Episode 167

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Published on:

3rd Feb 2026

Why Are We Legislating Morality When Most Gun Deaths Are Suicides?

44,000 Americans die each year from gun-related causes, with the majority being suicides. Jerremy Alexander Newsome and Dave Conley talk with Steven Orr about moving past moral arguments to focus on psychological wellness. Steven shares his early experiences with firearms. They examine how mental health drives gun violence stats and why data plus responsible ownership offer clearer paths forward.

Timestamps:

  1. (00:00) Most gun deaths are suicides – not mass shootings or crime
  2. (00:28) Steven Big Beat’s real story – guns from childhood, no tragedy
  3. (01:44) Ownership isn’t moral failure – it’s often protection and sport
  4. (03:57) Psychology drives decisions – fear, isolation, despair pull triggers
  5. (06:05) America’s violence stats mislead – suicides dwarf homicides
  6. (09:26) Mental health gaps kill – treat despair, save thousands

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  1. Steven Orr – Instagram | X | LinkedIn | Website

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Transcript
Jerremy:

Most of us are worn out by the gun debate because

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it is the same loop every time.

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Rights versus bands.

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Thoughts and prayers, rinse and repeat.

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Nothing really changes.

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The math is undeniable.

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Every year, 44,000 Americans

die, mostly suicides lives.

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We know how to save if we stop shouting

and start thinking differently.

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I am Jerremy Alexander Newsom with

my co-host Dave Conley, and this

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is Solving America's Problems.

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Today we have a returning guest,

Steven Big Beat, or he is a

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systems thinker spanning Wall

Street AI and the White House.

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He owns guns.

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He defends the Second Amendment, but

he argues that if we actually want to

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save lives, we need to stop legislating

morality and start legislating psychology.

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Steven, welcome back to the show.

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Steven Orr: Thanks, Jerremy.

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Thanks Dave.

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One of the cool things about the this

podcast is it's critical thinking, right?

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It's not just let's throw out our opinions

and we're looking to solve problems.

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And I think that's probably the

best part about this podcast is

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that we're digging deeper than

just what sound bites can produce.

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Jerremy: Yes, thank you.

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Thank you so much.

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This is gonna be really exciting and

you are, first of all, you're one of my

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mentors online and stocks and trading

and investing for a very long time, but

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you're also very open about gun ownership,

and you're here to not only defend the

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Second Amendment, but most importantly

talk about what we have been discussing

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for the last few weeks and months, which

is this trigger warning guns in America.

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Steven, walk us through

your very first memory.

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When was guns brought into your life?

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Steven Orr: That's a great question.

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Jerremy guns were never

brought into my life.

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They were just a part of it as a kid.

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I grew up in southern Illinois where

hunting was a big deal, deer hunting,

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and I went rabbit hunting a lot.

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And while I don't do that today,

I haven't been in a long time.

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My grandparents on both sides, my

great-grandparents, my great-great

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grandparents, all had guns.

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But being responsible

gun owners meant being.

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Responsible parents too as well.

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And being responsible parents also

meant teaching your kid how to handle

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a gun, what it's meant to have a gun.

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And in my house, the gun safes were out

in the open in a lot of ways, right?

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They weren't in hidden behind

in some closet, but we were

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taught to respect that gun.

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And they were never ever

loaded while in the house.

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We were taught how to load.

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And I think gun safety is a part

of the regimen that we also need.

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When you look back in history.

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When you think about the number of

countries that were, that really disliked

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the United States, they were scared of

the United States because of, quote,

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there was a gun in under everybody's bed.

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Nobody wants to attack the

United States 'cause there's,

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there were that many weapons.

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Today there are more guns and there

are people in the country, but that's

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also a little bit different today.

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Now when we look at it and I

still see that gun, those guns

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those shotguns and those handguns

in my parents' bedroom and in

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the gun case, in the middle of

the kitchen, believe it or not.

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And on our case and look, when

you look at that, I've seen that.

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But IL that my father taking me

out to the, to the gun range and

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getting my first void card in in,

in Illinois, and being able to

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understand going to a gun safety class.

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Hunting class was not about going to

teaching you how to shoot an animal.

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It was about how to respect nature and

how to respect the weapon that you owned.

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And I think that is a very

thing that we need as education.

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And we can talk about that a little

bit deeper later in the show.

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But I had a great education from

my parents who taught me how

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to, load a weapon, how to clean

the weapon, how to respect the

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weapon, and never use it in anger.

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And I think that's part of what we

are missing today in this country.

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Jerremy: I love that.

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Thank you.

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Steven.

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You occupy a rare space, so back in,

giving people some more update and

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information and background on you.

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You've worked in the White House, you run

an AI financial platform, you're a gun

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owner who defends the Second Amendment.

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When did you realize you were

going to have to live in the

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tension between those two worlds?

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What was the moment the

switch flipped for you?

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Steven Orr: That's a great question.

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Jerremy.

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It's funny 'cause in 1992 during the

campaign, I realized that I wasn't alone.

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That I had maybe my opinions weren't

the exact opinions of everybody.

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And I had to understand how to

divulge those and how to grow my

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own self, maybe spiritually grow

and personally grow and learn.

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My first words in Washington

DC was, how y'all doing?

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And I realized I was not at

home in southern Illinois.

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So what I looked at that perspective

and I said, okay, you know what?

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There's different opinions.

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There's different countries, there's

different we live in a melting pot.

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So how do I become part of that narrative

and not on one side or the other?

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And I think that's what's problem

in America today, is that we have so

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many different opinions, but we are

becoming so different in the fact

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of what media that we listen to.

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It's one sided or the other.

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You either live on this

side of the equation or the

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other side of the equation.

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There's no.

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What I call good old fashioned common

sense that I started out with right.

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Learning that, okay, I have that

common sense, but I need to change

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my thought process and maybe

I don't have all the answers.

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And so over those years in the White

House and the State Department and

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pro sports that I got to be a part

of being a part of Washington DC and

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New York City and Florida, I realized

the East Coast is a lot different

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than the West Coast even, right?

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And so the thought process was there,

but when we look at gun violence, a

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lot of it happens in the cities and

not out in the rural areas of America.

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But you do have found school

cities to be happening.

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But whether there were, there are more

people and when there are more people,

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there are more tensions and there are more

opinions and there are more aggravations.

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And so those are the things that I

think are the basis of what we need to

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look at when we look at gun violence.

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Jerremy: Makes sense.

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Makes sense.

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So you have the line, and

I've heard you say this a few

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different times out there, right?

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We shouldn't legislate morality.

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We should legislate psychology.

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Could you give us an

example of what that means?

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What is a moral gun law?

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What is a moral gun law that fails?

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And what is a psychological

gun law that works?

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Steven Orr: Okay.

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It's a great question.

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I can talk about it in the perspective

of sales of guns itself and one of

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those main, where we fail out is the

biggest producer of guns and changing

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of hands, and those are called straw

purchases and those are purchases

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that are where it's not even really

even purchased sometimes it's just

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given, and in my case, my parents and

grandparents and great grandparents

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and uncles, I have all their guns.

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That's a straw purchase where we purchase

it from a family member or a friend.

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That is illegal.

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But enforcement is really uneven there.

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We don't really have someone

going in the home and saying how

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did you get that weapon right?

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And then you have the place where

thefts or where guns have been

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taken from non-store correctly or

poorly secured weapons the, those

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rules are already on the books.

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And we're not enforcing that.

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But if we enforce the psychology, and

we're already seeing parts of that now

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Jerremy where the president now wants to

cut back on mental health payments to, to

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a lot of these firms that try to protect

us, mental health is the biggest problem.

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And what we're finding out is that,

especially in school shootings when

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bullying has become a major issue.

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We're not hitting the

main points right there.

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So when you look at failure of actual

legalities, we're not putting those kids

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where they should be in juvenile homes.

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We're not put we're

glazing over the problems.

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Bullying is a major issue and we're

not seeing that, and we're not seeing

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a psychologist in every school.

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Now, is that, can that happen financially?

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No, but we can see where psychologists

can come once a week or once a month

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and ferret out some of those kids who

are causing problems or have issues.

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If we look at the majority of

school shootings, shall we say,

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they happen in three different ways.

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They happen in on.

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And where the first thing is where,

and that's usually on the school

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playgrounds or the, or outside.

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I don't normally start on the inside.

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The wind is usually in the mornings.

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That's the majority of school shootings.

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And the why is because of

the bullying and the, and not

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feeling a part of the community.

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And that we hear that 78% of school

shootings happen because they have

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disconnected from their community,

from their family have gone online and

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they've said things they're gonna do.

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And yet we as a community don't

go in and say, okay, there's

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something wrong with this person.

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We need to stop this before it happens.

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So the three things, look morning.

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Look, if we had more school officers

patrolling outside of the school

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in the mornings, that would stop.

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A majority of them, we already

know about 50% of them.

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If you look at you know why

it's happening, it's bullying.

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So if we see reports of bullying those

should be reported higher up than just

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in the school and not hide those facts.

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And if we see parts of kids that

are having mentally issues, then

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we need to also make sure that

those are reported too as well.

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That right there would stop a lot of it.

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Dave: Steven, can you

help me bridge something?

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What I love about what you're

saying is that this is about

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the psychology of gun violence.

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And certainly in our research,

most of the gun violence in the

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United States happens from suicide.

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So people using a gun on themselves, and

a vast majority of those people are men.

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And the vast majority of

those men are in rural areas.

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And they were veterans, right?

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And then the other side of this, or

not the other side, the other aspect

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of this, the other mental side of

this is that the, almost the rest of

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gun violence happens in young men.

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Again it happens in urban settings.

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I'm.

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I'm not gonna like couch this

as that it's black men on men

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or young men on men violence.

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It's by and large poor is really,

I think a better way of looking

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at it from my point of view.

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But that's the other, the other side

of that, and what I'm hearing from you

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is the mental health aspect of this.

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However, in talking with gun enthusiasts

they come back with the vast majority

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of the laws are on types of weapons and

accessories, and they're not addressing

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the big, the elephants in the room.

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And that's the psychology aspect.

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That's, that these are specific

areas in 50 zip codes that need a

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community violence intervention,

which has been shown to work.

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Help me bridge the types of weapons

and the accessories and the, where

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the laws are and the energy of

the laws are versus the results.

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Steven Orr: That is a great question.

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Dave, and interestingly enough,

they're absolutely right.

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The majority of these, the weapons

that are being used for suicide

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aren't AK 40 sevens and high

powered velocity muzzled rifles.

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It's very hard to commit

suicide with a shotgun, right?

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It's not the easiest thing.

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And you're very right when you talk

about PTSD in our military, you

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wanna stop military gun and violence

and suicide, stop having wars.

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Stop having issues where violence

actually starts at the beginning

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of this in the families.

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Because, one of the things that

my grandfathers always said to me

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was they never talked about World

War II because quite frankly.

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Huh?

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They said they saw things

they didn't wanna talk about.

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And they didn't really

have anyone to talk to.

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And when you talk about it from

the perspective of PTSD, they

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saw it, they've seen it all.

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And we've seen a lot more dangerous

positions of the, of this administration.

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But when you look at it from the Vietnam,

Korea, Caribbean, cri, Caribbean you

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see it where that sector, that, between

the seventies and the eighties where

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suicides went up in, in that timeframe.

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And the poor side of people were

really, it was really a rough

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time in the early, late seventies.

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So we saw gun violence

way up in that point.

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And you saw.

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You saw a place where they wanted to

clean that up, like New York City, right?

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Where gun violence, they

kicked the guns out.

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Washington, DC where there are no

more guns, london, England, where

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the guns are, we could talk about

different countries that are banned

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guns, but that's not the key to this.

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The key to this is when you see people

that are hurting with PTSD, especially

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those who are in the military, we

should be putting our arms around

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them, hugging them and saying, there's

a better way and we're here for you.

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A lot of times they don't even reach

out to their own friends in the

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military, that are either still active

duty or not on active duty anymore.

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They go to the va.

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We need to really fund the

Veterans Administration, right?

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When you see that mental health in

the VA should be the most well-funded

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place in inside of the va, because

that could stop a lot of that problem.

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And when you look at it from the

perspective of the person that is hurting.

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It is usually because they are hurting

from the perspective of financial wealth.

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They're not seeing that

side that we see right.

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Of how to invest and what to do.

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All they're seeing is the same thing.

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They saw that single paycheck they

get and it's being stretched and

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it's being stretched and it's being

stretched and it's being stretched

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and it's getting worse and worse.

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Especially now with inflation

and prices of things that they

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didn't think were gonna go up.

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It's also hard to reintegrate back

into society once they've left that

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military structured society no longer

they're being structured anymore.

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They no longer have get up at this time

and have breakfast, get up at this time,

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make bed, get up at this, we're gonna

go now, we're gonna do PT at this time.

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There's no more structure anymore in

their life and that's also missing.

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We need to have places for

those, for the military vets.

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If there's anything, as we as a

country, we have these freedoms,

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it's because of those vets.

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And when we look

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at the future, it's gonna be the same.

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It's because of those vets.

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We are the police of the world.

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And when we send our boys and our

kids into those battle zones, we need

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to understand that when they come

back, they're not gonna be the same

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person that they are when they left.

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So we need to be spending time, there

needs to be some kind of mental health

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as they, when they come out, they need

to go through those progress and process.

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And when they do have those

issues, we don't always know when

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those issues are gonna blow up.

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When my brother passed away, right?

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I went I didn't go through the guilt yet.

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It took me months.

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Then I realized that I had to

be strong for my own family.

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And then when I was by myself

is when it hit me, right?

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And sometimes we don't know when those

things hit and we don't know when

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those health issues are going to arise.

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But we need to have a place

that makes that phone call.

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We need to have a place that those

people can go to when they feel like

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the world isn't working for me more.

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I need help.

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And they should.

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It's not as an 800 number.

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It should be a place to walk into as well.

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When you, when in, in the, and when you

look at gun violence in and of itself,

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a lot of the gun violence happens

because those guns weren't stored

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correctly or that very moment of pause

that sometimes people need to maybe

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load the weapon to have a key in the

lock that maybe they don't have, right?

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That's somewhere else.

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That extra moment of pause may give

them that extra pause that they need

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in order to not create that violence.

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Whether that's suicide or

harm harming someone else.

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And they're right.

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Gun owners are right.

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A lot of these laws are already in place.

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So enforcement is the key here.

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And when you look at the psychology

of that enforcement, a lot of times

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I don't wanna do it 'cause I have

other things to worry about right now.

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Someone had a car wreck I can't handle.

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Guess what?

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When someone has a gun violence,

that's probably, that's, that

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makes the nine o'clock news.

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A car wreck doesn't make the nine

o'clock the news sometimes, right?

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And so when we look at gun

violence, we see the worst of it.

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What it can do.

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And we also have issues where

in, in mentally ill people that,

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that have a tendency for violence

or violent people in general or

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violent people in general, period.

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They see that and become copycats.

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So the psychology is not just

a psychology of, oh, am I poor?

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Oh, am I down and out?

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Oh, did I just leave a war zone?

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There's a lot more issues than just that.

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And when we get down to the nitty

gritty of what the actual issue is,

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a lot of it has to do with their

personality and who they are as a person.

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So we need to nurture better

quality people in the school

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systems, better family units and

better and better friends, right?

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A lot of times people that are in

violent areas tend to gravitate

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towards violence because guess what?

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That's usually where the money is too.

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So there is a major issue

here that we need to solve.

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Now, is this an easy thing that

we can go out and solve it?

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No, because you have.

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We have one thing that's in

this biggest problem in this

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country is PAC money, right?

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We have big businesses that are,

whether you're the gun lobby or

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whether you're the lobby for, mothers

against drunk driving or gun violence.

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The lobbying again, needs to come

together and sit down and talk about

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the exact issues and get down to more,

more prevalent and more ideological

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ideas of fixing the problem as

opposed to screaming, yelling on.

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Jerremy: So Steven, you created and

built Quasar markets to identify risk.

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If you built a risk dashboard for

gun violence, what specific signals

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would you track that we are either

ignoring right now or probably

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not paying enough attention to?

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Would you call it credit data, social

isolation, or is there something else?

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Steven Orr: The one thing I've always

said Jerremy, and that's a great

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question too, is that when you look at.

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The beginnings of a person's life

and how they start to grow up, that's

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when the seeds need to be there first.

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I do not believe in a social or

credit score of a person because their

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socially a person changes over time.

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Their financial wellbeing changes over

time, and we do track that, but having

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a social score is not the answer when I

look at risk management, also, the key

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to risk management is also data, and

a lot of that data is not input into

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the databases, meaning a child comes up

and has a record of being a bully or it

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just gets swept under the rug, or that

kid, as grades have started to go down.

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We're not paying attention to those

kids' grades because something

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happened in their background.

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Maybe someone passed away and

something happened, right?

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So there's a lot of issues and I think

the main issue there is data in itself.

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Now, if I were to create that actual

database, I think I would bring

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it from school databases, right?

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Which we already do.

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We already, I already

import a lot of school data.

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I already import a lot of gun

data already into the system.

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But it's not about having one set of data.

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It's about correlating that

data with other pieces of data.

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And I think that's what AI does very well.

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It's things that we don't

really put together, right?

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Why?

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Why is something that happens in Japan

affect someone in the United States?

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Maybe it's someone that's violent, sees

violence around the world and says if

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they're doing it there, they can do it.

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Here.

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They see Ukraine and Russia, the number

of people that have passed away and killed

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in gunfire and drone drones and tanks.

374

:

The number of people that we're

looking at China looking to invade

375

:

Taiwan, we're looking at a present,

looking to quote, invade Greenland.

376

:

This is a lot that we as a

country, are having to digest.

377

:

And as we digest it, sometimes

people can't handle all of this.

378

:

Maybe there's an overload of news and an

overload of data, especially violent data.

379

:

Why?

380

:

Because violence in the

media is what sells.

381

:

It's what gets eyeballs,

382

:

and those eyeballs can push.

383

:

Alex: Steven owns guns, Defends the

Second Amendment hard, But he says

384

:

legislate psychology, not morality.

385

:

Most deaths are suicides — rural men,

veterans, The rest hit poor urban pockets.

386

:

Media has every stat and Almost

never leads with mental health.

387

:

That silence hangs there...

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About the Podcast

Solving America's Problems
Solving America’s Problems isn’t just a podcast—it’s a journey. Co-host Jerremy Newsome, a successful entrepreneur and educator, is pursuing his lifelong dream of running for president. Along the way, he and co-host Dave Conley bring together experts, advocates, and everyday Americans to explore the real, actionable solutions our country needs.

With dynamic formats—one-on-one interviews, panel discussions, and more—we cut through the noise of divisive rhetoric to uncover practical ideas that unite instead of divide. If you’re ready to think differently, act boldly, and join a movement for meaningful change, subscribe now.