The Matt Walsh Show - Ep 260 - The Tide Is Turning
Episode Date: May 15, 2019Today on the show, a law in Alabama would outlaw abortion in almost every case, making no exceptions for rape. The left is of course panicking. I sense that the tide on the abortion issue is turning i...n America. Am I being too optimistic? Well that would be a first. Also, someone emails and asks whether conservatives are putting their heads in the sand about gun violence. Is that true? Are we? I’ll address the question today. Date: 05-15-19 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Today on the Matt Walls show, a law in Alabama would outlaw abortion in almost every case making no exceptions for rape.
The left, of course, is panicking over this. I sense that a tide might be turning in America.
Am I being too optimistic? Well, that would be a first, but we'll talk about it. Also, someone emails and asks whether conservatives are putting their heads in the sand when it comes to gun violence.
Are we? Is that true? I'll address that question today on the Matt Wall Show.
Welcome to the show, everybody.
Thanks for being here.
Thanks for listening.
I'm in Chicago right now because I was at Northwestern University last night for an event there speaking to the students.
And it was a great event.
It was a lot of fun.
And, you know, I thought it was a good turnout even though there was some, I'm sure, totally coincidental issues with the university approving the event.
I mean, they had been trying to get approval.
Yath had been trying to get approval for week.
and the university coincidentally didn't approve the event until like three days before it,
which meant, again, totally coincidentally, that they weren't allowed to advertise it until right
before the actual event. But we still filled the room and it was a good time.
What I want to talk about is, speaking of good times, the tide is turning, I think, in America.
Now, I don't want to be, I don't want to jump the gun here. I don't want to be overly optimistic.
I'm not someone who's known for being overly optimistic, but I think that maybe the tide is turning and people are waking up.
And we're going to talk about that in light of this new law that was just passed through the state Senate and Alabama.
So we're going to get into that.
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M-A-T-T-Bolingbranch.com, promo code Matt. All right, now from lifenews.com, an Alabama bill
that would make aborting unborn babies a felony passed in the state house on Tuesday.
State House Bill 314, sponsored by Representative Terry Collins, would make an abortion
and attempted abortion a felony.
Exceptions would be allowed
if the mother's life is at risk.
Mothers would not be punished
for having an abortion
under the legislation,
which would make killing a baby
in an abortion
a class eight,
or class A, I should say,
felony, punishable by life
or 10 to 99 years in prison
for abortionists who kill them.
Lawmakers approve the banner
on a 25 to 6 vote
and it now heads to
pro-life governor K. Ivey,
who's a Republican.
The legislation will take effect
six months after it gets signed.
So this is just on the heels
of the law in Arkansas.
So we've got two major pro-life legislative wins in the span of a week, which means, among other things, that probably Roe v. Wade is going back to the Supreme Court.
I think that's where this is headed.
And pro-abortion people are terrified of that.
That's the last thing they want because they know that the Roe v. Wade decision was they know, if they have any knowledge of all at all about that decision.
and they understand how the Constitution works,
they know that the Rovi-Way decision is a total travesty
and a joke, a really bad joke.
No matter how you feel about abortion,
the idea that they were able to find a right to abortion
in the Constitution is obviously absurd.
So that's where it's going.
Now, I talk about being optimistic about the tide turning,
and I am, am I optimistic that the Supreme Court
with its current making,
up would actually vote to overturn Roe? No, I'm not. But there's a chance anyway. There's
more of it, there's at least a chance if it makes it there. But as I said, the pro-death crowd is
growing very afraid. Cosmo had a headline yesterday. Their headline was, they put it very simply.
It was, it's time to freak the F out about abortion. And Nairal's abortion extremist group
put out a tweet and said, this is not a drill. The goal is not just to outlaw abortion in certain
states, it's to outlaw it everywhere, all caps. Yes, you're damn right. You are damn right.
We are going to outlaw it everywhere. That's the goal. And you should freak out.
If you are pro-death, you should definitely be freaking out because the tide is turning.
I'll tell you what seems to be happening here from my perspective. This is just my sense of things.
All right, this is not based on any survey data or poll data, just my own observations.
Do with them what you will. It seems to me that.
there has never really been a point when a majority of the country was avidly pro-abortion.
I don't think that's ever existed. I don't think there's ever been a majority pro-abortion, you know,
country. The avidly pro-abortion crowd has always been small. They've been small but powerful.
Powerful because they're in positions of power and because they have the indifference of the American public on their side.
So no matter what people say when they're surveyed by pollsters, the fact is that most of the country is, has been, still is, indifferent.
Most people just don't care that much.
So when the pro-abortion people shriek and demand their right to kill babies, everyone in the middle just goes, eh, sure, yeah, whatever.
And that's the dynamic that has allowed abortion to continue in this country.
That's what has protected the so-called right to abortion.
The problem pro-lifers have faced is that they have this indifferent mass to deal with.
And then even the ostensibly pro-life people on their own side, relatively active and aware and involved conservatives, people who are pro-life, but even a lot of those people haven't really considered abortion to be an important topic.
Now, they agree with the pro-life cause, but they just don't feel like fighting for it.
And that's what pro-lifers have been contending with.
Here's what seems to be changing.
The rabidly pro-abortion people are still rabidly pro-abortion.
That hasn't changed.
That's not going to change.
But what I sense is that people in the middle and then the disinterested conservatives,
I think some of them are starting to wake up.
That's what I see happening.
That finally some of those other people who have always been up for
grabs by pro-lifers. Finally, they're starting to come into the light. I got a sense of that in Philly
at the rally, even though it's a thousand people compared to the entire population of the country,
isn't much. But I really believe that what we did in Philly, we would not have been able to do that
five years ago or 10 years ago. I think this is a reflection of a change. And much of it, as I said,
is among conservatives. Conservatives, you know, for decades, there has not really been a wide
conservative pro-life coalition. Pro-lifers have always been sort of a subset of conservatism.
While mainstream of conservatism, most conservatives would look at the pro-life cause and say,
yeah, I agree with you, but I don't feel like arguing about that. I think that is really changing now.
and conservatives are starting to see, they're starting to see two things.
Number one, this really does matter because human life is at stake.
And I think they've been helped to that realization in seeing the increasing radicalism of the pro-abortion side.
When you've got these other laws in other states where, okay, we could kill babies through all stages of pregnancy.
And you've got Democrats coming out and saying, okay, let's kill babies after they're born.
or, you know, we're going to kill the kids either way.
Remember that's what that one Democrat said.
We're going to kill them either way.
Put them in the electric chair, kill them an abortion.
Either way.
So that kind of stuff, I think, has jolted some conservatives out of their stupor.
And they're saying, wow, I mean, this is really a, these people really just want to kill babies.
We can't allow this.
This is horrible.
It, when the pro-abortion case is stated on a,
and taken to its logical conclusion,
which is what we've been seeing
a little bit more frequently recently,
it shocks the conscience.
And so it's good that pro-abortion people have been doing that
because I think other, I think conservatives
and some of the folks in the middle have had their conscience
as shocked.
And that's what's happened.
So that's part of it.
The other part of it is that I think also conservatives
are starting to realize that this is a winnable,
it's a very winnable issue.
because our argument is so unassailable, is so self-evident, is so just plain right,
that we're standing up and saying don't kill innocent human beings.
That's our point.
It's the most simple and unbeatable argument you can possibly make.
And that I think is how things are changing.
Now, a couple of things about this Alabama law. First, much as being made to the fact that it was passed through the state Senate by exclusively white males, which of course is irrelevant. I always wonder when people say, oh, these pro-life laws are passed by a bunch of men? Well, what's your point? Are you saying that men are the only ones with the moral intelligence to see that killing babies is wrong? Well, here's the good news. We're not the only ones. That would not really be an insult to us, would it be an insult to everybody else. But we're not the only ones. Millions of people.
upon millions of women are pro-life. And as I pointed out many times, the pro-life movement is led
by women. You know, I've been in this movement a long time. I've been to pro-life events
in dozens of different states. I've done, you know, countless rallies and fundraisers and
everything else. I've met and talked to thousands of pro-lifers. I can say from experience,
I can tell you for sure that this is a movement led by.
women. As a man in the movement, I take a back seat and I'm fine with that. This is a movement
led by women. But at any rate, the gender of the person making the argument is of course
irrelevant because those awful sexist men are making the case that it's wrong to kill innocent
and defenseless human life. So, you know, once you get passed, once you get done with your tantrum
about their gender, maybe you could try to engage with the argument.
Yeah, I get, oh, well, they're men, they're men.
Okay, whatever. Fine. Yeah, they're men. All right. We've established that. Oh, the bad, bad men,
tis-tisks. It shouldn't be men. That's bad to be men. Okay, fine. I'll agree with you there.
For a sake of argument, let's agree. They're men. They're terrible. They're sexist. Blah, blah,
blah. Fine, good. Okay. We've established that. Now, let's talk about what they're actually saying,
though. Can we engage with that? Second, the other point being,
harped on is that this law does not allow exceptions for rape. And so the pro-abortion side is making
this all about that. This is all they want to talk about. They say, oh, the law forces women to carry
their rapist baby. Now, as if this law was specifically designed with that in mind, which of course
it wasn't. But that's all they want to do. They want to talk about the hard cases. They don't want to
talk about the 98 or 99% of cases that have nothing at all to do with rape. And that's what we
should be talking about mainly because that is mainly what this law deals with. And the vast majority
of cases have nothing to do with rape. Now, as for the cases of rape, which are rare and in a very
small minority, but as for them, there are two things to keep in mind. Number one, abortion helps
rapists cover up their crimes. Abortion, rapists love abortion. Rapists. Planned Parenthood is a rapist's
best friend because if when a rapist rapes someone and creates a baby most of the time they didn't
that's not what they had in mind they weren't trying to create a baby and if this is a you know
what here the people that are coming up with these you know hard case hypotheticals well what if a
13-year-old girl is raped now she's forced to carry her baby well if a 13-year-old girl is
pregnant, that's a very good indication that probably a crime occurred. And once you have the baby,
you know, you can do a DNA test and find out who the father is. And if that father is an adult,
then that person is going to jail. So now we can prove. We can prove that a rape occurred.
that's why rapists would rather just send the victim off to Planned Parenthood have the pregnancy taken care of and the evidence thrown into a medical waste dumpster.
And Planned Parenthood, by the way, is more than happy to help with this.
They're more than happy to just take the money from the rape victim, throw out the evidence, not call the cops.
They're more than happy to do it.
They do it all the time.
So that's the first thing.
Second thing is it's a very simple concept here.
I, of course, have nothing but compassion for rape victims, and I have nothing but contempt for rapists.
And if you wanted to talk about a law that enacts abortion for rapists, if we're talking about executing rapists, then I'm all ears on that discussion.
We could talk about that.
But it is immoral to punish an innocent third party.
that child didn't do anything.
The child's not guilty.
So punish the rapist,
but to punish the rapist child
is completely and totally immoral and wrong.
Obviously.
And it's not going to help anything.
It's not going to help the woman heal.
It's not going to undo what was done, what was done.
And it's not going to help bring about justice.
It's going to make it harder.
to achieve justice.
All right.
So that's the law
in Alabama.
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Yesterday I wrote something trying to explain the left's gender theories. And I tried to put myself
into the mindset of a leftist, and which is, it's a very weird place to be. But I wanted to kind of
explain gender dynamics from their perspective. It's bewildering and it makes her head hurt.
But if you didn't see that piece, let's try to go through this, okay?
Let's, let me see if I can do this from their perspective.
Because there are a lot of seeming contradictions, and people are very confused about, you know, what is, what exactly is the left's gender theory now?
It seems like they say a lot of, first they're saying one thing, then they're saying something else that contradicts the thing they just said.
So let's see if we can, let's see if we can go through this.
All right.
Again, from their perspective, just explaining it to your right-wing bigots.
So the first thing that we have to understand is that gender is a social construct, right?
Woman and man are concepts that are arbitrarily invented by society.
They have nothing to do with reality.
A child is assigned one of these labels randomly at birth by primitive, backwards-thinking doctors
who, for no good or objective reason, have decided that a human child with a penis must be a boy
and a human child with a vagina must be a girl.
These words are interchangeable.
The body parts are interchangeable.
none of it means anything.
But remember that the generic people we meaninglessly call women are beautiful and powerful,
and their arbitrary womanhood should be constantly celebrated all the time.
Women have to band together and lift each other up.
Women must be represented equally in all of our institutions.
Women are truly wonderful, splendid, special creatures.
But remember, there is nothing special about women.
Literally anyone can be a woman.
A woman is not anything in particular.
A person with a penis can be a woman.
Person with a vagina could be a woman.
If a bucket of sand came to life and wanted to be a woman, it could be a woman too.
Anyone could be a woman.
So there is no aspect of womanhood that is ingrained or biological or inaccessible to males.
And womanhood certainly has nothing at all to do with your body parts.
That's the most important thing.
But if you don't have a uterus, then you shouldn't be giving your opinion on abortion.
No uterus, no opinion.
That's the motto, right?
We're tired of men making decisions about,
women's bodies. But there is no such thing as a woman's body. Trans women are women. Remember,
a trans woman is just as much a woman as any other woman. There's absolutely no difference between
the two, and to suggest otherwise is the height of bigotry, okay? But anti-abortion laws are sexist
because they specifically target women, who are the ones having the babies. If men could have
babies, abortion would be completely legal everywhere, right? But men can have babies.
And women can be fathers, and fathers can be mothers, and mothers can be men, and a man can be a woman, and women can be men who are mothers.
I mean, what's so confusing about this?
How many times you have to say it? It's very simple.
Men and women are exactly the same in every way, and anyone who belongs to one group can just as easily belong to the other
because there is absolutely nothing at all that objectively distinguishes these two categories,
and therefore you cannot say something about the one category that does not apply just as much to the other.
But women are especially oppressed in our society.
Men don't know what it's like for women in this country.
Men have privilege and institutional power,
and they can't possibly relate to the struggles of women.
That's why it's so important to make sure that women are given every chance to succeed
without being hampered by the unfair advantages that are given to men.
But males should be allowed in female sports.
It is unthinkable to oppress a biological male
by refusing him entry into female sports.
If the other girls don't like it, then you know what?
They should check their privilege and shut their bigoted mouths.
But women must stand up and speak out against unfairness.
They must be able to claim their own spaces.
What belongs to them must not be appropriated.
But drag queens are gorgeous and amazing.
There are few things more beautiful than the sight of a man in women's clothing and fake breasts,
dancing around on stage.
But men are scum.
But men are women, but patriarchy, but social construct, but girl power.
But I'm confused.
It's all very confused.
It's all incoherent.
Do you know why?
Because coherence is for bigots.
Okay, that's what this comes down to.
Now, do you understand?
Hopefully you do.
I'm glad that I could clear that up for you.
All right. Before we get to emails, I was planning on talking about this story. I had set aside like 20 minutes for it because it's so great. But I feel like the rugs been pulled out from underneath me. Maybe you saw this online. It was kind of going viral over the last few days. There's a story out of South Africa about a man who reportedly had been going to KFC. I don't know if it was the same KFC or different KFCs, but he had been going to KFC for a year.
eating for free, claiming to be a food inspector from the head office who had been sent there
to inspect the chicken and taste it. And that was the story anyway. And apparently the guy had been
arrested, which is totally unjust. But then as I was just doing a little bit of background
research to talk about it, I saw that apparently this story has been called into question
and now KFC has denied that such a thing ever happened
or that such a person exists.
Now, I don't know if that's just them covering their tracks
because they're so humiliated.
I don't know.
Maybe we'll never know.
But we can only just hope
that this man is out there somewhere,
this mythical legend of a man,
who, you know, you could say all you want,
that it's dishonest, it's stealing,
and yeah, it's all those things.
But this is a man
who believed in something.
You know, this is a visionary.
This is someone who had an idea
and where other people would say,
oh, that's crazy, you can't do that.
He said, I'm going to do it.
And he did.
Unless he doesn't exist.
But let's just assume that he does.
Wonderful and inspiring story.
All right, let's get to some emails,
Matt Wall Show at gmail.com.
Matt Wall Show at gmail.com.
This is from Michael.
Says, hi, Matt.
I'm 23 years old.
and have been a type one diabetic since I was 17.
I work in an office buying parts and find my job absolutely miserable.
Since I was little, I've dreamed of serving my community and putting my body on the line in order to protect my community and the country I love.
I spoke with three different military recruiters during my time in college, but the conversation never lasted longer than a few minutes.
Once they found out about my condition, I plan on applying for my local fire department in the fall, but I'm worried I'll have the same result.
I know I will find value in raising and practicing, raising and protecting a family someday,
but I don't know how much longer I can work in an office.
Do you have any advice about vocation or about finding meaning and remedial jobs that don't seem to impact the greater good?
I'm struggling to see how I'm making a difference.
You're incredible. Thanks for all you do.
First of all, I think your desire to have a job where you're protecting your community is very noble.
And so you should be commended for that.
And, you know, I don't know.
Maybe I'm not sure what the rules are in fire departments as opposed to the military, what their, you know, what their physical standards are or whatever.
But it's quite possible that that could work out.
But as for the job that you have now, I think that it is, and I'm not just saying this.
I really do believe that to go into an office and work what you refer to as, what are you, a remedial job.
which isn't the word I would use for it.
But to work a job like that in an office, working a job you don't really like,
that also is a noble pursuit.
And that takes determination.
That takes, I would even say, you know, it takes courage in a way.
To go doing a job that you really don't like and that you hate doing,
but to go in every day and do it anyway.
because you know it's your responsibility and because you want to have a family one day.
And when you have a family, you continue doing it to protect them and to provide for them.
Because there are a lot of people, there are plenty of people in our country today who will say,
I don't want to do this job.
I don't want to do that.
So I'm not going to do any job.
I'll just live off the government or I'll live off my parents or whatever.
Because if I don't want to spend my time doing something, I don't want to do.
So I have a lot of respect for someone who says, okay, I don't like doing it.
but I'm going to go in and do it anyway.
And so I think you can find,
I think you can find some real nobility in that.
And I think that you are impacting the greater good in that sense.
That you're fulfilling your obligations.
You know, you're doing your duty.
And that certainly contributes to the greater good.
And that also provides an example to others around you.
So what I would say is, obviously, keep doing that job for now.
But how old did you say you say you're 23 years old?
Well, look, I mean, you're doing that job.
You have this sense of duty, so that's a great sign.
There's no reason to assume, though, that you're going to be in this job to the next 40 years.
I mean, these days, nobody stays in one job for 40 years.
Even if you like the job, I want to stay there, you probably won't.
So, yeah, your whole life ahead of you.
And I would say, keep doing this job.
and keep whatever your dream sort of job is and whatever you really want to do,
keep pursuing that in the meantime.
Don't give up on the job that you have.
Keep that, but also pursue the sort of job you want.
So don't give up on that dream.
I think that you'll find it.
You're only 23.
I mean, you still got quite a lot of time to find that job and invest yourself in a vocation that is really meaningful to you.
And I have confidence that you will find that.
This is from Gareth, says,
To the future unquestioned King, Emperor, and Grandmaster of this and all other worlds.
Recently, I've been asking questions about what will happen when you take your power,
rather than add to the growing list of those incurring your wrath by questioning your plans,
I'd like to offer my service as your lieutenant and helping you to subdue the masses
and setting up your theocratic dictatorship.
I vow to crush your enemies to drive them before you and fill your ears with the lamentations of their women.
Thank you for reading this unworthy letter, O King.
may you live forever.
Gareth, your desire to serve beside me makes me concerned that you are planning to sabotage
and overthrow my regime.
Now, of course, if you did not want to serve me, then I'd be concerned that you're disloyal
and rebellious.
So basically, either way, you're off to the gulag.
Sorry about that.
Fortunately, in my abounding mercy, first-time offenders will only have to serve 35 years of
forced labor, unless you've been accused of treason, which is what I'm accusing you of,
in which case is 100 years.
So, you know, but those are the rules.
I can't do anything about it.
Well, I could do something about it, but I don't want to
because of my cruelty.
Cruelty and mercy.
It's an interesting combination.
Let's see.
It says, Dear Matt, I would first of all like to thank you for the work you do
and especially for the clear and helpful arguments you make
about why abortion is evil.
As a new mother and human being,
that issue was especially close to my heart,
and it's been sickening to watch the events
in New York and Virginia unfold.
So thanks for fighting the good fight.
I'm from Hungary and moved here last July to join my husband, who's an American.
I say all this to give a little context.
I'm a Christian and a conservative, and I've really enjoyed listening to podcasts about American politics.
And I found my views line up with most of those professed by the smart, thoughtful, and well-read conservative thinkers I look up to.
However, the one area in which I feel there's a lack of nuanced solution finding is gun violence.
what I see is what we call ostrich politics
because apparently ostriches
when sensing danger dig their heads into the sand
not realizing that just because they can't see the danger anymore
it hasn't evaporated.
How they're still not extinct is beyond me
but I digress as kind of what two-year-olds
will do also when they're playing hide and seek
they'll cover their eyes and they think that they have disappeared
and you can't see them anymore so it's similar sort of thing
so what I see is slightly disappointing to me
because every time the topic comes up the right seems to restate
their stance and then use the aforementioned tactic and end the discussion. I have no idea what
a solution might be, but I'd like to at least hear conservatives discuss the issue. Wouldn't it be our
duty to try to find ways to minimize the chance that a horrific incident like a school shooting
might occur? Even if we think perpetrators can turn their knives or other means of inflicting
arm. The analogy that came to mind for me is this. You have electrical outlets in a house and
also a child who routinely starts crawling towards them and poking at them. What do you do? You clearly
can't remove the outlets. They're given. They're here to stay.
but do you say,
me, if I stop the kid from poking,
this one, he'll still find another one,
and even if I stopped every attempt,
he would still fall down the stairs
and hurt himself that way,
or get hit by a car, whatever.
If it's going to happen, it's going to happen.
I would hope not.
And if it's mental illness and not the guns,
there's got to be something
that could be, at least, attempted to try to address that.
By the way, I cannot believe
that the reason there's basically
no gun violence in, for example, Hungary,
is because there just aren't as many mentally ill people.
The country has been completely ravaged
by the world wars and Soviet rule.
It was just emerging from communism
when I was born,
and health care is a mess. I have to think guns have something to do with it. But let's say that
that's even beside the point because of the Second Amendment. So guns are here to stay. Okay,
is there really nothing further to be said after that? Is there nothing we can try to do as a
society, even if it falls way short of stopping every single shooting? Is it really more guns?
I feel very uneasy about that solution. Also, just an added question, because I hear this a lot,
if the government comes for you, you have to be able to protect yourself. Students in Budapest
led an uprising against communist rule in 1996, and they did quite well.
right up to the point where the Russians sent in their tanks.
If the government wants to get you, they will not be deterred by any arsenal of guns you might have, however impressive.
Or am I not seeing something?
I hope the letter isn't too long to get tossed in the spam right away.
No, I have no problem with long letters.
I don't mind reading.
Either way, I very much appreciate your integrity and spine,
something that's a very rare trait these days.
Best wishes that I give this person's name.
Lilla, from Lila, I think is how you pronounce it.
Lila, hopefully I'm pronouncing your name right.
I appreciate that email, and I think what you express is very coherent and intelligent and thoughtful.
And there's nothing wrong with Sagan.
I think that there are some, there are probably many conservatives who are so dogmatic about guns that even what you just said there, they're just going to shut you down and say, I'm not even how, you know, you're a heretic for even saying that.
I don't take that approach.
Now, I believe in gun rights.
I am a pretty hard line on that,
but I'm not dogmatic in the sense that we can talk about it.
I mean, I can understand.
It's not like it's unreasonable to make an argument and say,
well, maybe we should restrict that or this or that gun.
I'm probably going to disagree with the argument you make,
but it's not an unreasonable argument.
And I think this is one thing we have to just,
I don't want to get sidetracked and not address your question,
but, you know, one of the reasons why discussions
our discourse in this country is often so fruitless
is that we treat every opposing argument
as totally unreasonable.
And we don't realize that it's possible to be reasonable and wrong.
And if someone is reasonable and wrong,
then we should just talk to them
and have a human discussion.
And we don't need to treat them like they're morons, right?
So that's the issue.
Now there are some arguments that really are completely unreasonable, like the argument that a man can be a woman.
Well, that's an unreasonable, ridiculous argument.
And so we can't treat it like it is reasonable.
We should engage with it and try to explain why the person is wrong.
But we cannot treat that argument like it's intelligent or reasonable or like we understand their point of view because it's not intelligent.
We don't understand it.
It's because it's not a coherent rational argument.
There is nothing to understand.
So that's that's the point there. As for the issue of guns, here's where I stand on this.
I agree with you that we do need to do something, focusing in on the school shooting thing.
I do get uncomfortable when you have conservatives who will constantly point out that, oh,
you know, actually there aren't really, there hasn't been an uptick in mass shootings.
that's just a kind of a figment of our imagination because of the way the media reports this stuff.
And if you look at the statistics, it's not any more common now than it is that it was back then.
And kids aren't in any more risk today for a school shooting than they were, say, 30 years ago.
I mean, statistically, that might be true.
But we're not imagining things.
I mean, you do have these school shootings that happen every single year now.
And I don't think it's always been that way.
I remember when Columbine happened.
And the reason why Columbine sticks out to us, why it was this event, this kind of history-changing event, is because no one had really seen anything like that before.
Now it seems like every couple of years there's a shooting like that.
And that's not normal.
And if it is normal, it shouldn't be.
So we do need to accept that there's a very real.
problem here. We need to do something. In my opinion, and you might not like this answer based on
your email there, my opinion is the most direct way to address that problem is to protect our
children in school. Because the fact, what you said there about, well, guns are reality.
They're there anyway. That really is true. Now, you do have the Second Amendment, which is not a small
thing. It is, it's the, it's the same, it comes right after free speech. Obviously, our founding
fathers found it to be very important. And you can't just toss it out the window. Even if you
could prove to me in a crystal ball that, well, if we could just get rid of the Second Amendment,
then it would cause mass shootings to go down. Well, still, the amendment still exists.
We still have that liberty. We still have that freedom. It's just like if you could prove to me
that, well, if we get rid of free speech, it would have this and that positive effect. Yeah,
we still have that freedom.
And it's still there.
So we can't ignore it.
We just can't do that.
It's law, it's liberty.
We can't ignore it.
But even aside from that,
the fact is there are tens of millions of guns out there.
And it is true that if somebody gets it into their head,
that they want to kill mass numbers of people,
they have the desire to do that.
We talked about this last week about desire and opportunity.
The reason why,
why most of us are never going to do a school shooting is because we have absolutely no desire
to do that, and we never will. There are people, whether through spiritual evil or mental illness,
whatever you want to say, who find in themselves that desire to kill mass numbers of people.
And then once they have that desire, all they're looking for is the opportunity. And there simply
is no law that's going to deprive them of that opportunity.
that's the fact, which it seems like you know.
So do we say, oh, well, they're going to do it anyway.
There's nothing we can do.
Absolutely not.
I think we need to be taking proactive steps to defend and protect our children in these schools.
We need to be doing real things, real active measures.
And one of those things is to make sure that every school in America has armed security.
And I know we might like that we might say, well,
We shouldn't live in a country where you need armed security in a school.
Yeah, we shouldn't, but we do.
And so we should have it.
There's armed security in pretty much any other government building you can think of.
Public schools are government buildings.
And in pretty much any other government building you can think of, there's armed security.
You go to the Social Security office.
I went there with, you know, when I got married, we went there with my wife and I went there.
And just a little small office with a few people sitting there in the waiting room.
and there's an armed guard sitting there.
And to protect what?
Documents, papers.
So if we've got armed security to protect documents and papers
and armed security to protect politicians in Washington,
then I think our children who are in government buildings also deserve that same protection.
So that's what I would do.
And that's not an ostrich in the sand.
That is taking real active steps.
because going back to opportunity,
now there's nothing we could do
about the fact that people are going to develop this desire.
That's going to happen.
We can't stop that from happening.
As far as depriving them of opportunities,
well, a law is not going to take the opportunity
because a law is just a concept, right?
In terms of, from a preventative perspective.
Like if I want to kill someone,
you say, well, there's a law against killing people.
Okay, but it's not going to physically stop me from doing it.
that will allow you to punish me after the fact, which is good, but it's not going to physically stop me.
I think what we need to do on top of having laws is we need to have actual physical barriers
that may prevent, may hinder my opportunity to do the bad thing.
And that physical barrier, in this case, would be armed guards.
I think it would be very difficult to argue that, you know, a school shooting where there's an armed guard is likely to be just as deadly as a school shooting where there is no guard.
Think about Sandy Hook. I mean, those kids, those poor kids were just sitting there in the classroom utterly defenseless until the police arrived.
I think it's immoral and wrong to leave our kids defenseless like that.
and so that's what I would
that's how I would address it
and I think that
I think that is a proactive
step
that we could take
thanks for the email
I guess we will leave it there
thanks for watching everybody thanks for listening
Godspeed
Hey everybody it's Andrew Claven
host of the Andrew Claven show
you know repealing Roe v. Wade would be a good thing
because it might be a step on the way
to not killing so many babies but it would
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and I'll explain why on the Andrew Claven show.
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I'm Andrew Claven.
