The Man Who Counts Every Shooting in America

from New York Times I'm Michael borro. this is the daily we want to begin. tonight with yet another deadly mass. shooting in America in 2023 the. unrelenting epidemic of gun violence in. the United States has claimed the lives. of more than. 41,000 people two people killed dozens. of others injured after the police. commissioner again saying five people. were shot including two kids at least 18. dead and at least 13 injured several of.

them and throughout the year each and. every one of those shootings from. suicides to Accidental shootings to mass. shootings was chronicled by a website. according to the gun violence archive. according to the US gun violence archive. according to the gun violence AR called. the gun violence archive that has become. the most authoritative and widely cited. source of data about the country's. ongoing crisis of gun.

deaths today a conversation with the. founder of that site Mark Bryant about. why he's dedicated so much of his life. to painstakingly chronicling a problem. with no end in. sight it's Monday December. [Music]. 18th.

good afternoon good. afternoon how are you Mark I'm doing. good I'm oh sorry we're good except. we're good except I just hit the. microphone so yeah we're ready we're. ready to roll over. here good good good well Mark thank you. very much for making time for us I. really appreciate it well thank you for. having me I just want to explain why. we're talking to you mhm we the New York. Times the daily we site this archive. that you have created so frequently year.

after year and over time it occurred to. us that you mark have become this really. important but largely unheralded and. unseen Authority on something that. really defines the life of our country. and especially something that we think. about at the end of every year which is. the number of people who are shot by a. gun and it felt that if we could. understand this work that you have been. carrying out.

potentially we could better understand. this epidemic of gun violence in a. different way that at least is Our Hope. okay so just to start I wonder if you. can tell us your own backstory and I. want to ask you in particular about your. own relationship to guns where and when. does that story begin it actually began. in about 1960 in Harland Kentucky there. was not a lot of recreation for for. people uh in that era there was no cable.

TV uh well there was cable TV but there. were three channels and you had uh very. little things to do so a lot of the. fathers would take the boys up to the. top of the mountain and to the garbage. dump and you would go shoot rats your. father did this with you yes he took you. to shoot rats and there would be like. maybe five fathers 10 fathers up there. at any given time and mostly guys but a. couple of girls would be there as well. we were usually using 22 rifles so we.

would shoot rats um how how old were you. when you were doing this probably five. six years old I wonder what it was like. to have a gun in your hands at such a. tender age five years old I don't think. anybody thought about that at the time. remember that was a time that we had. jarts as a toy so you know we had all. sorts of toys that we would now consider. outlandish for a kid down mhm and then.

leap forward to Boy Scouts another. decade later and you had a shooting. range of camp and then later I you know. I started shooting target shooting at a. range and I did that for maybe 10 years. 20 years so I've just grown up around. people like my father and and all that. where they that was just a common part. of their world it was just one of the. things that you did so how do you get.

from there from being this young kid who. enjoys shooting a gun to becoming what. you are now you know the nation's. leading chronicler of gun violence and. its impact on people's lives it doesn't. seem like a straight line Journey so. tell us that story who does straight. lines that sounds so boring um so I've. been working in computers doing database. work work I was building databases for.

folks I was building small business. computer systems for law firms and all. that sort of thing so really the thought. of gun violence was it was you know you. would see it in the news it was one. ambulance after another bringing in the. victims of the shooting spree to the. emergency room at University Hospital. you would see it when standard grawer. had their shooting in Louisville in. the80s family members began arriving at. the hospital to check on their loved. ones some were overwhelmed with grief.

then after that three students are dead. five others hit by bullets we had Heath. High School in Kentucky several people. killed how in the world could we allow. something like this to happen at our. schools please do something to keep this. from ever happening again you know we. started seeing Coline I don't even know. if people are going to be able to walk. back in the school again and see empty. chairs and it'll be horrible Virginia. Tech A parents worst nightmare a student. wor nightmare the deadliest campus.

shooting in US history at least this was. just a ever building wave you know that. just it's it's all combined just gave me. a sense of uneasiness I. [Music]. suppose so once this all comes together. in your head and you're starting to see. the phenomenon of mass shooting in the. US in that time period what is crossing.

your mind where does it lead you so. 2012 that was kind of a weirdly defining. moment because uh there was the Aurora. theater shooting and Aurora got just an. insane amount of coverage as it should. have but there was a guy in Tuscaloosa. Alabama that on that same week went to a. bar and shot 17 people nobody was killed.

but the media did not cover it very well. and that was a thing that annoyed me we. we'll just explain that sounds like. you're saying at the very moment that. America is beginning to truly enter what. we now think of as this era of the. epidemic of mass shootings you are. noticing that the way the country. decides to focus on and care about some. of these mass shootings is really. different than the way we decide to. focus and care about others there's a.

real Gap here yes yes that that was a. thing that was bothering me because as. you started seeing the building of. incidents and started seeing uh just the. uh aggregation of all of this stuff uh. that was started to make it sufficient. that something needed to be done and. what I could see was the left was. looking at Banning things at looking at. all of this the right is looking at. nuh-uh uh Second Amendment and what I.

see is that is a war that's going to do. nothing but escalate uh so I'm starting. to look at uh there needs to be a. conversation and it has to be between. gun owners and those who oppose guns to. come to a consensus on how to solve some. of this but you can't solve a problem if. you don't have a common set of of. understanding if you don't have that.

common understanding you're just going. to be throwing things at each other. you're never going to be able to find a. solution and the media and CDC and FBI. has uh incomplete data there was there. was a knowledge Gap and so there needs. to be a systemic change to where there's. a common set of knowledge so you're. you're watching this fight Escalade but. without any real common source of.

knowledge about what's really going on. right so what I needed was I knew that I. needed to collect data I knew there. needed to be a common data set I needed. to have uh verifiable data and that's. the key to make all this work so in your. mind if Americans and American lawmakers. had a truly correct portrait of what gun. violence looked like in this country. then they would inevitably. and correct me if I'm over interpreting.

what you're saying they would be kind of. shocked into action they would start to. to do something about it and at the very. least they would be able to debate this. you know with the same data yes I I. think that would that's a good good way. of looking at it you know all we wanted. to do was get people talking you know. singing from the same page of the Himel. as as the southern phrase goes so once. you decide that this is going to be your. calling.

organizing a data set around gun. violence that everyone can agree as. trustworthy what did you actually do. take us back to to the start of this all. and and and walk us through the process. at first I was writing blogs about gun. violence and I was using slate data from. their 2013 project slate the online news. magazine yes the Slate archive was a. crowdsourced effort by slate they. started it right after uh Sandy Hook and.

their their goal was to put a face or a. a name to every person who had died in. the year past Sandy Hook and that had. never been done nobody had ever ever. looked at that granularity before uh but. boy we found that it's really really. good for uh the big city incidents but. for small town stuff it missed a lot of. stuff and so uh I was bugging them on a.

fairly frequent basis why did you not do. this one why didn't you do this one how. come this one's not in here uh well. describe that just a little bit more it. sounds like you're looking for things. that they're missing how are you doing. that how are you finding these incidents. that aren't in slate among other things. uh altta Vista if you remember it and a. couple of other older search engines. that used to exist uh I was going. through them uh I was looking at.

different newspapers just from their. online presence so you're basically. combing the internet for shootings. pestering the people who have something. approaching a database yes and so what. prompts you to create your own archive. rather than just keep working on slates. slate called me one day and said hey you. know we're going to drop this after a. year and what we really wanted to do was. we wanted to do a snapshot of a year. year past Sandy Hook huh so their.

deadline their drop deadline was in. 2013 and so I asked could we take it. over and we did and we started building. it up and we got better at it we've. learned you know using Google searches. and different search parameters we could. we could dig through things a lot faster. that was the processes that we started. and things sort of blossomed after.

[Music]. that we'll be right. back Mark you set out to create this. database that would Chronicle the extent. of gun violence in the United States and. fast forwarding a few years that's. exactly what you end up doing it took a. few years but yes so I want to describe. the resource that the gun violence.

archive ultimately becomes in your hands. and I do use it a lot as a journalist. it's not flashy at all in fact it's kind. of unflashy. but it's very clear about what it's. doing when you go to the site the first. thing you see is a summary of data this. year which is of course shocking every. time you look at it we're talking to you. on Thursday December 14th right now your.

site says that the total number of all. gun violence deaths so far in 2023 is. 4,955 the number of children the archive. says that have been killed by guns is. 283 so far this year you can click on. any of these categories and find the. story behind each of these numbers if I. click teens killed I get the address of. each of these.

shootings there's information about the. victims information about the kind of. gun involved the level of detail is. really extraordinary and so I'm curious. what lengths do you and your team end up. going to to track all this information. down and fill in these gaps in the. record that nobody else is even trying. to fill we have a team of let's use the. 24 as the total uh a good example of the.

extremes that we will go to is there was. a shooting at a impromptu concert in a. field in either Alabama or Mississippi. I'm not sure which one it was we knew it. was on a road that was it we knew the. name of the road and that was all and so. that does not give you a good. granularity to put a geoc code on cuz. you got a 40 m long road you really. can't see where this occurred and even.

what town it occurred in so what we did. was we went through all the different. media that had tried to cover it and. they they all were very good about. covering it but very bad about giving. details as to where this occurred. Sheriff was of no help whatsoever so one. report had the reporter standing in. front of the cattle fence of the field. and from that I took uh Google street.

views and drove the entire route uh. looking for that damned cattle fence and. uh found it and matched it to the the. video of the channel 5 Memphis reporter. you you went down a 40 mile road on. Google yes street view yes I didn't have. to go down all of it thank goodness we. found it about 15 20 miles in uh but I'm. matching the okay there's this has got a. dent here on this top Rail and this has.

a post over here that's leaning to the. side and if you look at the back you'll. see these trees are like this and. there's two telephone poles back there. but that's the extent we will go to. fortunately most of these things do not. require that but every once in a while I. burn an hour on an incident there are. times that we need a name of someone who. has died uh because I understand on. someone that's injured we don't need to. have that name but but when someone is. passed this is their last toah you know.

this is the last time they are ever. going to be noted anywhere so I want to. make sure I got it right so I going to. have their name right I want to have. their age I have mothers call me or. email me and say you you didn't spell my. daughter's name correctly wow uh or my. my son was 16 not 15 so you you end up. hearing from the families of these. victims themselves oh yeah uh what are.

those conversations like when someone's. calling you either to correct a piece of. information or to add to the archive. you're on the phone with someone who's. going through something very very awful. and raw yes it is hard that's the. hardest part of what I do in a lot of. respects in that I'm talking to mothers. that have lost their child I talk to. mothers that are stressed that are in in. a place they've never ever been in their. life there was a woman who lived in.

Nashville her son had been shot and. killed in Nashville at the Waffle House. shooting a few years ago and um I talked. to her when her second son got shot oh. my goodness yeah I will talk to mothers. who I got one I can't remember what city. she's in now somewhere in the Midwest. and she was very. uh you know she'd lost a daughter and.

then she lost another daughter wow and. she was just about gone I mean she was. just I could hear it in her voice and. you know you don't want to hear that I. contemplated calling police for just a. welfare check but I ended up just. calling a group that they knew people. that were in there to talk to her wow so. U so they so they did so she she's. better now uh sadly she hasn't no. more daughters to give to gun violence.

but um you know it was hard you know. it's hard doing some of that stuff but. that's that's part of the job right it's. a very strange situation you've got. yourself into where you wanted to fill a. gap in our knowledge of gun violence and. filling that Gap means that you have. just been saturated in death and you're. now dealing with mothers who have lost. not one but two of their children to gun.

violence yes this is sort of. a it's sort of a virtual Tombstone for. folks you know this is their this is. that touch point for them uh the last. thing that they're going to see every. time they type their kids' name in on. the internet uh we come up we're going. to be that memorial for them I when. those calls and Mark and those people. some of them it sounds like are. shattered and they're talking to you. about these small little details and.

making sure they're right I mean on your. end of that call when it's over how are. you feeling you know I am we see this. every day and and while I know that that. you know you look at an emergency room. Dock and they see this every day as well. and they learn to. compartmentalize their reality with. someone else's reality and I'm pretty. good at that uh at that. compartmentalization uh do I always. succeed no now every once in a while it.

may be harder but for the most part with. very few exceptions I'm able to uh. segregate that information how do your. employees feel at the end of some of. these days and and some of these calls I. have one woman who there was a shooting. with a kid and she called and she says I. can't take this and I said okay you need. time out and she goes yes I said so okay. your job's here when you're ready to. come back all you have to do is just.

just sort yourself out talk to me let me. know where you are how your head is and. when and if you're ready to come back. come back so about a month later she. calls me up and she says I'm ready to. start again and I swear the second. incident that she started reviewing uh. was a kid that got shot in the face and. I get a phone call and it was like uh. I'm done I'm like okay you know I. understand that she didn't want to do it. anymore she she couldn't it wasn't that. she didn't want to she wanted to she she.

was really liked the job and she really. liked the what we were doing and trying. to achieve but you know you don't know. what buttons somebody's going to have. and apparently we hit one of hers I mean. when you think about how often you end. up being on the phone with people who. are in so much. pain and as you sift through what is. inevitably the worst kind of data on. Earth. what do you think keeps you from having.

the experience that some of your. employees do which is just burn. out well I won't say I don't burn out. because that would be a a Fool's game uh. there are times that uh I will you know. it'll be time for a uh Drive downtown. just to to see what's going on and I'll. just toodle around town or uh I I live. in a a insanely beautiful area uh of the.

country and I can take the convertible. out and drive through horse farm country. and sort of freshen my brain up uh with. that you find ways you're saying to. mourn this maybe uh or just adjust my. head uh but yeah but it's how I. reconcile in my head that you know I'm. now looking at at horses and fol HS and. and life and green trees or Fall Foliage.

or whatever and I'm seeing a. regeneration I'm curious about something. Mark sure now that the gun violence. archive has become through all this very. painful and painstaking work you and. your team have done this unique. Authority on shootings in the US what do. you start to see in the data that. perhaps the rest of us don't see or.

can't see because we are not combing the. internet for every shooting in this. country what we are seeing I think and. we're seeing it not just in gun violence. archive but we're seeing it in bars uh. where you used to have maybe a bar fight. somebody got a bloody nose somebody got. a black eye and now gun comes out uh. what we're seeing is more anger you. you're you're on social media all the. time uh I know there are good places on.

Facebook cuz I find them but look at the. rest of it it's anger somebody's. pontificated that you know they believe. this in the past that would have been. somebody howling at the moon and. everybody would have quietly gone around. them and ignored them but now there's. 2,000 people that decided that no no you. have to have my opinion on this very. subject and that escalates anger so the. Baseline of anger is higher and you have.

more guns and more proximity to guns. more people carrying guns more more of. that. then it's inevitable what's going to. happen and that's the trends that I'm. seeing that's funny that that is not the. answer I thought you were going to. deliver I mean I I I I thought you were. going to tell me that regionally or and. this gun this age demographic and what. you're saying is what you see in the. numbers is I suppose what we all see. right now in front of us across the. United States and you're calling it I.

guess a root cause of so much gun. violence you're seeing people who are. furious at each other fast to anger. anger is one thing we've had anger for. ever proximity to deadly weapons is a. different animal uh you did not have 400. million guns or whatever the current. number is more people have more guns you. know there are those that think oh you. you're anti-gun or you're a gun grabber. or whatever and obviously I'm not but I.

Akin it to what we see with Mothers. Against Drunk Driving you know they're. not against drinking and they're not. against driving they are against that. lethal. combination and you know we're seeing. that lethal combination with anger and. proximity that's no different than. intoxication and speed two variables. that when they come together people die. and they die quickly uh and you can't. while I can punch somebody in the face.

and I can apologize as long as I want to. if I pull a trigger on a gun they're. dead or if they're faster than me I'm. dead mark back to the purpose of the gun. violence archive I mean we talked about. this idea that ultimately you hoped that. giving people more information would. mean that the country would act on the. information and that gun violence would. go. down and over the past 10 years gun. violence has not gone down in a very. meaningful way and.

so have you ultimately. concluded that data is not the solution. to America's gun violence epidemic that. it's just a new way to understand the. depth of it well it's not going to be. the solution it was never intended to be. the solution it was always intended to. raise awareness of the issue and to let. people understand and then form their. own opinions based upon it I I think our. value is in raising the conversation I.

think that's where our value is you know. they may find that 177,000 killed that's. the price of Freedom that's the price of. us having you know the right to have. guns that's their philosophy but what I. just want them to do is they see the. numbers I want us to be the folks that. that raised the the conversation and. made people smarter and I think we're. doing that h. you've succeeded in putting these. numbers in front of people yes and if.

you think of this as a very long-term. project of putting these numbers before. people year after year after year after. year after year then then maybe. something changes how many years did we. have the smoking pictures of lung cancer. the Surgeon General how many years did. he or she announce numbers for for. cancer numbers for all of that until. finally it reached a. point and that's what we're wanting to.

see it's a slow process it is it's it's. a generational process this did not get. here quickly it is not going to leave. quickly and I know that going forward. this is going to go on after I'm gone. and I'm and I'm okay with that I I'm. very much of the philosophy of planting. trees that you're never going to enjoy. the shade H and when you say the shade. of trees what does the shade of that. tree look like. still growing it's only a 10-year-old.

Tree in 20 years it'll be a 20y old. shade tree and shade is is uh is. information it is knowledge it is. hopefully uh moving forward because of. the constant message that we're trying. to give to people to educate. [Music]. them well. Mark thank you very much we really. appreciate your. time well thank you for talking this has.

been very very good I'm uh uh you you've. been my counseling session for the for. this week so that's a good. thing we'll be right. [Music]. back here's what else you need to. another day over the weekend new details.

emerged about how Israeli soldiers. mistakenly killed three Israeli hostages. in Gaza an incident that the country's. prime minister called a quote unbearable. tragedy Israeli officials said that the. three hostages had either escaped or. were abandoned by their Hamas captors. and approached Israeli soldiers on. Friday in an effort to be rescued at. least one of the hostages waved a.

makeshift White Flag to signal that the. group was not a threat nevertheless. Israeli soldiers opened fire on all. three their deaths have infuriated the. Israeli public and deepened criticism. over the conduct of the Israeli military. in Gaza where its tactics have killed. thousands of Palestinian civilians over. the past few weeks but prime minister. Benjamin Netanyahu seems undeterred on.

Sunday he read in Hebrew from a letter. that he said had come from families of. Israeli soldiers killed in the War. translated it read quote you have a. mandate to fight you do not have a. mandate to stop in the. middle today's episode was produced by. Rob zipco Diana win Stella tan and. Carlos PRI it was edited by Devin Taylor.

with help from Lisa Chow fact checked by. Susan Lee contains original music by. Marian Lozano Dan Powell and Pat. mccusker and was engineered by Chris. Wood our theme music is by Jim brunberg. and Ben lfer of. [Music]. Wonderland that's it for the daily I'm. Michael baboro. see you. [Music].

tomorrow.