Episode 172

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Published on:

11th Feb 2026

Why does money drive gun violence?

Gun violence doesn't happen in a vacuum—it's tied to money, misinformation, and public health. Jerremy Alexander Newsome and Dave Conley dive into reform with former U.S. Congresswoman Marie Newman, who shares her personal journey and holistic approach to gun ownership. They explore the role of the NRA, the influence of money, and practical solutions to reduce gun violence.

Timestamps:

  1. (00:00) Gun reform starts here – violence connects directly to money, misinformation, public health
  2. (00:38) Marie Newman's entry – former Congresswoman brings personal experience to the table
  3. (01:33) Holistic reform exposed – gun ownership needs full view beyond just politics
  4. (03:50) Life changes matter – personal journeys shape real activism on guns
  5. (06:04) Activism hits walls – politics creates constant barriers for change
  6. (06:37) Money corrupts policy – financial power dictates gun violence outcomes

Connect:

  1. Marie Newman – Website | Bluesky | Facebook | Instagram | Substack

🌍 Connect with us: Instagram | YouTube | X

🎧 Listen to Episodes → Here

Transcript
Jerremy:

After every shooting, the same arguments come back

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on que, but the question.

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That actually matters is

the one we rarely ask.

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What changes, outcomes,

not just headlines.

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My name is Jerremy Alexander Newsom.

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I'm joined as always by my

co-host Dave Conley, and this

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is Solving America's Problems.

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This is our fourth conversation

on guns in America.

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We've covered the history.

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The rights case from gun owners and a

Psychology First Systems view of reform.

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Today we go straight to the

reform case with someone who

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has spent years working on this.

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From the ground up, we are joined

by the honorable Marie Newman.

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Former US Congresswoman from Illinois,

and a longtime gun reform advocate before

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Congress, she was a national spokesperson

for Mom's Demand action in Congress.

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She argued that gun violence

doesn't happen in a vacuum.

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and She approaches this not just

as politics, but as a public health

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problem that demands real solutions.

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Congresswoman Newman, welcome to the show.

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Congresswoman, before we get into policy,

do you mind just giving us an idea of

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when you say doesn't happen in a vacuum?

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Marie Newman: Okay

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Jerremy: what does that mean?

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Marie Newman: so nothing happens

in the world in a vacuum, right?

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This is we're all humans interacting

and humans are unpredictable

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interesting animals, right?

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And we have inst instincts, we have

intellect, we have emotion, right?

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And.

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What I typically say about gun reform

writ large is that it's gonna take all

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of us because originally, NRA actually

was a revered organization, right?

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They did good training, they

were helpful about storage.

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They were good with schools.

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They did a lot of really good work.

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And then, as we all know, Wayne LaPierre

decided that this should be a moneymaking

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venture and an extension of the major

gun manufacturers in the late nineties.

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And that's very unfortunate.

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'cause what was a really.

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Good organization fell prey to capitalism.

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So it's a, it's symbolic of where

everything went is that, everything

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is always about money, right?

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The root of the problem interestingly

is money and misinformation, right?

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Which is frequently the case

in any troubled area, right?

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From a gun reform perspective, how I

always approached it and when I would

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talk to gun rights friends and advocates

is that yeah, everybody should have

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the right to have a gun if they're

healthy and they know how to use it.

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Totally.

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Literally I.

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Dozens of friends that are hunters, right?

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If you wanna be a hunter, you

just like target practice.

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That's a fun sporting activity for you.

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If you feel like you need to have

that in your home for protection, you

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live out in the middle of nowhere or

you live in a place you feel unsafe.

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Godspeed, but you must be a healthy

person and you must know how to use it.

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You must know how to store it, and

you must know how to manage your

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life with all of those people.

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So it's about the holistic approach.

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Nothing happens in a vacuum because we

have to live as a full robust human,

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but we also have to live in society.

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So that's my general perspective.

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Dave: A couple of things that

occurred to me, one of them I think

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we'll talk a little bit later.

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I just want to put a pin in it,

which is it, there's so much money

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involved in this and it seems like

from a congressional point of view,

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from a legislator point of view, that

there's so much money to do nothing.

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But I wanna hold on that for a second.

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Because, most of, I'm old enough to

remember that most of this happened

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in the Clinton administration.

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That was the last major reforms,

and we had a member of the Clinton

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administration on last week.

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But I'm jumping ahead.

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I'm

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Marie Newman: Yeah.

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Dave: talking about the

human aspect of this.

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Really for you, was there a moment

in your life, a split, like a before

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and after, where, something that

occurred or something in your life?

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Marie Newman: Yeah, a few things.

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I had a few, what I would say turning

points in because I go in the way

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back machine to Million Mom March.

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I worked with that group.

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And I first of all, I should say probably

the first time it really was on my

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radar in a very visceral way was I was

held up at gunpoint and knife point.

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In my twenties.

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And I could tell that even, I think

I was 26 at the time I could tell

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the young man that was in front of

me and his friend, they were babies.

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They were like 18 and

they were very scared too.

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Now I was lucky.

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Two restaurant workers came out

of the alley and and saved me,

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and it was forever in their debt.

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The two ran off.

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I don't think they were ever caught,

but I don't think they were going to

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harm me, but they may have, when you're

scared, you do very dumb things, so

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I guess that was point number one,

but I never really got active in the

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gun reform movement at that point.

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It just really settled in me

and it's forever emblazoned

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on my heart and my head.

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Then when I think the next turning

point was Columbine, because I had

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my, literally my newborn baby next

to me, a month old not even quite

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a month old, maybe three weeks old.

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And Columbine happened and I, and

I'm not even a big crier guys,

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like I don't really cry that.

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And but I was a hot mess for three

days and I realized as soon as I get.

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Back into the world.

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'cause I was on maternity leave.

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I am going to do something about this.

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And I did I started working

with million Mom March, and

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then the third time was Sandy.

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And then I had waned for a while.

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I'll be honest, like I wasn't real active.

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In the two thousands the aughts,

like I was, not, I was busy.

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I had little kids and

all the things, right?

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But then when Sandy Hook happened,

I was like, oh, no ma'am.

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No ma'am.

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I am on this.

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And so I joined moms Demand Action.

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And so those were the three kind

of pivotal periods that really

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boosted me into where I am today.

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Jerremy: Yeah.

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Perfect.

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Thank you so much for sharing.

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And so since you brought it up,

you've been a Moms Demand Action

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spokesperson and you've also

had to count votes in Congress.

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Marie Newman: Yep.

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Jerremy: What's the biggest lie activists

tell themselves about how change happens?

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I.

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Marie Newman: so lie, that's

an interesting word, right?

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So I'm a ridiculously

optimistic and hopeful person.

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So

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Jerremy: Me too.

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Marie Newman: You may think

right, like to a fault where

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I'm like, oh no, we can do this.

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And so I guess.

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I guess I don't buy into the lie

theory, but let's go with it.

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I think the, false hope activists

give each other frequently is

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that it can be done quickly and

it never can be done quickly,

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particularly when money's involved.

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And I just wanna be clear, the

NRA gives millions and millions of

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dollars to the mostly Republicans.

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'cause I think there's maybe

only one Democrat that takes

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in Congress takes an NRA money.

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And I say that because, honestly,

bad decisions are made every day.

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The reason we don't have healthcare

for all in this country is because of

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money and corporate donations to all of

Congress, both Democrats and Republicans.

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The reason our drugs are all too

expensive and people die every day is

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because of money given to all members

of Congress, Democrats and Republicans.

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The reason that we have the.

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Prison system that we have

that's highly ineffective.

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And by the way, I'm a very big

fan of punishment when due.

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So you do have to go to jail

when you've done something wrong.

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But our system is awful and doesn't work.

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That's because of money and politics.

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The reason that we have trouble

around this nation with everything

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from social media to raising our

kids and all the things and is.

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Of money in politics, right?

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So for me, the way I, the frame

I always look at it is that

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activists can say rah, si.

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But until you get money outta politics,

you ain't going nowhere, baby.

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I gotta tell you.

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Dave: Would you say that there's

I think I, I heard a interview

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with representative Luna.

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She said that there's plenty of

money to not solve the problem.

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Meaning that they're giving,

basically giving to, to everybody.

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They're giving to the activist side,

they're giving to the reform side, and

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they're giving to the, both sides of this.

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And we're saying, okay, let's

keep this messy so that there

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is no substantive reform.

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Marie Newman: Oh, I think

that she's accurate there.

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I actually have never spoken

to Congresswoman Luna, but

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I think that's accurate.

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I think that, a lot of money is thrown

at the problem, but until those five

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hundred and thirty five hundred and

thirty five people in both chambers

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decide that something's gonna get

done and it has teeth in it, it won't.

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And so while she's right that

gosh, mom's demand acted and

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every town is pretty well funded.

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The NRA is ridiculously well funded,

and they receive a lot of foreign money.

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They outbeat us, I think nine to one.

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It's it's just not gonna get none.

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So it's the game of more money.

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And the same thing happens in healthcare

and a million different industries.

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So it's not, I'm just telling

you, money and politics.

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If you have a problem that isn't

being solved, it is because of money.

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Jerremy: You made an

incredible statement there.

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I think everyone would agree

with you also, by the way,

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Marie Newman: Yeah.

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Jerremy: and just the overwhelmingly,

the overwhelming awareness that the

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challenge, if you are an American citizen

and you're facing a very large challenge,

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the reason it hasn't been fixed is most

likely because someone is getting rich

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off of you not being healthier or better.

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Marie Newman: Ding

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Jerremy: wow.

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Marie Newman: Ding.

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You are absolutely correct.

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I, having seen it, these

lobbyists are very powerful and

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the organizations are bullies.

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They are, the NRA is a bully.

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I get why some of these

Republican Congress people

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continue to take the money.

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Because money, these people are scary.

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I'm just straight up.

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They're scary.

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It's not

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just money.

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Jerremy: Not to go down a crazy

tangent, but I would just love to

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get some insight from someone so

knowledgeable and so aware of this.

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When you say they get the

money, like what does that mean?

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Are they getting a check

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Marie Newman: Yeah, so there.

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Yeah, so the, there's a bunch of ways

they can receive money for the NRA.

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So there's a thing called you

can have your own committee pack,

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which is your campaign pack, right?

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It's the bank account from which

you run your, all your campaigns

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and your political side of your of

your life being in office, right?

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So they can give directly to that.

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So that pack check hacks out it, I

think five or 10,000 depending on if

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you're in the house of the Senate.

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You can also when you're

running for Congress, whether

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you're an existing member.

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Or a candidate, you can have the NRA and

there's 50 affiliates, just so you know.

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There's.

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Like 50 subgroups.

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They can all give into a super

pac, which is, there's no cap.

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They can give them millions of

dollars, they can give them $5, right?

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There, those are two methodologies

how candidates and members of Congress

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receive money for their campaigns.

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They can also run an independent

expenditure, which is a, another

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type of funding vehicle where

several entities can come together,

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call it something sunshiny like.

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Progress for tomorrow,

or sunshine on Thursdays.

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And it always cracks me up like the

names they choose, but regardless.

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That independent expenditure

model you can use too.

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And then all of the members of the

executive team at all of the gun

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manufacturers can give you and they

can max out as a couple so they can,

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depending on house or Senate, it can

be $10,000 or more, so on and on.

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It gets funneled in a

bunch of different ways.

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And then you can get other related, so

the bullet companies, the the gun range

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chains, the, all of the, think about the

industry, like everybody in the industry

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can jump on the bandwagon, so that's why

it's well funded and then all of the folks

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that you know, and as I'm sure you're

very learned in this space that 83% of

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all NRA members want training, storage

and all of the things and don't want

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people that are ill health to have things.

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That's very clear.

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It's just overwhelming.

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There's been a hundred studies,

NRA has done studies like,

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so it's not the gun owners.

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It's the money people

that are the problem.

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Jerremy: Wow.

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That is fascinating.

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So when you, when we say problem,

because you and I also and Dave and

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probably a lot of other people, to

your point, the NRA, they, we've done

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tests, they call and have called gun

violence, a public health crisis.

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Can you, for all of our listeners, help

us translate that into plain English?

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Like what are the risk factors

and what are the interventions?

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Marie Newman: So the reason that

we, that, we call it a a health

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epidemic or a health crisis

population or a public health crisis.

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It's a lot of, clinically it

meets that standard, right?

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Is that is it now 40 or

50,000 people die a year?

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A third of them are suicides.

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And then.

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I forget the number now.

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I'm, I haven't seen

this number in a while.

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Probably in a year and a half.

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The number of people that

are simply shot but survive,

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right?

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When anything is that lethal, clinically,

you are allowed to call it either an

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epidemic or a public health crisis.

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So it meets muster in

terms of the definition.

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No problem.

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It's right up there with

cancer and heart disease.

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So it, public health definition.

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That's correct.

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The problem is that, not

unlike some diseases.

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It's not just the, okay, you

have to take the medication.

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No so with mental health, right?

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You have to take the medication.

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You have to live healthy, have a

good diet, exercise, get sleep,

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and have healthy relationships.

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But the third piece of the

stool and mental health is you

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have to retrain your brain.

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Most mental health

patients refuse to do that.

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'cause that's the hardest work.

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And I know this very clearly 'cause

mental health is all over my family.

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So I have worked this program for

30 years and yelled at insurance

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companies and pharmacy benefit

managers and the whole deal.

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But I know this to be true.

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That aside there are, there

is no, I will call it.

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Like a general contractor on a

house construction that manages

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all of those spaces, right?

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That manages the health component,

the societal and the traditional

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component, the the physical

health, the mental health.

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Nobody manages all of that to

address said public health crisis.

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So now we are back to the money problem.

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There's no, the money source to

put together a more robust program.

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So then we go to best practices, right?

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So I'm a former management consultant.

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I tend to look at who's done

things well so that you can adapt,

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innovate, and do it better, right?

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There are a bunch of different approaches.

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You can go blanketly like Australia

and say, Hey, nobody can have guns.

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We had a good experiment in the

nineties when we saw that when

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we take away assault weapons.

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Wow.

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Both all kinds of death goes down

when assault weapons go away from

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the general public, allowing military

and obviously law enforcement to

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have what they need in terms of

semi-automatic and automatic weapons.

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But the general public

did not, and it worked.

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Then the manufacturers the the gun

manufacturers got super mad and

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started paying everybody off again.

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And we are where we are so

you can take a big chunk.

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We're never gonna get rid of it.

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That's silly to, anyone who says,

oh, we're gonna end all gun violence,

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that's, we are going to reduce,

we can reduce it dramatically.

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We can reduce it dramatically,

and we can do it.

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It just takes, a full 360 approach, right?

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Jerremy: Yeah.

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Yep.

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To, to your point 60, I

think it's two thirds, right?

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Over 60% of gun deaths are suicides.

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And if we treat that as impulse meets

access, what would you say is the least

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invasive intervention, inter intervention,

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That would save the most

lives in that situation?

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Marie Newman: So the prevailing knowledge

used to be Jerremy that the, that the

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background check and the waiting period.

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But it kept on getting struck.

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So three days doesn't do anything.

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You can stay angry for three months.

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So it's that's a kind of a silly, like

I'm Irish, I hold a grudge once in a

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while, it takes me a little bit longer

to get over things than the average joke.

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So I think that again, and we're

back to the holistic approach.

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I don't think it's any one thing.

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I think that we need to expand you need

to require training a full on health

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assessment background checks and then six

months to a year before an average person.

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'cause yes, we need guns for law

enforcement and military and all

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of the things, but average Joe.

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Doesn't he have an

emergency gun situation?

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Nobody should be getting a gun in

an emergency fashion, so we must

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require that they have full training,

like six to eight weeks of training.

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Full on, get a certification, then you

have two weeks of storage training,

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and then you have six months to a

year to wait and think about it.

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But in that time, you also have to

have a psychological evaluation and a

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full health physical health evaluation.

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Then you should be gifted a

gun if you're just an average

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person, because there's no.

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Target practice emergency

that you need it for.

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There's no hunting emergency

that you need it for.

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There is no if you live in a place

where you don't feel protected in your

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home, do other things till you get

said gun, there and there are, you can

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get ring doorbells and have the local

police protect you and all the things.

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So

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Jerremy: Yeah.

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Marie Newman: it's a full approach.

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It's not just one thing.

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Jerremy: Yeah.

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Makes sense.

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Dave, it looks like you had a question.

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Dave: I certainly speaking to.

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And advocates and even reform-minded

people that, that have guns.

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This is where I struggle.

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The politics around.

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This is very much on, on all the

things that you just mentioned, the

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waiting periods, the assault style

bans the, size of the magazines.

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I hear you.

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I, and I understand it because, if you

change that, then you see this result.

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And then on the other side with

the people who own guns and

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the advocates, they're like.

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This doesn't move the bar for the vast

majority of people because the vast

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majority of what we call gun violence

happens with men, happens, men killing

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themselves, and the vast majority of

those are our veterans that aren't

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getting the help that they need.

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Marie Newman: a hundred percent.

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Dave: Then the other mass part of this is

hyper localized 50 zip codes with youth

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on youth violence in urban settings.

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These are also young men who, aren't

getting the help that they need

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or the communities that they need.

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I hear you Congresswoman

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Ann.

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Marie Newman: So

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Dave: It feels like that there's simple

things that we could do like mental

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health and helping our veterans and

stop invading countries and 50 zip

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codes with a million dollars that,

that bring, men helping young youth.

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And I'm like, that's great.

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And we don't have to, run people

through training and the rest of that,

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which I personally agree with, but

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I it's, it feels lipstick on

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Marie Newman: Yeah.

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So that, so what those remedies

I talked about are for folks that

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are thinking about buying a gun.

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So the.

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There's 350 million guns out there in the

US and I think a million people own those.

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Said three, 350 million guns.

389

:

I think that's the one I

looked at last about last year.

390

:

So those a hundred million people that

own guns and own multiple guns, now some

391

:

of them only won, some of them own 27.

392

:

You're right.

393

:

That doesn't do a whole lot for them.

394

:

So then it becomes the question of the

back to the root source and it's, who are

395

:

we isolating and where's the money, right?

396

:

So it's money in isolation.

397

:

So usually when gun owners feel the need

to use their gun in an inappropriate

398

:

way, they're isolated depressed, angry

they have they have few opportunity

399

:

economic opportunities, right?

400

:

So all those things and it can

be one or all of them, right?

401

:

So for me.

402

:

I feel like when we talk about

this with the, those a hundred

403

:

million gun owners is we can't go

back and scoop up all those guns.

404

:

That's a silly idea and it's a bit

anti-constitutional, so we can't do that.

405

:

Alex: If we’re serious about

outcomes—not slogans—this next

406

:

part is the pressure test.

407

:

Dave and Jerremy push past “ban vs.

408

:

no-ban” into the suicide reality,

and Marie lays out a full-path gate

409

:

to ownership… with a few surprises.

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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.