All language subtitles for Through the Wormhole s08e04 Is Gun Crime a Virus.eng

Every 17 minutes in America,

someone is killed by a gun.

It's a wave of violence
that political debate

can't seem to stop.

Can science
point the way forward

by pinpointing
how the shootings spread,

predicting gun crimes
before they happen,

and uncovering
how guns infect our minds?

Is this an epidemic
that can be cured?

Could gun crime be a virus?

Space, time, life itself,

the secrets of the cosmos lie

through the wormhole.

Captions by vitac...
www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by
discovery communications

if gun violence is a disease,
we are suffering mightily.

In Chicago, where shootings
on a summer weekend

soar into the double digits.

In Newtown, where 20 children

never came home from school.

In Orlando,

where a night of dancing
became a bloodbath.

Every day,

new holes are opened up
in some family's life.

Is gun control the answer,
or is it safer to carry one?

The answer may come,
not from politicians,

but from scientists,

who are tracking
the spread of gun crime

like a biological pandemic.

Reports of a
school shooting in progress

are coming out
of Colorado today.

They started shooting everyone
in the cafeteria,

and then you could hear them
laughing and running upstairs.

Since columbine, the heartbreak
has been broadcast live.

Since Orlando,
it's been screened.

The names have been
running together.

It's a flood of data.

How do we understand it?

Sherry towers is a statistician.

In her work,
streams of data tell stories.

One of the things
that I've noticed

as I've been sitting here

is that, once people
lock their bikes there,

they tend to walk
underneath that tree

and go to the path.

- Bicycle, lock, tree, repeat.
- Sherry can make a prediction.

Soon, bikers will wear
a path in the grass.

We can use mathematical
and statistical models

to study
far more complex patterns

than just the ones we're seeing
on this school campus today.

For instance, these models
can be used to predict

the spread of disease
within a population.

We can use these models

to try to forecast trends
in the stock market.

We can also use these models
to examine earthquakes

and try to predict when and
where there will be aftershocks.

But one day in 2014,
Sherry's safe world

of spreadsheets and stats
came unmoored.

She was heading to a meeting
at Purdue university

when the event was canceled.

A student had been shot
on campus.

I realized that, that
was the third school shooting

I had heard about in
approximately a 10-day period.

And I wondered to myself

if this was just
a statistical fluke

or whether there was
other patterns involved.

Then, Sherry had a radical idea.

Could the media itself be
the mechanism of transmission?

Could stories about shootings
actually lead to more shootings,

triggering an epidemic?

We decided
to focus on gun tragedies

that get the most
media attention,

and those are school shootings
and mass killings.

Sherry's team
went story by story

and broke the events
into discrete pieces of data...

Type of shooting, map
location, date, and time.

It was the largest,
most comprehensive survey

of its kind.

Was each shooting
an isolated event?

With all the data in, Sherry
was able to isolate a pattern.

It didn't matter where
an event occurred.

The important variable was when.

What we found was,
there is very strong evidence

of clustering in time.

When there is an event
that occurs,

one of these gun tragedies

tends to trigger
a similar tragedy

in the very near future.

And this bunching together
in time

is actually the hallmark
of contagion.

We typically
use the word "contagion"

to describe
the spread of diseases,

but Sherry says it also applies
to mass shootings.

It appears the gun violence
really does spread

like a contagious disease.

Unlike influenza,
that spreads by direct,

person-to-person contact,

the medium for spreading
the contagion is media itself.

And, as with a biological virus,

Sherry's data show
there is a definite period

during which any one incident of
gun violence remains contagious.

What we find is that,

the contagious period
seems to last around 13 days,

which also seems to be,
approximately,

the same time period
of the attention span

that's given
to these high-profile shootings,

like, for instance,
the Newtown tragedy

or the San Bernardino tragedy.

13 days...
One famously unlucky number.

Sherry hopes she'll never make
another discovery like it.

This is, by far,
the hardest study, emotionally,

that we've ever undertaken.

You're reading the details about
how children have gotten killed,

and you realize that
these are entire families

who aren't here anymore.

Sherry believes that,
as long as the media

keeps giving mass shootings
wall-to-wall coverage,

the gun virus
will continue to spread

and claim even more victims

unless someone intervenes.

Shots fired.

Mass shootings
are the most visible aspect

of America's problem
with gun violence.

But vastly more Americans
are killed in isolated shootings

on city streets.

And many of these killings

receive little or no
media coverage.

But renowned epidemiologist
Gary Slutkin

thinks they, too,
bear the hallmarks of a virus.

Gary made his name
by fighting contagious diseases

all around the world.

But when he finally
returned to Chicago,

he realized his hometown

harbored an epidemic
of a different kind.

When I began
to look at violence in Chicago,

I didn't really know
very much about it.

But I did ask, first, to see
the charts and graphs and maps,

and the data on it looked
exactly like the epidemic maps

that I had been working with
in all these other problems.

To Gary's trained eye,
the clustering of gun crimes

resembled the way
a contagious disease

sweeps through
densely populated areas.

He'd seen cholera do this
in refugee camps in Somalia

during the 1990s.

So, what we have here
is a representation

of a refugee camp.

The white chips here
are representing the population,

and the red,
a person with cholera.

And when the infection comes,

it can spread
from one person to another.

Stopping cholera
isn't complicated.

A strict regimen
of washing hands,

boiling water, and quarantine
will do it.

But Gary struggled to get these
practices adopted in Somalia

because the refugees
were suspicious of outsiders.

Then, Gary had an inspiration...

He could hire refugees and
train them as health workers.

These locals
successfully interrupted

the spread of the disease

because they had
what Gary did not...

Street cred.

In Chicago, Gary saw a city
repeating the mistake

he'd once made himself...

Fighting an outbreak
with outsiders

who weren't trusting.

The cops pulled up,
and they left.

They're scared.

They're scared of the community.

So, Gary founded an organization
called "cure violence"

with the mission to hire and
train trusted local aid workers.

He calls them
"the interrupters."

Almost all of them
know the violence

of the streets firsthand.

Well, I've been shot five times,
you know,

on different occasions.

The man that was watching us
got shot in his head.

I was part of the violence.

Now, I'm part of the solution.

Because of who they are,

interrupters can go
where police cannot.

They don't carry handcuffs

and they don't serve
search warrants.

Instead, they carry
a simple message...

You don't need a gun
to settle an argument.

Crazy, man.

You two guys, man,
y'all been around here

on a lot of bull, both of y'all.

Robbing people, breaking
in windows, all kinds of stuff.

Don't get it all twisted.

Once upon a time,
this man was out here too.

Through the interrupters,
Gary keeps the focus

where he thinks it belongs...

On preventing disease,
not punishing crimes.

So, Jacob, you from
this community.

You're going to be
hearing gunshots tonight?

Probably, 'cause if you tell

for whatever I did yesterday,
it's just a cycle.

If you want to use violence
and shoot somebody as a way

to solve your differences,

we trying to say
that's not the way to go

'cause you can't
take back a life.

It's a simple,
but revolutionary, approach,

and it has shown
dramatic results.

We started in February.

By march,
it was already 67% down.

It was amazing.

There was this park across the
street that they'd never use.

Now, their kids
are playing there.

The epidemic's no longer there.

Gary has now
rolled out "cured violence"

in locations across the country.

On average, the program
has reduced shootings by 44%

and killings by up to 56%
in the neighborhoods it targets.

It's an approach born
from medical techniques.

To Gary, its success
proves gun crime

is no different from a virus.

You can't see gun crime
under a microscope,

but if it spreads like a virus,

if we can fight it
like we fight a virus,

maybe we need to stop
thinking about gun crime

as a political issue

and start treating it
as a medical issue.

Some researchers already are.

They've discovered a new way
to predict shootings

and to stop them.

Every virus spreads
in its own unique way.

Mosquitos spread malaria.

The common cold
relies on the sneeze

to spread its germs
through the air.

On the Internet, memes go viral
when they spread

from person to person
across a social network.

If we're going to stem
the epidemic of gun violence,

we have to discover the precise
means of its transmission.

In Chicago,
the police department

is trying to do just that

by launching a high-tech
and highly controversial program

to reduce gun crime.

This is the heart
of the operation.

It connects to 29,000
surveillance cameras.

It has microphones
to record gunshots in real time,

and the brain behind all of this

is an algorithm
designed to predict

who is going to be
the next victim of a gun crime

before the crime happens.

It was developed by Illinois
tech professor Miles Wernick.

The algorithm tries to see,

how many times
have you been shot recently,

how many times have you
been arrested on things

like weapons charges.

And all of those
play into a pattern,

which turns out
to be very accurate

in predicting a person's risk.

Miles developed his
algorithm from one he'd used

to detect the spread
of cancer cells in MRI scans.

But Chicago pd
deputy chief Jonathan Lewin

has used it to develop a
politically charged heat list...

The 400 people in Chicago

most likely to be involved
in violent crime.

So, we were wondering,
could we look at

person-based prediction methods,

and could we look at a way
to develop a risk score

for a specific
person's likelihood

for becoming involved
in future gun crimes?

This is a subject who,
as you can see,

was first arrested
when he was 13.

He was 14 in that picture.

See, he's 15.

And this, we see too often.

The subject ended up
being killed...

Fatal, multiple gunshot wounds.

Everything we're doing
is trying to prevent this.

Is the heat list
government overreach,

an invasion of privacy?

Or can such
tightly targeted policing

actually stop the spread
of gun violence?

Yale professor and Chicago
native Andrew Papachristos

believes we need more
and better data

to predict and prevent
the spread of urban crime.

His social statistics work
was the inspiration

for Chicago's current program.

So, really, my stock and trade
is dealing with big data sets,

data sets like arrest records,

immunization records,
census records,

survey records,
and pulling them all together.

So, when I was growing up
in Chicago, there were 800, 900,

nearing 1,000 homicides a year.

And kids all around me
were getting pulled into gangs,

other types of stuff.

Still, I've never had anybody
pull a gun on me.

I've never been shot at.

The question is, "why?"

Andrew doesn't believe
he just got lucky.

His research shows
that gun crime

is tied to limited networks
of people...

Far smaller networks
than you might expect.

And you don't have to be
a criminal to be a victim.

Jonylah Watkins
was just six months old

when she was shot to death.

She was lying
in the back seat of a car

while her father
changed her diaper.

She was so innocent.

Her murder looked truly random,
and I was interested

to see how random
it actually was.

Investigators learned
Jonylah's father

was the target of the attack.

To the media,
her death was a tragic case

of being in the wrong place
at the wrong time.

But as a statistician,
Andrew wanted to know

whether Jonylah's death
could have been predicted.

Jonylah didn't have
almost any of the risk factors

that we usually look at
in these models...

Being young, being male,

living in a particular
neighborhood,

being part of a street gang.

But what those really tell you
are about aggregate risks.

The vast majority of people
with those attributes,

they never shoot anybody
nor do they ever get shot.

To find Jonylah's risk factor,

Andrew peered into
the network of people around her

using a forensic tool called
"social network analysis."

It measures relationships
between people,

counting their number
and their strength.

Who were Jonylah's parents?

Who were their friends
and their friends' friends?

All of those connections
carry risk factors.

So, one of the variables
that really helps you identify

who's at risk,
who's a potential victim,

is exposure to violence.

Even if you're not
directly engaging

in these sorts of incidents,
but people around you are,

it can increase your individual
probability of getting shot

upwards to 500% to 900%.

For Jonylah, the greatest risks
stemmed from her father.

He had been shot in the past,
and almost 40% of his associates

had been victims of violence.

Statistics don't assign blame
to anyone,

but mathematically speaking,

anyone belonging to
her father's social network

faced dramatically higher risks.

If her father
is literally living in a world

where his friends
are getting shot,

she's at risk by her own
connections to this network.

Andrew's social network
analysis shows that gun crime

is highly localized
within social networks.

In one of Chicago's
high-crime neighborhoods,

41% of all gun homicides
took place in a network

that represented just 4%
of the population.

You have a very small
percentage of the population

that are responsible
for the vast majority

of the violence as victims.

You can use that information
to use prevention efforts,

as well as enforcement
after its... when needed,

to get those individuals.

And in fact,
to save their lives.

But focusing on
small social networks

to prevent gun crime
also has a down side.

In Chicago, the police
department has faced criticism

for tracking people
based only on who they know.

But it claims the heat list
has a social benefit.

A cop may come knock
on your door,

but a social worker
would be there, too.

The goal is not to be punitive.

The goal is to try to
reduce the chance

that somebody's gonna be

continuing the cycle
of violence.

The jury is still out
on Chicago's heat list,

but no one expects it to prevent
every gun death.

So, how can we protect ourselves
from the gun virus?

Should we all go out
and buy ourselves a gun?

You've seen it in the movies.

Our hero saves the day
with a well-aimed shot.

It's the end of the road
for you, Malone.

This is the heart
of the gun debate.

Does it take a good guy
with a gun

to stop a bad guy with a gun?

I ain't done yet.

Or would it just mean
more bullets flying around?

Do guns make us
more safe, or less?

Epidemiologist Charlie Branas
started out as a paramedic.

On the tough streets
of Philadelphia,

he treated many gunshot wounds.

As a paramedic, I was exposed
to cases of gun violence,

but it became very frustrating
not to be able

to prevent those cases,

to simply see them
on a regular basis.

It was here in Philadelphia
where the right to bear arms

was added to
the U.S. constitution in 1791.

Today, it's reeling
from gun violence

with almost five shootings
a day.

So, now, Charlie is returning
to the crime scenes

he once visited as a paramedic

with the skills
of an epidemiologist.

And he's asking
one burning question...

Does carrying a gun
make you safer?

It is important
to begin to think about

whether a gun is
protective or perilous,

and if you are in possession
of a firearm,

under what conditions will you
be able to protect yourself?

His first challenge was how
to study this scientifically.

Charlie knew he couldn't
hand out guns

and wait to see
which subjects got shot.

But epidemiology offers
a different approach...

Find people
who've contracted a disease

and then work backward
to discover how they caught it.

To identify cases
of the gun virus,

Charlie got his research team
hooked up

with Philadelphia's
police department.

We set up, with the city
police department,

a system whereby
we were notified,

typically on the day
of a shooting,

but soon after, within hours.

As the shootings roved in,

the team collected key details
about each victim.

Where was he at the time?

To what age group and race
did he belong?

Was he under the influence
of drugs or alcohol?

And most importantly,
was he carrying a gun?

But in epidemiology, you can't
pinpoint why a person gets sick

until you compare him
to a similar person who hasn't.

So, for every gunshot victim,

Charlie's team had to find
a comparable person...

during the past month...
who was not shot.

As a case came in,
depending on their age,

their race, and their gender,

we called around,
through random digit dialing

across the city, to find someone
roughly of the same age,

race, and gender,
to ask them quickly

about their experiences

at the time of a case
and shooting.

And lastly,
they asked their interviewees

whether they themselves
had been carrying a gun

at the time the crime took place
across town.

How old are you?
Do you own a gun?

Where were you at 10:00 P.M.
last Wednesday?

Were you in possession
of a firearm at this time?

For over 2.5 years, Charlie
and his team collected data

on almost 3,500 shootings.

They ended up
with 677 shooting victims

for whom they had
a good comparison group.

Now, Charlie could answer
the central question...

Are you less likely to be shot
if you're carrying a gun?

We expected to see
a protective effect,

and we simply could not find it,

no matter how we analyzed
the data.

In fact, Charlie saw
exactly the opposite.

Philadelphians
were four and a half times

more likely to be shot

if they were in possession
of a gun.

One of the things
that we hypothesized

from our case-control study
was that,

possession of a firearm
changed peoples' actions...

Mere possession of it.

And so, that, perhaps,
people reacted in ways

they would have otherwise
not reacted

had they not had a firearm.

Charlie plans future research
to see whether firearm training

could make guns more protective.

But his research
on gun possession

sends a simple message...

If you want to lower
your chances of being shot,

don't carry a gun.

Is the best way to immunize
yourself against the gun virus

not to put a firearm
in your hand?

Well, that may not be enough,
because science is finding

guns do strange things
to our minds.

The mere sight of one can
trigger an outburst of violence.

We've all heard it said...

"guns don't kill people.
People kill people."

In other words, the gun
isn't what matters...

It takes a finger
to pull the trigger.

But new research
casts doubt on this idea.

Maybe it's not
the people who fire them,

but guns alone,
that are fueling the epidemic.

Why do people shoot one another?

For over 25 years,

Ohio state university
psychologist Brad bushman

has been asking that question.

But recently, he's been asking
it in an unusual setting.

This state-of-the-art simulator

was designed to study
the behavior of drivers.

But Brad hijacked it
to study aggression.

In this experiment,
drivers encountered

a number of frustrating events,

such as somebody
mimicking their behavior,

somebody cutting them off
in traffic,

construction zones.

We all know about road rage,

but Brad wanted to see
if he could trigger it

with something
seemingly unrelated.

We placed a stimulus object
in the passenger's seat.

What we told participants
when they got in the car was,

"this car is being used

in a number of different
experiments."

All right. And again,
I just wanted to apologize.

The other experiment was
supposed to put it away,

but they didn't,
so you can just ignore that.

Brad and his team

measured how the
tennis-racket subjects drove,

how frustrated they got,

whether they broke
any traffic laws,

or leaned on their horns.

Nothing unusual happened.

But the tennis racket was
just there to set a baseline.

Brad's real question was,
what would happen

when a gun was sitting
on the passenger's seat.

So, he's breaking
the speed limit again.

He's pretty impatient, I think.

Oh, dude.
Right in the middle of the road.

- Oh, man.
- Wow, over the center.

That's a double yellow line.

Yeah, I think he's really
an aggressive driver.

In driver after driver, Brad saw
the same thing happening.

What we discovered
in this experiment is that,

the mere presence of a gun
in the passenger's seat

made drivers more aggressive.

It primes or activates
aggressive thoughts in memory.

We call this
"the weapons effect."

in a fight, having a gun
would give you the upper hand.

So, perhaps,
Brad's armed drivers

consciously chose
to be more aggressive.

But Brad thinks we may not be
so logical...

At least, not according to
a second experiment.

Driver behavior's
a great laboratory

for studying aggression,

not just in a driving simulator,

but in the real world.

Researchers did an experiment
where they had a pickup truck

pull up to an intersection.

Driver remained at the stop
for 12 seconds

to see what the motorist
trapped behind him would do.

A few honked.

Most sat quietly until they
pulled out and went around.

In a second version, the truck
blocking the intersection

had a rifle on a gun rack.

What's amazing about this study
is that, people do the opposite

of what you would expect.

Motorists were more likely
to honk their horn

when there is a gun
in the back window

of the pickup truck

than if there is no gun
in the back window.

It's an instinctive response,
not a logical one.

There's nothing logical
about it.

Why does a gun
provoke an aggressive response,

even when it's in
someone else's possession?

Brad thinks it comes down to
the wiring in our brains.

Human beings are very good
at identifying

potentially dangerous stimuli
in their environment,

such as spiders and snakes.

It's called
the "fight-or-flight response,"

and it happens
faster than we can think.

Brad believes that
the sight of a gun

activates that same system.

We've been repeatedly exposed
to images of guns and violence

that the link
between guns and violence

in the human brain
is very strong

because people recognize them

as a source of threat
and danger.

In other words,
a gun doesn't merely shoot.

It plants the idea of violence
in your mind.

And by triggering
those feelings,

a gun is actually prompting you
to use it.

Of course, it takes a finger
to pull the trigger,

but by increasing
these aggressive impulses,

the trigger may also be
pulling the finger.

Today, there are more
than 300 million guns in America

silently triggering
our aggressive impulses.

A few of us give in to them.

But if you catch the gun virus,
do you have it for life?

One scientist thinks
he's found a way to cure it.

Gun violence,
whether it's mass shootings

or the ceaseless daily litany
of killings,

is almost always committed
by one type of person...

Young men.

If we're going to eradicate
the gun virus,

we need therapies to target
those who have been infected.

Is there any way to cure them?

Neuroscientist Kent Kiehl
is trying to understand

the brains of those who kill.

You dialed 9-1-1.

What's the location
of your emergency?

Sandy hook elementary school.

I keep hearing shooting.

It's still happening.

I was approached by the parents
who had lost their children

at Sandy hook elementary school
in that tragedy.

And they asked if there was
any science that we could do

that might help us understand

why people might commit
such types of crimes,

and how we might be able

to develop better ways
of preventing them.

The tragedy of
Sandy hook haunts our society.

In just five short minutes,
20 first-graders were murdered,

along with six teachers.

The killer was male,
20, and disturbed...

Not unlike the young juveniles
Kent has come to study.

All of these kids
that we were working with

were in an
ultra-supermax facility...

The highest risk facility
in the state of new Mexico...

Because they had committed
one or more felonies.

And I'm not talking,
you know, simple things.

These are serious
multiple felons.

A lot of the time,
the crimes that are committed

by these kids
use handguns or firearms.

And almost every one of them
has had or owns a firearm,

or has acquired one.

It's really something
that's just commonplace.

Kent studies the brains of
these violent young offenders,

but his subjects can't come
to an MRI lab,

so he brings the lab to them.

So, we designed and created

a state-of-the-art
mobile MRI system.

We've scanned the brains
of over 4,000 inmates,

developed the world's largest
repository of youth populations.

Kent is trying
to detect patterns

in brain anatomy

that are correlated
with violent behavior.

He scanned the brains
of 25 incarcerated young men

who had committed murder

and contrasted them with
the brains of 150 offenders

who had not.

He looked for differences
in areas involved with emotion,

impulse control,
and decision-making...

The amygdala,
anterior cingulate,

and orbital frontal cortex.

The scans revealed
stark differences.

Turns out that,
parts of this amygdala

are actually not well-developed
in youths that commit homicides,

compared to their peers.

As well,
kids that commit homicide

have less
orbital frontal cortex.

Parts of the brain
that we have found

that are not developed normally,
or developed differently,

are actually parts of the brain

that are kind of
the last to develop.

They usually don't reach full
maturity until age, about, 25.

It appears almost, like, even
though they're 15, 16 years old,

their brains might only
really be 10, 11 years old.

With 85% accuracy,

Kent could guess which juveniles
had committed murder

just by looking at
their brain scans.

Do these differences mean some
people are incurably violent,

or is there a saving grace

in the brain's capacity
to change?

People are only really kind of
beginning to understand this,

but the brain continues
to change throughout your life.

All the experiences
that you have,

they continue to shape and mold
the brain.

But most prison experiences are
not helpful for inmate's brains.

Unfortunately,
in a correctional environment,

there's really no behaviors
that get reinforced positively.

If you're quiet and you're good,
and you don't do anything,

what happens? Nothing.

The only thing
that gets these individuals

any type of social interaction
is aggression.

It's a very dangerous
environment for everyone.

That's called "compression."

It compresses them into
a very limited set

of behavioral things
that they do.

The term "compression"
comes from diving.

As a diver descends
into the depths,

he encounters greater
and greater pressure

from the water.

After a while, his body adjusts.

But at this point,
returning to the surface

actually becomes dangerous.

Kent thinks it is just as hard
for imprisoned kids

to return to positive
kinds of interaction.

The diving analogy
is a good one because,

you know, you don't just pop
right back up to the surface

and you're healthy again.

That can kill you, right?

Kent is now studying
kids who've been through

a therapeutic program
called "decompression."

It asks social workers
and prison guards

to reward good behaviors

instead of just
punishing bad ones.

And so, if the kids
were good today,

and they talked to someone,
and they engaged with someone,

and they didn't get in fights,
they'll get some reward.

And they learn, through these

positive-reinforcement
strategies, that,

good things can happen to
them if they act better.

12 months
after decompression therapy,

Kent conducted
a second series of scans.

He saw that critical regions
had begun to grow and change.

There's an area of
the brain that helps to regulate

decision-making
and capacity for decision,

and help you understand
when you make mistakes,

and that area of the brain is
called the "anterior cingulate,"

and we are actually seeing
an increase in activity there.

These circuits that control or
help to regulate your behavior,

regulate your thinking,
they are getting better.

Many underage felons
are ultimately released

and have to make
the dangerous transition

back to a free society.

A group of inmates
not treated with decompression

went on to kill 16 more people.

But inmates who received
the therapy killed no one.

One of the things that
the programs try to teach them

is how not to act impulsively.

Whether that's
with the firearm or without,

it's likely to lead
to better outcomes

if they don't act impulsively.

Kent may have found
a way to cure those

who've been infected
by the gun virus.

But this therapy
can only reach a select few,

and only after they have already
gone to jail.

Now, one young scientist
is working on a different way

to solve the epidemic
of gun crime...

Fire a different type of gun.

We've seen how
the gun virus spreads.

Mass shootings move
through the media.

Street violence spreads
through social networks.

Holding a gun or seeing one

triggers the urge
to commit more violence.

We all want to stop
this pandemic.

One man decided to focus
on a part of the disease

that has long been overlooked.

Howdy.

Hey, Kai, how are you?

Like many young people
in Colorado,

19-year-old Kai Kloepfer
grew up at the gun range.

Do you want the shoot
the Ar-15 today?

Definitely. I'd love to.

Awesome.

Growing up in Colorado,

firearms were always
a part of the culture...

Maybe not as much as,
say, Texas,

but they're definitely accepted.

Most high schoolers don't dwell
on the problems caused by guns.

Kai was no different,
until four years ago,

when gun violence struck
just down the road.

315 and 314 for
a shooting at century theatres.

We got another person
shot in the leg, a female.

I got people running out
of the theater. They're shot.

In Aurora, Colorado,
the century theatre

became a scene
of horrific slaughter

when a young man opened fire.

He killed a dozen people
and wounded 70 more.

Like all Americans,
Kai was deeply shaken.

But in the dark days
that followed,

he began to think
about solutions.

At the time,
I was looking for a project

that could have
some societal impact.

And with the
Aurora-theatre shooting,

I realized that I need
to create a gun

that only works
for certain people.

And so, that's why I'm working
on smart-gun technology.

Kai thought that,
by designing a gun

that will only fire
for its owner,

he might help prevent
some acts of mass homicide.

Then, he realized that, out
of more than 30,000 gun deaths

each year, two-thirds
weren't homicides at all.

There's an even larger problem
of suicides

and accidental gun death
with misuse of firearms

that almost nobody talks about.

21,000 firearm suicides,

children that, every 30 minutes,

are killed or injured
with a firearm.

Kai knew many of
these victims were using a gun

that didn't belong to them.

Would these people have died

if the gun had refused to fire
for them?

Starting with a $3,000 loan
from his parents,

Kai has now invested four years
on this project.

He went through
an extensive prototyping process

using a 3D printer
in his bedroom.

There's a fingerprint sensor

embedded in the grip
of the firearm

that captures an image
of their fingerprint.

That image is processed
and then matched against a list

that's stored on the gun...
Encrypted and secure...

Of everyone who's allowed
to use that firearm.

Once we have
a verified fingerprint,

there's a little motor

that takes signals
from the circuit board

and produces physical motion.

We then use this motion
to lock and unlock the firearm.

What started
as a high-school project

has become a business
in the making.

But Kai has an uphill battle
to get his prototype to market.

Smartguns are not a new idea.
And about 20 years ago,

the government saw that it was
an obviously good idea

and decided to just throw
a bunch of money at the problem.

They gave out grants to some
major firearm manufacturers,

like Smith & Wesson.

For the very first time,
a gun manufacturer

will include locking devices

and other safety features,
and will develop smartguns

that can be fired
only by the adults

who own them.

The smartguns met
with fierce resistance.

Gun-advocacy groups claimed
their second-amendment rights

were at risk.

Smith & Wesson got boycotted

and almost lost over 40%
of their business,

which is substantial
for any company.

They basically abandoned
the projects and swore,

more or less,
never to work on it again.

Before a single
smartgun could be sold,

the product was withdrawn.

A lot of the public, especially
the gun-owning public,

perceived smartguns
as the gun control or, like,

something that's
gonna be mandated.

It's not gun control in any way.

It's not external control.

There's no government database.

Kai believes smartguns will
help to inoculate some of us

against the virus that claims
so many American lives

without compromising
second-amendment rights.

With this technology, the owner
is still free to do anything

that they judge they should do
with a firearm,

but it will stop children
from finding guns,

teenagers from using it
to commit suicide,

and a solid portion
of the over 30,000 gun deaths

that happen every year
in the United States.

I might not be able to stop
the next psychopath

who walks into a movie theater,

but there are lives
that I can save.

Even if we can save
one person's life,

that'd make the whole thing
worth it.

A smartgun would make a dent
in the gun virus,

but only a small one.

In fact, all the solutions
are in their early days,

which is strange, considering
how dire the situation is.

Guns claim over 30,000
American lives each year.

When Ebola
threatened our shores,

the full resources
of our public-health community

were called into service.

You know how many people
died in the U.S.

From that devastating disease?

Two.

When the United States
puts its resources to work,

we have great results.

But in 1996, a federal law

prohibited the centers
for disease control

from funding anything
that may lead to gun control.

The law has had
a chilling effect

on gun-violence research
across the country.

I believe in science,
and I believe

it's only with the unfettered
help of science,

and the answers it provides,
that we'll have a hope

of ending this
devastating epidemic.

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