The professors discussed the factors behind recent mass shootings in California, and their relation to race, gun laws and mental health.
Ekta Anand
Gun Violence and AAPI community panel discussion, as photographed on Feb. 1, 2023 (Ekta Anand)
Ben Tran, associate professor of Asian studies and English, Jonathan Metzl, professor of medicine, health and society and Sophie Bjork-James, assistant professor of anthropology, led a panel titled “U.S. Gun Violent & Asian Americans” on Feb. 1. The talk centered on recent mass shootings in California and their relation to mental health, hate crimes and race relations.
First-year Owen Cai said that the discussion helped him better understand the complexities of gun violence in the United States.
“There was a lot of discussion about the nuances of gun violence in general and factors to consider when pushing for change. Overall, the event definitely made me push back against the sometimes-overwhelming feeling that gun violence is an inevitable reoccurrence,” Cai said.
The faculty panel began with a focus on the nature of race-on-race crime, as the perpetrators in both Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay were two elderly Asian-Americans that targeted members of the AAPI community. Bjork-James attributed this to a variety of factors, including the increasing rate of gun ownership within the AAPI community, fears of racism and harassment and increasing isolation and lack of resources for the elderly population.
“There’s this kind of perfect storm for potential violence to take place,” Bjork-James said.
All three professors discussed the increasing rates of gun ownership in the Asian American community, predicting the trend to continue. They identified the National Rifle Association’s targeted advertising in recent years as a potential factor.
“George Floyd gets murdered and the NRA starts blasting advertisements into black communities, like, ‘the cops aren’t going to protect you, safety is on you.’…
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