podcast v 2

The podcast discusses the issue of gun violence in Milwaukee and Wisconsin. The host shares a personal experience of receiving a message about an active shooter at a school. The shooter had mental issues and exhibited red flags. The host emphasizes the need for mental health services and addresses racial disparities contributing to gun violence. They call for community action and innovative strategies to address the issue. Hello, everyone. This is the Facing Struggle podcast, a podcast produced by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In this episode, we will be discussing the pressing issues that are causing harm to our community. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for checking into the podcast, as well as introduce myself as your host, Mason Weaver. In this episode, we are going to be detailing and shining a light on the epidemic of gun violence that is taking place in our great city of Milwaukee, as well as our great state of Wisconsin, as well as detailing some of the reasons why this is happening. So I might go a tiny bit off script here, but, you know, in the first draft, I kind of detailed a hypothetical situation detailing how gun violence affected a mother and her child, but I wanted to shift to more of a personal story of my detailing a situation that recently happened in my hometown. Before I start this, I in no way mean to take away from any of the victims affected or to make this about myself. I'm just detailing my perspective and what happened to me during this situation. As of May 2nd, 2024, this is the date that it's being recorded. It is still an ongoing story and new information has yet to be released. So I was sitting in math class, you know, spacing out because I hate math, but that's the point. I feel a buzz in my pocket. That was my phone, obviously, and it says, and it's from my mom, and she says, active shooter at the middle school, one dead so far. And my mom volunteers at the middle school. So I was, I kind of just went into a state of shock and like I was, I didn't know what to do. And I couldn't like, I just felt like I couldn't do anything because, you know, I'm all the way in Milwaukee and she's all the way in southwestern Wisconsin. And I didn't know how to react. And my mentality before this happened to me was, you know, gun violence will never affect me or gun violence will never happen to me or the kind of that mentality, oh, it happens to them, but not me. So it was, it was kind of like a wake up call to how prevalent it can be, I guess. And I guess I just never really experienced that. So you know, you know, I was calling my mom I was, you know, it was a high stress situation. She was thankfully she was alright. Thankfully nobody in the situation got hurt except for the shooter obviously. But I was I did I did some investigating. And I was talking with my friends that still go to high school there and they identified the shooter. So I looked him up. He has a tick tock account. He has a Twitter account. He has his own website manifesto. He he clearly suffered from mental issues like he had he had posts of him worshiping the Columbine shooter, the Sandy Hook shooter. He was he was very suicidal. It was a lot of red flags. And allegedly he stole his parents gun. He he fled in a car he crashed and and he fled on foot towards the school. And the statement school made was is he was neutralized. But he he I don't want to say he was a victim, but he was definitely underserved. He, he exhibited a lot of red flags, a lot of signs that could have easily been prevented. And this this could have never happened. And, you know, that's why I feel like we should implement, you know, mental health services in Milwaukee, you know, Madison. But I feel like this is something that I stated in my last draft is the three use underserved, underrepresented and under invested. And this was a clear example of that, you know. I don't want to jump around too much. But back to the topic of Milwaukee. Gun violence has a lot of causes. And one of them being one of the big ones being racial disparity and racial inequality. With Milwaukee being one of the most segregated cities, I got this from Applied Population Lab being the source, but there were policies implemented that limited the buying power of prospective homeowners that were people of color. And, and you still see it today, you know, when you're on Capitol over by Shorewood, you go across the Milwaukee River, it's night and day you have the gentrified nice apartments over by over by Culver's. And once you get across the road, it's, it's, it's dilapidated houses, it's, it's, you know, it's a poor area. And it's, it's so crazy to think about it. Like when you really see it, I got this from Bread United being the source, gun violence disparities often result from structural and economic issues. And the growing disparities are just a key driver in this. And now Milwaukee is having an extremely difficult time understanding the complexities and coming to terms with gun violence. That's why I feel like we need prominent figures, leaders, mayors, to come together and fight this, you know. And I feel like social media plays a big factor in it, protesting, but but this just takes a lot of commitment. In conclusion, I feel like as a community, we should come together and, and face this matter and it once and for all, whether that be new new implementation of laws, new services, such as mental health, or maybe innovative strategies to keep guns safe, you know. As always, thank you for joining me on the Facing Struggle podcast. If there is a next time, hopefully there will be a next time we will take a deeper dive into the roots or the peripheral factors that contribute to the cause of gun violence. Thank you.