I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Wednesday, July 7th.

With us now are three authors of a field research report published last year that dug into the reasons why young men

carry guns in the hopes that they can shed some light into why the use of guns has escalated

and maybe what can be done about it. The Center for Court Innovation is the group that

released the report and it's titled got to make Your Own Heaven, Guns, Safety, and

the Edge of Adulthood in New York City. And to talk about their findings and recommendations

and react to the news, were joined by the research director, Rachel Swannner, at the Center

for Court Innovation, their deputy research director, Elise White, and Basim Spate, a community-based

research coordinator. So welcome back to the show, Rachel Swanner, and Elise White, and welcome

Bacem Spate. Good morning. Good morning, Grant. Happy to be here.

Rachel Swannner, this study, we should say, doesn't look at how many kids in the city are carrying

guns, but the reasons they do?

Right.

So we talked to 330 people, young people ages 16 to 24, in three different neighborhoods

in New York City that hide high levels of gun violence.

So Morissania in the Bronx, Brownsville in Brooklyn, and East Harlem in Manhattan. And we wanted

to know gun violence is increasing in cities and it's often attributed to youth gang conflicts.

And young folks are often the primary victims and perpetrators. So we wanted to try to

understand what are the reasons young people are carrying guns? What are their social networks like, and what roles do guns play in these networks?

And Elise White, who exactly did you try to reach in your interviews?

And what were you asking them?

So we wanted to look specifically at 16 to 24-year-olds because we know that that's the age

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