Ep 158 | Freedom & Harm
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Summary
In this episode, we discuss the tragic mass shooting that took place in Texas on Labor Day weekend, and the lack of protection from the law in the wake of this mass shooting, as well as what we can do to prevent future mass shootings.
Transcript
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hey guys welcome to relatable thank you for being here i hope everyone has had a wonderful week a
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good long and restful labor day weekend unfortunately something very tragic happened
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this weekend in west texas another mass shooting today that's what we're going to talk about we're
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going to talk about mass shootings we're going to talk about gun control we will touch on red flag
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laws and the solutions that have been promote uh proposed and the differences between the right and
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the left on this particular issue this is something a lot of you have asked me to talk about we did
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many evergreen topics over the summer the second amendment is not one that we got to i'd like to
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do a more in-depth episode on really what the second amendment is the history of court cases surrounding
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the second amendment and why conservatives support it that's not what today's episode is but i do hope
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to offer a little bit of clarity to you on this particular subject first okay so like i said over
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the weekend another tragic shooting happened in midland texas this time it wasn't in a store or
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at a concert or in a building that's something that we're used to this time it was a person identified
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as a white male in his mid-30s in his car shooting at people in other cars he was pulled over on saturday
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afternoon for not using his turn signals this was a totally routine traffic stop but he then started
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shooting at the officers and then he drove off and started shooting at other drivers and passengers
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he hijacked a postal truck and drove to odessa about 20 miles away shooting and killing people
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on route he killed seven people and injured over 20 people among the seriously injured was a 17 month
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old baby girl her mother apparently was not injured there was a story of someone coming out of a
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restaurant and seeing the mother and her child covered in blood in the back seat in a car seat
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and her mother was just hysterical of course exactly how i would be as well i can't imagine the terror
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and the helplessness that she felt in that moment and the heartache and the fear and the anxiety that
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she's probably experiencing now reportedly this young girl is in stable condition which is great
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but i'm sure this mom and her dad are probably dealing with a lot right now and so while i'm praying
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for all of the victims and their families uh this particular story since i am a new mom of a baby
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girl just really gets me in my core into my heart just because i can feel and empathize how scary that
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must be and i'm i'm just thinking about them a lot and have been over the past few days uh so law
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enforcement cornered this guy in the parking lot of the movie theater they shot and killed him thankfully i am
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so thankful so thankful for our police officers proving yet again that the only way to stop a bad
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guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun bad guys are always going to find a way to harm and to kill
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and even to illegally buy guns so the need for well-armed good responsible citizens will always be
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necessary for our safety and we'll get into more of that in just a little bit so a little bit more on
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this guy i'm not going to name him because one of the motivations they have found and researchers
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have found in these mass shootings is publicity is fame is notoriety i'm not going to give him that
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satisfaction i'm also not going to be a part of any kind of complicit encouragement or indirect
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encouragement of people who are maybe considering doing something like this because they want some
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kind of recognition i'm not going to give them that thing that they crave the question always is
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were there any signs leading up to this should we have known that this guy was a threat did he have
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a criminal record what was the context of the shooting what's his online history and of course
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the big question that law enforcement is looking at and that we wonder too what is the motive what we
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know is that he was fired from his trucking job just hours before this so that could explain a little
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bit of it maybe he was angry but of course a lot of people get fired from their jobs and they don't
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go on some kind of killing rampage so clearly there's something else going on here he actually called the
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fbi tip line just before this happened after he was fired apparently he got into a verbal altercation
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with his boss they both uh called 911 this guy called the fbi tip line but apparently according to the
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fbi he was just rambling he wasn't actually threatening to do anything and so no action by them was taken
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public records show that he was arrested way back in 2001 for two misdemeanors one was trespassing
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the other was evading arrest that was 18 years ago the guy was 36 and so he was 18 when he was arrested
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for those misdemeanors most people wouldn't say that a misdemeanor alone when you're a teenager
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necessarily means that you pose a risk to society he doesn't have much of an online footprint from what
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we know that's a little bit rare a lot of times when we see these mass shootings there was some
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kind of sign online but his neighbor did tell officers that he threatened her with a gun for
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leaving her trash in a dumpster close by she also reportedly said that he would shoot at animals in
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his yard from a structure on top of his house every night which is extremely disturbing especially
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to people who love animals i mean i guess it's disturbing to everyone we don't know maybe they could
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have been rats or raccoons or something like that but they also could have been cats and dogs
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we do know that animal abuse especially in a grown man and especially of domesticated animals is
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typically some kind of indication of other kinds of violent behavior not every time but many times
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the fbi also believed that there had been a lot leading up to this as there almost always is these
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things just don't happen in a vacuum there is always something that precipitated it or something that
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had been going on along behind the scenes for a long time this is according to usa today
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fbi special agent christopher combe said the shooter's home was a very strange residence that
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reflected his mental state he was on a long spiral of going down combe said after a search of the
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property west of odessa he didn't wake up saturday morning and go into his company and then it happened
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he went to that company in trouble and had probably been in trouble for a while but that's really all we
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know at this point we know that he used a rifle texas governor greg abbott tweeted that the shooter had
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failed his background check to get a gun but he didn't say how or why it's probably not because
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of the misdemeanors because in texas only felonies or domestic violence misdemeanors stop you from
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being able to purchase a gun the texas tribute says this in texas licensed licensed dealers must conduct
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background checks through the national instant criminal background check system or in ics however
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there are exceptions to this rule such as if the buyer already has a texas license to carry a handgun
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private sales between individuals also do not require a criminal background check which includes
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some gun sales at gun shows this is exactly why advocates for gun control believe that there needs
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to be a universal background check which supporters say would close the so-called gun show loophole and
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make private transfers pretty much impossible every firearm purchase would have to be registered
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with the nics some have also suggested red flag laws you've probably heard a lot about this in the
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news recently which allows family members or police to ask a state court to temporarily remove guns from
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someone they believe is a violent threat based on something they've said or done better work and other
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democratic candidates for press for the presidency propose gun buyback programs where the government
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would literally confiscate certain kinds of guns what they consider assault style guns or military style guns
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the pushback on all of this from gun rights advocates is that each of these suggestions limits the freedoms of
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responsible citizens that's the big argument that that we've been having universal background checks would
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essentially require a registry of all guns which many believe is an invasion of privacy privacy and an over
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encroachment of the government the check also adds a cost to the purchase of buying a gun which could make it more
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difficult for poor people to purchase a gun legally that's a problem the red flag laws they sound really good in
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theory i think that they sound good on the surface but there is a risk of manipulating them there's a risk of
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politicization for example someone disagrees with you politically or maybe it's theologically or whatever and they
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petitioned the court to remove your weapons the court may share this person's political inclinations
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and agree to take your weapons away for that reason there's just no way of guaranteeing that there would
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be a fair objective standard for these laws and president trump actually interestingly demonstrated this
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problem when he tweeted about chris cuomo getting angry at someone in public for calling him freedom
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he said that maybe cuomo poses a threat under red flag laws and should have his guns taken away because he's an
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angry guy well obviously president trump was being sarcastic he was being facetious uh but that is
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exactly what we should be afraid of with these kinds of laws using red flag laws as either a personal
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or political or professional whatever it is weapon against someone uh red flag laws would just be very
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difficult to enforce there was actually a story last week out of portland about a marine who said online
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that he would quote slaughter antifa you know antifa the violent thugs uh if he were attacked so he's
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talking about acting in self-defense and all of his guns under these red flag laws in uh in oregon were
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removed from him that is crazy i don't see how that's not unconstitutional and while i do think that we need
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to do a better job of that a better job of tracking people who potentially pose a threat that's just very
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difficult i mean think about it there are a lot of just weird erratic people in the world who are
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into some really freaky stuff who don't necessarily though pose a threat of violence and they have a
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right to be weird they have a right to be into freaky stuff we don't have to agree with it but that
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doesn't necessarily mean that they don't have a right to own a gun people have suggested gun buyback
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programs where the police buy your guns it is mandatory of course we know that bad guys won't turn in
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their guns and this costs money it's a terrible idea here is better work talking about that we're
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going to speak as defiantly and as strongly as we can but we're also going to take action universal
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background checks red flag laws and into the sales of weapons of war and buying those ak-47s and ar-15s
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back so there have been supposed solutions put forth but really the conversation after something like
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this happens is predictable before the bodies are even cold liberals are saying that it is a gun
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problem that it's even a white male problems conservatives are arguing that it's not a gun
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problem guns don't shoot people and let me just give credence to both arguments on the one hand
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conservatives are right guns don't shoot people a gun has never committed a crime a gun is neither good
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nor bad it is an inanimate object that can be used in self-defense it can be used for sport for hunting
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or for evil it depends on who is behind the gun a bad person behind a gun means that bad things are
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probably going to happen and if a responsible gun owner is behind the gun they probably won't bad
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people will find a way to do what they want no matter what the gun laws are no matter what their
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weapon of choice is so there's no use in passing laws conservatives say that would violate the rights of
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responsible gun owners who do make up the majority of gun ownership to which however the left says
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sure a gun doesn't fire on its own but we already have laws that make assault and murder illegal and
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these people are still assaulting and murdering people there has to be a law or a series of laws
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regulating the weapon of choice for these mass shooters they would say yes a bad person may use a
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knife or a truck or a shovel but in this country they typically don't and these kinds of
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weapons are apparently capable of killing a lot more people a lot faster than other kinds of
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weapons so why don't we try to limit the casualties as much as possible as much as we can by getting
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rid of these guns that's what people on the left would say or gun control advocates would say and i
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get that i understand how that makes sense i really do and these what i just did is a really good faith
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rendering of both arguments both sides really have a lot of dishonesty uh but taking the most honest of
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both sides the best of both sides what we're talking about essentially is how to balance our
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personal liberty our constitutional right to bear arms with public safety the nature of personal
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liberty is that there will always be risk same thing with free speech for example free speech means
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there is a risk of you being offended there is a risk of hearing me say something that you don't like
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the question is how much risk are we willing to bear and is it possible to mitigate the risk of harm
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without severely hampering individual liberty that's the real question that we're asking that's the
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real debate that we're having if we can get past all of the punditry punditry and all of the
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politicization of this that is the question that we are trying to answer so the problem is and here's
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where i reveal my issue with the leftist position on this in particular is that the left especially today
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just has a very low value on individual liberty whereas the right cares about both harm and liberty
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the left really only cares about harm especially in this case and they believe that taking guns away
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and making it harder to get guns is the answer to preventing harm while the question is is this true
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because i think all of us would like to prevent mass shootings all of us would like fewer casualties
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but does taking guns away really prevent shootings there is a meme that you've probably seen that goes
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around every time a mass shooting happens with a list of flags it's you know the flag emojis and a
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number next to it and all next to all of the flags is the number zero and then there's the american
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flag at the very bottom and the number next to it i think is like 250 accounting for how many mass
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shootings have occurred this year celebrities share it everyone shares it it's been shared millions of
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times and people share it without giving any kind of source without citing hey this is where i got these
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numbers from uh they just say nope this is a fax because someone tweeted it out but we should
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probably ask some questions before we just take this at face value like this person who created this
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meme what is the definition of mass technically it is four or more people shot at the same time
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but we don't we don't know if that's this person's definition of mass shooting say that it is we don't have a
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citation for it so we don't know if it's really true that four or more people haven't been shot at the same
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time in any of these other countries that are listed especially considering that the homicide
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rates for some of the countries on this list are much higher than the united states in brazil for
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example they have extremely strict gun laws and yet their murder rate is one of the highest murder
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rates in the world that goes for most of central and south america and mexico by the way there is a
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non-partisan study that i've cited before by lot and moody i have it in the highlights on my instagram
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uh that you can you can go look at it there you can just swipe up and see the whole study for
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yourself so you know that i'm not making this up they found that there is no correlation no
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correlation at all between the number of guns in a country and the number of homicides a lot of people
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say that if you look at other countries shootings go down after strict gun laws go into place but if you
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look at the charts that these people are citing uh before and after those gun laws are actually put
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into place what you'll see is that the number of shootings was already on the decline before the
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laws were even passed getting rid of guns is only going to make people like you and me unsafe we are
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not safer as a society if i for example don't have a gun by taking away my guns from me and my family
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are making it harder for me to get a gun you do absolutely nothing to contribute to the safety of
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this country you've done nothing all you've done is violate my freedoms and make me more vulnerable
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because guess what if a 200 pound guy or less than that about even if a 150 pound guy approaches me and
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my child on the street and tries to assault me i'm powerless it doesn't matter how quick i am with my
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mace it doesn't matter how good i am with my knife um not that i carry a knife but if i did it doesn't
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matter how many self-defense classes i've taken i probably won't be able to fight him off maybe if
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i'm lucky maybe if i'm really lucky and he happens to be really slow but my trump card is going to be
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my gun if i and if you gun owner know how to handle it well and this is the same for almost every woman
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and a lot of men and of course it's not just criminals uh the second amendment protects us
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against it's the government it's tyranny the taking away of our freedoms you've probably heard the second
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amendment protects the first amendment and that's true this is precisely why the second amendment
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exists the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed for some for some reason for some reason
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some people like to pretend like that part doesn't exist that it's just a well-regulated militia
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no the founders did not want a nation in which only the government and law enforcement are armed
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that makes you powerless to the whims of a tyrant and that is exactly what they sought to avoid
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you don't have to like guns or own a gun to respect the rights of people to defend themselves how they
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see fit i don't judge you if you don't own a gun or if guns scare you that's totally fine i want you to
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be able to protect yourself with pepper spray if you want to i want you to be able to protect your
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family uh by i don't know taekwondo if you want i also want you to be able to own a gun if you want to
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i want you to be able to take your protection into your own hands i want you to have the ability
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to defend yourself and to help those around you should the opportunity arise there is this utter
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misconception among a lot of people on the left especially the coastal elites especially those who
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live in big cities who just don't seem to understand this that people who own guns or people who believe
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and the right to bear arms aren't gun nuts maybe you are and that's totally fine if you love guns and
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you love going out and shooting guns and you're obsessed with going to gun shows that's totally
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fine but the vast majority i would say of gun owners aren't like that like i really don't care
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about guns i'm not obsessed with guns i'm not in gun culture again that's cool if you are but i'm not
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like that all i care about is protecting myself all i care about is the right to protect my family
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that's that's all i care about and i want you to have the right to do that as well you don't have
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to but i want you to have that right what we care about way more than guns it's freedom uh they think
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that we are i don't know excited about the opportunity to use our gun on someone and what
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they must not realize is that all responsible gun owners pray pray that we will never have to use our
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gun on a person no one wants to be in that situation i think they think that we are like
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warped in our minds and that we love violence no not at all we hope that violence is completely
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eradicated of course those of us who are christians know that that's not going to happen until jesus
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comes back but that's not our desire at all we're not more violent people we just want to be able to
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protect ourselves and protect our families but the question is the question is misconceptions aside
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is what do we do about this because both the right and the left again if we take the best of both
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sides want to do something about this we don't want casualties we don't want this to happen again
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we don't want ourselves we don't we don't want to be put in this situation we don't want those that we
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know to be put in this situation we don't want to see another one of these stories and we don't want
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to have this twitter dialogue where it's so exhausting where both sides are so dishonest and
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it's it's it's it's the worst it's the worst of the american soul the conversations that we have
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after these tragic shootings it is the worst part of us that seems to come to the forefront
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and i would say that most of us don't want that anymore most of us would love to never have this
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conversation again and so what do we do again we are trying to find the balance between liberty
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and preventing harm last year congress passed the fix ncis bill and since then over six million
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records have actually been added to the federal databases this is from conservative review.com
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the fix nics act was passed in march 2018 and aimed to increase compliance with federal background
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check laws by providing additional reporting resources imposing penalties on federal agencies that
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fail to comply and promoting state level compliance through incentives and public reporting of
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those who don't comply the doj numbers also indicate that the department has now received
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implementation plans from all 50 states the district of columbia and 71 federal agencies the plans are
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meant to evaluate and approve current nics reporting practices so as far as i'm concerned that's a good
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thing we don't want people falling through the cracks that's a big problem that we have is not that we
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don't have that ground checks because we do but people fall through the cracks that is a problem and i hope
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this uh that this act continues to be implemented and work well is there more that we could do maybe
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and i know this might be unsatisfying to you but i don't have the perfect answer for this i want one
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i want congress to work on this i want the left and the right to come together i want democrats and
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republicans to come together and have a conversation about this but i also want to get rid of the talking
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points that say neither side really cares because i believe that both sides do and i also think it's a myth
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perpetuated by some people on the left to say that uh the politicians that support the second
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amendment are just beholden to the nra they just want nra money no the nra supports them because they
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ideologically support the second amendment because they've probably always supported the second amendment
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maybe not every single politician that they support but um politicians conservative politicians
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are ideologically inclined to support the second amendment so that's not why we're not having
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a serious conversation about this at least that's not the main reason why we're not having a
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conversation about this it's just a back and forth of scoring political points when really i would
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really like to see these things come to an end i simply don't believe that any of the so-called
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solutions that democrats have put forth will do anything i mean they put forth these solutions in a very
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emotional state and they don't correspond the legislation that they put forth doesn't actually
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correspond with the crime committed so often the legislation that they put forward wouldn't have
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stopped the particular shooter that they are reacting to which just goes to show again it's about
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political points it's not actually about fixing the problem and so i'm ready to hear more solutions from
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our congress people i am ready to hear how we can make these tragedies stop or at least stop them from
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happening as often without limiting the freedom of people like you and me responsible gun owners who hope to
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never ever have to use our guns uh on a person in self-defense i i hope that that never happens but
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nevertheless who want to protect our families um what we know also as christians what we know as
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christians is that no legislation will fix this no bill will fix this no pundit will fix this no
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politician will fix this that sin is the problem and sin is going to persist and yes i i will say that
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mass shootings look different in america than they look in other countries homicide rates are higher in
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other countries but this kind of crime is unique to us it's not completely exclusive to us but it is
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unique to us but what we know as christians is that no matter what kind of crime is prevalent in our
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country no matter what the problem is the solution remains the same like if our essential and ultimate
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problem is that we are dead in our trespasses if our essential problem is that we are broken in the
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core of our being that we are totally depraved then the ultimate solution can only be the only one who
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can save us from those things the only one who can make us alive who can make us a new creation
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whose kindness can lead us to repentance who can make us love god's law and walk in his ways and that is
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jesus which means a few things that means that our sole responsibility our ultimate responsibility
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responsibility as christians is to share the gospel if that's what changes hearts and minds and we
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believe that this is a heart problem then that's our sole responsibility we can't say you know this is
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a heart problem this is a problem in people's souls and not give people the solution we can't just be
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people who talk about problems we also have to share the solution which is jesus it's really easy to score
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political points on twitter and say this isn't a gun problem this is a heart problem okay well who fixes the
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heart who changes the heart who makes the heart of stone a heart of flesh who makes us a new creation
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who saves us who reconciles us a wicked people to a holy god changing us completely and eternally
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it's jesus so we can't just be people that state the problem we also have to know the solution and
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because we know the solution that means something else that we don't live in fear so much easier said
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than done anyone who is in my family knows what an anxious person i am how paranoid i can be how i'm
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always thinking about the worst case scenario and how worried and fearful i can be and yet jesus tells
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us over and over again in his word do not fear do not let your heart be troubled do not be anxious do
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not worry your heavenly father knows what you need that is much easier said than done but i have to
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believe that the god of the universe who existed before time began who is suspended in the eternal
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now who was ever on his throne who is the same yesterday today and forever knew exactly what
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we would be up against in 2019 and i don't believe that it was arbitrary that you and i were placed
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on the time in history on the specific point in eternity that we were placed not that god needs us
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but that he chooses to use us when and how he does and i believe that he equips every generation you are
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not here by accident god doesn't do anything flippantly he doesn't do anything arbitrarily he
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doesn't do anything accidentally he's not surprised by anything he's not thrown off by anything he's not
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looking down and saying oh my gosh i made a huge mistake no because he is gracious because he doesn't
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um he doesn't experience time the same way that we do uh he is patiently bringing people to himself
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even as we are experiencing these scary circumstances and the way that he has chosen
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to bring people to himself is through the power of the holy spirit through christians so that's still
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our responsibility we can stay steadfast we can stay assured knowing that our obligation
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does not change uh that god is the same that we serve a god who is the same and that he has equipped
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us and he has called us to the same thing that he has called christians to for thousands of years so
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the thing that we should pray for is to be obedient and is to be bold and not to shrink back just because
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things are unsure i know that's the temptation that's certainly my temptation but to go forward
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in truth speaking the truth in love and sharing the gospel that is just as good of news today as it has
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always been that is our role it is not to be paralyzed it is not to be ridden with anxiety
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even as we look to our children and say what kind of world is this how could i bring kids into this
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world some people are are asking themselves right now god has called us to the same responsibility
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that he always has and he's not going to leave us behind he's not freaking out even though we are
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and he's on our side if our god is for us who can be against us we know that they're going to be
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trials and tribulations we know that there are going to be difficulties we know there are going
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to be surprises for us and yet uh we know that god is sovereign that he is in control and that he knows
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everything and that he is all powerful and we also know there's a day when jesus is coming back when
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we won't worry about mass shootings that'll be in the distant past what what is that what is strife
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what is division what is politics will ask what is it disagreement what is uh what is sadness
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what is sorrow what what are what are tears uh we will only know joy we'll only know perfect peace
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and we all look forward to that day until then we've got a job to do this is spiritual warfare
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and god has shown us in his word how we can stand up uh for what is true uh that's all we have today