The Daily Signal - Hero at Las Vegas Shooting on Mission to Protect Second Amendment

Episode Date: July 30, 2021

On October 1, 2017, a lone gunman opened fire into the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas. The incident remains the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. But out of this tragedy comes a story of true heroism. When Iraq War veteran Taylor Winston heard the first shots, he sprang into action. He grabbed a truck and began to shuttle wounded concert attendees back and forth from the scene to a nearby hospital. Winston's quick thinking saved countless lives. Many mass shooting survivors advocate for stronger gun control, but Winston's experience solidified his belief in the 2nd Amendment. "I never ever want to have anyone experience [a mass shooting], but I would go through it again and again, and again, to protect our gun rights because it protects us from something far worse and bigger, and that's a potential tyrannical government committing genocide," says Winston. Winston joins this bonus episode of the Daily Signal Podcast to discuss his act of heroism, as well as why it's so important to protect our 2nd Amendment rights. We are also joined by Jordan Sarmo, a faith-based musician and host of the Speak the Truth Without Fear podcast. We talk about cancel culture and how we can best fight back. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey all, Doug Blair here. What you're about to hear is a special bonus episode of the Daily Signal podcast from our time at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit. On today's episode, we hear from Taylor Winston, an Iraq war veteran whose quick thinking saved dozens of lives during the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting. He joins us to discuss his act of heroism and why it's so important to protect our Second Amendment rights. This interview was recorded live at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit, so please. please pardon any excess noise. We are joined today on the Daily Signal podcast by Taylor Winston, an Iraq war vet, who's quick thinking during the 2017 Las Vegas shooting saved countless lives.

Taylor, it's an honor, and it's great to have you on the podcast. Thank you guys for having me. Absolutely. So your act of heroism on that day was instrumental in saving numerous lives. So if it's not too much to ask, and it's a little not too sensitive, would you be able to sort of take us through what happened and what you did during that event? Yeah, absolutely. And like we were talking earlier, we got some pump-up music.

We're over here in the exhibition hall, a turning point. But I like to tell you guys about my story a little bit. It gets a little rough in some patches, but we'll keep it beegee. So the Route 91 Music Harvest Festival was in Las Vegas, Nevada, 2017, October 1st. And I had finished working with some country artists at St. And one of the main guys asked me if I wanted to go check out the show. And I was like, yeah, I'll go catch the last act, which was Jason Aldean. And he gave me some media passes.

And I went and joined all my friends. And I had just got there. All my friends had been there all day. And they were left to the stage. And I went to go get my first drink. And I heard what sounded like gunfire. And no one was reacting. No one was even flinching.

They thought it was maybe fireworks. But I was like in my brain, I was like, that sounded like some pops going off. And I was like, maybe it's just outside the festival or something, whatever. And then proceeded to purchase my drink and then rejoined our friends. And I heard it again. And then I really perked up because I was for sure that was gunfire from somewhere. But still no one was moving or doing anything. And I could see other people starting to look around too.

The concert was still full going. Jason Aldine was into his second song. And then moments later, just fear chaos. Bullets started raining down into the festival. People started screaming, falling all around. I started running. My initial reaction was instant fear. You felt like you were going to die.

You heard bullets getting closer and closer and closer. And as you were running, people were falling, and they were just the unfortunate ones getting hit. we got to the back fence line and we were trying to get people over the fence and if you've ever seen like the tops of the fence they got like little pokey spikes and stuff people's dresses and shirts and stuff were getting caught and they were having trouble getting over and they were getting shot while they were trying to get over the fence and something that you will never ever ever not see a day in your life I see it every day even being a here anywhere I go I'm always thinking something bad might happen but once we got over the fence I realized that people were still getting shot and help wasn't going to be coming fast enough because ambulances can't go into an active shooting zone until it's completely done and secured and so I've been to enough festivals and I

thought to go to the employee parking lot and look for vehicle because they often share and leave keys of them. And by the grace of God or some higher being, the first one I checked had keys in it. And so I drove back into the gunfire and started checking people to see who's most critically injured and just loading them up in the bed of the truck and in the backseat and just cramming as many people as I could and sped off to the hospital. And once we got to the hospital, we unloaded and no one was prepared for that scene. And just staff started going crazy.

We were dumping bodies right in the lobby. The floor was pretty much painted red. And when I unloaded the last person, I looked at my friend Jennifer and said, I have to go back. And I was going to grab the military guy who I saw because other people were starting to arrive doing a similar thing. There were many heroes that did. And she looked at me and said, I'm going with you. And I was like, I don't know what's waiting. I don't know.

We didn't know it was one shooter. We could have been shooters on the ground. Could have been all kinds of other stuff. We had no idea. But we just knew our fellow friends and family were getting shot and killed, and they needed milk. And so we drove back, loaded up again, took another full load. And we did two full trips and have been credited with saving a little over two dozen people.

and we then parked the truck at Stonies and left it and went to our friends that night for safety. And one of the big things after it was I knew news would want to get a hold of the story. And as soon as the next day came, we were getting calls from everyone. And I told all my friends like, I'm going to do all these interviews because it's a good story to encourage others. but more importantly, we're going to keep it about healing and the community. And sure enough, they immediately started asking me questions about gun control. Do you think XYZ would happen? And I just would leave interviews or tell them I'm not going to do interviews

if they were trying to make this about just taking gun rights away. And so now it's three years later. Fast forward. I'm finally starting to talk about my story more. and I'm going to use it to advocate for guns and be big pro 2A influencer in the mix and start getting into the conversation more and fight feelings with feelings because what happened that day was pretty horrific and to still support guns, I think, is kind of hard to find. Sure, absolutely.

And thank you so much for sharing that story. It's such an inspiration to hear what you did. and you put yourself in danger, but you know, you decided to do it because it was the right thing to do. I'm curious as to what was going through your head when you decided to go back? I don't know a lot of people who would do that. I think a lot of people would say, I'm safe now. I'm going to stay here. But, like, what was going through your head?

I just knew that it was really bad, and a lot of people were dying. and sometimes I just got to put that before yourself and I've had military training. I'm very capable. I knew I could get back and get more people to the hospital. And, you know, the whole time, we thought we'd be driving and, you know, if you were to be driving down the road and a shooter was on the ground,

they could easily just start shooting your vehicle and I started running through these scenes in my head as I was driving back. Like, if that were to happen, I'm just going to run into them and duck below the dashboard. But just nothing more important than to help others. And just do what you can when you can. I was very blessed to not get shot.

And I was able to do quick thinking, get a vehicle, and save people. But just opening a door for someone and doing good things throughout the day. Everyone's a hero. Definitely. So now you mentioned that you had a lot of interviews, after the incident that were asking you questions about, you know, would this have happened if there had been gun control? What do you think we should be restricting guns?

A lot of people after other shootings have come out in favor of, you know, gun control. There are some notable exceptions like Calcashu. What do you say to those people that say we should take away the guns? I say to them that what they experienced was very tragic and horrific, and I don't want to ever take away from them that they're, experience was really bad and their feelings of that situation may be leaning towards that. If there were less guns, there would be less violence, but that's the furthest thing from the truth. There's many, many studies that show more guns equal less violence.

And at the end of the day, mass shootings are horrific, and I never ever want to have anyone experience that. But I would go through it again and again and again to protect our gun rights because it protects us from something far worse and bigger. And that's a potential tyrannical government committing genocide. And if you look throughout history, it repeats itself. And tens of millions. Russia killed, I think, 65 million of their own people in the last 100 years. China, who even knows?

There's genocide being committed all over the world right now. And America is the only country that has the means. to defend itself, not only from a domestic threat, but a foreign threat as well. We hope we never have to get to that point. And it may not make sense right now because everyone's so peachy and comfortable and privileged to live in America. And I just think they're very privileged. And I would say to them, you know, educate yourself on guns, learn more about it. And I do find that there are good laws. And we have many laws that are in place already. I don't think we need more laws. We just need more education and just more resources going into helping everyone own a gun. It's all right.

Sure. Now, I'm curious, what do you think is the state of gun rights in America right now across the country? Do you think it's in a dangerous place? Do you think it's in a place that we need to be concerned about? I think mainstream media has put a magnifying glass on specific events, and most places that have less gun rights are usually large cities where there are more resources and police officers, which then we can get into a whole conflicting argument of less police and also taking guns away, which is absolutely disastrous. But big cities are typically more privileged to have a cop for someone to arrive in 10 minutes or less. They usually are there to clean up the mess.

They're not there to prevent anything. criminals look at their hands on guns no matter what. And the vast majority of America is rural. They need to protect themselves. They don't have the privilege of having someone come help them in 10 minutes or less. It could be half hour, hour, even more, or just don't have help at all. And so I think the vast majority of America strongly supports the Second Amendment. News is trying to magnify that everyone's kind of against it.

I think it's the first thing from the truth, and it's only a small percentage. percentage of the population and everyone just needs to be educated because you know history does repeat itself we're going down a slippery slope and we all forget that China Russia we still have enemies they do not like America we are a beacon of freedom for the rest of the world and that scares them so we need to remember that we're all in this together and we're only fighting for gun rights not because we're against you but because we love you and we want to be able to protect you I think that's a fantastic thing to keep in mind is that we're not doing this because we're these evil people. You're not our enemy. We love you.

So now that we have this idea that gun rights are kind of under attack in America, do you have any advice for people who are going through sort of like these adverse situations who are fighting for these freedoms and these rights? What would you say to those people who are trying to fighting the good fight? anyone who is wanting to be more in the conversation, just education, education, education. It starts on the ground level with friends and family, and people close to you, they just need to experience it. They need to go to a gun range or sit in a class and be taught what a gun is.

It's essentially just a tool that only comes to life once you pick it up and use it. If you use it improperly like any other tool, it can be harmful. And I think just starting little clubs or taking people out and getting together and just talking about the conversation versus shutting it down is going to be the best way to, because I experience it all the time. I have friends who absolutely think guns are the worst thing in the world. And then they see me handling it and they see how safe it is. And then you just start breaking them down little by little. Like they feel safer when I have a weapon and I'm around them because they know that I will protect them. And I think a lot of people have just been very privileged, and it doesn't make sense right now.

The guns don't make sense. We have a great life here in America. The vast majority of us, you can literally do anything you want, and resources are abundant, and it's just up to you. I think just educate, educate, educate. I think that's fairly good advice to keep in mind is just to be educated and find out what the truth is, right? No. And don't be abrasive.

If someone's really against you, you can't fight fire with fire. You get more bees with honey. Absolutely. Just be sweet, take it what it is, and it takes time. You're not going to win them over in one argument ever. Right. It's an ongoing process. It's taken years to get some of my friends who are Democrats to be okay with the 2A.

We have good conversations. They bring up great points. But then you do a bird's eye view and all that stuff we argue about on a lower level. like my child was killed in the mass shooting. That is absolutely horrific. I can't even describe that. I can only speak on myself for surviving a mass shooting myself, but to lose someone, your own child or someone,

I understand where you're coming from. But you have to remove that feeling from the bigger picture that here in America, we are free because, and we have all these rights because of the Second Amendment. And we need people to be able to have these weapons down the road It may not be our generation, maybe three, four, five generations, but history will repeat itself at some time, and there will be violence, unfortunately. Okay. Well, Taylor, we are running really low on time, but I really appreciate hearing from you.

As a sort of last note, I always like to give our guest the opportunity to sort of say, if there's one thing that somebody takes from this interview, if they only took one thing away, what would you want them to take away? I would like to have people walk away with two things. I said it earlier. Just do what you can when you can. You don't need to go above and beyond on everything, but just little things count every day. And the second thing is, be less abrasive when you're having conversations

with people who have opposing opinions. You will win them over in the long term just by being the better person and being just nicer and just more education. and you can help educate them. And yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah, no, I think that's absolutely fantastic. Well, that was Taylor Winston.

He's a veteran and a, who's quick thinking saved countless lives during the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. Thank you so much, Taylor, for joining us. Thank you, guys. Don't go anywhere. We also have my interview with Jordan Sarmo, a faith-based musician and host of the Speak the Truth Without Fear podcast. We talk about cancel culture and how we can best fight back.

This interview was also recorded live at the Turning Point, USA Student Action Summit. So again, please pardon any excess noise. We are joined today on the Daily Signal podcast by Jordan Sarmo, a faith-based musician and host of the Speak the Truth Without Fear podcast. Jordan, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Awesome. So as we mentioned at the top, you were a musician or slash are a musician, but how does that translate into politics? Has that translate into political action? Well, it never did. I mean, I've worked in the entertainment industry my entire life and I lived in Los Angeles for the last eight years but I just made the move after lockdown number three like I mean they shut down the studios you couldn't you couldn't have any writing

sessions 70% of my income was coming from gigs touring all of that got shut down and you know within a day and that just changed everything and so you know I kind of I still did a lot of digital sessions and stuff and had a lot of writing sessions over Zoom but it just wasn't the same and then November 3rd happened and that's kind of what really got me interested in politics because I've never gotten into politics until really about four, five months ago. Okay, so you tended to be more like I really thinking about it and... Well, I was scared of death of cancel culture. Sure.

Living in Hollywood, you don't, you know, I voiced my opinion a little bit in 2016 when Trump announces his run. But, and I did a little bit and immediately I started losing gigs, started losing sessions. I was called racist, like domestic, I mean, just everything. Everything you could think of. Even my neighbor, when my neighbor found out in my apartment complex, like, it was just, it was horrible just to walk in your apartment. Sure. So it was a whole other level of cancer culture.

So I just, I scrubbed all my social media, never talked about politics until November 3rd. Okay. I started getting interested. Sure. And actually, on that topic, let's talk a little bit about cancer culture. I mean, I think everybody who's listening to our show right now would probably agree. Yes. cancel culture is a really big problem.

Yep. So I guess I'm curious, how do you think we got to this point? Like, you know, how is cancel culture so common right now? The media. The media. I think the media has done such a good job at dividing us and lying. And people have believed the lies and they believe the propaganda to the point where if you're a Hispanic or black or any race supporter of Donald Trump or supporter of America

first policies, you're a racist. And this is what the media has done. And that's why when, you know, when Donald Trump and a lot of conservatives say that the media is the enemy of the people, I mean, that's really, we're, I've experienced that. I've experienced the fruit of the media, how they've divided this nation so much to the point where just by the person that you vote for, you can lose work, you're canceled, you're labeled all of the, you know, what Hillary Clinton said, if you're Trump supporters, they're, you know, basket deplorable, they're homophobic, xenophobic. They know exactly what they were doing. They've caused this divide. And now we're at the point where I won't be surprised where we'll start having people snitch on each other for other things in the future. Sure.

Now, are you saying that you've been canceled at some point? Oh, yeah. I've lost sessions. I've lost gigs. I mean, I haven't experienced it too much like other friends that I have because I also worked. The majority of my gigs came from the Christian music industry. I played keys for a lot of different bigger Christian artists. And a lot of them are conservative.

But yeah, I've definitely lost gigs. I have lost a lot of friends, a lot of music industry connection, just because I'm labeled in the moment, especially now. I mean, before I just kind of voiced it a little bit, now I'm like, there's no hiding. I jumped all in, baby. Yes, no, looking at your social media feeds, it was kind of like, I know where this guy says,

which is good. I think that that's an important thing to sort of be who you are and be very open about it. But on that sort of note of cancel culture, I mean, what do you do if, you know, you're on the verge of being canceled or like, how do you counter cancel culture? Where do we go from here? I mean, it's tough. I think every situation is different. Depends on your job where you work.

Who you live with is your spouse conservative or liberal? Because, I mean, I never was really open about politics until really January 7th was the official day. I mean, my first political post on social media. And so it's really, I think every situation. situation dictates it. But for me, dude, it's the most freeing thing. It's like coming out of the closet, so to say. Like for, I mean, for real, it is so freeing when you just post it and you don't care.

Right. You don't care what anyone thinks because like we are, we've been trained to like worry about the fear of man and what people think about us. And that, it's a bunch of BS, dude. The reason where we are today with cancel culture is because we've stayed silent. Sure. And so we have, it's the way, us speaking out and being bold about our beliefs, bold about our values, pushing back when people lie in your community or your job and they say, hey, you know, ABC and you're like, no, that is, that is a fault, that is a lie. I'm going to push back on you, but we've been so pushed and scared into cancer culture where we're even scared to say the truth now. It's insane. And that's why we created speak truth without fear.

Right. Because I started this, you know, this Instagram platform. We have, I bring on a different panel to have different discussions. and really discuss certain issues because we are where we are today because we stayed silent. And we have to change that. Well, no, I mean, that brings me to my next point. You do have this podcast, which is speak truth without fear. I think one of the themes that we've been picking up on this interview is the idea that you should not be afraid to express your true feeling. So can you tell me a little bit more about your podcast? Yeah, no, it started randomly.

It started right about a month after January 7th, so mid-February. I felt siloed. I felt alone. I was like, you know, I was doing some social media content for politics. And I'm like, you know what? I need to meet other people that are in this space. And so I just started forcing this conversation because I wanted know information about the border.

I wanted to know more. But I wasn't at the border. So I started bringing people that were really speaking truth. They were pushing against the media's narrative. They were at the border. They, you know, they were in Colombia. And Columbia was a big thing when that whole crisis that happened in.

I brought in journalists from Columbia. And so we started the speak truth without fear. It happens Monday through Thursday every night at 9 p.m. Eastern, right on Instagram live. And we just have a different panel discussion. And it really started bringing all these worlds together. And I've had probably over 500 messages over the last two to three months. Like, you don't understand this panel on this brought so much clarity. Or, hey, you red-pilled my husband tonight.

Or my child, my 12-year-old kid begs me. begs me by 845, hey, don't forget, Jordan's on at nine. Like, because, but people are learning, and it's, it's those messages that really encourage because it's like, we're really making an impact. And people are, they're hungry for truth. And they don't want to, they don't trust the mainstream meat. I saw a study, I saw a study a couple weeks ago that 8% of, of conservatives trust the mainstream media, only 8%.

So they're looking for independent journalists. They're looking for a lot of these political, independent political commentators. that they want truth from them, but they want to bypass the filters of mainstream media. We've seen that with Project Veritas, leaked a lot of this stuff, even with Fox. Yeah. And we don't, we don't trust anyone.

We want to go straight to the people. We're the people, man. I think, I mean, I think that's a really interesting point that you're saying, you know, you need to make an impact. You need to find the truth. And one of the other things that when I was doing some research on you is, uh, your social media is like really prolific.

You have quite a bit of social media. Yeah. When I imagine social media, I do not think conservatism. I almost think that the radical left is on Twitter, the radical left is on Instagram, the radical left is on Facebook. How do we use this tool to our advantage?

How do we use social media for conservative causes? Man, I mean, it is the way that we get the word out. So, I mean, it's such a huge part because that's where the public square of conversation is right now on these platforms. What sucks being a conservative is, you, like, I mean, no lie. every morning I wake up and the first thing when I look at my phone is, did I get a post deleted today?

Did they fact, the independent fact checker? So it is like you're paranoid all the time. What am I allowed to say? You put in the emojis to block certain words, like, you know, any specific words that will get you canceled. And so it, you have to be strategic about it, but it's so important that you learn how to play the game. Because regardless of what it is, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, these are tools right now that these are the platforms where you can really make it impact the fastest. And so you've got to figure out a way to do it.

Now, there are other platforms like Getter that are happening and Rumble and a lot of these other platforms that hopefully this parallel economy continues to grow and we don't need these Googles and big tech giants because they really are communist organizations at my point, in my mind. I think they are doing everything that the communist regimes of China and a lot of these other countries, what they want. Definitely. Well, Jordan, we are running a little low on time, but I wanted to leave the last word to you.

So let's say if they only take, the listeners take one thing from this interview, what would you want them to take? I would say, number one, screw cancel culture. No, seriously, screw it. Like, I know it's bold, but like, do not have any fair, man. Be bold about your beliefs. Never hold back. When someone makes up lies or is attacking you that is a complete lie in propaganda. and what it, push back.

And then the other thing is, I would say, get involved in local politics. I cannot tell you how important is we always are worried about what's going on in the federal level, the presidency, which are very important. But obviously, we're in a state of Florida right now. We're in Tampa. And if you go to, you go to Lake County an hour down the road, we never had any mass mandates, nothing. Tampa, Orlando, Miami.

It was basically just like California. And so a lot of these cities didn't get to benefit the actual policies that. that Ron DeSantis put in because of socialist mayors. And so it's so important that parents, kids, everyone gets involved on the local political level, you know, find out who's running your school board, find out, get on the election commission, precinct committeemen, whatever it is, get involved and be the change. The time to talk about it is over. It's over.

We're done talking about, you know, and complaining about what's going on in our communities. The time is to get involved. And if you go to speak truth without fear.com and you put in your email, the first that we send you is a one-page document, and it gives you three steps on how to get involved. Number one, you put in your address, it finds a school board, mayor, everything. And then we teach you, we give you a phone script, how to call them, be nice, the whole thing. So if you go there, we'll give you that document right when you come in. Excellent. Good to know. That was Jordan Sarmo, the host of the Speak Truth Without Fear podcast

and a faith-based musician. That's right. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Rachel Del Judas, sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinie, and John Pop. For more information, visit DailySignal.com.