the next speaker Dr. Jim Garbarino
studies the links between violent men
and trauma he has spent his entire
career studying youth violence in why
young people turn to violence what we
can do to help them he has authored
books that examine why girls have turned
to violence in how to protect young
people from becoming bullies from from
being harassed and from toxic behavior
he is a consultant a researcher and a
scholar please welcome Jim Garbarino to
the stage
for almost 30 years I've served as a
psychological expert witness in murder
cases mostly involving young offenders
here in Chicago and around the country
and I've also been involved in school
shootings and war zones around the world
and all of that makes me very very sad
and because a man that makes it makes me
mad and you men would rather be mad than
sad so let me take a few minutes to try
to illuminate some of what makes me so
sad and ultimately mad about gun
violence I went to graduate school at
Cornell University and my mentor was
your bronfenbrenner developmental
psychologists that I'm sure many of you
know URI made sure that we came out of
that program understanding that human
development behavior always takes place
in a particular context so much so that
if you ask the question does X cause Y
the best scientific answer is almost
always it depends it depends on the
context in which you're looking at that
XY relationship and this issue of gun
violence and what to do about it it's so
deeply rooted in the context of American
culture and political life that it's
hard to talk about psychological
interventions without first talking
about that cultural context and part of
that context produces ridiculous
solutions ridiculous social policies let
me give you just three examples I was
speaking in Iowa now a few years ago
just after the legislature in Iowa had
passed a law validating the right of
blind people to carry weapons in public
now I in my talk I said well I thought
this would clearly be an example of how
ludicrous public policy discussions are
in America about guns but don't you know
during the break somebody came up the
guy who was a former deputy director of
the FBI to argue with me about this he
said we know blind people can be very
good weapons carrier
you know they're hearing becomes better
so they can aim and shoot based on how
well they hear how do we engage in
sensible gun control if that's where
we're starting now of course there are a
number of very dramatic interventions we
could do that are clearly rooted in the
in the data we have for example we talk
about gun violence but most people know
that it's not gun it's male gun violence
more than 90% of those who do the
shooting are men or boys so not too long
ago I was giving a speech and somebody
said in the question period can you tell
us something concrete and specific we
could do to reduce the level of gun
violence in our community the community
in Illinois I said well yes there's one
policy that would quickly have a
dramatic effect round up everybody with
the penis and move him to Indiana down
goes gun violence as far as I can tell
it hasn't happened yet after the
Columbine school shooting back in 1999 I
was doing a talk for the FBI and one of
the FBI agents said dr. Garbarino can
tell something concrete and specific we
could do to reduce school shootings
I said yes I can you take the school you
jack it up you put it on wheels and you
drive it to Canada at that point the
rate of youth violence lethal youth
violence in Canada was one-tenth what it
was here now I have to disclose my wife
is Canadian and so Canada becomes a
solution to most of American problems
and I mean that sincerely so if my wife
asks you you can tell her I told you he
said it seriously
Arthur Evans said there's he objects to
the term senseless violence I agree I
think that allowing the term senseless
violence in the public domain is a
disservice and an impediment to solving
the problem because every act of
violence makes sense to the perpetrator
at least at the time he does it and that
to call senseless violence the central
issue is an impediment to understanding
that this is a genuine human phenomenon
understood and genuine human terms but
again it's taking place in a particular
context a context in which as you know
by now there are more people than guns
there are more places to buy guns than
there are gas stations but think about
this study if you're a clinician you
know that about half of schizophrenic
skeer voices it's called auditory
hallucination now because their voices
in people's heads I don't think people
thought they should take them seriously
but a team of anthropologist asked the
question what are the voices telling
them in the United States in India and
in Ghana now gone is a country in
northwest Africa since we're Americans
we don't know much about geography so I
thought I'd throw have had it I'm
assuming you know where India is and
this is what they found in the United
States 70 percent 7-0 percent of the
voices were telling the schizophrenic to
commit an act of violence against
themselves or others 70 percent in India
20 percent in India most of the voices
in people's heads were telling them to
clean their houses better annoying but
not lethal and in Ghana only 10 percent
of the voices were telling them to
commit acts of violence in Ghana most of
the voices were thought to be positive
conversations with God
now what's mind-blowing about this is we
think of schizophrenic as being disken
connected from reality and yet American
schizophrenic are attuned in enough to
American culture to beginning the
message of aggression and violence it's
a very very disturbing finding so that's
part of the context in which to look at
the psychology of guns and gun use
particularly among young people and of
course guns in the hands of young people
are the most dangerous guns there are
when I was in Kuwait after the first
Gulf War for the United Nations we were
in danger driving around the streets of
Kuwait because teenagers who had been
part of the Kuwaiti resistance had
automatic weapons and one night actually
was we drove up to a checkpoint very
nervous fifteen-year-old picked up his
automatic weapon to shoot it at the car
that I was in with two journalists
that's always a bad problem because we
know that human brains don't mature till
the mid-20s
teenagers are particularly vulnerable to
problems with executive function making
good decisions anticipating consequences
looking to the future and effective
regulation managing emotions the worst
possible combination is a teenager who's
in the state of high arousal and thinks
that he knows what he's doing who has a
gun in his hands
one of the classic studies that
illuminated the psychology of gun
possession and therefore a gun use among
teenagers was done back in the 1990s by
jeremy shapiro and his colleagues and
working in cleveland not that different
from Chicago at the time they found four
motivations in young people to have guns
which dramatically predicted whether
they did in fact carry guns those who
had none of these four motivations less
than 1% were carrying guns those who had
all four of these motivations in excess
of 30% were regularly carrying guns the
first of them was an aggressive response
to shame one of the most high-risk
groups in America for murder are people
who can incorporate in their
consciousness what is called the
southern culture of Honor the culture
that says if you
respect me that is such a fundamental
existential threat that I must respond
with aggression and Shapiro and his
colleagues found that that was one of
the predictors of gun use now yesterday
I was in Stateville prison about an hour
south of here talking with a young man
who committed two murders as a teenager
and since I knew I was going to be on
this stage today we talked about his
experience with guns and he talked about
precisely this aggressive response to
shame that as a as a black kid knowing
the consequences of racism as the kid
whose father had disappeared as a kid
who didn't have the right clothes to
school he was constantly in a state of
shame and once he was offered a gun he
said I stood up straight the second
thing that Shapiro found was comfort
with aggression that guns are used by
people you know that you're introduced
by guns by people you know that you have
comfort with this kind of aggression and
this boy yesterday this young man
yesterday Jeremy explained to me his
first access to a gun was that he and
his cousin's were visiting their
grandmother and while the adults were
all talking his older cousins took him
out let him have a chance to fire a gun
in the in the air and it became the
entryway to his use of guns because this
was a family matter the third thing that
Shapiro found was excitement that guns
provoke a sense of excitement in the
user in the boy in the man Jeremy spoke
to this himself he said firing that gun
made me feel powerful it made me feel
excited it reinforced the gun use and he
came back to it and the fourth thing
that Shapiro found in his research was
power and safety that guns convey a
sense of power and safety that you feel
secure carrying a gun and that other
people respect you for doing so and
Jeremy spoke to this himself he was
drawn into a gang by the time he was 12
he volunteered for the gang much as a
soldier might volunteer to join the army
and it gave him a sense of identity it
gave him a sense of power and it gave
him a sense of
security the vulnerability that he felt
is shared by many inner-city kids and it
leads to their motivation to join with
others who are armed and they'll feel
safer
he described when he was 12 that gang
leaders gave him a chance to show that
he belonged in the gang they handed him
a gun
they said you crossed the tracks to the
other gangs territory and shoot at the
first group you see and he did and he
got approval for it and now he's sitting
serving life without possibility of
parole for the natural consequences of
the context he was in the micro context
of his neighborhood and the gang the
macro context of being in America and
his life is forfeit again those who had
none of these motivations less than 1%
were carrying guns those who had all
four it was in excess of 30% this is a
study from the 1990s this isn't breaking
news recently a couple of documentary
filmmakers came to me who had put me in
a documentary about violence in Chicago
24 years ago and they said they were
going to update the video and did I want
to update my statement and I watched the
video and I said you know the only thing
I would update is I used to have hair
and it was brown as you'll hear from the
next speaker I think we have a set of
tools a toolbox to reduce gun violence
if we approach it as a public health
issue if we have the will to do so but
having the will to do so requires a kind
of courage that is generally lacking so
let me end with a parable a parable of
course is a teaching story this is
called the parable of the lamppost a
friend of ours named Joe comes home one
night from meeting like this in the dark
and finds us and his friend George on
the street under lampposts groping
around and Joe says what's the matter
George these as well I've lost my car
keys and I can't go home until I find
him well since Joe being a good American
let me help so he gets down on the
ground and they search around for the
key and they don't find it well finally
just as well George maybe we need a more
systematic approach and being a
psychologist we can use psychology
psychological in inter
pensions here this is first let's take a
behavioral approach so he pulls out of
his pocket a bag of M&Ms and they he
says I'm gonna reinforce your key
seeking behavior and they do and he's
moving right and left and it's very
impressive but they don't find the gun
there the keys excuse me the guns they
don't find the keys they says no no
maybe we need a psychoanalytic approach
so it begins asking his friend George
about experiences of childhood loss and
soon as George realizes that he's
connected the loss of the keys with the
loss of his teddy bear when he was four
and they process this at great length
and great expense and eventually he
develops insight about his loss issues
but they still haven't found the keys he
can't go home well this is all right
maybe we need a more cognitive approach
maybe the problem is your understanding
of the term key we could reframe that
and they do but he still can't go home
well said he says well you know I mean
there are other approaches we could take
we could take an educational approach
I've got a book on the history of the
key in Western civilization we could
take a legal approach we get an
injunction
you know habeas kiyose injunction to
have the key returned but it's really
stymied down so he says alright let's
take a really radical approach George
where were you when you dropped your
keys there's all jars about a hundred
yards up the road when I drop some keys
the judges will George why are we
looking here then he says well the light
is much better here and I'm afraid of
the dark until we can find the courage
to walk into the dark where the key
really lies reducing gun violence in a
major way is going to be like looking
for the key under the lamppost all the
technique in the world cannot get affair
so knowing this Joe says George take my
hand and we will walk into the darkness
together thank you
would you like to say thank you for that
wonderful presentation particularly
digging into some of the seductions and
the reason why young men reach for guns
and want to be around weapons I
appreciate that I have a couple
questions for you that you didn't dig
into that I was hoping that you could
address now in 2013 there was a shooting
in Chicago at a public park there were
13 people shot among those 13 people
there was a three-year-old who was shot
in the face and I was one of the
reporters who covered it one of the
things that I noticed was that his
mother referred to him as a soldier she
said that he was a soldier and he was
going to be strong and survived because
he was a soldier I was hoping that you
could talk a little bit about the
vocabulary of war zones of military
actions being used in certain
communities and what that means and how
that translates into actions there's a
way in which I got my start in this area
by being in Chicago and having students
come and talk about the experience of
community violence and then going abroad
to what were efficiently war zones
around the world and being struck by the
parallels it's very instructive
particularly in areas where you have
semi or fully organized gun violence
which typically translates into gangs
to understand that there is a warzone
mentality that develops here as it does
for soldiers abroad and the two
components are a hypersensitivity
to threat that you know we say somebody
is being paranoid if they see threats
that aren't there but these are people
living with actual threats and they
develop a hypersensitivity they also
develop a legitimization of aggression
that includes preemptive assault and
when you combine those two things you
get this warzone mentality where as a
soldier you are alert to see threats
perhaps even when others wouldn't and
you know and you prepared and you are
morally justified in responding to that
threat not waiting until you're the one
who's a victim
so it is award zone mentality I remember
having a conversation with colon Powell
when he was still a military officer
about this and he said you know we
understand that we're training soldiers
we're disinhibited their aggression
we're training them to be alert and
prepared to kill but we put it in the
context of a chain of command and a very
strong ethic about the use of your gun
we have the chain of command but within
a gang structure it's often very
antisocial rather than pro-social this
guy yesterday was telling me that and
used to be back in the old days and
women and children were off-limits he
said now that is breaking down and one
of the gangs that he was connected with
one of their slogans as will kill your
mama and and so the organized part of it
may deteriorate so I think it's a really
serious issue and I understand that
parents have to cope with this but to
call your three-year-old or
four-year-old a soldier is setting them
on this pathway that's going to bring me
to sit across from them in prison
someday so when we hear this language
being used should it serve as almost a
flag as an alert for us when we go into
communities when we're talking to
parents when we're talking to even youth
that consider themselves soldiers well I
think that we you know we need to
recognize that one of America's dominant
strategies to solving social problems is
to go to war against it the war on
poverty the war on drugs the war on
crime the war on bullies if we could
develop a peacemaking orientation and
it's very effective in communities as it
is with individuals to make peace with
violence rather than to go to war
against it because if you go to war
against it you lead to the kind of thing
that happened in the 60s one of the some
of you're old enough to remember a
comedian and his whole bit was that he
always got things wrong and this
comedian said when Lyndon Johnson
declared the war on poverty he went out
and threw a hand-grenade at a beggar
horrible joke but speaks to the fact
that the war mentality has no place in
this peacemaking process so we have to
shift I thank you so much thank you
you
