Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Mass Shootings and the Challenge of Finding Hope

Episode Date: May 27, 2022

Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay react to the tragic school shooting in Uvalde, Texas (:14), before being joined by Guns Down America director Igor Volsky (30:15) to discuss pushing the Biden administration to live up to promises made (34:19), and attempting to find hope amidst the circumstances (48:11). Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Guest: Igor Volsky Producers: Trudy Joseph and Donnie Beacham Jr. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? Higher Learning is on and Zyvan Lathan Jr. And it's me, Rachel Lynn Lensing. No pleasantries today because we live in a war zone. We've got to get right to it. Uvaldi, Texas.

Gunman kills 19 children, two adults at a school. We'll not mention the name of the gunman in this situation. It was killed by a Border Patrol agent about 40 minutes after the attack began. happened at Rob Elementary School Are you familiar with this town, Rach? Yeah, I've heard of Evaldi I've never been.

Evaldi. This shooter purchased two AR-15 rifles, AR platform rifles, shall say, at a local federal firearms licensee on May 17th, and on May 20th, and then 375 rounds of ammunition

on May 18. He shot his grandmother in the face, at home. I'm sure you guys have all heard this. Trigger warning. This is very grisly stuff. She was airlifted to the hospital. Well, miraculously, she survived and is now in stable condition. She was in critical condition for a while, but she's now a stable condition. From there, he crashed his vehicle into a ditch near the elementary school and emerged with a rifle and a backpack.

He was wearing a tactical vests that held extra ammunition so he could switch it up a little bit. Move to the school, entered through a black door. where it's now unclear. At first it was said that a school resource officer engaged with him. There was a shootout and that officer was injured. The Texas Rangers have come back and they have said that did not happen, that he entered unabated to the back door where he barricaded himself into a classroom and an adjoined classroom and killed 19 kids and two teachers.

Rachel. I have no reaction. And I don't have a reaction because I'm not insensitive. Very sensitive to what happened. But I don't have a reaction because just last week we were podcasting on what happened in Buffalo. And I actually received a lot of criticism for saying, fuck you being sad because I'm over it. Yeah.

Coupling that, excuse me, coupling the fact that 10 people were murdered for being black in a grocery store, that now you have 19 children and two adults that were murdered in a school. You have people expressing that same sentiment. I don't want to hear your thoughts and prayers. People don't want to hear that you're being sad. They want action. And that's maybe what I didn't do the best job saying last week. But that is my reaction.

That is how I feel. I don't want to get into my emotion. I don't want like we're all sad. We're all devastated. We're angry. We're frustrated. It's all the words. Whatever you want to throw on it, we're there.

It's time to talk now about prevention and the lack thereof. It really is. That's my reaction to it all. I don't want to get into it. I don't want to be emotional. As in crying. What answers do you have? Well, I don't know if I necessarily have.

the answers, which we talked about last week. Sure. But I feel like I'm learning more about what's not being done and different things that could be because I think the easy thing to do is to point fingers, and I'm guilty of it, of saying, hey, you're affiliated with this party and your party gets money from this or your party believes in this, and so therefore you're stopping things from getting done. It's easy to say, hey, the sit people are voting along their party lines and things aren't getting passed in the Senate. Hey, we need the filibuster. Hey, but now I'm learning that there could

necessary, there could be more things that are done by their current administration. There are powers that they have to at least show that they're serious and taking movement, make a, taking a stance on gun control in this country. I'm frustrated that I'm a, I am born and raised Texas. I am Texas proud. And I have said multiple times on this podcast that I'm disgusted by what that demon in office is continuing to do in the state of Texas outside of gun control. And it was very frustrating to watch his press conference and for him to talk about to be so strong and pounding his fist on that table and talking about how upset he is with the families. Yet he has done multiple things, both against gun control and mental health in our state that could prevent things like this

happen. A lot of people don't talk about 2018 anymore and that Santa Fe school shooting where there were 10 people, I believe, that died, eight students, two teachers, please correct me if I'm wrong. And there were some things that were done as far as schooling and for security measures, but there was nothing, no follow-up to see if the school districts actually put that in place. And if you look at the statistics, schools have not been implementing those things. Nobody's regular that. So it's just I'm, I know that there are things that people in power can do. And I know that there are things that we can do as far as using our voices and our vote to vote people who currently have the power and aren't doing something to get them out of there. So I don't even know if I answered

your question. I'm just like all over the place right now because I'm just, I'm learning more and more and the more I keep digging into it, the more I'm realizing people just aren't doing anything but saying words. And that's on both sides. Yeah. So let's hear from Governor Abbott right now as yesterday or the day before. A couple of days ago this puts up when he talked about how the gun laws in Chicago, how they job with the gun laws in Texas and how, you know, just played a fucking clip. These guys have Fucking idiot. Go ahead. Let's talk about some real facts.

And that is there are, quote, real gun laws in Chicago. There are, quote, real gun laws in New York. There are real gun laws in California. I hate to say this, but there are more people who were shot every weekend in Chicago than there are. in schools in Texas. I'm about to say something slightly controversial. All right.

Number one, the situation in Chicago, and in many of these places, it's not the same. It's not the same. Even when you talk about Chicago, 60% of the guns, and, you know, there are gun traces,

Texas out there that you guys can go look up for yourselves. We're going to talk a little bit later on with Igor Volsky, and hopefully, you know, from guns down in America and hopefully he'll be able to give you guys a couple of more facts and figures on these things but 60% of the guns that are used in Chicago crimes are bought in places that have more lenient gun loss it's a fact um and I'm going to say something and I want people not to misconstrue what it is that I'm saying okay because this has to do with an economic situation has to do with an economic reality and I'm not judging the soul of people because

I come from a place that's the second deadliest place in America right now. When you're talking about gun violence that exists in our communities, I want to say something here, and that's, we're talking about criminal activity a lot of the time. We're talking about things that happen when people who are in a deprived situation make decisions that are adverse to their long-term survival. We're talking about sometimes gang-related violence. This is not in any way me giving you.

conservative talking points on what's going on to the black community. The socioeconomic situations that exist in those communities are making people do things while living in a survival matrix. To compare that, right, which those problems are more socioeconomic than they are about the guns to rampage killings that happen to children is insane. And understand what I'm saying. Me personally, the gun violence that I would like to see addressed is the gun violence that exists in my community. And the way you address that gun violence is not even by addressing the guns themselves.

You address it by addressing the circumstances of life that exists there. Right. And that's a huge, wide sweeping situation. But in this situation right here, when you're talking about 19 children who got their heads blown off while they were in, their elementary school to compare it to places that are dealing with things that are generational and deal with white supremacy that's gone

all the way back to the Great Migration and to even before then it's nuts and it's a red herring and it's a really demonic straw man. Once again, there are people in every single community that he just named

that are working on the violence issues. Englewood Barbie's working on a violence issue up in Chicago. You know what I mean? You have people in Los Angeles, some even ex-gang members, like Eugene Henley, Big You, who are working on the violence issues there and trying to make sure that people make the right decisions with their lives, right? But as long as they're in a situation where they feel like it's killer be killed,

they're going to choose to either killer be killed. That's a very multi-layered situation. So for Governor Abbott to come up and be like, you know, nigger shoot each other every day. That's exactly what he said. It's just a weird thing to say after we're talking about, well, I mean, to me. No, no, no. It's not that it's weird to me. It was right on par.

Yeah, sure. Because what I have seen him do is deflect when it comes to approaching the real issue, right? People are pointing fingers of you. You bragged about the fact that you lose. in the gun laws in Texas. Right. Bragged about that. The hypocrisy for me, and this is a big thing with Republicans, is that you're sitting there

on that stage and you're talking about all the things that you have done since the Santa Faye shooting at the scene of another shooting. So how can you brag about the prevention when you're literally back in the same place that you wore? So obviously what you're doing is not working cut this shit. Like that's, so to me, for him, to say that about Chicago, I actually chuckled because I'm like, of course that's what you're doing. Yeah.

Of course. It makes no sense. It's not the same comparison as you pointed out. So he doesn't care if it works. Correct. So there's a movie called this a civil action. It's one of my favorite movies, right? No, I haven't seen it.

Of course you haven't. Of course you haven't seen a civil action. I just didn't want you to ask. I just wanted you to keep going. John Travolta, Robert Duval, I know you haven't seen it. seen it. And the reason why the movie is so interesting to me, it's a true story about a lawyer named Jan. I can't remember his last name now, who was a very thriving Cornell lawyer. And he ends up taking the case of a town in Massachusetts somewhere in New England,

if I remember correctly, that was bringing a class action suit against a, of a town. a huge food conglomerate because they were dumping toxic waste into the lake in their town. Children were drinking that. People were drinking that and they were getting cancer. Sort of like an Aaron Brockovic situation. There was a whole little run there

of environmental action movies that happens. A great little era. But this one, and the guy goes broke. The guy, the guy, he leverages almost all, because he will not leave this case. alone because he's been affected by the people, the children that he's had to watch go through cancer, the parents that he's had to talk to that have lost their children, some of the

parents who've died of cancer, right? He's been affected by it, so he won't leave it alone. It becomes a crusader, much like Aaron Brockovich. And the reason why I love the movie so much is because the movie deals with diagnosis dysfunction. And a diagnosis dysfunction to me is when agendas stop people from agreeing on what the actual problem is. So in this particular movie,

the people that are, the people that represent the company that is poisoning, I think the name of the time was Woolburn or whatever it was, the people that represent them, they have to know deep in their heart that they're poisoning these people. They have to know that. They have to know that they're poisoning these people. It's obvious that there's something specifically wrong here.

All right. But they can't allow that diagnosis to come to the table because then they got to fix it. And fixing it means that their bottom line changes. So the question, the central question of the movement, movie is, is when do people start mattering and money stops to matter? Stop to matter. In this situation, it's fairly the same. What we have here is as an American society, as a community, if that's what we really are,

because community has a couple of definitions that I don't think America and America or any very specific neighborhoods or even communities in America can adhere to anymore. what we're being asked to do is just, and I'm being honest, the 2A community, the pro-gun community, is essentially asking us to be okay every so often with 19, 20 people getting killed in the supermarket or at a school, or to be okay with gun violence all over America on an everyday basis. They're just saying this is part of American culture.

And the reason why they're asking us, the reason why I say that is because everything that governor, everything as far as Yuvaldi is concerned, it's like there was, there's a school police force there. There were things that they did, I guess, too hard

in elementary school. And I want people to understand this as I drone on and ramble. I'm trying to collect my emotions. An elementary school is never going to be the fucking Pentagon. Right. You're never going to have a situation where in elementary school, I was just in when we were doing hip hop homicides. As soon as you walk into an elementary school and you see funny characters on the wall and you see like dragons, hey, do your homework and you get an extra star sticker.

And as soon as you're in a library and you see like those little plastic containers where the children put their books after they're done with them, you see maps of Louisiana up on the wall. There's this feeling of ease and a free. freedom and of imagination. All of those things preclude those people from walking around like is DefCon 5 every fucking day. They're in a place where they're supposed to be safe. They're in a place where they're inherently supposed to be safe. They're supposed to be safe.

So we want to go to recess. Like it's at cross purposes with what it is. We can do more. But we're never going to have a situation to where you're doing a fucking retinal scan to get into Ms. Grantanetti's first grade class. So the question is being that these things are on the rise and being that they're a part of our culture, well, then what's the next answer? And the next answer is to try to reconcile America's relationship with the gun. But the diagnosis dysfunction that's coming from all the politicians that are bought on both sides in Washington. and from the people like Governor Abbott

who would rather kick the can into a black man's hand than actually deal with what just happened in his state means that we do not have the wherewithal to properly address this problem. We don't. And I talked to a guy who is a 2A advocate yesterday. I wanted to bring him on the podcast, but you guys rightfully said that our audience

would probably be triggered by having that that voice on the podcast. And very intelligent person. All I got was platitudes. All I got was platitudes. All I got was this is what the answers were. The answers were if we do universal background checks, that eventually is going to lead to the end of guns.

If we do this, that eventually is going to lead to the end of guns. If we do this, that eventually is going to lead to the end of guns. So much of the argument against doing things to make children safe today had to do do with the conjecture of what his motherfucking right to own a fucking bazooka would be five years from now. And let's just keep, let's just keep it real with it. You don't care about the fucking kids.

You don't care about them. You certainly don't care about the 10 black people who got their fucking a week ago. So the right is in a state of regulatory capture where the gun, where people like where people like Hammer make the gun laws and have made the gun laws

on behalf of lobbyists for a long, long time. And the left has got their tail tucked between their legs and doesn't want to go too hard because there might be some gun-owners gun-owning southerners that still vote Democrat. So we're in a situation to, well, we're being asked as a society. I want people to think this

to accept dead kids, whether they be killed in a mass shooting or whether they be killed in South Baton Rouge to accept dead children as a part of our existence. And I want people to ask themselves whether or not that's something that they're comfortable with. And ask themselves like that in a real way.

And don't use to, it's so true. That guy that you were just talking about, his personal interest is more important than the lives of those children and the lives of those adults in Buffalo. Just like with the politicians, your position and your power means more to you than anything else than these innocent lives. That's essentially what you're saying. And for the people who might deflect and say, oh, like Abbott said in his press conference, well, 18-year-olds have been able to get guns for 60 years in this state.

But you weaken the gun laws to make it easier for him to get it and to carry them. That's the kind of stuff they're not saying. or mental health, we need to do better with mental health, then why did you slash $211 million from the department that oversees mental health programs in Texas? Why is Texas ranked the last out of all 50 states in regards to overall access to mental health care? And the telehealth program that you implemented

in response to Santa Fe, why is it that it's not even being used in Yuvaldi? Not even being used in that school district. So when they try to deflect, it's important that you call them out on the things that they're saying, oh, well, we need to do this, but you don't do them, actually. You don't do them. Vote Beto. The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul

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No, I'm not doing Herschel. Bonnie, play the sound. Not doing Herschel. Kane, Kia Abel, you know, and that's the problem that we have. And I said, what we need to do is looking to how we can stop those things. You know, he talked about doing a disinformation. What about getting an department that can look at young men that's looking at women? that looking at just social media.

What about doing that? Looking into things like that, and we can stop that that way. But yeah, they want to just continue. So two things to take away. Number one, Kane killed Abel.

And Hersch Walker, if elected, against Raphael Warnock, is going to start the department of men who look at women who look at social media. Because that will address

rampage killings and gun violence in America if you're in Georgia and you can hear my voice please vote for Raphael Warnock Unserious I mean that's a funny clip But

He already didn't he win a primary Yeah he won a primary It's him and Warnock Like it's unsirious Unserious Unserious Unserious First of all he's not even going to remember

That he said that He's not even going to remember that he wanted to create that And you were watching someone who's suffering from some type of, I mean, like you posted CTE. He's got mental health issues. It's like, it's not even funny. And the fact that he actually beat somebody to get to where he is now to run against, Warnock is wild.

Georgia, what, that's so embarrassing. That's embarrassing. Just to give you a rundown on the villains this here, Joe Manchin won't budge on the Senate filibuster. He doesn't want to scrap the filibuster to pass. a gun control bill argued on Tuesday evening that the filibuster was the only thing that prevents us from total insanity the filibuster's only thing that's preventing you guys from doing anything at all you guys

are fucking dumb the Senate GOP blocked a domestic terrorism bill gun policy debate the GOP doesn't want to have this conversation the Senate has gone is going on recess with very very little chance of bipartisan path on gun control that's not going to happen there's no bipartisan here. So Irma Garcia,

Amy Marie, Joe Garza, Eva Morelez, Xavier Lopez, Uzziya Garcia, Jesse Flores Jr., Lexi Rubio, Tess Marie Mata, Nivia, Lessa Bravo, Annabelle, Guadalupe

Rodriguez, Ellie Garcia, and Elijah Torres are dead. they'll never be back here again. Their time on the earth has passed. Their families and the people around them are left to pick up the pieces. And what we are left to do

is to argue to fill the time until the next one of these happens. And there are people out here with platforms. You're killing children. You're killing kids. there's a special place in hell for you. Like there's a special place in hell for you. You're killing children.

The reality is this. Like if you, if I was president, what would Van do? Two things. Number one, the first thing I would do is I would start a new department. Not the department of men who look at women who look at social media. I don't think that department has very much future. I would start a department. I think it's high time because of what we've been through just recently.

because of the growing discontent of Americans, it's high time for Department of American Wellness. I really do believe this. A department that's really just based around checking in on people, but that also has a budget to identify potential threats to American society at a young age. Federalization of that. The Department of American Wellness

to make sure that there's enough money that we can identify people and I just throw them away that might be struggling, that might need a little help and to make sure that we don't, we don't let anything fall between the cracks. Number two is I would federalize school security as much as we can, okay? Since we're not going to be able to agree on gun control and there are going to be people who think that it's okay to America to have a tank or a grenade or a bazooka, all those things which are lawful, by the way. A bazook is lawful.

grenades are lawful. I hope you know that. I know a nigga who has a bazook. We talked about it. It's lawful. Okay? Why the fuck you would need a grenade? You know what?

Let me, before I get on to this, you know, all are you two-a son of, some of the bitches, especially the black ones. I have a question for you. We talk about the, the,

we talk about the fact that you think that the Second Amendment is super important because it is a concrete freedom that is guaranteed by the Constitution. I understand what you're talking about. Number one, there's no such thing as an inelible right.

Even the right of free speech, which a guy in my position and my profession believes to be the most important right guaranteed by you in America has limits on it. Yeah.

The framers that set up the Constitution didn't know that a carbine-powered AR-15 would exist. Of course. They didn't know what one weapon, you could take a half a platoon of Marines go fuck up all the revolutionaries. They'd be looking crazy. Think it was fucking witchcraft.

It's a totally different world. Totally different world, right? All right, but fuck all that. Like, for the two-way people that are talking about the fact that you have to have your gun because you have to be able to fight back against a tyrannical state, especially to the black two-way advocates.

Why don't y'all ever advocate for niggas to bang it out with the police then? because what we're because what we see as black people we see a tyrannical state all the time like all the time we see niggas getting their heads blown off for just their for movement we see the niggas getting their head blown off for the way that they talk Philando castile was a legal gun owner that was killed up there right reaching for his shit the NRA didn't say a motherfucking thing nobody fucking killed cared. You're liars. All of you,

you're lying. And your lies are making sure that people get fucking killed. Your lies are costing children their lives. These are fourth graders. I don't understand how you can. I'm sorry, man. I'm going off the deep end. I'm going crazy.

I don't understand how you could do it. I really don't. Like, I've been a fucking dirty nigger before. I've fucked up. I've cheated. I've done all. There's always a moment where you catch yourself and you go, yo, van, how fucked up are you?

Like seriously, even if it's not until after you've, you've been caught for the thing that you're doing, till you've been caught with your hand in the cookie jar, till you've been, you've cheated on your taxes. I didn't pay my taxes. So for what? I didn't pay my taxes for like seven years one time.

Oh my God. I'm telling you, I'm not a perfect person. I'm a fucked up person, but I'm like, but I'm saying is there's a point to where you, I'm talking to you would hope so. You would hope so.

But you're talking to people who don't necessarily have that. same moral compass that you do. I don't have a moral compass. I'm all fucked up, but I'm saying is, I'm not that fucked up. If you could call out when you're fucked up and when you're wrong, you see it, right? These are people who don't see it. This is why you're so confused and frustrated

and why you don't get it. These are people who are motivated by one thing. Totally selfish, personal interest, money. They don't see it that way. And they continue to deflect and blame it on something else and come up with other reasons as to why this is a problem when at the end of the

day, you are the problem. You are the reason that this continues to happen. The lack thereof or whatever action towards keeping these or preventing gun control legislation, you are the problem. And that's like, you can't compare what you would do to what these people would do because they don't even recognize how wrong they are. Or if they do, they don't give up. Fuck. So what can we do? How can we have an intelligent conversation on this? You know what? Let's take a break real quick and let's get to somebody smart. His name is Igor Volsky. He runs guns down to America.

Someone who's dedicated his life to this. Let's get him on real quick. On the other side of this break and then we come out of it. We'll talk about this some more. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable Internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business. to keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services,

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There's one guy who has a lot of facts, has dedicated himself to be in a part of the answer to the question of how does America get over its gun violence obsession. It's death and gun culture. His name is Igor Volske. And he joins us today on higher learning. Now, you've started an organization that, or you're part of an organization that is dedicated to talking about the gun violence that exists here in the United States. Before we get

into specific questions about what happened earlier this week or what even happened last week or even what happened the week before, let's talk about what it is that you're doing and why you decide to do it. You know, I have to say, I came into this work quite by accident and very uninterested. And very unintentionally. You know, I'd spent my entire career really working in progressive politics, mostly on Obamacare. And it wasn't until a shooting in 2015 in San Bernardino, California, in December of that year, that I really found myself outraged. I think as outraged as so many Americans now all across the country, because you had yet another mass show. shooting. And I got back to my desk at the end of the day. And I saw all of these lawmakers just tweeting

their thoughts and prayers over and over and over again. And, you know, that's not surprising, right? They do that after every mass shooting. But what caught my eye is that the very same lawmakers who are kind of most vociferous about letting people know that they really care were the same ones who voted against reforms in the aftermath of the Newtown shooting, which is now almost 10 years ago, if we could believe it. And something inside me just broke. And I said, I cannot believe that these folks are trying to pull the wall over the eyes of their constituents and trying to trick them,

essentially, into thinking they actually care about their lives when in reality they don't, because that's not the way they vote. And so I very methodically quote tweeted every single one of those lawmakers for hours that evening and pointed out that the reason they were thinking and praying and not actually doing anything at all was because they took a certain amount of money from the NRA. And I would go over and calculate how much money they took and I would tweet out those numbers. And those tweets went really viral. They made national, international headlines.

They pushed me into this work, and they enabled me to start an organization called Guns Down America, where we push lawmakers, specifically now the Biden administration, to live up to their campaign promises and actually deliver on this issue, fight on this issue, to keep us safe, to keep our communities safe. But also to ensure that businesses and corporations play their role as well, because we learned in the Buffalo, shooting. American grocery stores are on the front line of this crisis. The shooting at tops, I'll just note quickly, is one of over 450 shootings in or around grocery stores since January of 2020. They have a role to play here as well. I want to pick up off something that you said because you mentioned promises that are made when these official, these politicians, are, you know, campaigning for office. And then you mentioned the Biden administration. And a lot of times, you know, it's easy, and I do it, for sure, point towards Republicans.

Because we equate the Second Amendment with Republicans and, you know, their connection to the NRA. But we have a president who's a Democrat right now in office. What promises have been made by the Democrats, specifically the Biden administration or President Biden when he was running, that he's fell to deliver on in regards to gun control. Yeah, Rachel, I really appreciate you asking me this because over the last couple of days, and really for the last year and a half since the beginning of the administration, I've been working so hard to push this administration, this president, to live up to his promises. Because when he was was running back in 2019 and 2020, he told us that he was the only candidate in the race to defeat

the NRA back in 1994 to pass the assault weapons ban, that his 30-plus years of experience in Washington, D.C. meant that he could bring Democrats and Republicans together and accomplish big things, get big things done, that he had that experience. He had that know-how, which is why I should vote for him, he argued, rather than all of these other Democrats on the podium, he looked, Rachel's survivors in the eye throughout that campaign and told them, I've lost my children. I know what you're going through. I feel it in my heart.

I will fight for you. This issue will be a priority for me as president for my administration. He said this time and time and time again, he gave us a plan, a vision on gun violence prevention. that was so much more expansive, frankly, than anything we have seen in election cycles past. And we were excited. We were energized that finally we had a champion in the White House who wouldn't be afraid to spend real political capital to make progress on this issue. And he gets in. And not only does he fail to really fight in the way that he promised, but right now in the White House, there's not a single senior staffer, not one whose sole job is to work on this issue. Not one. And it shocked me. It shook me that when the president delivered those remarks in the aftermath of the Buffalo shooting on Tuesday, that he didn't announce an appointment of like a gun czar or an office, a White House Office of gun violence prevention, that these are tangible things he could do without

60 votes or 50 votes or whatever. And these are all choices. These are all choices he is making and his administration are making for whatever reason. For whatever reason they believe that when Americans are reminded yet again, that they could get killed while buying groceries in America, that their children could die when they're sent to school in America, that the best thing for him to do, apparently, politically, is to simply walk away from the problem, to ask somebody else to take care of it. It's really, you know, quite shameful.

Let's get into the nuts and bolts of this. We've had more mass shootings in America this year than they are days in the year, where we are, it's, we're dealing with something that is very, very destructive in American culture. I reached out to someone who I know, who is a staunch to a advocate yesterday to have a conversation. The conversation was about why they feel like access to guns, certain types of guns, or easy access to firearms is not the issue in American gun culture. And specifically with school shootings, his answer to me was it's security. Schools have to be more secure.

Guns are not the answer. Any gun control laws would lead to what he said, the banning of all guns, getting guns off the street totally, which he says is a non-starter for him. He doesn't think that easy access to destructive firearms is the problem with school shootings or American gun violence itself. Why is he wrong? Well, he's wrong because every other country, a peer nation in the world, has the same kind of security structures and schools and in grocery stores. and whatever public entity or place you want to name.

And yet we are the only ones, as you say, that have had more mass shootings than there are in a day of the year. And the reason for that, despite what your friend believes, which is just entirely wrong, I mean, frankly, it's like arguing the earth is flat at this point. I never said a friend, by the way. Did I say if I say it's somebody I know. Is this like somebody on Twitter that you know?

Is that somebody that I interviewed before? Oh, okay. Yeah. The reason he's wrong is because, look, you look at all of the science on this question, and it simply points you to the reality that where there are more guns, there are more gun deaths. By the way, of every kind, everyday retaliatory cyclical gun violence that plagues our cities, mass shootings, like the ones we're discussing that we suffered over the last couple of days, police shootings, both you shooting police and police shooting at you, suicides, domestic violence, all of that

is tied to the availability of firearms. Why? Because firearms are innately dangerous instruments, and they're dangerous in almost anybody's hands, right? Just take police shootings as an example, right? And so what other nations have figured out, is that rather than putting security officers everywhere or whatever your non-friend here is suggesting, that what you really have to do is three different things. A, you have to regulate the firearm industry, and that means stopping them from producing the kind of assault weapons

that were used in these shootings that allow you to kill as many people as possible in a short period of time as possible. Two, it means increasing the standard of gun ownership that is making it harder for people to get a gun, not just a background check, but licensing and registration. By the way, those two ideas, very popular here in the United States.

And three, and this deals with most of the homicides we see, the everyday gun violence and communities, you have to invest in those communities directly. There are people on the ground doing the work, identifying the small number of individuals in a given community who are responsible for most of, the gun violence in that community and providing those folks with economic assistance, changing the norms in terms of how conflicts are dealt with. And those programs have been incredibly

successful in reducing rates of homicides in cities. So we know what the solutions are. And it's so distressful to hear that apparently, right, we can't even agree on the problem. So staying in that line of thinking for those who are advocates of the Second Amendment and don't believe that we should have more strict gun laws, what would you say for the people who tried to say, well, this was just a person who was a monster. This was just someone who was evil. Or they say they attribute it to mental health, which is a case, is the case at times, but would say, oh, it's not the guns. It's other factors. that are contributing to these mass shootings? Well, first of all, I'd argue it's not a person acting alone. It's a person acting within a system that allows that person to easily access firearms and incredibly dangerous guns like the assault weapons we're discussing. It's a system powered by politicians who work very, very hard to prevent any kind of debate

or conversation about the very reforms I mentioned that would help keep us safe. So it's never just one person. It's a person operating in an environment that's been created to allow this kind of death to happen. And the second thing I'll say is, you know, even though it's very rare, very rare statistics tell us, for a person who is deep mental issues to carry out gun violence. In fact, those individuals are far more likely to be victims of gun violence than perpetrators. We here in the United States don't have a monopoly on mental illness. There's mental illness all across the world.

Yet we are the only ones who have this gun violence crisis. And it's because those guns are so easy to get. When you hear the term common sense gun control, common sense gun laws, what does that mean to you? I mean, it means to me laws that a majority of Americans agree on, right? This is expanding background checks. This is banning assault weapons. This is a licensing system. This is a registration system.

This is ensuring that you lock your guns so your kid can't get it. There's like a whole host of reforms. Almost all of them, all of these policies, are universally popular, which again, just brings me back to my political point. If they're so popular and if there are so many more Americans who support tightening our gun laws than loosening them, why can't this president, the Senate majority leader, galvanize that support and at least fight for progress? That's the very definition of politics, right? Having an idea, bringing people, organized people along with you to make progress. They're failing at the basics,

at the fundamentals with this issue. Well, I'd argue, and I just, I mean, I think the reason is because the lobby is so strong, right? The NRA, We're talking five million members, and they can raise untold amounts of money. It's just one organization. How do you match the money that the 2A community is putting into it? Yeah, let me talk about this. This is, I think, really important to highlight. You know, and I get asked this a lot, right?

Like, like Igor, you say 90% of Americans support all of these things, right? But why haven't we been able to make progress? This is the question you're asking. And I think, you know, there is undeniably to me, and I think I've really come to this in the last couple of years. And this is true historically with firearms in America, that firearms in America have been used to subjugate first Native Americans, then African slaves, then as we expended westward, right, and conquered more of the continent. And then throughout the civil rights era, into the Jim Craw era, right? There was a whole history of firearms being used to keep people in bondage and servitude, to keep people in what was perceived as their place, and to maintain a certain power structure,

right, a certain white power structure. And it's hard to divorce the power of the gun issue from, the role of race in our country, from the role of masculinity in our country, right? I think of it as almost as a braid, right? I think you need three hairs to make a braid, right? So one is the gun, one is the masculinity, and one is the racism. And they're all intertwined in one braid. And so for you to really truly get at the roots of solving this problem, you've got to dig into some real complicated issues. And a lot of that is reflected in those five million members, in the dollars that the lobby spends to buy lawmakers, in the fear that the conservative movement creates around stepping out of

line, right, on this issue. All of those, though, are reflections of like deep, rooted problems in American society. And I really think that guns are intertwined right in the middle of that. And that's the challenge, right? That's the great challenge of why this is so difficult. But it doesn't mean we shouldn't fight, but it's difficult. Yeah. Speaking of you being difficult and not fight and we should that we should not not fight, how hopeful are you, Igor, that there's going to be some type of change.

And I say that on the heels of the fact that today another bill was voted against in the Senate that was supposed to open discussion on gun safety and hate crimes. People voted right on the party lines. I mean, we have political leaders, and I use the term leader loosely, people with power. Politicians are saying, you know, the thoughts and the prayers, and we need to not politicize this, and we need to talk about love and we need to unite,

yet we cannot unite on something that could, for prevention. That seems to be what they're avoiding. So how hopeful are you that the senators or Congress will come together to actually reconsider their stance to get something done? You know, this is a hard question for me to answer because I think professionally I have to be hopeful. Otherwise, why do I wake up every day and do this work? But, you know, I want to give you an honest answer.

And that is to say that over the last six months, seven months, and especially over these last couple of days, it's been really challenging to find that hope. And it's been challenging because the people you thought were your champions, like, you're. your elected officials, the people I thought, even in my own movement, who would understand that if you're not going to push after 19 kids die, when are you going to push? In my mind, so many of them have just left the battlefield and have moved to this place of, well, we're just going to blame the NRA and we're going to blame, you know, the crazy things Ted Cruz says and that Republicans say. And you can find, you can do that. That's fine. I suppose you can do that. But that doesn't move us any closer towards any kind of progress. That doesn't break that cycle I talked about earlier. That doesn't create any kind of muscle memory of politicians actually fighting trying to do something on this issue, right? In the same way, for instance, that Democrats fought around reproductive rights when the road decision was leaked, as they should have. I just expect the same thing on this issue as well. not seeing that kind of action or even that kind of effort to push people in power the so-called leaders, as you say, to act.

That's been incredibly difficult to watch. And frankly, the fact that I am one of the few voices who is speaking as honestly about this as I am and putting the burden of action, Not on Mitch McConnell. I mean, we could all go to Mitch McConnell's office, set ourselves on fire, and nothing will happen, right? Not on Mitch McConnell who will never move, but on people who are currently in power, who can at the very least change the template for how we deal with this issue, raise the bar, change the standard, change the expectation that if a shooting happens, a president must do something.

and they're not they're choosing they're choosing they're choosing to just do the same old same old and it's that's the difficulty for me to find hope the fact that even with um the ability to do the most basic of things they are choosing choosing in action that's what's so painful about it i'm a gun owner um let me explain this to you i i agree grew up in the double whammy of gun ownership, right? Number one, I'm from the South, Louisiana, Baton Rouge. Number two, I grew up in a dangerous place. So Southern man, one side of the family is from the country.

I love you, mom, but this is true. My dad is from the country. Mom's going to hate that I say this, but the other side of the family is from the hood. I'm sorry, Ma'am. One part of it. So you have guns on both sides. You have we're hunting, we're doing it for recreation. I was a rabbit killer, a deer killer, all of that stuff, right?

Then on the other side of it, you have people who come up in South Baden Rouge come in a particular place. They don't feel safe because the chance that somebody will come into their home is actually higher because of where they live. So for me, you know, I, to protect my house, I have a shotgun. A shotgun in my closet, locked up, whatever. I have a shotgun. Am I safer because I have a shotgun in my home?

If you look at all of the research, the answer is absolutely not, right? The research would tell us, let's go this in a couple of ways, right? Because it's like you feel unsafe. if you have a gun and me coming in here, well, let me tell you about what the research papers, right, is like a silly thing to say, right? But just to answer broadly, and I'll get into a little more detail. It's to say that we know that having a gun in your home triples your risk of suicide, that you would use that gun against yourself. That's so wow. That's crazy. And because I literally write about in the book, not to cut you off, but about the fact that I actually got so depressed to

where my, my therapist asked me to give all of my, my ammunition to my friend Nick. And I looked right at that, like the first time I felt like I couldn't go any longer, I looked at the shotgun. That's so nuts. Okay, I'm sorry. Didn't mean it. No, and it's, no, but it's, it's the reason why suicide rates are highest

in rural America, white rural America, where also gun ownership is highest for that very reason. suicides triple, homicides double, the percentage that you would use that gun that you have to chase away some kind of criminal knocking on your door is like 0.001. You have a better chance of survival if you run away from a confrontation than if you use your gun. I mean, the numbers are wild, right? The research on this is wild. So, but look, but it is true exactly what you say.

not the first person to tell me, look, I live in an unsafe area. I want to have a gun. I feel safer. It gives me peace of mind, emotional peace of mind, to have a gun. I understand that. I'm not here to discourage anybody to have a gun. I just want people to understand that when they're bringing a gun into their home, they're bringing something that's innately dangerous and that could end up killing them, right? Because most suicides are instantaneous decisions. They're not planned weeks ahead. it's over. And then communities, families suffer for, you know, for the rest of the time. So, so I want people to be informed. And I also want people to meet a higher level of, of ownership, right? Get the training, get a license, learn how to store that gun, do it safely. But at the same time,

really, really think if a gun is the right decision for you. Because I bet part of the reason why you feel unsafe is, I'm assuming, there's people around you who also have guns, right? So you're adding another gun to the danger that is people having guns. And I don't know the perfect solution, right? I'm not suggesting that the solution is to simply, you know, to simply, you know, ignore the threat. But I would just want folks to really know the danger, because we just the reality, the fact is, you know, the fact is in the same way that the earth is round, the fact is that having a gun is just incredibly dangerous. Wow. I did not know any of that. What do you think about the California bill that just passed from the California Senate that mimics the Texas bill or not bill, but the Texas law in

regards to abortion? Is that a step in the right direction? You know, I, I, I, um, I, um, I, um, you know, I, I don't know that mimicking that kind of model that we criticize in one issue and seem to embrace on the other is exactly the pathway we want to be following. But what I do like to see and what I appreciate about California is that, you know, they've really led the way in tightening state gun laws, in showing voters and Americans that, hey, government can actually keep you safer because we know in states with a stricter, tougher gun laws, you have far less instances of gun violence. There's a direct correlation and causation there. And so I appreciate the effort, the creativity. I firmly believe that a lot of this progress that we're talking about is going to be led by. the states because clearly, you know, the federal government is, is broken. And I, you know,

I really hope in the way that Florida actually did after Parkland with a Republican governor, that states really look at this tragedy, really look at the fact that the federal government is not protecting them and think about what they can do to toughen state laws. to give you a magic wine, you get to do one thing to make the U.S. safer in terms of gun violence. What would that one thing be?

You know, I would if I would look, let me think what I would do. I mean, is it one thing? I only get one. I only get one thing, Igor. Squeeze it. It's an Ameri-Ree situation.

The last question would have given you more leeway, Igor. I'm just going to just going to say it's an A. Marie situation. You get one thing. Okay. You know, let me let me let me just talk it through and then maybe I'll pick one. You know, my initial gut says that we know that gun violence follows poverty, right? Where there are higher rates of poverty, there are higher rates of gun violence. This is not surprising to anybody, right?

So I would want to really focus on investing in communities because we know investing in communities. dramatically, giving people economic opportunity, jobs, dramatically reduces gun violence and gun homicide. And so part of me is very concerned about the communities that are closest to the pain of everyday gun violence, of breaking that cycle, right? So part of me thinks that that's the answer. But another part of me really thinks about the impact of these kinds of mass shootings on the entire country, right? The fear that it creates that at any moment doing the most mundane thing that I would just, you know, walking down the street here in D.C. Or going to the grocery store across the street that I and 20 other people could die in a

matter of minutes, right? So maybe I would go after the assault weapons, right? And the challenge is like, okay, you can stop new production, but then what do you do with all the millions and millions and millions and millions out in circulation, probably have to register them and license them like we did with machine guns and it works pretty well. So there's kind of a solution there. So I'm between those two, but I'm curious, but let me turn it on you because I'm curious from each of you, which would you pick? Would you go kind of the poverty root cause or would you try to, you know, get rid of the weapons of war if you had that magic wand?

I haven't guessed it is. So look, for me, It all starts in community like you're talking about because when I think of gun violence, you know, Governor Abbott talked about the fact that, you know, there's some bunch of gun violence that happens in Chicago. He left out the fact that the gun laws in Chicago don't necessarily correlate to that violence because 60% of those crime guns are bought from neighboring states that have laxer gun issues. But the problem is with theirs that you have different places to where the poverty, the proximity, those things lead people to making decisions that are at cross purposes with them living long productive lives. So I would definitely start.

That's definitely what I would do, you know, because I think about the gun violence that happens every single day as something that really needs to be addressed. As far as the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, R-15 high-cap situation, you know, I've been around people who own AR-15s, my father owned it. AR-15. The reality is that's a civilian brand of a military weapon. I just don't, I mean, I've been around guns my whole life. I just don't get it.

And so I have, yeah. Yeah. So for me, I'd start with the everyday gun violence and the gun violence that, to be quite selfish with you, plagues my community the most. That was going to be my reason to. Right. So I'm sorry. Go ahead.

A selfish reason. No, no. 100%. You just literally took the answer. it was a selfish thing. It affects our community. And that's why I would start with that and would hope that it would, you know,

trickle down in other ways. The last question I was going to ask you, and if your last answer answers this, because it was kind of similar to what Van was going to say, then we can just move along. But if you had the power, what would gun control legislation look like in this country for you? Like what? Yeah, I'll just leave it there. And if that, if you already answered that, then we can move on.

Well, I'll say, you know, in the 2020 primary, and I think she's introduced this repeatedly, Elizabeth Warren, the center from Massachusetts, had a real comprehensive approach that really talked about, you know, those three bucket or three legs of a stool that I discussed, right? You regulate the industry. You raise the standard for gun ownership. And you invest. in communities, and it did it incredibly holistically. And it was kind of like the Green New Deal for gun violence prevention. And so if I had to like pick one piece of legislation that I could magic wand through the Congress, it would be that because I think it deals both with the root causes to some degree. It deals with the with the firepower. And it ensures that, you know,

the industry stops making a profit. And by the way, it does. every time there's this kind of tragedy. Igor, we appreciate you, my man. This was so fun. Thank you guys. Yeah, keep working. But make sure you take care of yourself, bro. Take breaks.

Make sure you relax. Make sure you don't take too much on, man. It's a lot going on out there. Thank you so much. Tell them where they can find more about your organization. Yes, please. Gunsdown America.org is the website. Guns down movement,

in the guns down America on Twitter, but I'm also at Igor Volsky, I-G-O-R-V-O-L-S-K-Y on Twitter as well. Igor Volski, thank you for joining us today on higher learning. This episode is brought to by WeatherTech. Everyone knows Winter is the MVP and make it a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer, unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner.

Or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those WeatherTech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. This episode is brought to by Viori. When it comes to close, that score high in both comfort and style, Viori is my MVP. Sunday performance joggers, oh yeah.

They have the perfect. I could watch a game and then go out to dinner vibe. And the metapant, that's my number one. I need to look like I tried option. Get 20% off your first purchase at viori.com slash Simmons and discover the versatility of Viori clothing. Exclusions apply, visit the website for full terms and conditions. What did we learn, Rachel? I got to tell you, one of the most shocking things I learned is that the statistics of having a gun in your home,

the fact of what you're more prone to do, and the fact that most people don't need it to protect themselves from a danger on the outside. The danger is really coming from within. That is wild to me. I had no idea that was a statistic. Guess what I learned. I'm out. I'm out. I'm done.

Yeah. I knew you were going to go there. I'm done. What I'm going to do is I'm going to take my fat, happy black ass Monday morning. I'm going to sell that gun. Oh, wait. I thought you meant out of like the country. I'm out.

Are you serious? I'm going to take my big, fat, 12 sandwich eating ass. And I'm going to get my ass up Monday morning. And I'm going to sell that gun. I'm going to get rid of it. You can, if you want, yeah. Like, like, I'm going to sell that gun. I'm going to get rid of the gun.

I'm going to get rid of it. Wow. I don't want to be a part of a culture anymore. I would like to be a part of changing one. And I understand, look, my father's dead. I loved him from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. He was such an amazing man, beautiful man. And he loved nothing more than a shoot a gun.

And I don't judge him. I don't judge anyone who feels that way. But I can't be a part of the crew anymore. I can't be a part of it. That's a bold move. I bowed my ass. I just can't be a part of it anymore. I mean, bold in the sense that we have talked about guns before on this podcast multiple times.

And you are always say you are a proud gun owner. That's, I guess what I'm saying is like, wow, that's not the move that I expected you to make. But I understand it. Can't be proud of it. Can't be proud of it. Breaking to my house, I'm going to gum you to death. I don't know what to say. I don't know.

I don't want During the times of my highest depression I looked at Igor talked about this I looked at the shotgun And I thought it would be pretty easy I actually thought about how I would blow my head off I thought about

You know Whether or not I would be able to reach the trigger What the sound will be like What Kalika would hear All of that I told my therapist that And she was like do me a favor take all the ammunition bring to nick's house shout out to nick may you help save

my life and the reality of the situation is maybe i am one of these mentally unstable wackos and cuckoos that is not responsible enough to to have something like that maybe i am or maybe i'm just sick of our culture of excuses and platitudes i don't know what to do my department of wellness thing is probably a stupid idea like my federal life the federalization of It's probably, I don't know what to do. I don't know. I don't know. These niggas supposed to know.

Every fucking time these niggas tell us that they're supposed to know something. They don't know a motherfucking thing. No, they don't. They just know how to blame other people and point the finger. That's it. We also have to talk about something else.

Is that the police continue to be useless. The police down there in Yvaldi, according to some parents, took their sweet-ass time going in there to get this guy. I'm not going to say that I'm sitting here as a proponent for the police, but is that like a verified, I feel like I've heard multiple things.

I've heard multiple things too. Which is why I don't know if I want to necessarily get into this. The only thing I should have been hearing was that cops was breaking down the fucking door to school to get in. How about that? Sure. There should be no fucking, I don't know.

Look, man, we're talking about reports. Everybody can be out there. there seeing we don't know whether or not there was a school officer in front of the place i can tell you one thing in r a good guy with a gun people there was a guy in buffalo he got his ass shot off before he went there and and killed up a bunch of black people there was a guy outside in front of the parkland shooting they fucked over him maybe the fact of the matter is that the cop is outgunned if the motherfucker that he's up against has an ar-15 yep so the reality of the situation is is, and I've had AR-15s, I've used the AR-15, I'm not trying to, I know, no, no,

what, nah, fuck all y'all. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. You don't need the gun. Fuck the air 15. Fuck it. Why am I, why am I, this is the reason why it happens.

Why are we acting like is there's any, why are we acting like there's a point? You don't need it. You don't need it. You don't need it. You know what? Go buy a fucking, you know what will really protect your home? A fucking jet. that you can drop bombs from.

Fucking weapons grade plutonium. Sarin. You don't know what I mean? Like, like, yeah, so. You don't need it. You don't need it. So the reality is. The answer is not one exit to a school, one door.

The answer is not strapping up teachers and having vests. Could be part of the answer. The teachers, hold on. The teachers definitely are not the answer. They talked to a guy named Ken Trump. I think it was his name on, on NBC and he was like, a teacher shouldn't have to worry about that.

And this guy is a school security expert. A teacher shouldn't have to worry about that. That's not the situation that you want teachers in. Teachers have to be able to identify all kinds of things about students. And then on top of that, you're going to ask them. Yeah, a teacher. I agree.

Even have that training to even talk down or meet a fucking student. We shouldn't be asking our teachers to do that. But that's something that's been put on the table. We shouldn't be asking our teachers to do that. one exit sounds like a person gets through you're trapped in that school i don't like that like the answer is not to have the guns that's the only answer so that up do you know what i think i think there are a couple of different answers but but but the gun is a part of it and i don't understand why the gun is the biggest part so do i want to see better security yeah but you know what

why do i keep fucking cutting you i'm a terrible no no no no you You're fine. You're passionate. You're upset. I'm not, I'm not mad about it. Like, speak it. I'm not, I'm not here to be like, let me get my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my 15th, too. So, so, so we're supposed to equip them with AR 15s too? We should have a shootout at the school? It's a, so if we take this serious, there would be a multi-prone approach to it. Number one, you would, it would involve a little bit of hardening of the targets. I think you have to do that at this point. Here's the problem with that, though. Everything's a target, Rachel. Let's say we're talking about school shootings, right?

Then we're talking about specific issues of school shootings, which deal with parents, which deal with, excuse me, would deal with, teachers, this was fucking assembly day. So there were parents going in and out of this school. You know what I mean? So expecting a group of parents and teachers to be as that vigilant, it's just not, there's a human element to it. Okay. So let's say we harden the school targets.

What other targets have to be hardened? Do you want one way in and one way out of a supermarket? Because Tops and Buffalo got shot up. Do you want one way in and one way out? of a movie theater because Aurora got shot up. Do you want one way in and one way out of a concert or festival? Because they shot up a concert and festival in Vegas. Do you want, how do you harden a nightclub?

Because Pulse got shot up. Like, how do you harden a mall? They shot up a mall. And the good guy with a gun up there, the cops shot him. So this amount of ineptitude and this amount of bulls, Bullshitting over. Look, man, this amount of it, this is nuts. The reality is there needs to be an approach. There needs to be a conversation where everyone comes to it.

And the number one thing on their minds is not how do I go get the right? It's not how do I go get, how do I keep the left from keeping my guns? the number one concern in the conversation is how do we keep children safe? That has to be the number one concern. We're not even talking about the fact that some of our Asian brothers and sisters had a church running to here in Orange County where I'm at, and they got shot up. So the question is, how do we keep kids safe?

How do we keep them safe in school? how do we keep old black folks safe in a church in Charleston and then at a at a at a grocery store in Buffalo? How do we keep our LGBTQ brothers and sisters safe when they're partying their polls? How do we keep fucking country music fans safe from bump stop weapons in Vegas? Just people. Listen, CDC recently released data that said that firearms are now the leading cause of death. for American children. Like people let that sink in.

The leading cause, more than five deaths per 100,000 Americans between the ages of 1 and 19 were due to guns in 2020. Bruce Feldman, who's a pro-gun activist, called the NRA a political cult. A cult. We're not dealing with people anymore. We're dealing with religion.

there are more licensed gun stores in America than McDonald's. There are more places to get a Glock 40 than it is to get a quarter pounder with cheese. I'm fucking eating the night. I don't give a fuck. Fuck the diet. I'm eating. I'm going to have a slice of pizza. I can't fucking deal with it.

I'm never going to lose weight. I'm stressed the fuck out. I can't believe that like I just can't believe. that we have to have to have this fucking debate about the lives of kids. I want to put somebody in their shit. An American is seven times

more likely to die by gun violence than the Canadian. Seven times. They look pretty free in Canada. I've been up to Canada. It was a bunch of motherfuckers cold and smiling. It's like what we say about everything. They're not going to care

unless it directly impacts them. 212 mass shootings this year. It doesn't mean anything to them. It doesn't mean anything. It's not a reality. It's not a reality to them. They're pretending.

They're not sad. They're sad because this impacts their agenda. They're sad because those Texas politicians are not going to be able to happily go to the NRA convention in Houston this weekend. Like now there's a cloud over it. They're sad because it's just a fact. their own interests.

They are not sad. They are not. And if you have any question about that, look at what they're not doing in regards to protecting those children and other people who live in this country. Period. What's next?

This is what we're going to do. We're going to be down next week because we got Memorial Day. And we need the time off. I got to be honest with you. But on this issue, on the next podcast, I'm going to come up with the 10, biggest villains and every single issue like this in America.

I'm going to start, we're going to come together here at higher learning. We're going to start coming up with the 10 biggest villains. We need to know who the people are. A lot of the people who are making money off this lobby, who are making this problem intractable, they're living in anonymity. the problem is the people that get killed and the shooters are more famous than the people that are allowing the people to shoot and get killed. So the reality is we're going to know and we're not going to talk about the, the Mitch McConnell's of the world. We know that they're feckless political fucking bitches.

No, no, no, that's a heteronormative, terrible, whatever. They're feckless wusses. All right. We're not talking about them. We're talking about the people whose pockets they are lining. And when we identify these people, we got to get on their asses. Yeah. We got to get on their motherfuckin' asses.

Let's do it. Let's do it. Top ten villains. Let's go. All right. Now we've got to talk about another villain. We got to talk about Colin Kaepernick, man. He's not the villain.

I thought we were doing this whole top podcast on gun violence. Do you really want to do Kaepernick? We have to do Kaepernick real quick. Why do we have to do Kaepernick? Because it's because you know what? Let's save Kaepernick then. Let's save it. I'm asking a genuine question.

I'm not hating. I'm just like, why do we have to do Kaepernick? Or Stephen A. Smith and whatever. I feel like it doesn't flow with the podcast. This whole podcast has been about this and we're like, okay, let's talk about Cap. And the fact that Stephen A. Smith, I mean, was it that bad of a point?

Leave this in. The reality is my anti-Steven A. Smith agenda will continue. But you're, but you know what, Rachel? you're right. The question is now that I am I'm sure you are and I'm sure first of all hold on for a second.

Trudy, how are you? How about let's do this? How are you, Trudy? I woke up. Whatever day, what was that Wednesday morning? I was up at 5 a.m. looking at that Twitter thread

and I was undone because my nephew is 10 and he's in fourth grade and I think I just think about fourth grade. And I think about elementary school fourth grade is is the grade um so i just i just this is really crazy so that's my donnie i'm okay um it's been a weird month i think i've been thinking about life a lot um it's like you know mother's day and then blue passing away and then this tragedy uh i don't

I've just, my thought has been on, like, living in the moment and appreciating those around me a lot. And just not taking anything in any moment for granted, because life is already short. But it seems like with the circumstances as they are, that it's shorter than it has to be, which is, it's frustrating. It is frustrating. I'm wondering if anybody is suffering from extreme anxiety. I'll tell you all, I went to a Starbucks this morning. And at first I was cool. And I looked at somebody and they had like nervous energy.

Right? Just like moving weird in a weird way, seemed to be anxious. And I got paranoid. And then I've said this before and I think I said it's in the last podcast. I don't go into a place with. about identifying escape, like ways to escape. Then I started looking at everybody funny. And then I had to, I walked out of the Starbucks because I was so overcome with anxiety,

I felt like something was going to happen. And all I just wanted to go in there was give my, you know, triple grande, cinnamon dulce latte with caramel drizzle. And I couldn't even focus. Yes, that's my order. I could no whip. And I couldn't even focus. And then, like, I gather myself together and I went back in.

But I'm curious for you guys. Like, it took something that is like a simple joy to me to be able to get a coffee in the morning. And I like to observe people and just like see people as they're getting ready for their day. And like some people are studying. Some people are on their faults. People are taught. I don't know. It's like those little things.

And it was all stripped away from me this morning because I was so anxious that this is a crowd at Starbucks. somebody could come in here and just wreak havoc. And it ruined, it set the tone for my entire day. So, having dinner with a friend of mine one time. We're at like a Rosco's having dinner. And this guy was a gang member and he goes, man, if it goes down right now, how are we going to get out of here?

And I thought about it, you know, those are the things. And my dad used to sit with your back to the door, what you're back to, you can see the interests, you see the exit and all of that. And there are so many things that I've had to legislate just to feel comfortable in a situation. Like when I go to movie theaters, I will never sit in the middle. I sit on the aisle. Somebody walks in.

I want to be able to get up, get her up, get the fuck out of there, you know. And I really doesn't have anything to do with mass shootings. That has to do with being in a movie theater before when niggas got to shooting. That has to do with being in a party before when niggas got to shooting. That has to do with being in a club when niggas got to shooting. It has to do with being in the fucking mall when niggas got to shooting It has to do with being at a football game When niggas got to shooting

It has to do with being at a fucking street race With niggas got to shooting That has to do with being on spring break When niggas got to shooting That has to do with being a whole bunch of fucking places Where niggers got to shooting It has to do with being at a fucking family event What niggas got to shooting

A whole bunch of different places When niggas got to shooting Has to do with getting the call one time and someone saying, hey, Van Jason got shot, he almost got away. They found a car running. He was shot in his back. He was a couple blocks from Earl K. Long, he might have made it. It has to do with George Temple, a friend of mine,

who got into an altercation with a police officer, was executed in the parking lot of an auto zone. Has to do with Delvin Lee, who was killed in a Texaco. has to do with Tedford whose body was just found don't really know what happened but it was shot with a gun has to do with all of these people

and the ones I can't even remember now that just got killed just shot up has to do with the uncles that show you their bullet wounds that survived so yeah I'm hypervigilant part of the reason why I'm such a nice guy

I need to know if you're a threat so I say hello to you and I look at you in your eyes part of me doing that is me kind of asking you not to kill me and I need to know if you need if you mean harm to me so I can fuck you up right then and it's just I'm tired man

I fucking lost my dad man I'm just like I'm just like I'm just like tired man all right we gotta get out of here um take 10 caps off but do not stop learning I'm Van Lath Jr

I'm Rachel and Lindsay Yeah