92% of Americans want common-sense gun regulation, so why does it seem like policy is so slow to catch up? At the Fortune Impact Initiative conference in Atlanta, we sat down with Greg Jackson Jr., deputy director of the White House’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention, for a discussion on the organization's progress in its first year and what's at stake in this election for public safety.
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00:00The bullet that hit me hit two arteries and nearly cost me my life.
00:03You know, when I arrived at the hospital, before I could go into surgery,
00:06I was wheeled to a side room with investigators.
00:09And I had to go through three rounds of interrogation before going into surgery.
00:14And I nearly bled to death.
00:15I mean, I was suffering blood loss, and my doctor shared,
00:18I was within 26 minutes of dying.
00:21And I literally was fighting for my innocence and my life at the same time.
00:26Greg, thank you so much for being here with me today.
00:28Yeah, thanks for having me.
00:29So, of course, I want to start,
00:31what prompted you to get involved in gun violence prevention?
00:34Yeah, I wish it was a fun story.
00:37But for me, it was really a circumstance that brought me to this movement.
00:42In April of 2013, I was out with my cousins at a wedding celebration.
00:46And we literally walked past these two guys in the middle of a fight,
00:50and one pulled out a gun and started shooting and shot me.
00:53And the bullet that hit me hit two arteries and nearly cost me my life.
00:58And I'll never forget, you know, as hard as it was physically going through that,
01:02what was harder was how I was treated.
01:04You know, when I arrived at the hospital, before I could go into surgery,
01:07I was wheeled to a side room with investigators.
01:10And I had to go through three rounds of interrogation before going into surgery.
01:14And I nearly bled to death.
01:16I mean, I was suffering blood loss, and my doctor shared,
01:18I was within 26 minutes of dying.
01:21And I literally was fighting for my innocence and my life at the same time.
01:26And so coming out of that situation, I just was committed that if I could do anything
01:30to reduce this issue or address this crisis,
01:33but most importantly, start pushing America to think about saving lives more
01:39and not just solving crimes, that maybe less folks could go through what I went through.
01:44I'm so sorry you had to go through that.
01:46Yeah.
01:47Before this tragedy happened, did you have any stance on gun violence or gun violence prevention
01:53or just, you know, Second Amendment or gun rights at all?
01:56Yeah. So part of my childhood, I grew up in rural America.
02:00My dad actually has 26 guns, which is a lot for hunting and for recreation purposes.
02:06And we had always seen it as a tool for recreation, as part of tradition.
02:10You know, my father gave me his first rifle that he got when he was a kid.
02:14Like, that was my first gun that I owned.
02:17But that was very different from what I've seen kind of play out,
02:20especially post-college.
02:22I've lost five people that were close to me to gun violence.
02:25And watching how this is not just a tool that's being used for recreation,
02:30this has now become the tool of choice to cause harm and take lives across the country,
02:35really kind of shifted how I think about guns and gun ownership.
02:38And unfortunately, I think the tradition and heritage that so many people fondly
02:42think of with gun ownership has been distorted by America's obsession with this and lack of
02:48efforts to hold the gun industry and really gun ownership to a responsible standard.
02:55Now, speaking of that and holding people accountable, last year, President Biden
02:59established the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention,
03:02which you are the first-ever deputy director of.
03:04Yeah.
03:05So congratulations.
03:06I'm excited.
03:06Talk to me about how that came about for you.
03:08Yeah. So, well, with my journey, when I got out of the hospital,
03:12I started to become an activist and speak up on different issues and what could be done.
03:16First at the local level in D.C., but then a family friend of mine was killed
03:20in Greensboro, North Carolina, and I saw that smaller cities and small towns
03:25were living a very different reality than big cities that had big budgets and resources to
03:30address violence. And so I started to advocate nationally to address this crisis, and I joined
03:35a big movement of activists. We actually passed the first bill on gun violence in 30 years,
03:40the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in 2022.
03:43This bill had over 14 different policy changes, $15 billion in investments in violence prevention
03:50efforts, and I was one of the main leaders organizing and pushing for that bill
03:55through my activism. And when it was done, we were excited. We kind of went to the White House.
03:59They did a big signing of it, a big celebration, and we were like, this is great. Now you need a
04:03team to go implement it so it's not just sitting around on somebody's desk, but that these dollars
04:08can get to communities, that the policies can actually be changed. And the president and his
04:13team turned around and said, yeah, we're going to create an office, and they called and notified us,
04:17and I was excited. And then they said, well, if you helped get us here, how can you join the team
04:23to help us make this a reality? And so that's how I was brought into the White House for the first
04:28time. I did not have a lot of suits or anything like that. I wasn't like a lifetime government
04:32person. I was purely a survivor and activist that fought for policy that became law and was
04:38empowered to be a part of the change. And so our office was created in September of 2023.
04:43And so we just turned a year old, the first ever office of its kind, and we're focused on prevention
04:49and really implementing a public health approach to what is now a public health crisis. And
04:54President Biden was the first president in history to name it a public health crisis.
04:58The U.S. Surgeon General this year released an advisory confirming that this is a public health
05:03crisis. And so the president has been pushing for solutions that are beyond just law enforcement,
05:08but how do we think about our mental health supports, our housing strategy, even our export
05:13strategy and import of goods? Like how are we thinking about keeping dangerous weapons from
05:17coming into certain communities or leaving this country and harming other countries?
05:22But the entire government really can play a role in addressing this crisis,
05:26and that's what our office has been tasked with, is thinking about how we implement this big law,
05:30but also innovatively thinking about how the rest of the government can help us address this crisis.
05:35That's a great story. Is there, can you point to maybe one or two specific things that your
05:40office has done over the past year that you think have been really stand out for helping your cause?
05:44Yeah, just one or two?
05:45I know, I'm sure there's a lot.
05:47Okay, well...
05:48Your favorites.
05:49Yes, my favorites. Highlight, highlight reel. Well, a big one was we talk a lot about illegal
05:55guns in America and, oh, the criminals have guns and they don't get them anyway.
05:58But there's very little regulations that have been done to really track down and
06:03deal with the source of illegal firearms. And so our administration actually did the first study
06:08of gun trafficking in 20 years and figured out where guns are moving, what is the source of
06:14these illegal guns, and how are they getting into the hands of youth that are underage or
06:19domestic abusers that are prohibited? And we found some very big things. One, we found the number one
06:25source of illegal guns are unlicensed private sellers. So people who are selling guns online,
06:31on social media, at gun shows. And most of these folks really have been flying under the radar for
06:37a long time. And the way that the policies have been written, they weren't even required to become
06:42licensed. And so we changed what it meant to be engaged in the business, and now those folks
06:47must be licensed. And to give you some scale, that's about 20,000 dealers that were unlicensed,
06:53that were moving guns under the table, that now have to be licensed, have to conduct background
06:57checks. We also found that gun trafficking itself wasn't a federal offense. So you could
07:02traffic firearms and get a written warning or a fine. And that is mind-blowing to me. I mean,
07:07we found one person who trafficked 103,000 guns and was never federally charged. So we made that
07:15now a federal offense. There's over 600 people that have now been prosecuted for moving guns
07:19illegally. And all of that was born from the study, and then the existence of our office
07:25and this administration's initiative to push forward on these levers, to really make sure that
07:30we're not just cracking down on that young 13-year-old that has a gun to protect himself,
07:34maybe illegally, but to protect himself. But we look at who's profiting from this, right? Who's
07:39sitting on a yacht somewhere, right? And really making money off of these guns that are pushing
07:44into our communities and causing harm. And so that was one big project I'm really proud of.
07:49Another one is that we invested a historic amount of resources. We actually made the biggest
07:54investment in youth mental health in American history, creating the 988 Crisis Lifeline that
08:00I think people should know about. If you don't, you should save it in your phone. But now, just
08:04like you call 911 and you have emergency dispatchers to support you in an emergency, if you
08:09call 988, you have registered therapists that are in your region that can help you if you're in a
08:13moment of crisis, whether that's harming yourself, harming someone else, or you're experiencing or
08:17witnessing something. So we helped build that. We also added 14,000 school-based mental health
08:25professionals to our school systems, recognizing that so many of our youth are in serious mental
08:30health crises right now. And frankly, they just need a trusted helping hand. That may not be a
08:35988 phone number. It might be that guidance counselor or that coach that's now trained in
08:41skills to deal with mental health challenges. And so we're excited that those 14,000 individuals
08:46are being trained and deployed into schools. And that's a part of our strategy as well. You know,
08:50how do we prevent that moment where someone picks up a gun and causes harm? And how do we put
08:55dollars in that the same way we have historically put dollars into holding folks accountable and
09:00going to get the bad guy? Oh, that's interesting. And my big question for you is, the thing I keep
09:06coming back to with gun violence prevention, this whole thing, is that, you know, your story
09:10happened so long ago. I'm from Newtown, Connecticut, where the San Diego school shooting happened
09:15almost 12 years ago now. It just feels to me like progress is so slow. And I get very frustrated.
09:21I'm sure you feel the same way as well. But why is it so slow? Why do you think it's taken
09:28now for them to establish an office of gun violence prevention? Look, I think it's very
09:32simple. It's leadership. You know, this is the first president to take this issue this serious.
09:37I mean, he was the first one to name this a public health crisis. President Biden has done
09:42over 50 executive actions on this issue. And that's more than any other president combined.
09:48If you go back in time of the last two administrations, they've only did four executive
09:52actions. So this president has done more than beyond what any other president has done within
09:58his power. And again, we passed the first law in 30 years. And even with other strategies like
10:04COVID relief funds, we put 15 billion of COVID relief funds into violence prevention strategies
10:09as well. And so I think it's been hard to see any progress because for too long,
10:16you know, we just haven't had the buy-in at the top that this is as serious as it is.
10:21And I think for too long, we've looked at this as just a mass shooting here, a mass shooting there,
10:25but not paid attention to how big of a crisis this is. I mean, this is the number one cause
10:30of premature death for all youth in America, but it's been the number one cause of premature death
10:34for black youth since 2006. And it's also the number one cause of premature death for black men.
10:40And now we're at a point where one in five Americans know someone who've been shot or
10:44killed by guns and gun violence. And I think we've, you know, really neglected this issue until it's
10:50gotten to this point of pure crisis for all Americans. And thankfully we have leadership
10:56and we now have a huge generation of survivors who are activists like myself,
11:00who are putting pressure on members of Congress, who are putting pressure on
11:04mayors and governors, and even with the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, right?
11:08So when I was shot, I was shot three days after the failed universal background check vote in wake
11:13of Sandy Hook, right? And when that failed, the thing you heard from members of Congress was,
11:20hey, I want to do something on this issue, but all of my constituents don't want me to take action.
11:25I'm hearing too much from my communities that this is not the time, but in 2022,
11:30it was the exact opposite. Even Republicans, even red states, blue states, rural communities
11:37were demanding some type of policy change and some type of legislation to address this crisis.
11:43I mean, now 92% of Americans want to see common sense solutions move forward. And you had 17
11:49Republicans vote for the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. I mean, they voted to
11:53enhance background checks. They voted to fund violence intervention programs.
11:58They voted for removing firearms from domestic abusers. And I was there when the Senate vote
12:02happened. And I watched Republicans, specifically Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney high five when it
12:08was done, right? They wanted to do what's right, but they didn't have that pressure from all angles.
12:14And it's unfortunate. It took us to get to crisis level for everyone to really put that heat on
12:19them. But a mixture of our added activism and true leadership at the top, I think is what has
12:25got us to this point. And we are seeing a lot of progress and it's tough because we've been
12:30stuck for so long, but things are moving. I mean, last year in 2023, we saw the steepest decrease
12:36in homicides in American history. And this year we're seeing a 22% reduction. And to make that
12:42really concrete, I mean, Boston only has 13 homicides, right? Newark, New Jersey, 27. Miami,
12:49Florida has the lowest homicide rate since the 1950s, right? Detroit since 1967. Like the numbers
12:56are dropping drastically. Even places like Baltimore have seen 20% plus reductions for
13:01multiple years in a row. We just left Philly. This year, Philly is seeing a 43% reduction.
13:06So even though these policies have just changed, the dollars have just hit our communities.
13:11In a short two years, we're seeing steep decreases because of these changes. And so
13:15I don't think it's a time to really give up hope. I think we're just getting started.
13:20Now, speaking of just getting started, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that in about a month,
13:24we have these big elections coming up here in the US. What do you think is at stake here? And
13:31where do you see the country going in terms of continuing the momentum or not that you've built?
13:36I mean, I'll just be frank. We have done a lot on this issue. $30 billion to address public safety,
13:45passed the first law in 30 years, and over 50 executive actions, all of which focused
13:50on this crisis of gun violence. The previous administration brags about doing nothing on
13:55this issue, and has already clearly said that they would defund our office. They actually
14:00attempted to defund our office already. They've already said that they're not going to take any
14:05additional action, and that this is just how it is, and people need to get over it.
14:11And we know that in our communities, we can't get over it when it's our children getting on
14:16the school bus and having to deal with active shooter drills, when it's our cousins and
14:19neighbors that are dealing with violence in their communities, when it's our aunt or our sister
14:25that's a survivor of domestic abuse and now being threatened with lethal force.
14:29And so we know as an administration that the American people cannot just get over it. We
14:35can't just overlook this issue. It's not going to go away just because we're not talking about it.
14:40And we also know that more guns do not make our communities safer,
14:43so less regulation does not lead to a safer America. And that's how we got here in the
14:48first place. And so it's a very clear decision of whether we keep building on this momentum and
14:53invest in strategies and policies to prevent violence before it happens, or we just let
14:59things play out. And I don't think anyone in my community, or at least in my family,
15:04is comfortable with letting things play out.
15:06Yeah. Well, Greg, I wish you the best of luck. Thank you so much for joining me.
15:10Of course. Thank you. Thanks for having me.