Welcome back to the Sydney Journal podcast.

I'm your host, Charles Finn Lehman, senior editor of City Journal.

Joining me on the panel today are Carolyn Gorman, responsible for all things mental health policy at the Manhattan Institute, Renamukji, responsible for a variety of things educational and ethnicity related at the Manhattan Institute, and Ilya Shapiro, who fights the good fight for the Constitution at the Manhattan Institute. Thank you all for joining me today. I want to take us into the more serious news of the day, or more precisely earlier this week.

As I think most of our listeners will know by now on Monday evening, after we recorded the Monday podcast, a shooter opened fire in the lobby of 345 Park Avenue, which is actually not that far from Manhattan Institute's offices in Manhattan.

He killed four people, including NYPD officer, did a rural Islam, a Bangladeshi immigrant, a father of two, a husband to a wife expecting their third child who's working off duty.

The suspect, Shane Tamar, also killed himself.

A note found in his pocket claimed he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalophathy, CTE, and he may have been targeting the NFL offices in the building, although it's a little bit unclear. So this is, you know, among other things, a shocking event. A very high profile shooting in New York, the second one this year fits in with sort of a broader theme of violence and terrorism, but I think it's just left a lot of people feeling uneasy. You know, what was your response to this event as people who are, I think everyone in the call is not is not New York local, but obviously we're all in New York on a regular basis. So what, you know, what was your? Charles, 25 years ago, I was a summer associate just a couple of blocks from there.

So I know very well where that is. I could picture what happened. It did hit home in a way,

even though that I don't live there. But this strikes me as somewhat different than the political

violence or civil terrorism.

This guy might have had mental health issues. I'll let Carolyn to speak to that. But if his beef was

with football and the NFL, who knows whether his brain's going to be autopsied now, whether he really does have CTE.

This is just an unfortunate confluence of things. And, you know, people are trying to make, there's a little bit of

commentary about guns because he, you know, drove from Nevada. We shouldn't have got it. It's, it's none of that. It,

it seemed like a freak thing. And it's just gotten a lot of attention because it happened in the

center of the financial universe rather than some suburb or rural area.

Yeah, I mean, the first thing I'll say is I just personally have no interest whatsoever in amplifying any message that this shooter was trying to send whether or not, you know,

we think it's justified.

I just think we as a society should not be willing to accept gun violence

as appropriate, full stop. Like we, we shouldn't be willing to excuse this. It was like a premeditated

action. And, you know, for what? Some perceived slight, some, you know, there might have been some issue, some like trauma issue,

head trauma issue, but we're still not totally sure. And I think the same thing can be said

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