter navarro, an ex trump aid who was found guilty.
of two counts of contempt of congress.
When he was asked to come, testifying provide documents to the general
six committee, he basically
dumped his nose at the committee. The referral was,
to the justice department, the justice department indicted in the trial just concluded, so it's good
even in the federal system. It is typical for sentencing to happen three to four months,
Conviction either by trial. Verdict whereby guilty plea,
you may wonder what goes on those three months. Well, lots of things. It is in fact the
distinct phase of the criminal process distinction
charging decision distinction,
the trial and the verdict, and during that time,
both the government, the prosecutors and
then or defendants make their arguments to the court. In a series of briefs
as to what the sentence should be, and obviously the government and the defence
often disagree. So they do that
being at the same time the probation depart
in the district under
its own investigation of the name
the crime, the seriousness of the crime, the elements of the crime, the circumstance
of the defendant and it makes its own recommendation and was called a percentage report for the car
and then there might be arguments that the defendant or the government may have about that. Present report, so in any event, because back in
fourth for little, while there also has an opportunity accorded for people who want to write in in support of the defendant,
four lenient sentence, so maybe
for months seems like a long time, but the way the court takes seriously the very difficult act
to impose a sense that is sufficient, but not more than necessary,
This question comes in an email from Liane who writes
I enjoy your show
Thank goodness, you aren't always yelling, like the other side that I've tried to listen to. You may address as previously, but does attorney klein pro
require that the attorney is actually getting paid for
services rendered. Well, that's good question. These
What answer your question is? No, it does not do
to be, in fact, an attorney client relationship,
and the conversations that are covered by the eternal climb privilege have to be,
late to legal advice. If you in your
to sit in the breeze about sports or politics separate from the provision
legal advice or an anticipation of a legal proceeding or litigation. That's not covered by the attorney client privilege,
potential klein, consult with me even before dollar has been paid, that's covered by the term,
climb privilege in those circumstances, if it for the purpose of retaining me to provide legal counsel even after that, though, the whole category of legal practice that lorries refer to as pro bono. That's why
done without the payment of money by the client to the lawyer. It's done charitably, it's in fact. I think it important obligation,
for members of the legal profession to engage in some amount of pro bono work. Some states have requirement. Some states have thresholds that they want people to meet. But
You have lots and lots of lawyers who provide excellently
by some council up to and including trial, without getting paid any money by the clients they represent and those conversations are also covered by the treaty claimed print.
So, thanks for your question discussion
in a tweet from sandy shriver nine
a chance at many. The people that the grand jury recommended charging and georgia may still be charged there. Well it
and the question sandy that and what you're referring to for people who have been following closely. Is it there
The two stage grand jury process in georgia with us-
to the indictment it's now pending against donald trump and eighteen others.
There was first convened a special grand jury under george law.
would make recommendations for who should be prosecuted, but they were.
Not themselves the issuing an indictment and then, of course, there was
the regular grand jury process
which in a diamond was presented
the grand jury they voted on it and that contained in the caption nineteen defendants
We have learned from the unceasing of the original preliminary grand jury or special grand jury proceedings that
as you recommended a few dozen more people be charged, including
sinner, lindsey, graham and form,
Georgia, senators kelly leffler in David Purdue
seven the cafe inside of this week, whatever you think of the funny willis case to stay case in georgia and house,
rolling. You think it is and what, whatever you think of rico, the fact that the
special grand jury advocated
for forty, some people to being the crosshairs of the prosecutors
and fanny willis. Her team only went with nineteen shows
like it or not that there were some amount of restraint. I also think that
and the timing here in a trial potentially coming up soon
inspector at least two defendants in the matter
deliberations taken place. So far. In answer to your question, I guess it's possible that some of those other folks will still be charged
seems unlikely. This doesn't seem to be the kind of case with it's gonna be waves
diamond or continues
superseding indictments, it add more more people programme
important reason I think, there's not gonna, be
no charges against those. Other people is unlike before when the public,
the press were trying to get unsealed. The special grand jury report at
juncture after the filing the indictment against the nineteen fanny was, did not object, which to me is a very powerful sign that the nineteen will remain nine.
I'll be right back next conversation with nelson gladwell
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the
now, come gladwell became a household name about twenty years ago after
publication of his first book. The tipping point, his most recent
project is the new season of his podcast revisionist history.
malcolm gladwell, welcome to the show. Thank it tried to be invited. It's a delay,
for me for a lot of reasons among them,
Then a fan of yours for a long time, as I said
here in my basement office in westchester several of your books, not all them
Had several of your books round, my bookshelf switch, you will treat you get to talk to you
you have a new season of is history or pot cast out before we get to that. We haven't had a chance to discuss the craft of pod casts. Yet what was appealing to you about doing pakistan? The first was what you like about. Podcasting verses,
the writing of books. Well, it some. You know it's a very different medium. It's a lot more emotional.
It's better storytelling. Is you know it's a medium is hard to be very difficult to talk about numbers and do analytical work
on in audio. But it is a lot easier to tell an emotional story, and so I like being able to tell both kinds of stories, but your book,
Do your bookstall stories. They do really l to. It, reacts to a pot cast about tax policy.
people get lost in the numbers. In many you do it
I say, a number it just doesn't have the same, meaning as when I
I show you a number. Will you read a number, but on the flip side is a kind of fun freedom end
openness that comes with audio, that you can t
stories in people I think are
are a lot more accepting in forgiving and open to
he is too emotions to being moved to being almost sort of very appealing to someone who has been operating in a world of printed in their life.
When someone comes up to use a fan and the airport or on the street or at a restaurant, can you tell me
where they ve open their mouth. Is there a fan of your books or a fan of your past? Now am I
is often he'll tell sign. There's no touch your sign
Do you know the you you hear one of three things you here I like your books. Uneasy then you say: oh useless, new
just for you. I get that too. Yes, you got that you or the reverse. I like your pike est. Oh, I would you work
now another buck nor a book. You write, books there and then
and one is where I get confused for someone else or who do get confused for I get confused for a steve levitt of freakonomics fame. It's not as bad as it used to be interesting, used to be
stint people always say everyone thought I wrote for economics
and did he have the same thing I dont know
discusses, but he I don't think so. I think it's because I blurb did and they put the blame on the front cover, and so
they saw for economics any some, a name, and I thought I wrote it, but I don't want it.
I've, never correct people when he said, and as I was a that, like you know, it's like
write fiction and someone confuses you would tolstoy you don't correct them their point out. So so what respect back the podcast past? Have you choose your topics, sometimes desperation?
Sometimes, but sometimes I get interested in something deadline and you have neither the news this one, a new notes at this one. Is this many series which was just coming out: I'm gone
what happened was you would notice? Because your lawyer, I didn't know so
I didn't realize you could listen to supreme court or of arguments. I really
were taped in those scuttle website. You can hear whatever ones you want, so this is,
great discovery, and this is this- is actually the fun thing about my job. I am constantly discovering things that I didn't know
It noted so then I just turn listening to them and ass.
We episode the second episode really comes out of listen to them,
not so or arguments in the brewing case. The big gun control here
We should tell people what what so before we get into that. We should talk. Tell people are, you should tell people more specifically what this miniseries is about its about guns, but
I'm I'm below the answer. I was gonna answer in this round about wake. As you know, I only answer things in a roundabout way. Your
if you've, the podcast yesterday, where the ideas come from so
the idea for the serious came because I happen to hear the tape of the oral arguments in this landmark gun control case at the court ruled on last year and, as was like the string
and what are they talk him her, and so I started digging into guns. I hadn't thought
about guns, never was written about guns, and then I saw
I decided I got really interested. I got really interested in trauma surgeon
in just started hanging out with trauma, surgeons and then
I wasn't a more supreme court or have arguments, and then you just kind of like grew from there and then I was texting. There was
these criminology papers. I've heard about this crazy
snl burma and I was so good alabama it all that's how it
I see. No, you start with a little seed and it takes you in all kinds of your interactions. Can you before we get into the new many series, which is fascinating and listen to the first few episodes? Could you explain to people wire pack ass, his call revisionist history and what the focuses?
well, it's a joke in the sense that the term revisionist history is generally used as a form of disparagement right yeah. Someone is engaging in revisions. History means someone's going back and like making
I have a story and that isn't true or isn't isn't. You know entirely accurate and I love the idea of taking a term of disparagement and wearing it proudly that struck me as being funny
and I do like the idea of the premise of the show was that we would just go back and kind of revisit thing,
set people thought they already knew or hadn't heard of before.
so is the loose hissed possible rubric?
me to explore whatever it was that I wanted to explore
No, I was told someone tell me a long time ago that if you put your history and your title, you get my alarm or lester.
Stay tuned. His history stay tuned stay here.
returned. Yet
So what I think is anything, but the premise in a way is that, as you say, in the podcast and in the preamble that you look at things that are overlooked, your contention is often
and I think it's true in this many serious that the original writing of history is the one that's false and the looking back maybe can make a more accurate and bring it into sharper and more correct focus fair. Yes, I think that's
very true, as I think it's the other premises. It there's a lot about history out there I mean all his joints now this that's why they're the profession exists,
it is astonishing how much of what we believe, I'm upon close examination, turns out not to be entirely true. That's that is always as a journalist.
it took me. I remember when I started washed was years ago.
Five years in, I realize oh wait a minute most of the things that all of us think are true or not.
Relax astonishing. It's why you it's way.
journalists, you always trying double a triple check. Every fact
cause. You really you do that when you start out cause you think. Oh someone told me it must be true. Then you realize five years in no it's all people are just makes
up without realizing it making stuff up. You have to check everything
so the earth is flat at as it, but only two professions know this
this painfully lawyers and journalists ever.
else is allowed to kind of debate.
In the sea, a blissful ignorance about about how just
How long must reports- and I would like to thank me- no, my primary care physician also. So, let's start with a series and the first episode
Tell folks who the individual is. You focus on an episode one and what
possible relevance, a figure from
sixteen hundreds before the united states was constituted before there was a constitution before there was a second amendment, what relevance that individual could have
I have to gun law in the. U s in modern times so a good question and then and it's I'm laughing- it's not actually funny it's deeply problematic, but so
I'm a outsider, a lay matrimony. My second amendment
what think so, I'm I'm I start reading.
the second amendment cases and listening to like I arguments supreme Court- and I keep hearing this mention of what's called the night sky
about a guy named John knight, who is a seventeenth century merchant in bristol in england who
runs a foul of the law and he basically a kind of troublemaker, and he goes into a church
in it with a gun in his hand, and he makes all kinds of
says the kind of denounce the king for his who thinks he's too pro catholic and the king files charges against him and night is acquitted. Now all this is taking place in bristol
in england, in the seventeenth century, and for some reason this case keep popping up among
vendors of the second amendment as deeply relevant to our can
temporary understanding of what exactly is
is not permitted by the second amendment when it comes to using guns. America like now
the specifics of this you should listen to the biggest. I urge people to us, but the broader point is really important, which is that the gift
hence of the second amendment- has gotten so hilariously an absurdly arcane. They have rights,
into the seventy,
seventy gentry bristol to try
find someone to justice.
the increasingly elaborate and ridiculous arguments that they're making on behalf of gun ownership and
was even more areas. Is that this history,
if they have chosen to spotlight as being the basis for their arguments with the second amendment, turns out to be totally wrong. So I keep hearing this guy's case, so I just
call up actual english historians of the period and say tell me about this. Do John night and
go. They first of all, they roll their eyes and the second the same thing they say is: oh, my god, you are
perkins are so obsessed with this man
I tell you the real story of china, which bears
no resemblance to the students being told him. You know supreme court briefs send supreme court opinions, so it's like is the strange.
it's what got me going in this series, but just
I understand that like this is for real like. Are we really having a debate about guns in his country that hinges on a complete misinterpret
agent of the solitary act of an obscure seventeenth century merchant. In Bristol england, like that's, where we are right now, did you even have a gun? He had a
weapon, which he checks, as is the fact that doesn't come out in the in the right wing interpretation. He actually checks
his weapon at the door of the church that he enters, but that fact is completely left out of the conservative retelling of his
laurie? So they would like to say that he took a weapon into the church and got acquitted, which means it carrying weapons publicly with something that the british were fine with, in fact,
consistent with gun control laws of of that era. He checks his weapon before he enters the church, so it in I mean desist, predates its
serge right there were had the soup, so people understand you know more directly the relevance that some people claim. The john knight case has is that this is a person who was frustrated by a gun regulation and was acquitted, and so so. His vindication is some kind of indication of the history and tradition of the bearing of arms as being something accepted and respected, and that is sacral
tanked in anglo american law is that is that the native iraq? That is none of it? They have found a single case where a guy happened to be acquitted on on a weapons charge in
seventeenth century england and said: look. This means that the
this common law heritage, which
was the heritage of the founders. Were you know deeply respectful
was one that was fine with people using weapons in public and
nonsensical since go on so many levels. But that's that's what they're? That's what it's a game there playing here? Well, the one way in which, among experts on John night, but the one way in which its nonsensical is the fact that the case makes clear that there was a regulation
Yes, yes, and not only that the only reason he had a weapon, so this is on. He goes to this church reason: the outskirts of bristol had he entered bristol with his weapon. He would have required been required to give
the weapon up cause you couldn't in those years who weapons
incision Bristol was such that you were allowed to bring weapon into the city center, but as it
It was, he goes to the church and still checks his weapon, because that was the kind of practice when you go to a church so like theirs,
It is actually a story. The john knight is actually a story about the prevalence of guns.
Roll weapons nor weapons control norms in seventy
century england. All of that is left out of these kinds of contemporary rubbing reinterpretation. Instead, what you get is this kind of misreading of of the historical record and in fact the relevant regulation call the statue. Northampton comes up in that very recent gun case that you mentioned bruin yeah about the circumstances under which you can obtain
Carry firearm in new york can explain, explain based on your multiple listening yeah to that oral argument.
it comes up in and how comes up with a straight face? Well,
comes up because the court, as you know, is obsessed at the moment with this notion that
the only way to interpret the meaning of the constitution is to look for some kind of historical precedent.
And their willingness to go way.
A way way way back in time. To look for those president's is extraordinary, so the court spends
Huge amount of time talking about going back, I think, as far as the twelve or thirteen sentry in england, looking for a kind of clues as to what the English were thinking about, what they thought about weapons, and so
the proponents of gun control said well. If you want to play this game, we should talk about something called the stature nothin
which is this law that was passed in england in the twelfth century which serve surgeon century, which says
very clearly says that you can't go round you can't I'm terrify the pub,
by openly carrying weapons in public places. You don't want to do that this, like you, got a view, people who
who ride in two cities on backs of horses, can't be wielding any kind of dangerous weapon so that our you was made.
It is a very compelling one if the court says look we're obsessed with historical
I could- and you come out with a statute in english common law, which very clearly establishes strict standards of gun control. It seems like
right, so the conservatives and responded aha, but we think that by the seventeenth century, thing should turn their backs on the statue of northampton. And why do we think that, because of this man, John night cause John, I got acquitted right John. I was charged
sacha or northampton he got acquitted. So it's kind of their response to this, but the whole all of the starts, because people like Alito and justice thomas are so obsessed with finding clues to the way we should behave in two thousand and twenty three and in the twelfth and thirteenth century.
I'll be right back with now gladwell. After this
the.
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forcing one of the largest logging companies in the world to forfeit its licence to log the area it was about healing after generations of mercury poisoning and environmental exploitation and ultimately about reunifying community to protect their ancestral lance here that story and the latest episode of into the mix subscribed now
the you use the phrase in the podcast which I've heard other legal expertise as well. I may have used it when it comes to history and tradition as a foundation for modern case law, and I think the term is cherry, picking, yeah, I'm addressing
If you talked to agree with that, oh yeah, I mean there's. No, there are two two leading scholars of this period in english history that John knight lived in, and I talked to them both and both of them.
and there's been a considerable amount of work in recent years on this once obscure care.
because he's now become a kind of important contemporary struggle figure. There were these diaries by a kind of prominent journalist of the era that were written
code and had been lying languishing in an archive fur couple hundred years in london that were decoded, and it turns out this guy. This journalist of the period
had written extensively about john night. So, all of a sudden we know a ton about the man
so when you know the full context of his life and its history and his particular legal entanglement, I'm after that, instant in the church you realize it with the concerns are doing is a complete misrepresentation of his
All of this, though, the broader point, what you are talking about, which is
if you are as the court is, can
it is to using history as a guide, you can't
wander through the history books and pluck out individual instance and say: aha, this proves what I need
you have to do what a historian does, which is you have to look at them
picture and way that preponderate
of the evidence and make a kind of reasonable judgment and the argument one of the strong
august arguments that I've heard against the current can, if propensity of the court for these historical, I'm investigations, is there not historian
do not behave like a store and they don't know what historian does
they writing, essentially really bad freshman year term papers and comments.
If you've got opinions and below the bruin case, reads like a bad freshman. Your term paper I actually when I had, I didn't do it, but when a deer head for a podcast was to submit the bruun case to professor
english history, an athletic and asked him to great- and there was a discharge, diabetes and people's rights
so it seems I apologize sincerely in advance for one about to say, but in a way are these control of justice is when it comes to guns and the focus on history tradition. Are they engage in revisionist history? I think I think I think they are. I think that's a good use if I find it so you know it's a funny to me that you would that their there. The affection that this small group of concern of justice have four kind of going deep into the hundreds and hundreds of years into this talk like I've spent is so weird. Do you have? My word is a comfort. Will you point out, as a close reader of the bruton case, how many pages the majority opinion devotes to different periods of history? Now it's like I mean it's pages and pages and pages and pages they take them. You got a red for like half an hour before they even get to the nineteenth century
Well, look at alone the twentieth or the twenty first, it's nuts, it's like. I don't even have a fetish. It's like a it's like a weird kind of intellectual fetish where you're hung up on you know it's like meeting somebody who's obsessed with you know something.
Weird medieval ritual in ireland has a
big coat of arms on their wall? You know it's like that level of kind of of endeavour right, but gets a battle wrong and get the bag
right. You ve, been you say I will give too much away, but you say at the end of the episode quote: I realized
I'd fall into the same trap that we ve all fallen into in this country. When it comes to gun, violence were talking about the wrong things telling irrelevant stories. We ve all had it with John night end quote: yeah,
I mean the cause in the subsequent episodes. I try and I start to investigate that that notion we're talking about the wrong things a minute.
I don't spend a lot of in a blimp. A simple example would be mastered,
in his country. Although a insanely, tragic currents are a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the overall death toll from homicide
It means public, two percent of the homicides any given year and the idea that we spend seventy five percent of our time talking about a problem that represents two per cent of the death toll,
and disproportionately way less time talking about. Ninety eight percent of the problem is weird to me right. It's like that's, why
I urge the mean confounds in this country is its basically kid.
Shooting each other with hen guns
the legal hand, guns
over some kind of dispute over personal dispute drugs while drunk while high that's what the gun provinces in in this in this country and its weight to me that that's not where the focus is well. You ve.
guess on something. In the second episode of the many serious it's a pretty
or historical artifact, that for young people. Listening
seem as distant in the past is John night and it's the western.
Tv series gunsmoke could remind folks would gunsmoke was and by the way, I learn something in particular that I had not appreciated how much of television in the middle of the last century.
was westerns, it's like every shall submit will lapse on television. Every show
These questions told
story of which gunsmoke was the most popular in the most enduring it's the most popular show intelligence for years
it runs and they made a lot of episode chose it's interesting one of the bay,
as for the right to strike, is
it now series that are streaming on netflix or some other streaming service, they make six episodes or eight episodes. I learned from your podcast separate and apart from what I learned about guns in the history of guns,
and enforcement of gun laws is, I think, gunsmoke made, like thirty nine episode year, unbelievable numbers no tv show does that anymore and right
could maybe, and if you employed by a serious you can make a healthy in a decent living, because your three, whenever such right for as opposed to civil job
so gunsmoke and all his other westerns dominate american mass media in the fifties and Sixtys and
they tell a story about the wild west, which is at the wheel,
Wes was a lawless place where a man
we defend his family.
If he was willing to own and use a gun right, that's bessie! What a western is right, the largest really exist. If you want to be safe, you have to be quick on
draw and I'm gunsmoke is the kind of which takes place.
Dodge city, the kind of
the legendary epicenter of the wild wild west.
is a story in which a series in which
Every single episode involves at least one, if not more, people getting killed in gun violence and, as it turns out this particular
Rendering of a slice of american history is totally false. Darcy was briefly for, like two years, a dangerous place, and then
an actual police force and instead gun control and the murders start
and in the wild west in general, in these cattle towns, which are kind of
the source of so much of the narrative
energy of westerns, these candle towns typically had gun control.
was in place, which will weigh stricter than anything in America today that
view rode into a dogged city in eighteen, seventy five, you
required to check your
revolver before you entered the town you to go to like
a police station or something, and you handed your gun in the game of chess, like kojak,
and then you gonna went about your business. Then, when you left, you picked up your gun right, so
These westerns have the real.
history of america's experience with guns completely backwards, and I will tell the story of questions because I'm trying to account for the fact
Why is it that so many people in america continue to believe that the only way
a human being an american can be safe, is if they are carrying a weapon. It just is. Where is this idea come from it?
and get it. I think the idea comes from westerns
In fairness, unlike what John night, the supreme court in modern times
in the room case, and otherwise does not cite two gunsmoke they don't set, but but
Firstly, duke is in the order in the
arguments in the broom cases. I play the tape of it in the episode
this insane stretch where Alito end Cavanaugh are taking the are questioning new states lawyer, Barbara underwood, burundi,
and they basically talking about they're trying to get her to say. Wait would never
and be a lot safer if people were allowed to carry guns on the subway threw off the rwanda warmed people on the streets of new york,
in the subways late at night. Right now aren't there
don't know that there are a lot of armed people. Now, and is such a crazy? I just couldn't get enough. I could not,
this exchange. Could it so knots?
every single person I lived in europe for twenty five years
Every single person ever lived in new york knows it. You number one nightmare is the idea that somebody
on the subway acerbic I with you, has a gun right.
one. Almost everyone has gone now, much evans again firing a gun
and in another episode I go and I go firing on the salt rivals in revolvers in the woods of north carolina with this gun,
yes and one of the things you learn very quickly when you do that is, and what countries will tell you is it firing any gun accurately
the best of circumstances is really hard, but for people who are
familiar with guns on a moving subway car when they're scared out of their minds to farragut
it will be nearly impossible, and so you basically fuel
people to carry guns on the subway, you basically asking for a bloodbath, its
the whole thing is not so here in the middle of this or argument you can lead
ann cavanaugh basically saying shouldn't? We really isn't, wouldn't it be better if people good,
go on the aid train? It do. You know when I come home from work and have their glock into back. Pocket like this. Is the
but that is only possible by someone- do maybe someone who was never written to new york city subway right, that's
what this is about. Six, I'm crazy fantasy.
Duck by someone who lives on the suburbs and group watching gunsmoke. What's yours,
for a strange about it is you can imagine
the universe in which you don't know anything about it.
Clear city or the regulations, and you pose the question
would crime go up or down with shootings, go up or down where homicides go up or down if fewer people had guns or if more people had guns? But then you have to look at the data and there's
This assertion of this theory of a guy with a gun stops a bag. I with a gun without
any look at any data at all right, that's that's another.
It's sort of an analog to the selective cherry picking of history. You make an assertion that you can actually test and and and see
it bears out and bodily one way bears out. As I'm sure people appreciate
there are many many cities in the world outside of america, we're gonna ownership is very low and crime also vary.
and you also point out- and I thank you for this- that this focus-
in new york city subways as being kind of like a violent wild west. You point out and defend my city as being safer than most other cities in america near yeah. The idea that I mean run descent
gets away with claiming that new york city is a kind of hotbed of is gomorrah. You know you're
well loves of gun violence in and violent crimes,
our are way higher than new york state? Like Jacksonville, I mean the text of his
the most dangerous places in america,
soon how terrorism,
he gets here is so plainly ridiculous. You get
one minute on Google will tell you he's dead, that's a lie and nigga. He just goes instead of I it's it's not that nuts, what are some others you? You focus on me
In the series I don't wanna get to some other issues with you will get really. I'm really interested in have two episodes where I talk. A lot about trauma, surgery and and ask this question
You got the homicide rate at any. Given time is a function of two things
one is the underlying level of violence right and too
is how good mercurous. So
can imagine a universe where, if everyone is
everyone who is shot doesn't get em
health care at all,
The hum survey will be really high right, but if
country everyone is shot is shot outside the front door of near presbyterians.
Trauma center, the homicide rate would be really low cause. It would save most of the lives. So the question that I was trying to figure out is,
which of those two things is more important in explaining the decline in violent crime in america for the last twenty five years is the level of violence down or is the is the level of trauma care for gunshot victims way way better and better? To set to be a really really interesting question to try and get the answer to your. It's funny reminds me of something
A senior prosecutor told me when I was a junior prosecutor about the theory of jury selection for prosecutors, which has some very
not everyone agrees with this, and some people might take offence at this, but the idea that
there are certain professions that have people who were gonna be by nature. Empathetic sympathetic, forgiving
and they're, not the best people to have in your jury, because they might be biased in favour of forgiveness right and your job is to put the guilt of somebody, and one of those professions was nurse right
people in in a helping profession, with the accept that this person said, with one exception, you get a nurse in the jury pool in on your jury in a gun case, and that's a really good year for you to have, particularly if it's an emergency care nurse, because they've seen what guns do to put this into human bodies at super.
What's the r K episode about that's the same episodes, I I start with the story. I found a neurosurgeon who wrote this really brilliant paper.
Trying to imagine what would have happened are f K had he been assassinated today. How would his medical care been different would have survived, and I so I begin with that answers, but but that's a way into this broader question of what does it mean that huge numbers of people who would be dead thirty years ago are now alive
in the wake of of gun violence, and what is that? How does that change? The way we argument argue about guns, I mean: did doctors, the incredible fact, someone actually tried calculate if you keep levels of nineteen sixties, healthcare, constant, then the homicide rate today would be something like three or four times higher to be looking at seventy five to eighty thousand armisen deaths in this country a year, and if that were the case, I suspect we would have a very different argument about about guns. Is the better statistic or metric that we should focus on shootings rather than homicides? Yes,
because of this healthcare delta yeah. But of course we don't measure shootings. So I found the only way you can measure shootings as if criminologists, I found one in a bunch of them enterprising criminal just around the country in Indiana, indianapolis and again chicago and who actually go and get the data directly from the police department. And basically
I belated themselves, but they would argue yeah what you really should be measures gunshots hit a body. That's what you should
measuring and that removes the kind of healthcare blasphemy occasion
and I will tell you whether your levels of violence are going up or down. Give a favorite book of your own of my own
yeah or you love all your children and books equally, I do not love them all equally, but
afraid to say which, when I dislike
So I didn't ask that I saved you. I said which one did you like to do this? Is there? Is there one you like the most and if so, what is it? Well, I think I like the bomber mafia, the most because it's the least like the others, and it's just a it's just a single
narrative: is it also that you've had less time to reflect on tour
Think of them ass. I believe it you're most recent by its members when one- maybe you know- maybe that's it
the real answered I like the one I liked the best is when I'm working on at the moment
It always that's always the case. The one you're working on at that particular moment is your favorite. So I'm not gonna. Ask you this next book is your least favorite or not, but at least it's a book that you have said, you'd like to revise a little bit and as the tipping point which you wrote twenty three years ago and you talked a bit favorably about broken windows. Theory, that's controversial, and it goes this issue of crime management as well, and you said
a decade ago quote. I think I was too in love with the broken windows notion, but I think I was so enamored by the metaphorical simplicity of that idea that it overstated its importance and quotes. Now it's been another ten years.
In a lot of debate about this in the last three or four years in the: u s, would you make them good question maxie revising the tipping point as we speak, so it's on my mind
I would say that, yes, my
I I think what I did is a misinterpreted. The parts of the broken wind,
theory that are valid and the way
confused that with the way it was used by certain prescribes around the country. So there is a colonel
broken windows theory, which is has been subsequently richly supported by empirical research, and that is
The most liberal version of it so has been this wonderful working
off where they literally fix broken windows. They go to vacant lots to clean them
They benefit houses, they yield paint how
that meet paint.
they ve shown is that when you fix up a dilapidated block, the crime rates
fall and not by a little by a lot so in that
it's broken windows that idea
that had been floated back, then has been found.
Did it by empirical work and is probably
hugely under used crime fighting to improving the circumstances of peoples
It seems to have a profoundly deterrent effect on criminal activity when it, but
when I was in talking about a tipping point. I got enamoured with
the use of that theory to justify a certain kind of aggressive policing, and I think that I think turned out to be do more harm than good, but sir
in subsequent books I sort of return to this question of what does what is appropriately aggressive policing look like, and I think I got a better if you read my discussion of crime in and policing in talking to strangers, for example, or where I talk about hotspot policing.
So much more there. I think we begin with beginning to get a better understanding of you.
if you want to use police to crack down on relatively small infractions in order to serve send a message. You have to use a kind of power incredibly selectively and with extraordinary discretion and under very kind of well controlled circumstances. It cannot be a broad brush. I think what you saw in many american citys was the interest
criminal use of that style of policing, and I was deeply problematic- and you- you said at the beginning of this question- that you
back in revising is bizarre new version. There will be in it'll, be tipping point part two,
it is because there's an anniversary coming up reserve, because you want to address this point, no, I
I don't think, I'm going to address book enough in round to, but I
the new version? That's
more about em epidemics. I got really interested in the opium epidemic and in numb, but another subject: the most under discussed. Subjecting contemporary american life
is the european crisis and I was guilty as guilty as this has anyone had ever thought about? It talked about it. Much real dangers were now to a hundred thousand people in america dying every year from drug overdose is. How is this not? The absolute top of everyone's public policy agenda
It is baffling to me like it's just the strangest thing in the world hundred thousand
people you're like
We even at a war that that had that many casualties since, since the second world war right is crazy,
anyway. So I those those are the kinds of well. How do I well? How do you so? Let's pause on that? How do you explain that I mean I
started to talk about it a lot towards into my tenure as yours attorney when
We weren't anywhere near hundred thousand, but we ve got to the point where I think.
It was more than gun, deaths and auto deaths combined, which is, and now it's just nuts huge, and we would do forums about it, and we would talk about. You know, have done an episode on the opioid crisis, but I think you're right that, given the magnitude of the of the problem is not matched with the same amount of discussion, do you have an explanation, a good explanation? No, nor any
I know he the explanation. No, I just think it's because I just think that is further evidence of how disconnected kind of the converse,
since we have, as a society are from our actual problems, I mean it will be one thing if it if it was
feature of every industrialized country, and then we could say well
happens everywhere, be no,
so much we can do about it. So we'll go on with our lives. It's like. We don't talk a lot about the flu and the flu takes out whatever twenty thousand people a year
so is tackled, but that's not at all. There are huge person
that have no opioid crisis does no opiate crisis in ITALY or Portugal, spain, or
the greatly diminished one in france, and I mean it's like.
The canadian one is by with the closest
american, even that one is a fraction of the size. This is the
home grown a mayor,
can problem, so you would think it would be.
He would obsess us so about. I do not I'm completely baffled as to why it's not top of mind. While I think that's a good topic for ministers, it is it is yes, yes, it is, and well or or book,
I tried to tell her a book and I'm working. I won't ask you, but in another book that I loved of yours called blink, could you remind people were killed them for the first time with the basic premise of blinkers? Will blink was a book?
bout, that was interested in exploring how much influence our first impressions have both for good and ill. Although the book was on those cures, cases were when people read that book. They thought that I was maintaining, that you should always
your instinct and I thought I wrote a book that was about higher instincts, betray you most of the time. So just
one of those cases where either I failed, or my readers failed, probably the former, but I
I was interested in just how much of
away. We make sense of the world is based on these sap judgments that struck me as being amazing and kind of worthy of consideration. Women are to you. I I cite your book or used to start your book, among other things, and I cited when I would give to junior prosecutors in the southern due to new york.
The lecture on opening statements and how powerful it wasn't, how important is in
was more than the summation, because the first impression yet, and also how quickly
a jury is going to sort of. You know, look at the prosecutor who approaches the lectern and make a judgment very very quickly about that person's authenticity, credibility, maturity and everything else. As you know, a lesson to them to make sure they're buttoned up and prepared right from the
also yeah, that is that a fair thing for me to tell them? Oh absolutely, I mean the data and you know if you ask a class of students to do
a teacher evaluation based on the first meal fifteen seconds of their teachers. Appearance in the classroom,
their evaluations of their professor are the same as they are at the end of the year, so psych then update
it form and oppression instantly of this due to teaching
And they don't updated the that's it right to done right now is that because
they're, so good at making the initial assessment. No, it doesn't need to be
David or their does biased by their first impression near some. Some people might be good at their first impression.
I was just at the things that we use as the basis for those kinds of impressions are generated. Insight
we and are based on the kinds of things you pick up right away. So how dressed in how they
can, how they sound and how they walk and all those guns
things really really really really really really matter and the new ones,
other thinking, don't you know it's not
It's not a lot of room in our first impressions for food.
Or consideration of these kind of more subtle thing more.
subtle, longer term characteristics. Are you revisiting output
no idea,
at time running out, I'm sixty. I don't have time to be done, don't time the leg
regarding decades, you ve got decades to go
when I asked you a question that I ask many of the guests on the show, because its through the issue that were focusing on sometimes to the exclusion of many many other things, and that is a I artificial intelligence. Do you have a view about, apart from how it will affect the legal profession of how will it might affect journalism, how it might affect academics, how it might affect our humanity
generally here. Well, do I know more about this than the average prison? No so my view is, I start by saying my view is not worth a lot but
I guess I would say that looking at it from the perspective of now
america may be misleading.
That. Imagine.
a farmer in a or businessperson enough in a relatively impoverish part of the world who all of a sudden
get access to the same level of a high quality advice that we do as a matter of course, just by looking at their phone, it's got a great right. I mean the difference between a farmer who can be productive in a farmer who struggle to get buys very often access to a set of some knowledge about farming. That's how we spend
analyzed and expensive will what if he made it free, essentially does not a really really really good thing. We've suddenly made somebody a lot smarter from that perspective. How much better is healthcare in underserved part of the world? If you have access to ai, it's way better right, so that problem
lie. That fact I know there's all kinds of downsides, but that upside seems to be so enormous that it should swamp every other consideration, you're more optimistic than pessimistic. Yes, I mean I I, with the exception of the excess,
it's a risk to the destruction of all of us. Yes, that aside, once you put it,
Besides, I am an optimist. Yes, Malcolm Gladwell. Thank you so much for being on the shelf, mrs really fun. I really appreciate it next week,
by conversational, unwelcome gladwell continues for members of the cafe insider community in the bow
where's your insiders, we discuss what it means to be theory: rich parents raising their children are
Tell you come home, you're, exhausted, you're overworked you put you get to bed. You observe behavioral battle,
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The membership for just one dollar for a month had to cafe dot com
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to end the show. This week I wanted
in two stories of justice that have an inch
in connection with
The first stories that I tell him my book doing justice concerns the wrongful conviction and eventual exoneration of a man.
named Eric, listen and several others in brief
Listen it's from sound view in the bronx in ninety. Ninety five glisten was charged.
murder of a cab driver name, bathed e up to a shot around the corner, merits apartment
Nypd, also arrested five other people? They became known as the brung six.
Listen received. A prison sentence of twenty five years to life fast forward to twenty twelve glisten had spent
two decades at sing. Sing prison glisten.
as the n Y professing his innocence, he said he was in prison for a crime he had not committed.
Someone forwarded his message to one of our best investigators, John, oh molly,.
General molly was a former nypd homicide detective and he knew
thanks gang life, like the back of his hand, by a stroke of wild luck
John remembered that a witness he flipped a decade earlier had all
So confessed to murdering a cab driver
john brought in market barnett? Then the chief of the
crimes unit in our office in the tube
act down the witness who had previously confessed to formally it took some time.
but seventeen years after he went to prison glow
in and other members of the brons. Six were exonerated and set free
why my mentioning the story bear with me:
My friend and former colleague westchester county district attorney mimi roca, recently esteem
MR conviction, review unit in her office. Just last week, dear rosa
now that this unit had officially exonerated a man named Leonard mac, Leonard
vietnam, veteran, was convicted in nineteen. Seventy six of raping a teenage girl at gunpoint in the town of green burg, new york, gruber police, have picked
mac a black man who was driving through the predominantly white neighborhood, where the rape occurred and district.
Ordered his alibi. He was young.
black man put in the police lineup an officer,
allegedly used aggressive tactics include,
changing max clothes to coerce victims,
and a vacation max
seven and a half years in prison for the crime, and he has carried the weight of his wrongful conviction. From most of his life now rose office.
Help of the innocents project has been able to use new dna data to conclusively determine that mac had nothing to do with the crime, the habitual sex offender.
confess not long ago. So,
September fifth, his seventy second birthday.
conviction was vacated. This is
leave to be the oldest wrongful conviction case ever to be overturned by dna evidence,
as max it? After walking out of the westchester county court house, quote now that,
It has come to light and I can finally breathe
I am finally free. End quote.
Justice can have a way of perpetuating itself across generations.
actions. Racial was accomplished in part by the efforts of a green bird police department, detective
by the name of Daniel, oh molly, who had
to be the son of John. Oh molly
The sdn, why investigator responsible for Eric
listens. Exoneration the neck,
setting things right, it seems, is enormous
the family tradition can grow.
relations to Leonard mac. I also want to commend,
active, oh molly, district attorney roca and everyone else
He was helped to exonerate wrongly convicted individuals. Let's all
fire to build a legacy of writing and justice, even against all odds,
the
well that's it for this episode of stay tuned thanks
to my guest, Malcolm Gladwell.
if you
what we do rate and rigour
the show one apple pie or wherever you listen,
positive review helps new listeners, find the show send me
questions about news, politics and justice. Tweet them to me,
prepared with the hashtag, asked breed
You can also now reach me on threats
or you can call me a message at six, nine to four seven. Seven, three, three eight
that six, six nine too for free
or you can send an email to letters. A cafe, dotcom stated,
this presented by cafe and the vocs media pot cast network the executive producer is tomorrow, suffer the technical director is David TAT ashore, the senior producers or adam waller
and Matthew Billy, and the cafe team is no oscillate. David curl amber not wiener, jake kaplan nominal
shop and Claudia Hernandez, our music,
is by andrew dost. I'm your host pre barrage stay tuned,
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Transcript generated on 2023-12-16.