[Paul:] All right. I want to show you some live pictures out of Paris right now as we continue to follow the developments there.
[Savidge:] Demonstrators are take thing to the streets over rising fuel costs. Police have been using teargas and water cannons against some of the 8,000 protestors. They have gathered in the French capital to express frustration with President Macron after tax hikes on diesel and gas. Macron is also pushing incentives to purchase electric vehicles. And many of the protesters take issue with the encouragement to move towards environmentally friendly policies, primarily because of the cost. Government officials blame Far-Right extremists for inflaming the tensions here. This is all occurring on the Champs-Elysees, you see the Arc de Triomphe in the background there. So one of the most famous streets in all the world and certainly one known to many Americans.
[Paul:] And just to clarify what you're looking at there, I know a lot of times we see something like this and we see people in yellow vest, and we think that those are authorities, they're police officers. They are not. The people in the yellow vests are the protesters. It's called the yellow vest protest, because there in Paris, everyone has a yellow vest in their car. And it seems like this may have taken the scope of it may have taken authorities by surprise. You see there is something burning. It looks like it may have been a vehicle at one point. But as Martin said, tear gas has been used, water cannons have been used to try to get everybody under some sort of control, and that just doesn't seem to be happening today. So, we'll keep you posted on what's happening there. Let's talk about the gun debate. Gun debate here in America, two big groups now seeming to go head to head, the NRA versus the nation's doctors. Earlier this month, a medical journal suggested new ways for doctors to reduce gun violence, such as asking patients if they have guns in their homes, counseling them about gun safety. Well, the NRA, not so happy about that. They went to Twitter and said basically someone needs to tell these doctors to stay in their lane. So doctors decided to share some photos, showing the damage that gun shots can do. Please let me forewarn you here, I do not want you to be taken off- guard, these are graphic photos and they're hard to look at. But this is from Dr. Kathrine Holte, here we go. She tweeted this photo saying, I am a trauma surgeon, this is what it looks like. #StayInMyLane #ThisisMyLane. And there were thousands of others doing the same thing. That picture isn't actually loading properly, but it is a bloody scene of them in an emergency room treating a gunshot victim. Dr. Joseph Sakran, who is a survivor of gun violence himself is with us now, as well as Dr. Brendan Campbell who is also a member of the NRA. I appreciate both of you for being here, thank you. I wanted to ask you Dr. Campbell, first and foremost, you own guns. You must in some way be feel like you are caught in the middle here. What is your perspective as a gun owner?
[Dr. Brendan Campbell, Pediatric Surgeon:] Well, first and foremost, I'm not a member of National Rifle Association, but I am a gun owner. I'm a hunter, I've owned guns for a long time. But it's not really about being caught in the middle, it's about finding ways to find common ground, gun owners, non-gun owners alike and to use a public health approach to try and make some meaningful progress on this issue. I think the one downside to this, this is my lane, this is not my lane argument is we are all in this together, and if we polarize the debate, we're not going to make progress on it. So, it's very important that we work collaboratively together on this to make some meaningful progress.
[Paul:] So, Dr. Sakran, I know that you're somebody who sees this violence all the time, you've experienced it yourself. You were hit with a bullet, I believe when you were 17. What would you like to say to the NRA?
[Dr. Joseph Sakran, Emergency General Surgery Director, Johns Hopkins:] Well good morning. I think that type of rhetoric that we heard, to me, is just a clear demonstration of the lack of understanding of how complex a health problem this is. And to think that health professionals are not part of the solution is unacceptable and I think this kind of goes along with the false narrative that is an attempt to polarize this debate. Like you heard from Dr. Campbell, I think it's very clear, when I've talked to hundreds if not thousands of gun owners, we have a lot more in common than divides us on this issue. I want to real quickly just give another heads-up to our audience here. We do have that picture for you, and I just think it's appropriate to show it now, because Dr. Sakran, you were talking about how you are on the frontlines of this because you are the ones treating people for gunshot wounds and emergency rooms. Is there a space do you think Dr. Campbell, is there a space for gun right advocates and the medical community to craft solutions together, or is it too inflamed?
[Campbell:] Well, there's absolutely an opportunity. I mean we have a common purpose here, right, it's to reduce firearm injury and to make firearm ownership as safe as possible. And I think the American College of Surgeons Firearms Strategy Team, which I'm a part of, just published 13 recommendations for how we can make the United States safer. And we're not the first ones to do this, but we're the first group of gun-owning physicians to support these types of recommendations. There are things as simple as universal background checks and providing federal funding for research on this issue. We have to start treating this problem the same way we're treating our patients. We identify what the best treatments are for it doesn't matter whether it's a tumor or whether it's trauma, what are the best solutions and we need to implement them. Dr. Sakran, was there ever a moment, when Dr. Campbell talks about some of these recommendations, and again some of them are counseling patients on gun safety, asking parents if they have guns in the home. Is there ever a moment where you look and think I am a doctor, I did not think these were the conversations I was going to have to have as part of my career?
[Sakran:] Well, I think the fact is that, this is a public health crisis that we're facing. We just saw the CDC and FDA put out a warning to Americans that we should throw away all our lettuce, and that was because 32 individuals were infected with E. coli and 13 were hospitalized. When you look at that same time period, 240 children were shot and 78 died. So we must have the same type of proportional response that mirrors the burden of disease that we're facing. And I think us working together with other individuals is the only way we're going to come up with common-sense solutions to reduce firearm injury and death in this country.
[Paul:] Dr. Campbell, your final thoughts here.
[Campbell:] Well I think Dr. Sakran is right on target. This is an issue that we've known about for a long time and it hasn't gotten the same amount of attention in terms of federally funded research and discussion by that it deserves. And I think, if we're going to make meaningful progress on this issue, gun owners and non-gun owners, we're going to have to find ways to collaborate and work together.
[Paul:] All right, Dr. Joseph Sakran and Dr. Brendan Campbell, thank you both so much for making time for us today.
[Sakran:] Thanks for having us.
[Campbell:] Thanks for having us this morning.
[Paul:] Absolutely.
[Savidge:] An American missionary's last letter detailed his desire to evangelize the people who ended up killing him. We'll tell you what else we've learned, next.