This is the legal disclaimer where I tell you that the views thoughts and opinions shared on this podcast belong solely to our guests and hosts, and not necessarily Brady or Brady's affiliates. Please note, this podcast contains discussions of violence that some people may find disturbing. It's okay, we find it disturbing too. Hey, everybody, welcome back to another episode of Red, Blue and Brady. And as a reminder, I am JJ
Kelly Sampson:and I am Kelly.
JJ Janflone:And together, we host this podcast.
Kelly Sampson:And we're excited because today we have part two of our podcast with the amazing Patience Murray. And if you haven't listened to Part One who we forgive you, but you need to go listen to it right now.
JJ Janflone:Yeah, we'll wait for you to come back we'll sit here for 48 minutes.
Kelly Sampson:Yes, we'll sit here for 48 minutes, and you should go listen to it because in it Pateince talks about what it was like to survive the Pulse nightclub shooting, her journey to physical wellness after being shot twice, and meeting her husband, the brother of one of the victims and Patience's friend 18 year old Akira Marie.
JJ Janflone:In this episode, we're continuing the discussion with Patience as she tells us about how her faith has helped her to heal what it's like being a survivor in the public eye, and how survivors should be treated. And of course, you know, we're going to talk about the release of her new song"philly never seen."
Kelly Sampson:One of the things that I've heard you say is that healing does not have a final destination. Can we talk about what that means for you as a gun violence survivor?
Patience Murray:It's exciting now. It's exciting. Now at first, that fear of the unknown terrified me. Right? It terrified me so much that I was willing to voluntarily self destruct just for the security of knowing that I made that choice for myself, and that no gunman or no situation could make me self destruct. That's how afraid I was of the future of life of becoming. And the reason why I was afraid of becoming was because I had so many negative thoughts and I was afraid. What would these thoughts evolved to when I become a mother? What will these thoughts evolve to when I become a wife? What will these thoughts evolve to when I'm trying to counsel people? I was afraid that and I was conscious of the fact that in the sense that these it was getting worse and worse and worse. And I didn't go to therapy, I voluntarily chose not to go to therapy because I felt like I could do it on my own. And I realized, well, no, you can't. And I didn't realize that until years on end of getting to a place where I'm so broken, where I'm so negative all the time, and I can't even enjoy these beautiful moments, and I'm gonna be real, on my wedding day, I could have been in a more positive headspace to enjoy the magic of what was happening. And the realization And I literally had to ask God that like what is going on with that even that I didn't fully appreciate, I realized it was something wrong with me. It was definitely something wrong with me. And I had to be honest with God. I was like god, I can't do this. I can't do this. I cannot sit here and continue to go another day. Like literally, I felt like I couldn't go one more day, I remember where I was, I was in the bathroom. And here I was in this bathroom, crying my eyes out like literally, I will put a towel, that was my thing, I would put a towel down on the floor. Nobody would notice except my husband has noticed but I'll put a towel down for now just later like curled up in a little ball. And just crying and sad and feeling worthless. And feeling like nobody loves me and feeling like nobody cares about what I went through and feeling like I shouldn't even be here. Feeling this displacemen with my life and my purpos until I really felt so low. An I started to realize lik looking at myself, like outwar looking and like this is wha you're doing right now. Lik you're the same girl who jus had this Emmy nominated doc series about how you found love You have a book out calle Survivors lives, helping peop e get through their traumas. A d here you are on the floor, n the bathroom, crying her ey s out. And you have no reas n technically, to be crying yo r eyes out. So what is going o? me? I'm lost. I'm confused. I thought I had had it together. At some point that facade just started falling, falling out and nothing was left but those broken pieces. And I asked God to fix me like can you fix me? These are my thoughts God literally verbatim telling him I feel like killing myself. I feel like no one loves me. I feel like my husband doesn't love me and I know my husband loved me, you know, and not even being able to give or receive love from my own stepdaughter was difficult. And that in that was so difficult because I was already a hurt person, I realized as much as I said this hurt people hurt people, but it' the truth, hurt people hur people. And if you don't want t be a person that's hurtin others in life, you have to dea with your hurt. And you have to understand what's the root of your hurt. And I realized that he root of my hurt was my m ther believing when I was two y ars old. So I kind of held my b eath. And I didn't realize, I d dn't realize that I was h lding my breath since I was t at little girl in P iladelphia, waiting for my m ther to come back. And I didn't realize it, I realized it more when I was in the hospital, just hoping that at the result of what I realized, like what a press conference was, once I realized that a press conference means that whatever you know you do is going to be on TV, I instantly thought what if my mother sees me. And it kind of created this false hope of me thinking that my mother is going to see me. So I never let anybody know this, though. Only I knew this. No one around me knew that I was holding on to this hope that my mother was going to call. And she hadn't in 20 years. But I knew that this was going to be the moment that my mother was going to call. So I never said it out loud. So I thought I didn't make it real, right. But the fact is, I really did have this hope that my mother that wasn't in my life for 20 years was suddenly going to call because she saw me on the news and everybody's you know, talking about the poem. So I'm like, she's definitely gonna see this. Years go by. Never got a call. And I realized that did hurt. Ouch. I don't need my mom. Yeah, I do need my parents to be there for me, right? And I'm like, God, that's never gonna happen. How can I heal from this? Because how can I be a great stepmother? With with this fear, with this pain still here? How can I just heal and move on and give joy to others when I cannot let this go? I just can't let it go. But once I finally confessed that that was the issue that I was having. All of a sudden, all of that depression, all of that anger, all of that sadness, all of that fear of the unknown. Fear of myself of who I would become all that went away, once I forgave her. Number one for leaving, because I realized that just like how I was in the bathroom, nobody knows. Nobody understands what's really going into going on in my little head, because I'd never said out loud that Hey, guys, the reason why I'm acting so crazy. The reason why I'm giving everybody attitude, but I'm acting like a, you know, the perfect saint for other people is because I'm angry, I'm angry at my mother. I'm angry at the thought of my mother. I'm angry at the fact that she still hasn't called. So had nothing to do with directly with Pulse right? It was the response I had hoped to receive because of Pulse. And because I didn't get that response that I wanted. Because I thought that guy Well, this obviously has to do the blessing attached with my mother is going to call when God didn't give me what I wanted. I got angry, not only with the situation, but with God. So I cut off that communication for years. And when I realized that I've now on the floor, in the bathroom, crying my eyes out that because I had spiritually turned away. I realized I had to return and just be real with God like God, I was mad. I'm mad for a lot of things and just list those things. And that freed me not only from my own self hate, but it freed me space on the inside to receive joy. And I realize whoa, I got a lot of love. So even though I don't have my mother, I just you know, look a little crazy. I still have love. I have lots of love in my husband. I have lots of love in my stepdaughter. I have lots of love just in the community of Orlando alone. So I started to understand like Patience, you're you go you've gone every single day of your life since Pulse just hating yourself on the inside. When all these people love you, like all these people genuinely love you. So just get to the root and and for the people that are struggling right now. Whether it's recovering from COVID, right? Whether it's recovering from a mass shooting, the one percenters I get your pain, whether it's every day violent situation, because let's be real. Gun Violence happens every single day, especially in black communities. So and just feeling othered in certain situations I get how that feels too. All of those things, are not to get forgotten. All of those things are not to be forgotten. And I was the girl on the floor in the bathroom who wrote a book, who had an Emmy nominated docu series, who was supposed to be this ultimate survivor. That girl was broken. And she did a good job of putting on a front. But don't do that don't put on the front. If you're hurting, say you're hurting, because hurt people hurt people. And if you don't want to be those people hurting other people then get to the root of your hurt.
JJ Janflone:And hurt people hurt themselves too. Right? And I think another thing that makes it so hard, is there's not a roadmap, there's no one size fits all solution for survivors of gun violence that can guide folks...
Patience Murray:You're right. There isn't this one example of this one roadmap that you can follow, because even finding one, even that was messy, and as beautiful as that sounds of finding love in tragedy, right? That also brings these other dynamics of people not being ready to receive that love, because of their own hurt. And because they're dealing with the loss of a daughter, they're not ready to gain a new one. Right? That deep. But that's the that's the experience that it was. And I was already feeling less than right because of my own mother problems. Right. So not feeling received, or validated in some way was soul crushing, to say the least. And then to have an entire docu series, following these moments of, aren't you supposed to be so happy? And these are the happiest moments. But knowing that all this other stuff was going on in the background and dealing with just the thoughts of feeling so unworthy, just feeling just not worthy enough. But still getting in front of a camera saying, you know, I'm okay. And this is the best time of my life, when really, there was great moments at that time that I thank God for. But it was a painful moments too. So don't expect that everything is just going to be peaches and cream and smooth once you get to a certain part of it, or just because you do get to this certain understanding, there's always going to be more levels to learn. And there's always going to be more to unravel, it's never going to get to this point where, okay, I've got everything that I need. And I'm gonna go ahead and go back to my real life now. No, it's not like that. It's definitely not like that. But I'm grateful for my husband. Because even through all of that, and he was dealing with his own part of it, too, he lost his best friend. Akyra was his best friend. And a lot of the reason why we even fell in love is because he would talk to me about Akyra, just for hours just talking to me just talking to me. And that built that friendship first, that quickly evolved into a romantic relationship that quickly evolved into more drama and more problems. But then, after weathering those storms, and that's what it is you got to keep weathering the storms, and it's never going to be easy, it's never going to be just okay. And yes, you are going to have to deal with compiled trauma, the trauma of your childhood on top of the trauma, whatever you experienced on top of the trauma of response to that, that experience in itself, you're going to have to constantly constantly reaffirm your faith. And you have to be okay with going into the unknown. The unknown is scary. The fear of the unknown, that's real. But try to look at it from a sense of how is God gonna do something amazing from this? How is God gonna turn this all around, you know, because it's got to be something, it's got to be some deeper meaning behind all of it. And it is because none of us are here by accident. None of us are here by accident, or by chance. Go back to the purpose of why you're here. And that'll help you eliminate some of that victim mentality. Some of that survivor's guilt, you know, that'll help you realign with the values that you truly have deep down in the inside that are buried under all of that trauma. Just peel it away. Peel it away, because it's never going to be a perfect a perfect story anyway, even though I think my husband got pretty close to a little perfect love story. But even that was still have a lot of a lot of other things.
Kelly Sampson:One thing that comes through even when you're just talking off the cuff, like you've all right now is that you're just incredibly poetic and talented. And you just have a very creative soul. And, you know, for listeners, you do poetry, you did a documentary, a podcast, you're into music, and just just very kind of astoundingly productive, creative person. So I realize it's a bit of a transition. But in some ways, it's not. It's all part of your story. And so I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about how you manage all of that creative energy and what it's been like to be creating in the midst of, you know, starting to work through all of it. All these things?
Patience Murray:Well, thank you. For one, my pain is really my muse. And it's always been like that ever since I was a kid. So I think that part of like my creativity, that's always been a part of me. So even writing the poem in the hospital bed, I didn't want to, it just came out of me that was kind of like, like it had always been, even when I went to Harambee Institute of Science and Technology that's like a middle school in Philadelphia, at the time, I was living with somebody I called my Aunt. And I was going through a lot of abuse, mental abuse, and there was a point at physical abuse. And I still went to school, I still had to go to school every day. And luckily, I went to a school that encouraged creativity. And we would have a motor circle at the end of every school day. And with a motor circle, you can volunteer to go in the middle of the circle. So the circle was the entire school. So it was like K through eight, and the entire school was in his one room and a big old circle. And I would go in the middle, I would have my poems in every point, every time I share the poem, everybody would be so touched, and so moved. But I was talking about very painful things, because I felt silenced. When I went home every day, I felt like my voice didn't matter when I went home every day. That's where the root of that came from. But even if I go back a little further, I don't want to take anything away from God. When I was a kid, and I was living with my grandmother, I would sit in front of the TV while she was watching her Days of Our Lives, General Hospital, all of those, I would have the Bible open as a little kid. And I will be reading Psalms and Proverbs. Like, those are my two favorite parts of the Bible, because they seemed very-I didn't realize it then-But it seemed very poetic to me. And that's why I was stuck in those two parts of the Bible. And then when I fast forward to being in a moment, where I was given the opportunity to say anything about my experience, the poem just came out of me, you know, and that's what it's like, with my creativity. Sometimes it's like, sometimes I don't even have a choice, it has to come out. There's something there's a message, there's healing attached to whatever it is that I'm doing. And the sad part is for years, I suppress that creativity, because I was afraid of conspiracy theorists and people attacking me for trying to quote unquote, "profit" from my own tragedy, right. And there was this thing, like, as soon as I did the poem, and the press conference, so a part of putting yourself out there is also putting yourself out there to be open for attacks at the same time. And I remember just seeing the most terrible comments about"Oh, she's a crisis actor, and how did the press conference" and this was the shade room, so the shade room actually posted a video of me doing the poem, and I was like, Okay, I understand what the shade room is, like, this is kind of dope to me. But when I look at the comments, I would think that people would be pouring out all of this love, right? Especially my own people, I would think that that's be the first response. It was so negative, it was so many negative things. Now, there was also positive things, but there was a lot of negative things. And that scared me away. I mean, it was it was the most unrelated things that that it was talking about my wig being pushed back, mind you, I just got shot. You know, I just got shot my wig is gonna be pushed back. Okay, the most crazy things, and how did the press conference turn into a poetry slam, it was really disrespectful. And it hurt. It hurt in a deep place, there was videos, still videos, I don't even know how YouTube still has these videos on YouTube, a videos proving or so called proving that I am a crisis actor. And I'm a part of the Illuminati, the craziest things, and this is still out there. And I'm like, I had to learn very quickly. If I was ever going to continue to be creative, if I was ever going to continue to just put myself out there, I would have to find some way to get over that and get over the fact that people will just say crazy things. And people just believe whatever they want to believe, at the end of the day. And that was a hard lesson to learn. And I didn't really learn that until I gave everything over to God. I couldn't because there was no way. It was no way that Patience could have done that on her own because Patience drove herself crazy trying to respond to every single person. And it was taken away. It was taking away from myself it was taking away from my creativity. And not only that, but dealing with the actual trauma. So and this is that's the part that always came secondary. It seemed like I was dealing with everything else that was in response to calls that actually dealing with posts and actually unraveling the trauma that that came with that and the PTSD and just accepting the fact that yes, I am wounded.
JJ Janflone:And it's gonna be so hard to get those comments and to also be trying to figure out what you want out of life out of healing, and to be doing all of this, so very publicly, right? Because as we've said, you have a podcast you were in an Emmy nominated docu series that I've linked in the description this episode. So there's just like a lot going on.
Patience Murray:Definitely a blessing and a curse, because the curse was also a gift. Because the gift was finding out that these are all these different triggers that I have to work out within myself in order to be the person that God destined me to be. And also realizing that Well, God, I never actually asked you directly what your plan was for my life. Anyway, I kind of just assumed that this was what I was supposed to be doing. And I was supposed to be writing and I was supposed to be putting out these positive messages. That's what I assumed it seemed logical to me. But spiritually, I never consulted God about that. And considering all these miraculous things that happened to me, especially being in Pulse and making it outside, and then the gun jamming, and then surviving, like, me, not consulting with this miraculous source of energy just seemed a little crazy to me now thinking, wow, like you really never at one point asked God, why did you survive? Why am I still here, instead of saying, God, you know, I'm angry that this happened. It was totally and that's what I meant by being in such a negative headspace, because it was just the perspective that needed to change. That was that was it, it was that I was still the same girl, you know, I still had the same capabilities and the same creative abilities and same abilities to connect with people. But I just had to change my perspective. But there was no way that I was going to do that on my own without actually consulting, the actual miraculous source that survived. But that covered me in this situation, and haD covered me, and all these terrible situations that I experienced in my life, and it seems common sensical now, but I missed it for five years, I missed it, I totally missed it. But it's just that simple. It's just that simple of realigning with those spiritual values that you have, right? despite whatever response you get from people, because people are going to say, whatever they're going to say, and I accept that now. I accept that now. And I also accept that I can still be creative. And I can still be this awesome spiritual Rockstar, whatever, I want to be in Christ, right. And I can also be an author, I can also be a stepmom, I can also be a wife. And I can still be myself in the process and not lose myself in the process, whether it's to conspiracy theorists who think they know more than me right about my own tragedy. You just got to accept the fact that those people exist, and you still got to be you. You just got to be you. And I'm looking forward to finally being me, without worrying about what everybody else has to say.
Kelly Sampson:And in that vein, this year, after five years, you returned to music, what prompted you to return? What was it like to record again, and to release a song like Philly never seen?
Patience Murray:Literally, Music has always been a part of me as well. When I was a kid, I would always songwrite. I would always songwrite. And I had this like big old like desktop, in my grandmother's house. And it was like when I think, I think it was like a Mac computer. It was like, you know how those computers had like the different colors, the blue, the bright orange, the greens, like I had like, one of those kind of colors like the orange ones. And I was I remember as a kid just sitting there creating songs, just creating songs, not really knowing where it's coming from, and then as I got older, in high school, I was sitting in the hallways and actually created like a little doodle group actually created like a little doodle group. And this girl, I got her to sing with me. And we were singing in the hallways, my original songs, I wrote the songs and we'd sing them in the hallways. And then I actually ended up creating my own song eventually, when I, you know, I got older, more confused about life, but I made this song called "make a dollar". It was the worst decision I've ever made in my life. And as soon as Pulse happened, of course, the conspiracy theorists, that was the first thing they went to, right? They tore me apart, like, pick that thing. And look, and this is her and this video. And she did a song called "make a dollar" who right here, it's the proof in the pudding. And I'm just like, No, that was really a bad artistic decision on my part, for not trusting my own instincts, but just trusting the managers who would and quote unquote managers, right music managers in Philadelphia, that just thought that they knew the best direction for me when I should have just trusted you know, my gut. And now, years later, I see why I should have because now my first song is"make a dollar." Like that's disgusting. Like I tell my husband all the time and like"make a dollar" cannot be the only song that I have out. It's terrible. This is terrible and it's not even who I am.
JJ Janflone:Yeah, there has to be so hard, especially when your work goes viral, like your poetry and then a song that you don't like comes up too. But I definitely don't talk about your newly released song because a bunch of us in the office, you know, our digital office, so on Slack have been playing it on loop.
Patience Murray:Music is such a beautiful platform. It's such a beautiful way to connect and communicate with people. And I realized that now it's a gift that I have. It's, it's a blessing that I have now I want to be able to communicate joy, I wouldn't be able to communicate this joy that I have on the inside that I didn't have a year ago. And I understand how serious it is to get these resources, whether it be music, whether it's personal development videos, and I watch Sarah James Roberts, like every day, like Sarah James Roberts is like my part of my personal development. At first it was like Eric Thomas, and then it moved to Sarah James. And now I'm aspiring to be one of those people that's helping people, especially through music. So Philly never seen that came from wanting to retell the events that happened at Pulse in a way that Billie Holiday was doing it. And I was inspired by Billie Holiday, because I went to African centered school Harambee Institute of scientific technology was the African center school. And we learned a lot about black history and African history, African American History, we learned about it all. And Billie Holiday was a Philadelphia native artist, I'm from Philadelphia, Billie Holiday is from Philadelphia. So it inspired me and then recently, I saw a Billie Holiday versus United States. And that just let me know that wow, Billie Holiday was wounded too. She was really wounded. But despite her woundedness, she still created. And that inspired me, despite my woundedness despite my brokenness that I could still create. And naturally, I think, once I started consulting with God, what is your path for me? the music just came. And literally before I shared before I actually went into the studio and recorded Philly never seen that song came to me like four days before, it was a quick decision for me to just go ahead and just do it. Because I just wants to just go ahead and listen, if you've been contemplating about being a singer, or putting yourself out there creatively just do it. Because the longer you don't do it, you're going to talk yourself out of it. And you're going to find reasons as to why you shouldn't do it, like, Oh, my God, but if I do this, like people might think, or people probably think I suck, or I haven't sung in like five years, I, you know, all these things that I realized I started as soon as I made a decision, all of these negative thoughts started trying to flood my mind, take me away from this beautiful decision I just made to get back into music. So I had to fight against all those thoughts, just to do it. So to hear you say that you guys play the song in the office, wow. I could've talked myself out of that. Don't talk yourself out of your passion and your dreams. You never know who could be inspired by you, and your creativity.
Kelly Sampson:And now you work as the Outreach Director for the gun violence survivors foundation. What is it like for you to be in that role?
Patience Murray:Yeah, I just want to be brutally honest with you. Technically, I was a part of the gun violence survivors foundation since 2017. Chris Hayes, I love him. And he's no longer with us. But he tragically passed away a year ago. He always destined me to be a part of this foundation, even before I understood my own power, and our own value of what I could bring to something like this, because like I told you, I struggled with self worth and self love. So I didn't think I could offer anything to anybody else. especially knowing that I was struggling so much in the inside and I think when Bindu actually been doing as a part of the foundation, and she's been like getting everything together for this relaunch that we're doing like this restructuring, rebuilding, just revolutionizing that got the GVS foundation. And now I get to be a part of this process of rebuilding. And I get to be a leader. And I, I've never had to be a leader before. I've never had to be a leader before. So I've never had those skills. So to be thrown into this, like, Hey, we see purpose in you, we want you to be a part of this. Chris always wanted you to step into this role. It hit me like a ton of bricks. And now I get to say what the values are. Right? And the first value that came to mind when I thought about restructuring the gun violence survivors Foundation was compassion, compassion as a gun violence survivor and just as a girl from Philadelphia totally broken. I just needed someone to care and have compassion with me. So as a person that's then going to be helping other people through their pain. Because you're not just dealing with the gun violence survivor, you're dealing with their background, you're dealing with the trauma that they're also dealing with in other areas of their life, you're also dealing with somebody who could possibly be unhoused. You could, there's so many other things and elements that you have to consider. And I feel like when we put this blanket example of what a gun violence survivor looks like, and automatically, I'm pretty sure, like if you say gun violence survivor, the first thing people will think of now is a mass shooting like someone from a mass shooting, because that's how the media really shows us that this is gun violence. Gun violence is this 1% Rarity thing happens every day. But the reality is, gun violence happens every single day. And people are struggling every single day. And they're never seen. They're never seen. Their story is never told. And they deal with that pain, and they commit suicide and they wither away because no one had compassion for them. And that's what I want GVS to be a compassionate foundation. And next is intention. Right? Intention, I realized how important that is, even for my own personal self, like realizing that these things that I want, of course, like I have desires, like I have desires, everybody has desires, like eventually. First of all, I don't drive, that's horrible. I know, I'm 25, I should know how to drive by now. I want to drive. And when I drive, I want to drive a nice car, it would be nice. I'm not far. But understanding that there's people who are behind big organizations that their their intention is to have a big car, their intention is to have these things. And the intention isn't focused on the people who need compassion, right? So these things kind of like go together. And I realized compassion and intention, I don't want to be one of those organizations. I don't want to be one of those people leaving the organization saying these things that sound good, and not having the good intention, the right intention behind the things that I'm saying. And and I think intention, number one that automatically separates you and people are gonna flock to you anyway. Because they feel that it's real, and they feel that it's genuine. And that leads me to innovation. Innovation, right? We have to innovate the way that we're approaching how we're dealing with gun violence survivors, because even you see, like, we get emails all the time, from foundations "end gun violence end gun violence end gun violence," right. But I'm like, nobody talks about gun violence survivors. Nobody is really talking about what gun violence survivors really need. And there's gun violence survivors who are totally unseen and totally forgotten. And I've started to realize the privilege, right, this mass shooting privilege, and it's weird, right? It's weird. It's so weird. And just bear with me here, because I'm going to try to explain this in the best way I can. But because I was attached to this national, huge tragedy, right. In a sense, I gained some privilege to access to people the ability to talk to you right now. It's a it's, it's just automatically associated with that 1% experience. Right? And it's so weird. But I realized that I have to use this platform, this privilege of being a part of the mass shooting, everybody just want to talk about to bring light to the people that experience gun violence every single day who are unseen. And how can we innovate the ways of reaching those people who are possibly unhoused, who possibly don't have a following to reach out to for help with that experience gun violence, and they go through all these other hardships. Okay. Shonda. Shonda is someone she's a gun violence survivor, who is a part of the GVS foundation and she experienced that headshot. And she survived. But directly after surviving a gunshot to her head. And she also has a bullet fragment that gives her headaches every single day, painful headaches every single day. And she doesn't even have access to medical care for the the, the medication to alleviate that pain. Her aunt died right after that. And then after that, she ended up becoming homeless. And if it had not been for Bindu caring and having compassion, and leading with a good intention, and creating an innovative way to help her, she would still be unhoused, dealing with that pain in her head from a bullet fragment that she did not ask for. And then she had to deal with the loss. So it's all these other things attached to it. So GVS Foundation, the gun violence survivors foundation that I am now the impending chief visionary officer is all about compassion. All About intention and innovation, we need a new
JJ Janflone:And you've been so wonderful. I wonder if you know, way of talking to and helping seen an unseen gun violence as as our time together draws to a close, if you have any final words of wisdom for our listeners out there.
Patience Murray:You don't have to stay broken. You don't have survivors is not just about the gun and the gun laws, there's to stay broken. I was broken for years, years, and pretending not people experiencing this. Who can't sign a petition. Right? to be broken. Because I thought pretending not to be broken would make me healed. But it didn't. You have to do the work There's people who need us to help them. Because we've been there. So I'm helping people, because I've been there. And if to heal. You don't have to stay wounded. Even though you put a I had not been a mass shooting survivor, if I had just been a bandaid on something on the outside. If you don't heal on Philadelphia gunshot survivor somewhere and some other club, the inside, that then they could easily fall off. And there you would people care about me, woul people care about my story go, your wound is exposed to everyone, right? And all of a would people be reaching out t me for an interview? Probabl sudden, you're you're this broken girl in front of everyone, and you thought you had it all together. Or you not. So I feel a duty. It's m service to gun violence surv thought you thought that you could pretend better than this. vors who are silenced who don't feel seen. I'm going to find it But the reality is that joy is accessible to you. Yeah, you can And then I'm going to find a w y to reach you just know that. Chris had a vision. And altho gh he tragically passed, the have joy. I thought I was a person that I would have to pretend forever. I really thought this I really thought that I could there was no way I thought there was no way I would ision can't die with him. S it's going to take brave actually heal from what I went through. Right? I never thought eople willing to sacrifice, will ng to put themselves out there to be compassionate, to lea with intention, and to create I could actually have true joy that everybody talked about. Now these innovative ideas to really reach the people who feel forg that I have it I just want to share with others because I know tten, who feel invisible, and wh feel u what it feels like to feel that broken but just know you have a choice. You have a choice to choose love. You have a choice to choose peace. You have a choice.
Kelly Sampson:I echo everything, you've been so wonderful. And we of course will link to all the places where people can find you in the description of this episode. But we'd love to close out with a portion of your song Philly never seen which is available right now.
Patience Murray:Hey Kelly, ready for a moment of levity?
Kelly Sampson:No actually I'm not the story they're always so horrible.
JJ Janflone:We need a new title for these. We're gonna start brainstorming some so people write some stuff into us, contact the podcast, let us know. But today we actually have something a bit different from my typical fare. I'm not talking about firearms found in odd places. Instead, I'm telling you all about the NRA.
Kelly Sampson:I mean, honestly, what could it possibly be at this point.
JJ Janflone:I've just like cackling into my microphone like the NRA. Internal records from the NRA's January 7th 2021, meeting minutes have been released.
Kelly Sampson:Normally minutes from a meeting would be boring. But given the date, which is the day after the attempted insurrection, I'm really intrigued. So what happened?
JJ Janflone:Yeah, so the reports have been made public due to the NRA's now failed bankruptcy push. One of the more interesting parts of the meeting minutes report was the group's purposeful use of something they called the, quote, fake news media upsell. Now, in particular, this direct statement was said "in September, we continued to see strong support from our members using our save NRA scripts, we were able to morph that support into a new york attack script, which has done very well. We also tested various news scripts to discuss the elections post election, we are seeing some waning in enthusiasm. However, we do not anticipate that to last, we continue to use the fake news media upsell with success."
Kelly Sampson:Well, you got a chuckle. Because if anyone didn't believe that the concept of fake news was just a fear mongering PR stunt. Or I mean, I feel like this is proof. I mean, it's literally a marketing tactic, and one that the NRA, in their own words has clearly relied on.
JJ Janflone:Exactly, and well, we all use marketing tactics. I mean, like, who doesn't but continuously pushing this fake news narrative is just really irresponsible.
Kelly Sampson:Yeah, absolutely. But then again, so many of the NRA tactics are. Sadly, according to the gun violence archive, at least 150 people were killed by gun violence, and more than 400 shootings over the Fourth of July weekend. Of those shootings, the gun violence archive found 14 mass shootings. Defined as when four or more people excluding the shooter are shot or killed. It was more than any other weekend this year.
JJ Janflone:Additionally, a federal judge ruled this week that the federal government was 60% responsible for the harm caused during the Sutherland springs church shooting in 2017, which was the Texas mass shooting that left 26 people dead and another 20 seriously injured. The shooter had a previous assault conviction while serving in the Air Force, which should have prohibited him from purchasing or possessing a firearm. However, the Air Force failed to report the conviction to the FBI, and so the shooter was never flagged in the system. He was then able to purchase the weapon he used to attack the church and its congregants Hey, want to share with the podcast? Listeners can now get in touch with us here at Red, Blue, and Brady via phone or text message! Simply call or text us at (480) 744-3452 with your thoughts, questions, concerns, ideas, whatever! Kelly and I are standing by.
Kelly Sampson:Thanks for listening. As always, Bradys lifesaving work in congress, the courts, and communities across the country is made possible thanks to you. For more information on Brady, or how to get involved in the fight against gun violence, please like and subscribe to the podcast, get in touch with us at bradyunited.org, or on social@bradybuzz. Be brave, and remember: take action, not sides.