Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime - Episode #465: Political Alliances, Gun Laws, Mental Health

Episode Date: June 23, 2018

Bill and his guests – Colion Noir, Michael Pollan, Josh Barro, Michael Smerconish, and Neera Tanden answer viewer questions after the show. (Originally aired 06/22/18) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Neer attend, and what should the Democrats be doing, be doing, I guess be doing, to attract disaffected Republicans who are fleeing the GOP? Are we catching them in the net? You know, my view of this is that you're right, that the country is facing an existential threat right now, and we have to make alliances wherever, and so I think we should welcome them. I think we have to recognize that accountability is only going to be. We're a Trump voter, right? Yes, sir? Yeah, see?

We're friends. Yeah. We got to talk to each other. I agree. We got to share this country. We got to start talking and making inroads. We can't just go to our camps. I 100% agree.

I 100% agree. You know, I think we have to recognize that democracy is at stake and welcome them with open arms. Okay. Let's see. Black Knight asked Collian. Is there anything that could happen that would make you say, okay, we need stricter comments? sentence gun laws? It's interesting because it's amazing to me how everything always goes to we need stricter gun laws in response to everything

with respect to firearms. I think there needs to be a more holistic look and approach to it because if we take into account the way things were before, we have more gun laws now than we did before which supposedly we're still doing because we did get rid of the assault

weapons ban. There are states that have actually deregulated gun laws over the last 10,000. 15 years. So you'd say 20 to 30 years ago, we have less gone or more? You know, I'd say in the 1990s, we'd had an assault weapons ban, and that was actually ended, and that was important. In the South, they've passed a bunch of things to undo restrictions on guns. Like stand your ground. Like stand your ground?

That's not like. You know, are you going to stand your ground? Yeah, poor stand your ground. Why wouldn't that be? Well, for one reason, I mean, there's statistics on black people standing their ground against white people versus the reverse does not come out well for black people. Yeah. Now, so from a... Yeah, absolutely. So I should forfeit my right to honor. No, no, no. I'm not saying that, but I'm saying that specific law,

stand your ground. If I'm scared, I get to shoot you is the way I interpret staying your ground. And that's really how it's often... And the police enforce it in that way. And when it's a white person shooting a black person, that is forgiven a lot more than the reverse. Absolutely.

So if that is the case, right, and then that's predicated on race, right, in terms of disproportionate effect of Stand Your Ground laws. Right. Then, of course, that's a criminal justice issue, right? Right. Then, yeah, something needs to be done about that. But the idea that if somebody is threatening my life, I shouldn't have to be forced to retreat to a wall

before I decide to defend my life if it's threatening it, no? Yeah, I mean, but that's just always been the law. I mean, people have loosened. Stand Your Ground has changed the... So you're not inherently against the idea and the concept of Stand Your Ground. You're just against the way it's been applied. No, I think stand your ground is a is basically makes it so that it's easier to kill somebody and I object to that Yeah, I don't know

It's basically like you know we had a rule which is what if your life has to be the the normal rule before stand your ground was that your life had to be threatened And with stand your ground it's like anything that you perceive as a threat That's the problem That's the problem. It seems like that's a slippery slope again that then that's predicated on this objective standard, right? Would that not be? The standard is inherently subjective in a self-defense...

Well, because my understanding of stand your ground from an objective standard is I have to be... I'm not forced to have my back against the wall if my life is threatened to defend my life. Right? I don't think that's your requirement

is dangerous. I'm going on to the next question. I'm standing my ground here. Michael Pollan, do you see a future where the government sponsors care for mental health? What would it take to get there? Well, we have a real mental health crisis in this country.

One of the reasons people are interested in psychedelic medicine now... That's very involved with the gun crisis. I mean, that's... Yes. We often get into that debate. Is it the guns or is it... And it's... Well, you have...

The suicide rate is up, what, 20% in the last few years. Depression is up 18% since 2005. Addiction is rampant. And mental health care in this country has very few tools. It's really broken. If you compare mental health care to any other branch of medicine, Oncology, cardiology, infectious disease. They've all accomplished important things.

They've reduced suffering. They've prolonged lifespan. You can't say that in mental health. That's not true. Come on. I mean, 100 years ago, the Kennedys were lobotomizing their daughter. Because that's how they did. That was 100 years ago.

I mean, it was a long time ago. I said 100 years ago. I think he means over the last couple of years. But haven't they come up with things that? Antidepressants help some people. I remember even somebody like Mike Wallace talking about, They didn't have antidepressants when he was... There's less stigma.

There's less stigma to mental health issues today than there were a few days. Definitely. They didn't realize you could just pour something in the test tube and make it better. Right. It's not that easy, but they didn't have that option at all 50 years ago. But the antidepressants we have actually, many people don't like taking them. Oh. Their effectiveness fades over time.

They're very hard to get off. So the... And they cause suicide. And they cause suicide, yes. Yet if there's a suicide blamed on LSD, that's a huge story. Right. But it's kind of routine. Can I just say that our problems are not a constant. I'm not a Luddite when I say this, but I think the technology has completely upended mental health in this country.

And we're going to, we all love Uber, we want to order a car, I'm going to go to open table and get a dinner reservation. But so many of our kids are now shut-ins, uh, devoid of personal interaction and instead creating identities that just don't match reality. That's driving a lot of us. It's disconnection. It's really disconnection. That's at the root of depression, addiction, obsession, all these things. The phone. It's the damn phones. Well, this is the gun...

Well, that's another addiction. Right? Yeah. That's another form of... Terrible addiction, yes. Okay. I don't think she agrees. Hmm? I don't think she agreed with that. I mean, we see suicide rates have increased amongst older men, rural communities, people. I mean, it's not universal.

This is the gun problem. A majority of gun deaths in the U.S. are suicide. And the research is much clearer on gun control and gun... gun ownership rates in suicide than with homicide. It's, you know, the crime rate effects are unclear. The suicide rate effects are very clear. If there are fewer guns out there, people attempt suicide as much, but they don't succeed as often because...

That's absolutely not true. That's... That's absolutely true. You see the changes in gun ownership and... If there was a direct correlation between the number of guns that were available and suicides, we would be leading the world in suicides. There are also cultural... We have different cultural makeups.

Suicides are increasing in the U.S. Fewer suicides among black and Hispanic people. than among white and Asian people independent of gun ownership. So we have demographic advantages. We should have an even bigger advantage over other advanced countries and suicide rates than we do. And also, we do have most guns, but they're in the hands of fewer people. In other words, the people who like guns have many guns.

There was a guy last week they caught with 553 guns. You have that picture of this guy's arsenal? Oh, my God, this is what they found in this guy's house. Now, come on. Is that too many guns? That doesn't stress you out. That doesn't bother you at all, like that many guns? Really?

So here's the thing about that. This is not too many guns. I was a lot of guns. At some point, what's one more? I think the distinction is this. Look, we have to understand something, right? So I get it, right? You're not a gun person, right?

I'm actually worried about a person like that, basically killing a lot of, having the ability easily kill lots of people with no regulations. He only has two hands. I'm sorry, what does that mean? He only has two hands. People are getting slaughtered by one person. Children are being slaughtered by one children.

You're attributing an individual. You're inherently attributing a negative character to firearms. Outright, right? Yes, because lots of people die at their firearms. That's why I do that. That's the same. The same could be set of cars, right? But you're not advocating banning cars

or limiting people's access to vehicles. You can't take, I mean, the number of people who are murdered by guns is much higher than the people murdered by cars. Well, no. The number of, wait. I don't know by cars. That's murder by cars. It's semantics.

Intentionally running over people. But, but... Well, not intentionally. Yeah. Intentional, murder is intentional. It's still horrible, though, for someone to die in a car accident versus somebody didn't really... Can I say, this is why we're never, no disrespect to either of you,

we're never going to get anywhere on this issue. The best we can hope for is a better integration of data, because I'm sick and tired of reading in the newspaper the following day, well, there was this warning sign and this agency knew this and this knew this, and the left hand of the right hand are just not coordinated. that we ought to be able to get done. And I don't disagree with that at all. But also the last point I wanted to make with respect to

you seeing the number of guns out there and you feeling some type of way is I look at guns differently than you do. And there was a point in time where I looked at it, there was a point in time where I looked at it probably the same way you did, right? I had about as an organic progression of firearm ownership as one can have.

I was against guns. I didn't like them. But I went to the range one time and I shot a gun and that changed for me. And so now I can see a myriad of reasons for why someone would own a firearm, whether it be recreation, sports, collecting, so forth and so on. So when I see that those number of guns up there, my mind doesn't automatically go to, oh my God, that's horrible and that's bad.

Okay, I totally hear what you're saying. I guess what I'm saying to you is what you're trying to do is say that progresses, liberals, whatever, want to ban guns. No one's saying ban your gun. We're saying regulate them. So people with mental illness, have background checks, a variety of things about certain types of. guns. No one is saying you can't have a gun. And I know the NRA always wants to say people are saying

banned guns, but they're not. They're simply saying for my safety and the protection of children and other people, we should have regulations like background checks on every single gun. Now, how would you enforce that? Okay. You know, if we're going to suggest a solution, at least have something that's enforceable, right? It is enforceable. So how would you enforce it? I would Do them for gun shows, do them for regular... We have had discussions of bills. The NRA fights them. The Tumee Mansion bill.

Support that bill. Would you support that bill? I can answer my question. That's the... How would you... How would you enforce... When did I lose control of this whole show? Okay, the more of this...

Go on NRA TV and you could debate them for a whole hour. I'm happy. Thank you, everybody. I'm happy. I'm happy. you anytime on HBO On Demand. For more information, log on to HBO.com.