Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Full Auto Friday - Round 144 - A response to YouTube comments

Episode Date: April 7, 2023

Fridays are generally for Q and A, but not this Friday. Last week's Friday episode generated a few comments that I personally believe deserve a more thorough explanation and dissection. My response this week is again incomplete, I always think of something else I would have liked to say after I turn off the microphone and camera, but it is what it is. Enjoy

What's going on, everybody? It's Friday. Today we're going to do a slightly different take on Full Auto Friday. Every once in a while, I will go against Mr. Rogan's advice, and I'll surf through the comments, specifically on YouTube. And I do so because I think listening to people, or actually not listening, in this case, reading what they have to say, taking some time to think about it, and being able to respond is not always a bad thing. People believe what they believe for a variety of reasons, and I don't fault people for that by any stretch of the imagination, but it can, and I think this Friday is a good opportunity to address two comments specifically that came up to my answer. I believe it was to the second question about mass shootings on last Friday's full out

of Friday. So with that in mind, let's dig into it. We'll call this the Friday, YouTube Commentary Review. Let us begin. Good morning, everybody. Like I said in the intro, unless you skipped the intro, sometimes there is an opportunity to change up the regularly scheduled programming. And I think that today is a good opportunity to do so. So last Friday, I was asked a question about the recent shooting in Nashville at a school. And I, the question was not really specifically about the shooting. It was about the body cam footage from the officers. And the question broadly was around whether or not I thought that people were glorifying the actions of the officers. I don't remember the exact answer that I gave. Because for people who don't know this or may not realize it, you know, the Friday episodes that I do are an extra. Exploration of what I believe. Sometimes I'll put a little bit of thought into my answers beforehand, meaning I'll sit with myself and kind of gauge the depths of my belief and try to get a better understanding of it. Sometimes I talk through it real time, and most of the time it's a combination of the two. So I can't remember word for word what I said. It's a point I'm trying to get to. And that's okay. Anytime that I talk around or about firearms or shootings, there's going to be comments.

Sometimes I read them. Sometimes I don't. And sometimes I feel like they provide interesting opportunities to continue the conversation and educate people. And by that, I mean myself and anybody who might be watching or listening to this. And today is a good example of that, in my opinion. If you disagree, well, go find something else to watch or listen to. So I have two comments today that came from that episode.

They're similar in one respect and different in many others, and I think I'm just going to dive right into it. And I'll do my best to break it down as I go along. Before I even get into this, though, I respect people's opinions. I do my absolute best to respect people's opinions, even if their opinion might be counter to my own. One of the things that I have noticed in the modern era, and I don't know when this switched, or maybe it's, never did switch and I guess I wasn't paying attention to it. But it is from an argument perspective where people present themselves to be coming from and their beliefs, there seems to have been a switch from logic and objectivity to emotion. And I don't believe that that is a good

place to derive your arguments from and opinions from. I think we would all, as a human species, be better if we were a little bit more objective. I'm not saying that that would be easy, but I think it would make a very large difference. Let's get into it, shall we? Comment number one from YouTube, and of course I'll leave the screen names out of this. And again, I respect these people for taking the time to voice their opinion, whether I agree with the opinion or not. There is a very, very obvious solution to mass shootings in America. Anyone outside all caps of America can see it plainly.

In all caps, get rid of fucking guns. If you want to pop off a few rounds, go to your local firing range or something. The fact that any citizen can go to a gun store and buy a rifle or a shotgun, it's just bizarre, irresponsible, and insane. me. When you allow average Joe down the street to own a gun and keep it in his home, what the hell do you expect? But banning or the banning of weapons will never happen. So mass shootings will never stop. So that's it. Until the next one. It's an interesting comment. And maybe from somebody who doesn't live inside of the United States, it would seem as if the solution

presented here, which is getting rid of guns, is a viable one or that it is practical or plausible. I land at the place that it actually is neither of those things. So briefly, let's just dig into this for a little bit. Because I have questions going back to the person that wrote this email. The 2021 population of the U.S., so we'll assume it's a little bit bigger than this right now is 33.3.3.5. 33 3131.9 million. So in 2020, I'm sure we could add a couple, if not tens of millions to that. So let's say, let's say 350 rounding up. How many guns are there in the United States of America? This is one where the data points drift a little bit. The highest number that I have seen is 433 million.9. 4333 million. That's a terrible way to describe the numbers I'm seeing in front of me. 433.9 million. On the lower end, what I am finding is about 360 million. So maybe we should just average the two and call it 380 to 390 million weapons in circulation in the United States of America. To the person that wrote this comment, my question to you, if the answer to this

problem is so simple to anybody that's outside of the United States. It seems like you feel like you have a pulse on what is going on here and what should be done. My question to you is this. How would you remove the guns that are in circulation? Because currently right now, looking at either of those data points, what you're going to arrive at, even using the low estimate on the number of weapons in circulation and the high estimate of the population of the United States of America is that there are more weapons in circulation than there are people living in the United States. Saying get rid of the guns is very easy to type out. How would you actually recommend an organization or the government go about doing so? If you don't have an answer for that, then the solution

that you are presenting is incredibly hollow. Now, you're also incredibly uninformed when it comes to who can actually buy a firearm in the United States of America and who cannot. And also, to go to the last sentence that you put there, when you allow an average Joe down the street to own a gun and keep it in his home, what the hell do you expect? My expectation for people when it comes to owning and storing a firearm is that they would treat it with the gravity and serious that the item itself comes with. In my mind, in my opinion, firearms are designed to kill. And I don't have any issue saying that. I actually believe, personally, a personal belief that people who are unwilling to actually have that conversation, about what weapons are designed to do, they're having an intellectually dishonest conversation. I know that some people would rather say, well, firearms are designed to protect.

They can be used to protect. I'll be the first person to agree with you on that. But that's not what they're designed to do. They are designed to take life. And that's okay, as long as we treat them with the commensurate amount of respect that comes with something designed to do so. There's a reason that the vast majority of suicides use a weapon, a firearm as the tool. Why? Because they're the most effective tool that you can use to take somebody else's life or somebody else's life.

So my expectation with somebody who has a gun and wants to keep it in their home is that they would treat it as what it is. They would have positive control over it at all times. And when it's not on their person, it is safely and securely stored. And in the modern era, with the technology that is out there when it comes to biometric storage devices, you know, if you have a pistol that's on you and you want to take it off, there are so many options for lockboxes that can open in fractions of a second because of a fingerprint or multiple fingerprints that can be hard pointed to a variety of areas, whether it's a countertop or underneath a cabinet or under a desk. or under a desk or on the side of a desk, it is actually incredibly easy to either maintain positive control of your weapon at all times or safely and securely store it. That is the expectation that I have, and that is the expectation that I would hope any other firearm owner in the United States would be operating under.

If you're not operating under that, if you are not operating under those guidelines, the guidelines that I laid out that, again, are what I consider to be reasonable and responsible for gun ownership. In my mind, you are not being a responsible gun owner. And I'm sure that opinions can vary on that one. And people will say, well, you know, what if somebody were to break into my house? I need to have ready access to my weapon. I get it. And that's why I said positive control at all times when it's on your person.

Or invest the money and take the time to look at where you would want to have. a safe but rapidly accessible storage device so that you don't have to have positive control of it at all times. There are solutions to the arguments that are presented to that, whether or not people take them. That's a different thing. So to the person writing this email, the fact that any citizen can go to a gun store and buy a rifle or a shotgun, it's just bizarre, irresponsible, and insane to me. Well, that would be bizarre, irresponsible, and insane to me as well. if it were actually true. So let's take a second and actually dig into this a little bit and explain who is actually

allowed to own a firearm in the United States and who should be restricted from owning a firearm in the United States. And also, it's not hard to find this information. It would actually probably take you about as much time as it took you to write out your comment to do an informational search. net you with the same information that I'm going to provide right now to everybody watching and listening. So there's two categories that I was able to find. And I am not claiming by any stretch that this is 100% precise and or accurate and that there aren't more restrictive things that could go

onto this. But this is a very good broad brush. We're painting with a paintbrush here as opposed to a broom. Eligible people. The following are eligible to possess and own firearms within the United States, though further restrictions can apply. Citizens of the United States, nationals, but not citizens of the United States, lawful permanent residence of the United States, also known as a green card holder, aliens or foreign nationals who have been lawfully admitted to the United States as refugees, aliens or foreign nationals who have been lawfully admitted to the United States under non-immigration visas, but only if they fall under one of the United States. the following exemptions.

1. Admitted to the United States for lawful hunting and or sporting purposes. 2. Possession of a lawful hunting license or permit issued by any U.S. state. 3. An official representative of the foreign government who is accredited to the United States government or the government's mission to an international organization having its headquarters in the United States or is in route to or from another country to which that alien is accredited. 4. An official of a foreign government or a distinguished foreign visit. who has been so designated by the Department of State.

Five, a foreign law enforcement officer or a friendly foreign government entering the United States on official law enforcement business. Six, has a waiver from the United States Attorney General, as long as the waiver petition shows this would be in the interest of justice and would not jeopardize the public safety under 18 U.S. Code 922, and there's a bunch of letters after that that I don't know what that shit means. And seven, a non-resident of any U.S. state, unless the receipt of firearms are for lawful sporting purposes.

Now, under this, each state has its own laws regarding regarding who is allowed to own or possess firearms. And there are various state and federal permitting and background check requirements. Controversy continues over which classes of people, such as convicted felons, people with severe or violent mental onus, and people on the federal no-fi list should be excluded. Laws in these areas vary considerably. and enforcement is in flux. And now for somebody outside of the United States, that may not make sense. But the way that the U.S. Constitution is written, we have a 10th Amendment, which, again, for anybody watching and listening to this, should know that I'm not a constitutional scholar. But at a broad brush level, the Constitution is the federal baseline.

The 10th Amendment allows each and every state to create their own laws that can be more restrictive than, federal laws. And that is why you're going to get variance from state to state. And maybe people who don't live in the U.S. don't know that. And I actually wouldn't be surprised of the vast majority of the people who do live in the U.S. are unsure of why that is the case. It falls back to the 10th Amendment. So that was a list of eligible people in the United States who can own a firearm. Let's go over the list of prohibited people. The Gun Control Act of 1968s, 1968. Scott, I'm having a real, a real dozy of a day with words today. Let's start over.

The Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibits certain classes of people from buying, selling, using, owning, receiving, shipping, carrying, possessing, or exchanging any firearm or ammunition. These prohibited include any individual who has been convicted in any court of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year. is a fugitive from justice, is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substances, as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act, has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been involuntary committed to any mental institution. Is an illegal alien, any person who is unlawfully in the United States? That's the description that came with illegal alien. has been lawfully admitted as an alien under a non-immigration visa and is not exempt under 18 U.S.C. 922. Has been discharged from the armed forces under dishonorable conditions, has renounced his or her United States nationality, i.e. becoming a foreign national, is subject to a court order restraining the person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner or child of the intimate partner.

or has been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. These categories are listed on ATF Form 4473 firearm transaction record background check form. According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, approximately 5 to 6,000 prohibited people a year are convicted of receiving or possessing a firearm. In 2017, over 25.2 million background checks were performed. Now, I tell you what, I didn't know that list by heart by any stretch. And I don't think a lot of people did, which is why I think it's actually valuable to dig in a little bit, especially when you get a comment that says the fact that any citizen can go to a gun store and buy a rifle or a shotgun. You describe it as being bizarre, irresponsible, and insane to me. And like I said, I would agree.

But the polite way to describe your comment gives you. Given that your position is based on lack of knowledge, the polite way to say it is you sound like a fucking idiot. And that's okay. That's the beauty of having an internet connection and being able to reach out to anybody at the world and any time that you want to. You have the ability to tell anybody you want to your beliefs. but they have the ability to look into what you write and to explore your beliefs. And if you're open to listening, at least maybe educate you about where you may be coming from an emotional place as opposed to a logical place. The list of people who are eligible to own firearms, pretty robust.

The list of people that are ineligible to own firearms. It's pretty robust. It is not true. that any citizen can go into a gun store and buy a rifle, a handgun, or a shotgun. It's just not the case. If you've never lived in the United States and you've never actually gone through the process yourself, I can understand how there would be confusion. But don't confuse your opinion with being the reality inside of this country.

Let's go to question number two. Let's see if I can find it. My laptop is kicking my ass today. Trying to highlight this thing and make it bigger so I can read it better. Yes, here we go. this one's a little bit longer and I think I'm going to break this one down sentence by sentence. I think that's going to be the best way that we can do this. The comment begins, wait.

The guy wearing the black rifle coffee hat doesn't think that any, in parentheses, gun legislation would help the problem of school shootings. Come on, Andy. Very ignorant take. Let's address this one. I put the same hat on today, so people could see the hat that I was wearing. Anybody who knows anything about me knows that I am a huge fan of Black Rifle Coffee. My relationship with the brand has absolutely nothing to do with the branding. Let me take that back.

What I love about the brand has nothing to do with the branding. What I love about the brand is the people. Specifically, my relationship with the brand started with my friendship. with Evan. I think that Evan is fucking awesome. And I know that there are people out there who don't think that. And what I say to that is, feel however you want to feel. I have a great relationship with him. I have gotten an immense amount of time with him behind the scenes, if you will. And I think I understand who he is as a person. And I totally understand as a public figure that he is, the CEO of a public company, that there's probably never going to be

anybody who agrees upon Black Rifle or Evan themselves. And that is what it is. Now, I would ask the individual that wrote this to find for me a single example ever of me saying that I think that gun legislation would not help. Or I'm sorry, an example of me saying that I think gun legislation does not help or is unreasonable or that we shouldn't have it. and you can search the internet for any podcast that I've ever been on and you can search the internet for any written word document that I've ever written myself or an interview that I have done and what I'm going to tell you is you're not going to be able to because I don't talk in terms like that I think I try to think in the most reasonable terms possible so with your

opening sentence, you are already mischaracterizing how it is that I feel. Because I have never said, one, that gun legislation isn't important. And two, that it can't be impactful. My concern about gun legislation, and specifically when it comes to the answer that I gave from last week, what I said was, we can legislate all we want to. If we don't solve or are starting, attacking the societal issues that are driving people to act out in this manner, it's all window dressing and it's not going to make a difference. Now, that is two very different statements. What you apparently heard me say or what you took from what I said and what I actually said. So let's look at the perspective, or not the perspective, let's look at legislation in general.

And this is another one where I kind of dove into the internet a little bit and I needed to find, we're going to have to average out here a little bit. So something that I have heard many times is that there are thousands of gun laws already on the books in the United States. The farther, further or farther, the further I dove into that, because it's not a metaphorical measurement of distance, the further I dove into it, the more it seems unlikely that there are actually thousands of gun laws on the books inside of the United States. Now, I understand that each state can be more restrictive if they want to, and they can create a lot of gun laws. But some states go the other direction and don't have many.

So what I'm landing on or where I'm landing at is that realistically there are probably a few hundred gun laws on the books in the United States of America. But what I think is important to point out is that we shouldn't measure effectiveness based off of how many laws exist. The metric I think we should be using is how well are they actually working? Because if you had 50,000 gun laws and they didn't do shit, what's the value in that? Versus if you had 15 to go to a fully other spectrum, but they were wildly impactful and effective, you know, that's the conversation I think we should be having. Not the number, but the impact of those gun laws. Laws in general, like let's take two extreme laws. I'll go murder on the far end.

And I'm picking that one because it carries with it a punishment. I don't, I mean, is there a more severe punishment than the death penalty? I almost think that sentencing somebody to life without parole and then throwing them in solitary confinement, that to me actually, I think is probably worse than ending somebody's life as quickly and painlessly as possible. But, I mean, that's a conversation for a different day. Point is, though, both of those sentences, whether it's life without the possibility of parole or the death penalty, are a possibility from a murder charge. It's one extreme of a law. There are laws in place. Murdering somebody is illegal.

I hope that everybody understands that. Let's go to the far other spectrum. And I'm actually, before I even say this, I'm not even sure it's a law. But let's look at something that probably almost nobody pays attention to. J-walking. And I don't know if it's a law or it's a misdemeanor, however it would be characterized. The point in bringing it up is, can you get a ticket for jaywalking? Probably, depending on the cop that you encounter and how shitty of a day that they're actually having.

Nobody really pays attention to jaywalking. Or speaking for myself, I use the crosswalk when it's convenient and efficient for me. And most of the rest of the time, I kind of cross the street wherever I want to. So sorry for the police officers out there that have been chasing me down for jaywalking. Or let's use another. Maybe another law that most people would relate to, speeding. How many people out there listening to this or watching this have ever sped or on a routine basis will deviate from the posted speed limit? I have my hand up right now for those of you who are on an audio-only format.

And I think most people do. It's illegal. there are laws on the books that talk about speed limits, you know, school zones, construction zones, the penalties that can come from that. And most of the time, for most people, I think we do our best to live inside of the boundaries of the laws that we have created for our own society. And then for clarity, I think as a species and a society, we absolutely have to have laws. I do not think that a lawless society is capable of surviving over a long-term period of time. I think that would be one of the most violent circumstances that could ever be created on earth. Let's just get rid of all laws and it's going to be fucking Lord of the Flies.

I don't think that would be great. But I could probably list 15 laws that most of us on any given day, pay almost no attention to. And I'm not saying that's right, but I'm just being honest. You know, maybe 15's largely extreme, you know, maybe one or two, actually. Jaywalking and speeding are probably ones that people on an everyday basis, almost everywhere in the United States, are like, yeah, not today. I need to get to work. So those two things are illegal, murder and speeding, but people still do them.

is there a law that we could write that would really prevent people? And now I'm going back to the murder side of the house. If the worst case scenario that's going to happen to you is you're going to get life in prison without the possibility of parole or the state or federal government is going to make the decision to end your life. If that's the worst case scenario and you know that and we write laws about that and you don't care, how do we as a society stop? you. Do we stop you by writing down on a piece of paper and voting on as a society and agreeing that you, because of that lack of care, which I'm going to say is probably going to put you into a mental health category, personal opinion, not a psychiatrist, a psychologist. But if you really just don't care and you are like, fuck that, I want to just, I want to go kill people.

I'm going to say you're mentally unstable and you're deranged. And we write laws that prevent you on paper from being able to have access to that weapon, but you in your personal life and in your social circle navigate the world in a community to people that don't give a shit about it, how do we stop you? The answer, in my mind, is not writing more laws that people are going to ignore. And again, this is not me saying that legislation wouldn't help. I feel like we have very reasonable gun laws in the United States of America. Does everybody follow that? Do most people who, especially those who are committing violent crimes with weapons,

do they follow the law? No, they don't. And that's far less my opinion and far more the statistics. I don't want to say backing up what I'm saying, painting the picture of the world that we actually live in. So let me continue on. Most of these shooters purchased their weapons in the days leading up to the shootings and had plenty of red flags before doing so. More restrictive gun laws aren't going to completely stop it, but it could put a dent in the problem,

and any progress towards saving children's lives is probably a step in the right direction. So you say that more restrictive gun laws aren't going to completely stop it, but it could put a dent in the problem. My question to you is how. For people who don't give a shit about what the gun laws are, how is writing a more restrictive gun law going to prevent them from getting access to weapons? The answer is that it's not. And you're going to start bumping up on infringing on the rights of law-abiding citizens. And that is the conversation and balance I think that we need to find.

I would love to have that conversation. But that's not what's happening in this particular comment. As responsible gun owners, we have to advocate for responsible gun ownership. Totally agree. And you'd have to be either ignorant or diluted to think that only requiring a five-minute background check before purchasing a weapon that can shoot projectiles 3,000 feet per second is responsible. Well, hold on a second. In the digital era, are you worried about the information that the background check is accessing?

Or are you worried about the velocity with which the system can actually check that information? If it can check all the information needed in five minutes, the systems that we have, if it can check all the information needed inside of five minutes, I don't give a shit that it takes five minutes. What I care about is that the correct information is being accessed and analyzed. If that needs to take 10 minutes, if we need to slow the system down and it takes 10 minutes or it takes an hour, I'm all for that. I just want the right information being looked at by the right people. I don't give a fuck how long it actually takes, nor do I think anybody necessarily should. It doesn't matter the stopwatch time.

It matters the quality of information that is being accessed. Also, you're ignoring the variety of laws in many states that have essentially a cool off period or a waiting period when I lived in California and it's been a while since I purchased a weapon in California. When I left, it was 10 days. So yeah, you can do a five minute background check. You're not leaving with a firearm. You're leaving 10 days later, assuming that you pass the background check. So you're also, you're glossing over the fact that states have enacted those waiting in cool off periods for the ones that felt it was either reasonable to do so or the citizens of that state voted in. You made a very specific comment about projectiles at 3,000 feet per second. And this is

another opportunity, I think, to discuss a little bit firearms and deaths in the United States of America. The 3,000 feet per second is generally associated with an AR platform rifle or a rifle specifically. If you are ever interested in understanding or developing a deeper understanding of violence when it comes to handgums in this country. Again, all you need to do is sit down in front of a computer. And what you're going to find is that 3,000 feet per second, yeah, that applies to rifles. And I know that assault weapons and ARs, which does not stand for assault rifle, it's armor light rifle, they are often vilified.

And a lot of people that I talk to are shocked to find out that they are very infrequently used when it comes to actual gun violence. Not that they're not used and not that they're not used in very public settings, but in the overall grand scheme and totality of gun violence inside of the United States of America,

they're not the weapon of choice. So pulled up a little, in this, these are interesting exercises for me. I like doing this. So I pulled up some data from 2019. The FBI collected data on the weapon used in 1,300,000. 13,922 homicides across the United States in 2019.

10,258 of these homicides were committed using a firearm. Of those 10,258, 364 of those were committed using a rifle. And it had an interesting breakdown by weapon type. 6,365. 45.7% of homicides were committed using a handgun. 364 or 2.6% were committed using a rifle. 200 or 1.4% was a shotgun. 3,326 were firearms with a type unknown, and I'm assuming that's going to be a,

maybe they didn't know or something that was left in the investigation. So that's 23.9%. 1476 or 10% where knives are cutting instruments. 1591 or 11.4% were other weapons, including blunt objects, poisons, explosives, fire, narcotics. There's a picture of a hammer on the graph that I'm looking at. And 600 were hands, fists, feet, et cetera. Hands, fists, feet, et cetera is almost double the number of people that were killed with rifles in 2019. Now, for clarity, the number of people I want killed by fists or rifles is zero. But just think for a second how ARs or rifles or assault weapons,

are portrayed to the public, vilified almost as enemy number one. 600 with hands and feet, 364 with rifles. Why would somebody vilify them in that manner? And I have my own opinions on that. I think a lot of things in the modern era are weaponized from an informational perspective because people are driving towards a particular end state. And I would say to you, just ask yourself why. Why would somebody want to do that?

So I dug in a little bit more. Which types of firearms are most commonly used in gun murders in the U.S.? So this jumps forward to 2020. In 2020, handguns were involved in 59% of the 13,620 U.S. gun murders in non-negligent match, manslaughters, for which the data is available. This is according to the FBI, the actual, the last pie chart I was looking at was the FBI as well. The category that includes guns, sometimes referred to as assault weapons, were involved. in 3% of firearm murders. Shotkins were involved in 1%.

The remainder of gun homicides and non-negligent manslaughter is 36% involved other kinds of firearms or those classified as type not stated. I'm actually curious why there's such a high percentage of them that are listed as type not stated. But again, maybe that's a topic for another day. Let me go back to the, get the question back up here. All right. So why did I take the time to break that down? the reason is because this individual in their comment used 3,000 feet per second. And I assume because they are using that particular verbiage that they are talking about a very particular weapon.

And if you think that that's the most common weapon that is used, well, you haven't actually done your research. As the numbers that I just broke down for you, you know, should you be concerned about a weapons platform that can shoot something at 3,000 feet per second, hell yeah, you absolutely should. But more than likely, we're looking at something that is going to shoot a cartridge that's coming at actually at about 1,500 feet per second. And let me be clear, both of them are incredibly deadly. But if you only highlight one of those and you blow it out of proportion, it becomes the baseline of your argument. And that argument, the foundation for it is built off of things that you feel, as opposed to things that you know, you might be into shaky territory. All right, so let's continue.

Yes, we need to do everything better. More security around our schools, better red flag signals, better protocols when this happens, and yes, we need a societal awakening. But where do we start by having this societal change that everybody talks about? Okay, sure. But how long does this take? Years, decades? Yeah. Yeah, it might take years and decades.

And where do we start? we began with you, the person that wrote this email, or I'm sorry, not an email. It was a comment on YouTube. We start with you. We start with every single person that is listening to me talk or is watching this podcast. We start with the one place that we can each and all have a direct impact, which is in your personal life. Can we change the federal government? Yes, we can change the federal government. Does it take time? Yes, it absolutely does. Is it a complicated process, yes, it is. And by design for clarity. But the societal change and awakening that you reference and that I agree with that I think none of the mass shootings are going to change until we

actually address. It starts with the family. It starts with individuals at a local level. We have to figure out who the fuck we are and what we stand for. In a world that seems to be in a competition to be more tolerant or in a country. I should say I can't speak about the world, obviously, because I don't live in the world. I do live on the world, but I can't say I'm a, you know what the fuck I'm saying. I can speak about the U.S. because the U.S. is where I live. We seem to be in an absolute race to be tolerant of everybody and anything. And I'm not actually here to argue for or against that, but I think there are some consequences for that. We have to figure out who we are and what we believe. And if we can't change the reasons, if we can't

course correct and figure out why somebody would think that taking a firearm of any kind into a school and shooting people, children and teachers, is a viable or reasonable solution we are fucked. That is my personal opinion. If we don't address the issue of the why, we are going to be chasing our tail for eternity on the how. Again, personal opinion. How many more children need to be slaughtered?

Well, the two-way thumpers turn a blind eye and just say, it wasn't the gun's fault. Yeah, we know it's a people problem, but we're allowing these same people to have these guns. We're not actually allowing crazy people to have guns. And I'm sorry, in my personal opinion, if you go into a school or you were going to execute a mass shooting, you're a fucking crazy person. That is how I feel. Again, not a doctor, psychologist or psychiatrist.

But it's an unreasonable outcome that you are looking for. It's an unreasonable action to take. In my mind, it is not the actions of a sane person. And guess what? We have gun laws in place to make sure, or hopefully to try to prohibit insane people, mentally compromised individuals. from accessing firearms. They're still able to get them because they are operating outside

of the boundaries of the laws. Can we change more laws? Should we add more laws? It's a conversation that we can have. But again, you're focusing on the how. I want to focus on the why. The statement, which I've heard often, you know, how many more children need to die

before we change something, is so hollow and disingenuous because obviously, the answer is zero. Nobody wants any kids to die. I don't want anybody to die. And I am open to talking about any reasonable solution that somebody brings forward. I don't know what a two-way thumper is. I think some people think that I am probably a two-a thumper and I consider myself to be a very reasonable individual. I will talk about any aspect of firearms that you want to talk about. You know, whether you want to talk about manufacturing, the usage of firearms to take life, the laws and regulations around them.

Like, I'm an open book. I'll tell you anything that I feel about them when asked. But at the end of the day, and I've said this many times and I'll continue to say it, the weapon is in fact just a tool. So actually, you're right. It's not the gun's fault. I know that you didn't mean your statement in that way, but what you wrote is actually true. If you place a firearm on the table that is in front of me right now for 50 years, absent any type of human interaction, it's not going to kill anybody. It's not actually going to do anything. And I don't think we should ever place blame on an inanimate object. That's focusing on the how. Let's focus on the why.

It's not the gun's fault. It's the person's fault who picks that gun up. and decides that they are going to kill other people with it. Now, should we do everything that we can to make sure that people who would have the desire to do so, don't have the ability to do so? Absolutely. We absolutely should. Should we have reasonable gun regulation laws inside of the United States of America? Yes, we absolutely should. It is a part of the solution for sure. So I guess I'll close with what I was trying to say, and I think I did say last Friday. Most of what I see happening around this discussion is purely window dressing.

We need to get to the root cause of the issue, and that is a people problem. And some of those people are getting access to weapons, and they should not have the ability to do so. We should do everything humanly possible to make sure that individuals who want to do harm to others who want to murder others do not have access to weapons. And we need to make sure we are doing everything possible to deal with the issues in society that could get people to arrive at the headspace where they think that that's what they want to do. Could it take years? Could it take decades? Yes, because it took us years and even potentially decades to get to where we are now. go and look at the increase in violent instances like mass shooting.

We didn't arrive at 2023 in the numbers that we have overnight. It was a trend that, of course, looking back in the rearview mirror, is easier to probably identify than in real time, but it wasn't overnight. To think that there is a solution out there that will have an overnight impact, It might be great to think about. It might be great to say, hey, that's what I'm looking for. But it doesn't exist. It's going to take an incredible amount of hard work and effort to navigate us to a safer environment.

I can understand why people feel that way, but I'm sorry, the objective reality of life is not that. the only way I think personally in this country that we are going to start navigating towards an end state that we can all agree upon is if we can actually start at a very deep level having conversations about this, which again is why I chose this particular comment to go into a little bit more deeply, have those conversations and then refocus the efforts where they're actually going to make a difference. at the personal level, at the family level, at the community level. If we don't start doing that, I don't personally think anything is going to change.