Dr. Jonathan Metzl, Vanderbilt University:

Well, I wouldn't say that it's wrong.

I will say that I have spent the last five years doing a very deep dive into a very traumatic and racially charged mass shooting that happened here in my hometown of Nashville. And what I found was that, on one hand, I wished — I'm an advocate for gun laws. I think we need stronger national gun laws.

But as I uncovered the before and after of the case and really tracked the story of how not just a mentally ill white man, but a naked white man — he walked into the Waffle House naked — how did a guy like that even get a gun? How did he get to the Waffle House in South Nashville? And what happened afterwards?

And as I uncovered that story, I started to realize that a lot of the positions that I had been advocating for, background checks, red flag laws, they're vitally important, but not only would they have not stopped this shooting, but they, for me, spoke to the bigger issues that I address in the book about race and violence and guns in America.

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