Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database
Guest: Dr. Brian Williams, author of “The Bodies Keep Coming: Dispatches from a Black Trauma Surgeon on Racism, Violence, and How We Heal”
As a Harvard-trained physician, Williams learned to keep his head down and his scalpel ready. As a Black man, he learned to swallow the rage when patients told him to take out the trash. Just days after the tragic police shootings of two Black men, Williams tried to save the lives of police officers shot in Dallas in the deadliest incident for US law enforcement since 9/11. Thrust into the spotlight in a nation that loves feel-good stories about heroism more than hard truths about racism, Williams came to rethink everything he thought he knew about medicine, injustice, and what true healing looks like.
During this episode we discussed:
Preventing gun violence at every level (home, community, local government, state government, and federal policy).
Progress already made to reduce gun injuries and deaths including targeted violence, indiscriminate shootings, domestic violence, suicides, and accidents.
What Dr. Williams would do if/when he is appointed Surgeon General of the United States.
Importance of voting in state and local elections because laws requiring safe storage of firearms, gun permits and safety training, background checks, waiting periods, and allowing/prohibiting people from carrying guns in public places or having loaded guns inside vehicles have profound impacts on the rate of gun violence in a community.
A true American patriot who wants to protect their family and community should be storing every gun they own inside a locked safe at all times.
David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.
Ep. 19: Dr. Brian Williams on preventing gun violence in homes, schools, and communities