Cameron Kasky was one of the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida when the awful shooting took place. He was subsequently a member of March For Our Lives, and now he is a leader of a group called Middle Ground. In this special episode, we ll get to talk with Cameron in just one second. To learn more about Middle Ground, go to middleground.org/podcast and use the promo code "ELISSA" to receive $5 and contribute $5 to the Red Cross or National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, call 1-800-273-8255 or visit bit.ly/support-crimesnow. To take back your internet privacy today, find out how you can get three months for free with ExpressVPN, a VPN service that secures and anonymizes your internet browsing by encrypting your public IP address. Using ExpressVPN you can safely surf on public Wi-Fi without being snooped on or having your personal data stolen. For the best protection, you should use ExpressVPN every time you go online. It costs less than $7 a month and comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee so you really have nothing to lose! Go to expressvpn.com slash ben to learn more. To find out more about ExpressVPN and secure your internet now, visit expressVPN.com/secureyourinternet and find out what you can do to protect yourself against snooping by using ExpressVPN. In this Sunday Special, we'll talk about: 1. How do we fix the country to be a better place than ever before? 2. What can we do to make this better place? 3. Why do we need a more humanized politics? 4. How can we make the country better? 5. What do we have a better country? 6. Why are we need to be better than ever be a place better than this place ? 7. What are we better than a place to be more of a place than this? And so on and so on, etc., etc. - The point? - And so much more? -- The point is that we re a place that we can be better, right? ? I m not the expert on things like that? And very frequently, I can t buy a house like a house? I can't buy a car like a car, right ?
00:01:37.000So, for folks who don't know, Cameron was one of the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, when the awful shooting took place, and he was subsequently a member of March for Our Lives.
00:01:47.000Now, he is one of the leaders of a group called Middle Ground.
00:01:52.000Okay, so tell us a little bit about Middle Ground, then we'll kind of backtrack and talk about how we got here.
00:01:56.000So, one of the lessons I've learned since starting March for Our Lives, and this was a truly difficult one to grasp, was that, surprisingly enough, I don't know everything.
00:02:03.000Now, as a 17-year-old boy who was dead set on the fact that I knew everything, that threw me for a loop.
00:02:09.000And halfway through my tour with March for Our Lives this summer, where we were advocating for more accessible voting and encouraging people to register, I realized...
00:02:19.000I was in Texas and I spoke to some people.
00:02:21.000Maybe the people who disagree with me don't want the country to be a bad place.
00:02:26.000And I was born in a bubble where my heavily liberal mindset that I still maintain convinced me that anybody who didn't agree with me had malintent.
00:02:45.000So, I thought, how can I prevent people from making the mistakes that I made?
00:02:49.000We've got a really engaged young generation, there's no lack of passion, but there's a lack of information, and there's a lack of civility, very frequently.
00:02:57.000And very often, there is incivility in the guise of passion, and that's fine.
00:03:03.000But I want to move into the future with a more humanized look at politics.
00:03:08.000I think that everybody in the country, well, I would call 96% of the country wants the country to be a better place.
00:03:43.000And very frequently, I'm treated like the expert on things.
00:03:46.000And, you know, I believe that my insight is valuable.
00:03:48.000I think that a fact, whether spoken by a 3-year-old or a 70-year-old is still a fact, and insight is subjective, but I want to create a more educated youth.
00:03:58.000That's really obviously mature, and I have a lot of sympathy for you because you were sort of thrust into the public eye in a fashion you obviously never expected or wanted.
00:04:06.000I've been in the public eye at your age, and it's definitely a difficult thing.
00:04:10.000And the lesson that you learned, you learned faster than I learned it, for sure.
00:04:14.000And so that's definitely a path you've had to take.
00:05:09.000I thought that John McCain was running with Tina Fey because I had seen on the news that Tina Fey was portraying Sarah Palin and I wasn't able to put two and two together.
00:05:17.000But I always cared because I always thought that... I always wanted more from the country.
00:05:23.000I was a Bobby Kennedy fanatic for a while because I like people who look at the future.
00:05:28.000And that's really what gave me the progressive mindset is I'm not opposed to conservative views, but I think that a lot of conservatism will have people thinking more of using the past as a model as opposed to a springboard.
00:05:41.000I think there's always somewhere we can go.
00:06:32.000There's not a lot of humanity you can search for.
00:06:34.000It's hard to put yourself in the shoes of somebody who is a psychopath.
00:06:37.000But, you know, I... Well, obviously, that would've been hard for me, but... But I, um... You know, I developed a deep empathy for my fellow human being that drove me to a very passionate and emotional stance.
00:06:51.000Then my school gets shot up, and I say, OK, I've heard of Sandy Hook, I've heard of Columbine, I've heard all these things, and when you're in a room and you hear about those schools, everything gets silent, everything gets awkward, everything gets melancholy.
00:07:14.000What exactly was that day like for you?
00:07:16.000So before the shooting, I was in my drama class.
00:07:18.000We were halfway through a song that I was doing.
00:07:20.000Again, I sounded like hot garbage, but I remembered the special needs kids at my school are let out a half hour before everybody else because they're picked up at the bus loop and they have to be picked up before the buses come.
00:07:30.000So on days where I had school and my mother was at work, I picked up my brother and I brought him to drama.
00:07:37.000He felt like, you know, he felt like a cool guy, which he is.
00:07:40.000And it was about 2.20, and I was supposed to pick him up at 2.10, so I said, oh crap, I gotta go.
00:07:46.000I rush out of the drama room, run over to pick up my brother, because I have to be back for my song, and suddenly there's a fire alarm.
00:07:52.000And I say, uh-oh, the buses are about to come, and I'm with the special needs students, and we have to go in the bus loop to avoid the fire.
00:08:00.000You know, there are a lot of very high-functioning students in the ESE program at Stoneman Douglas, there are a lot of lower-functioning students, but it's a hassle to get in the parking lot, and I was just like, okay, this is annoying.
00:08:10.000Especially being outside of the class you're supposed to be in during a fire drill, because then you have to tell the teacher, they have to walkie the staff to make sure everybody's accounted for.
00:08:18.000And while we're out there waiting, this kid near me says, shooter.
00:08:21.000I look at him and I say, that's not cool.
00:08:28.000If this reaches a younger audience, I'm going to avoid it.
00:08:30.000But suddenly everybody starts running back into the school.
00:08:34.000And there are teachers beckoning us inside, and my initial thought is, okay, we're with the ESE class, and several other classes, but we're with the ESE class, in the middle of the bus loop, and there was a, it must have been a fake fire drill, and the buses were about to come, so they were like, everybody get inside so you don't get hit by the buses.
00:08:49.000Then we're sent into a classroom, the lights turn off, and I say, something's going on here.
00:08:53.000Took me a couple minutes to realize that there was gunfire.
00:08:58.000It was hysteria in the room, but it was the type of hysteria where you are hysterical but still have to be quiet because you don't know where the gunman is.
00:09:06.000He could have been right next door to us.
00:09:35.000Do I tell him what's going on because he deserves the truth, or do I allow him the bliss of ignorance for the time being?
00:09:42.000But there were also a lot of other special needs students there and some of them were non-verbal.
00:09:47.000But non-verbal doesn't mean you can't make noise.
00:09:49.000And some of them were yelling, some of them were making loud shrieks and hollers and fortunately the special needs specialists at Soman Douglas were able to keep everybody together and it was a problem that was solved quickly.
00:10:30.000It was a time where I said, in this lack of... While nobody around us knows what's going on, I have to step up and say, here's what I think.
00:10:41.000The cameras came, and I couldn't have them come and film people crying.
00:10:45.000I had to have them come and I had to have people stand in front of them and say, we cannot have this anymore.
00:12:54.000All my friends from Douglas that I knew were well-spoken and eloquent joined.
00:12:57.000Some people just showed up at my house and some of them ended up becoming very passionate and well-spoken advocates for what we were advocating for.
00:13:06.000But by what I would call February 19th, our team was together.
00:13:10.000So the tactics that March for Our Lives used came under a lot of criticism, including from people like me, because obviously at the very beginning, particularly, there was a lot of focus on some of the stuff you talked about earlier.
00:13:20.000There was an implication that was put out by particular members of the team in public settings that if there was a disagreement about politics, that this was a reflection of lack of care about what had happened.
00:13:34.000What do you think could have been done to mitigate against that?
00:13:37.000To be honest with you, a lot of that was me.
00:13:39.000A lot of that was me telling my friends, you know, these people don't agree with us.
00:14:08.000And I believed it until relatively recently.
00:14:11.000I'm embarrassed, certainly, but I'm also, I'm not losing sleep over it, because I believed it.
00:14:17.000What do you think changed that for you?
00:14:18.000I mean, you talked about being in Texas, but obviously, for those of us who are watching from afar, the first time that I saw you on TV, I think, was probably during the CNN town hall event, which was obviously, got huge ratings, was a big television event.
00:14:30.000I criticized Jake Tapper for it, because I suggested that the media really should have, if they want to have a discussion of the issues, they should do a discussion of the issues, as opposed to sort of an emotionally driven event.
00:16:09.000America as a whole is responsible for this division and we need to come together.
00:16:13.000Okay, so I'm going to ask you a bunch more questions about sort of your political perspective, how it's changed, and where you are now in just one second.
00:16:18.000But first, let's talk about life insurance.
00:16:20.000So September is National Life Insurance Awareness Month.
00:16:22.000If you listen to this show a lot, you've heard me talk about how important life insurance is.
00:16:25.000You've got a family, you want to make sure they're taken care of in case, God forbid, something happens to you.
00:16:29.000But here's the thing, 40% of Americans still don't have life insurance.
00:16:32.000So if anything were to happen to their families, to you, their families could be left in a really difficult financial situation.
00:16:37.000These days, there's not really an excuse for not having it because life insurance rates are at a 20-year low.
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00:17:43.000And so we just kind of went back and forth on that and then you made some comments and I liked them and I said, this is good, what you're doing here.
00:17:49.000And I thought, this is somebody who's actually considering, you know, how to go about making the country a better place.
00:17:56.000Why do you think that you had to break from March for Our Lives?
00:17:58.000Why not stick around and try and change the thing from the inside, for example?
00:18:01.000Well, at the end of the day, March for Our Lives is advocating for things that I'm currently not advocating for.
00:18:06.000Now, on a policy stance, I agree with March for Our Lives almost entirely.
00:18:10.000And they are currently involved with advocating for policy change.
00:18:14.000They're involved with raising awareness about gun violence in parts of the country that are very often forgotten, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for that, and I'm proud of my friends.
00:18:24.000Truly, I believe that my friends are great people who really want the country to be a better place, and I'm proud to cheer them on to the future, proud to help, but right now I'm focused more on social things.
00:18:33.000I'm focused more on the fact that we all have that family member that's why we can't talk about Trump at Thanksgiving.
00:18:39.000And I think that we need to de-stigmatize these conversations.
00:18:42.000March for Our Lives is advocating for policy.
00:19:04.000But what are the other kind of conversations you're trying to pursue, and how are you going about doing that?
00:19:07.000I think that, strangely enough, the conversation that needs to be pursued is the conversation about conversations.
00:19:13.000Is the fact that, you know, if I'm speaking to somebody who does not share my views on abortion, that does not mean that they want to kill babies or they want to oppress women.
00:19:23.000I think that if I'm talking to somebody about the Israel-Palestine issue and one side of the issue doesn't hate Jews and one side of the issue doesn't hate Palestinians, I think that we need to stop it.
00:19:51.000So what is your stance on gun control?
00:19:53.000I think that no citizen of this country needs to have a semi-automatic rifle.
00:19:58.000I also think that when I'm an adult, I will get a concealed carry permit.
00:20:02.000And if you try to hurt my family, I'm going to hurt you.
00:20:04.000Okay, so what do you think is the difference between, I don't mean to grill you on politics, but what do you think is the difference between a handgun and a semi-automatic rifle in this context?
00:20:13.000I think that if you look at the situations we've had in this country where people have used semi-automatic rifles for mass shootings, we see that a lot of it, that having a semi-automatic rifle will make people feel empowered.
00:21:02.000An attempt to be known, an attempt to feel large and powerful, and I feel like a large and powerful gun can frequently make people feel that.
00:21:09.000I also think that the shooting in Las Vegas could not have been done with anything but an AR-15.
00:21:13.000I know the shooter used a bump stock, but if that person only had semi-automatic handguns and was firing from that distance, then it wouldn't be as effective.
00:21:22.000Now, I understand that that is very often treated as an anomaly.
00:21:25.000It's very often treated as an outlier when we discuss the issues with these shootings.
00:21:28.000But I think that as long as another one of these can happen, which right now it can, we need to address the issue as it is.
00:21:34.000How much of the problem do you think is the instrument and how much is it the people?
00:21:36.000Considering there are, you know, 100, 200 million rifles in circulation in the United States, probably 100 million handguns in circulation in the United States, which is basically a gun per person in the United States.
00:21:46.000And barring a full-scale confiscation of rifles, how would you propose to achieve this?
00:21:52.000I think that the way I look at it is a lot of attacks, whether it be suicide or shooting, and this is why I very often advocate for red flag laws, even though some people argue they're unconstitutional, I think a lot of these things are reactionary.
00:22:05.000I think that a lot of mass shooters will be able to find a weapon on the black market or illegally, and a lot of them, if they are, it takes more time, and if they have to go through a harder process, will not be as quick to do it.
00:22:18.000I watched the videos, I don't know why I did, but I watched the videos that my shooter put out,
00:22:38.000And I saw a reflection of a desire to be powerful.
00:22:43.000I've said this several times, but I think that it's something we need to address.
00:22:46.000I think that between facts and feelings, there's logic.
00:22:48.000And we have to look at the facts and also apply our insight.
00:22:52.000Well, why not start with sort of the most localized solutions?
00:22:55.000So a lot of these solutions that you're talking about in terms of gun control are blanket solutions that affect literally hundreds of millions of people.
00:23:01.000Whereas, for example, in the Parkland case, it's pretty obvious that the Broward County Sheriff's Office was engaged in massive malfeasance at the very least.
00:23:13.000I believe that there are many changes that can be made on a local level.
00:23:17.000And I then began to advocate for them.
00:23:19.000I think that school safety is important to focus on.
00:23:21.000I also think some aspects of school safety are dangerous.
00:23:23.000For example, I think metal detectors are not safe.
00:23:28.000I think that you've been to an airport, there are long lines around metal detectors, and getting everybody in one place makes them just as susceptible to shootings.
00:23:35.000That's similarly my issue with single entry points.
00:23:38.000I know for a fact that the Broward School Board had hundreds of millions of dollars that were allotted for school safety that are completely missing.
00:23:45.000And my friend Kenneth Preston actually covers this in a lot of his investigative journalism.
00:24:30.000I think that instead of doing that, well I know for a fact instead of doing that, they then went out and were touting how great of a school year it was.
00:24:37.000Donna Korn, who ran against Mr. Petty, the father of one of the victims at our school, said it was an amazing school year.
00:24:42.000You don't say that when a school gets shot up.
00:25:06.000I've said some dumb stuff, and I'll tell you that it was dumb, but right now the school board and the sheriff, like you have said, they are not holding themselves accountable.
00:25:24.000So you have to create a proportional relationship between what you believe in.
00:25:28.000If you believe in more gun rights, then that's your own cup of tea and we can talk about that.
00:25:33.000If you believe in gun control, remember that at the end of the day, I'm a gun control advocate, but I know guns don't kill people, people kill people.
00:25:41.000The thing is, people very frequently kill each other with guns.
00:26:19.000There are certain areas where there are agreement.
00:26:21.000And what's weird is that it seems like it's almost impossible to even have conversations about those areas of agreement because both sides are making hay off of the areas where we disagree.
00:26:29.000So, for example, we agree on the actions that the school board should have taken.
00:26:33.000We do agree on how the media should be treating the names of shooters because it's absurd to glorify shooters and repeat their names publicly.
00:26:42.000That's why we don't do it at Daily Wire.
00:26:46.000There was a jump immediately by the media, which I think, frankly, used you guys as props, to push an agenda that they agree with.
00:26:53.000I think that CNN agrees with the agenda that March for Our Lives is pushing, and so they started to push that in a way that they wouldn't have after, for example, the mass shooting at a church in Texas, where a bunch of the people who were there were members of the NRA.
00:27:03.000The guy who shot the shooter was a member of the NRA.
00:27:07.000Do you feel that the media's bias on these issues contributes to a lack of understanding?
00:27:12.000I feel like the media's bias on every issue contributes to a lack of understanding.
00:27:15.000I don't think, I think there are very few publications out there that are straightforward about their bias.
00:27:21.000I think that, for example, I'm very respectful towards MSNBC.
00:27:24.000Because MSNBC is a liberal news network that tells you it's a liberal news network.
00:27:27.000Fox News got rid of Fair and Balanced.
00:27:29.000Daily Wire is a conservative publication that does not pretend it's not a conservative publication.
00:27:34.000And I think that as long as people are straightforward with what they're saying and don't try to, you know, throw in hasty generalizations, don't try to throw in any bias that's not admitted, we can do some good things here.
00:27:48.000I think if people report on the news... I'm trying to think of the best way to say it.
00:27:52.000If people report on the events and not their interpretation, they leave the interpretation up to you, we would have a much better, more understanding society.
00:27:58.000So what's amazing to watch with folks like you, and I'm friendly with Kyle Cash, another student at the school, is that it seems like there are a lot of people who are honestly seeking more information, people who are going through an intellectual journey.
00:28:12.000Obviously, you're going through that intellectual and emotional journey.
00:28:14.000And I have a ton of respect for that because the minute that journey stops, you stop being a human being.
00:28:19.000Well, I think that Kyle, for example, he's somebody that I have a deep understanding for.
00:28:25.000Kyle represents, not in his own way, but what was done with him, a bit of hypocrisy, if you ask me.
00:28:31.000I think that a lot of people went out and said, here's the left parading these kids around.
00:28:35.000And then the NRA found a student from Stoneman Douglas who was pro-gun and said, look at this kid who's pro-gun from Stoneman Douglas.
00:28:45.000And I will be open about the fact that what I was doing was essentially saying, look, to say that there is a monolithic opinion at Stoneman Douglas is inaccurate.
00:28:53.000Here's a student who feels a different way and who actually, in my opinion, was going out and trying to work with people on both sides of the aisle, at least legislatively, and try and meet with as many people on both sides of the aisle as possible.
00:29:02.000That's why I'm appreciative of what you're doing.
00:29:04.000But yeah, I mean, this does raise a larger question of how do you think that we in the media should be treating people who are 17 years old?
00:29:10.000Again, I was there, so I was a syndicated columnist when I was 17, but my own perspective when I was 17 was that I better learn things fast because you're not 17 forever and nobody's going to pay attention to you just for your age.
00:29:29.000What's someone you said at 17 that you are not a fan of?
00:29:33.000Let's see, I wrote a piece when I was 18 talking about enemy civilian casualties, saying essentially that I had very little care about them because I was more interested in protecting the American soldiers.
00:30:08.00018, 19, 20 years old that I just think are not very good, and I've openly stated I don't think that they're very good.
00:30:14.000There was one from 2006 when I was 22 about the use of espionage law to prosecute people or sedition law to prosecute people that I think is an idiotic column.
00:30:25.000You know, I've been writing a million words a year since I was 17 years old, so there's a lot there.
00:30:29.000There's a lot of stupid crap I've written, and that's why I have a lot of sympathy for what you're going through, and it's hard to do it in public.
00:30:34.000I mean, it's hard to do it in public knowing that everything's going to get picked apart, too.
00:30:37.000I mean, I'm sure I'll say things right now that I'm incredibly proud of that I, when I'm 34, will say I'm full of crap for.
00:30:46.000Yeah, well, I mean, I think that's the journey that we all go through and it's interesting and fun to watch people who are actually trying to go through that journey as opposed to sort of battening down the hatches and being in that box.
00:30:54.000I'm going to ask you some more about that and what your sources of information are in just a second.
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00:32:01.000Okay, so Cameron, let's talk about where you get your information.
00:32:03.000Since you say that you were a progressive from a very young age, I was a conservative from as long as I can remember, so again, I sympathize from the opposite point of view.
00:32:11.000What sources of information do you look at and how do you gather that information and then sift through it?
00:32:18.000I read everything from CNN to Fox News to Daily Wire to Young Turks.
00:32:21.000I try to read everything because I think that there are common themes in everything that's presented.
00:32:26.000I think that I can get the story from everything that's presented and I will pick out the bias in everything that's presented and assess my principles and see what I think about it.
00:32:35.000I really don't like identifying with a party.
00:32:38.000I think that, like George Washington said, the parties are a bunch of garbage.
00:32:58.000So I'm really, genuinely willing to vote for somebody on either side of the aisle.
00:33:02.000OK, so what are your central principles, just politically speaking?
00:33:05.000Politically speaking, I think that the way I see it is very often the Republican platform is based off of modeling our decisions off the past and the rights of the individual, whereas I think that the Democratic platform is basically
00:33:19.000Modeling our decisions on what we want the future to be and the rights of the people as a whole.
00:33:24.000And I think there are strengths in both and flaws in both.
00:33:27.000I think that Republican views of the rights of the individual can lead to a lack of understanding for certain groups of people, whereas I think that the Democratic views of the rights of the people will very often be difficult for individuals.
00:34:21.000Insuring communities are safer and smarter and better.
00:34:24.000Most of that can be done through conversations between individuals who don't feel like the government is trying to force a particular perspective or trying to get into anybody's pocket or force anything from above.
00:34:37.000I think one of the reasons that we've seen such polarization in our politics is because people on both sides of the aisle expect government to solve all of their problems.
00:34:44.000So if there's a hurricane, the Washington Post says it's Trump's fault.
00:34:47.000And if the economy does great, the right says that's Trump's benefit.
00:34:50.000And it feels to me like none of this is real.
00:34:54.000The reality is most of the relationships we have with other folks are relationships we do have one-on-one or in the context of a community that we share together.
00:35:01.000And that doesn't require necessarily legislative input or guys with guns coming to your front door and trying to force you to do things.
00:35:06.000Sure, well I'm going to offer you my two cents.
00:35:28.000And Chicago, I think, is a strong example of the ways that liberal idealism has failed and the ways that liberal idealism needs to be there.
00:35:43.000I was in one of the most violent neighborhoods in the country, and I was there with a lot of young people who live in Chicago and who have lost family members.
00:35:50.000Almost every friend I have in Chicago has directly lost at least one family member to gun violence.
00:35:56.000Or as somebody who disagrees with my... Violence utilizing a gun, yeah.
00:36:03.000I saw the negative results of genderfication, which I believe can sometimes be positive and sometimes be very negative.
00:36:09.000And I also saw the need for opportunity.
00:36:12.000Now, my general view is the reason I identify as liberal is in this country to be successful you need to pull up your bootstraps, but not everybody has access to the boots.
00:36:21.000And I think that things need to be done in neighborhoods like Chicago, where there are a lot of cultural issues, but there are also a lot of issues that can't really be solved by fixing the culture.
00:36:31.000There are people in neighborhoods there that have been pushed out of other neighborhoods.
00:36:34.000The South and West Side have very little access to healthy food.
00:36:38.000I know a friend who has to walk almost six miles every day to get food that is very often either expired or very unhealthy, and that leads to a lot of obesity, which limits certain job opportunities.
00:37:04.000It's really something that I need to take an econ class or a finance class or any of those to really fully understand.
00:37:10.000But through my eyes, the government, as long as we are such a strong country, as long as we are a country that should really be serving as a beacon for the rest of the world, not just morally but really in every sense,
00:37:23.000I think that there are things we can do to help people out.
00:37:45.000And one of the things that I suggested is that government could be involved in helping to stop this.
00:37:49.000And over time, I've become less sanguine about the possibility of government, specifically because when you see people who you disagree with run the government, what you realize, and this is something, again, that you may realize as you get older, because I realized it as I got older.
00:38:01.000When you're 17, you look at the adults and you think they must know what they're doing.
00:38:04.000And then once you hit about 25 and you look around, you realize they're the same people you went to school with.
00:38:34.000I mean, in the rarest of circumstances, you do have to have the ability to collectively mobilize to protect your life, for example.
00:38:42.000And so having an army that's available to fight off terrorists is one thing.
00:38:47.000And I think that there's generally wide agreement, at least in the constitutional structure, on when you can go to war, which is why I'm very much in favor of the idea that Congress should be declaring war, not the president unilaterally declaring war.
00:38:58.000Really be able to just push a button and hit somebody in Syria with a missile.
00:39:02.000I think that Congress should have to declare war for that to happen.
00:39:04.000The way the Constitution was structured was to create all sorts of gridlock so that only an overwhelming majority of people could get anything done.
00:39:12.000And that was supposed to help sift out a lot of the problems.
00:39:14.000Well, ours is really the only Constitution that serves to protect the people from the government as opposed to the government from the people.
00:40:03.000I think that a lot of people who want smaller government want the government to be too small.
00:40:07.000But I also think that in defense of a big government, I'm not a big government guy necessarily, but in defense of the concept, the more people are involved with government, the more you can use the system against itself if you need to.
00:40:25.000I think that discussing other countries is occasionally used in a double standard, because if I'm talking about gun control in another country, they'll say, well, we can't talk about other countries.
00:40:33.000But if I talk about, you know, but then they'll say, look at Mao Zedong.
00:40:37.000You know, I think that we need to create a more respectful dialogue around basing our own ideas off of other countries' values.
00:40:43.000You see how close the comparison works, yes.
00:40:45.000So, I think that having a big government allows more people to get involved with the government.
00:40:49.000It allows more people to be part of it.
00:40:52.000And I think that the more people that are part of the government, the more representation there is, the fairer a lot of people are treated.
00:40:57.000I mean, it's how I feel about a lot of police officers.
00:41:00.000In areas like Chicago and areas like Milwaukee that deal with a lot of gun violence and there's also some turmoil between the people in the area and the police, I believe that most neighborhoods should be policed by people who live there.
00:41:12.000And I'd like to kind of apply that to the government.
00:41:16.000The idea of having a neighborhood police by people who live there are, they understand the community, they understand how the community works.
00:41:21.000You can create a dialogue and a respect between the people and the police.
00:41:27.000I respect the idea of the police a lot.
00:41:32.000Far too many respect too much and far too many people don't respect enough.
00:41:35.000But I treat that the way I treat the government.
00:41:38.000I think the more people who are involved, the more representation we can have and the more ideas can have a voice.
00:41:43.000Okay, so let's talk a little bit about your perspective on Second Amendment issues in terms of, you know, you talk about kind of making better arguments.
00:42:22.000I don't think people in the country should be able to carry RPGs around.
00:42:25.000And the question is, do semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15, should they fall into the category of things like RPGs, or should they fall into the categories of things like handguns?
00:42:34.000I mean, the real question is whether they should fall into the category of things like muskets, which is what the Second Amendment was originally meant to protect.
00:42:41.000Back when the Second Amendment was written, you could shoot a bullet and I could take you down before you can reload.
00:42:48.000And that's fine because, you know, a lot of people say that the reason the Second Amendment was written is because they want the citizens to be armed the way the military is.
00:42:57.000That's a problem for me because I can get droned pretty hard.
00:43:00.000Right, well at least to the extent that you have the capacity to defend yourself against government tyranny and you can't do it with handguns alone.
00:43:08.000You said that the government will come to your door and at the end of the day they're pointing a gun at you and telling you to do something.
00:43:12.000And so there's too many examples of the government doing that with regard to basic rights that we would all consider basic rights in various countries around the world.
00:43:21.000That one of the things that deters the possibility of the government overstepping its bounds is the knowledge that if they do, then things go wrong.
00:43:29.000At the very least, it'll be a bloody battle.
00:43:30.000I mean, this is why Texans aren't particularly afraid of mass gun confiscation, because the government would never attempt a mass gun confiscation in Texas.
00:43:39.000Even when they tried gun confiscation or gun turn-ins in Australia, they only got one-third of the weapons, so weapons are still available in Australia.
00:43:45.000One of the big problems that I have, I guess, with the arguments in favor of gun control, is that very often they're predicated on a version of what I wish the government could do, as opposed to what the government has actually proven itself capable of doing, and balancing that with whatever right is at stake.
00:44:02.000And this, I think, holds true for my general perspective on politics, which is, what has the government proved itself competent at?
00:44:08.000Well, sure, and I think that one of the things I can use to defend my stance on it is Trump's running the government right now, and I think that certain guns should be regulated by the government.
00:44:17.000I don't think Trump can regulate his own mouth, so the question is, should the government be regulating weapons when people like that can be elected?
00:44:26.000The way to fix these issues is to put people in office who we know are going to be morally just.
00:44:31.000Now, that is a very subjective term, and that can very often be interpreted different ways, but I think the way we
00:44:39.000We figure out just how far the government can go here is say, look what else is regulated.
00:44:44.000I mean, I need to take a driver's test to drive a car.
00:44:46.000No, I don't like the car argument because cars exist to take you from point A to point B as opposed to put a bullet in somebody.
00:44:52.000But it is the government regulating something that is in some way an infringement upon certain people's rights.
00:44:58.000But constitutionally, as far as I'm concerned, and I've only read the Constitution I think once,
00:45:02.000And I only read John Jay's Federalist Papers and he didn't contribute anything to that.
00:45:29.000And the shooter in Jacksonville, the tragic shooting that occurred very recently that got almost no media attention, the shooter in Jacksonville, I believe the police were called on him 26 times, but certainly more than 20, which is why a policy that I've recently started to consider, I don't really know the legal terminology I should use, is creating something where if you get the police called on you 15 times, you're put under review to buy a weapon.
00:45:49.000Now, that's unconstitutional, but if the police are called on you 15 times, I think something's going on with you.
00:45:53.000Well, it's not necessarily unconstitutional in the sense that David French has proposed this in National Review, and I support this proposal.
00:45:59.000The idea of a friend or family member being able to preemptively go to a court and petition to have your Second Amendment right taken away on the basis that you're a danger to yourself or others.
00:46:08.000That's not unconstitutional and would probably
00:46:14.000I think that's a way to talk about it.
00:46:17.000I'm going to talk more about this because this is fun and it's interesting to get your perspective as a young person.
00:46:22.000And we'll talk about where you hope politics is going to be in 20 years and also what you think you could tell other 17-year-olds about getting involved in politics.
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00:47:37.000Okay, so let's talk a little bit about the politicians that you do like.
00:47:40.000You're looking up at 2020, and you're actually going to get to vote in 2020, which is very exciting.
00:47:44.000So which politicians—I assume you're not going to vote for President Trump—so which politician on the left side of the aisle is most appealing to you as a 17-year-old guy, soon-to-be 18-year-old guy?
00:47:55.000I understand that a lot of people are critical of him because of his DUI and his history as a punk rock person, but I look at what he proposes in Texas, I look at his ability to communicate with people, and at the end of the day, I think that this guy wants to serve his country.
00:48:08.000And I'm seeing less and less of those every day.
00:48:14.000I can't say exactly what yet because I'm still really working on figuring out his platform and what I believe it truly is.
00:48:20.000But I believe that Beto wants the best for this country, and I believe that at the end of the day, when push comes to shove, Beto will make the decision he believes is most effective for everyone in this country, as opposed to just those who will praise him.
00:48:33.000I'm a big fan of people who are willing to piss off the people who like him if they think it's right.
00:48:37.000I mean, I know a lot of people that I'm dear friends with who, after coming on the show, will be upset with me for coming on the show.
00:48:44.000But I believe that conversation's more important than
00:49:04.000One of the things that's kind of fun about doing this particular episode of the show is that normally I'm the young guy on set, and now I get to play the old guy on set, which is really fun.
00:49:13.000And I'm getting the thrill that I only get normally when I speak to my own children, because you're literally young enough to be my son, which is insane.
00:50:44.000I don't agree with pretty much anything Rubio says in a policy standpoint, but if I make a mistake, I own up to it, and that was inappropriate.
00:50:49.000That being said, I think that he was getting out of that too easy.
00:50:52.000I think he was able to politician sidestep out of a lot of questions.
00:50:56.000But he was doing it, and I was pissed, and I said, this guy's not getting out of here without being exposed for the career politician he is, because Senator Rubio is a career politician.
00:51:31.000So where are your chief political priorities?
00:51:32.000Because the fact is that Senator Rubio is a Tea Party Republican.
00:51:36.000That's where my priorities are, are people who are more interested in doing what they think is best for the country and putting party aside.
00:51:44.000I think that someone who is clearly playing for their party, as I've seen Senator Rubio do, as I've seen pretty much everybody else do, needs to get out.
00:51:52.000And I think that my generation, we were going to discuss the future here, and I'll tell you, I think my generation is going to do that.
00:51:58.000I think if my generation learns how to discuss things with each other, we're going to learn that we've been failed.
00:52:05.000In many ways, we've been failed by politics before because politics became exactly what Washington said it would.
00:52:10.000Washington said, and I'm not a Washington fan, I think that anybody who owns slaves, I'm not going to be a fan of, I'll like the things they did that were good, I will not like them as people because I think that slavery is immoral and I'm a big fan of Hamilton for his criticism of it.
00:52:23.000But Washington said political parties, I don't want to try and quote him directly,
00:52:27.000But they were the means by which people who were manipulative and evil would come into power.
00:52:32.000I think that there will always be parties.
00:52:34.000I don't like groupthink, but as long as there's groupthink, let's try to make a positive groupthink.
00:52:39.000But Rubio and many others are examples of folks who are doing what they do so they can keep their friends happy, so they can maintain power.
00:52:47.000If I believe that what I'm doing that pisses off my friends will make the world a better place, I'll piss off my friends.
00:52:53.000Politicians should be public servants.
00:52:55.000I mean, so I guess the question that I have, I mean, we can go for a while on Washington and why I think that it's okay to call people heroes who were abiding by a moral standard that at the time was considered, widely considered, not as bad as it is now, even though it was evil at the time, obviously, and is evil now.
00:53:11.000And we uphold people who do good things and we can criticize.
00:53:17.000I actually believe that the definition of people as heroes and villains in history is a very difficult one.
00:53:21.000I think typically you have to judge people for who they are, and usually they do some good things and usually they do some bad things.
00:53:26.000But the stuff we like Washington for, he was a hero about, and one of those things was the role of government.
00:53:34.000I don't want to get harsh with you, but you're casting aspersions.
00:53:37.000What about Senator Rubio makes you cast aspersions at him as opposed to say, you know, Beto O'Rourke, who obviously is running inside a political party.
00:53:45.000He doesn't seem like somebody who's focused dramatically on reaching across the aisle.
00:53:49.000He's a down the line person on the left.
00:53:52.000Where do you think that Senator Rubio, to take just that example since you took him,
00:53:58.000More of a career politician than anybody else who's in the Senate or in the Congress.
00:54:02.000I believe the best I can do is assess their behaviors in the past.
00:54:05.000And I believe that you'll see from his record, and I'm not fully done really vetting it.
00:54:10.000Not that I'm vetting it implies that I have some authority.
00:54:12.000I'm not really done looking through it.
00:54:15.000Beto O'Rourke is somebody who applied what he was doing to the current situation.
00:54:21.000I think that his views... I think that when people call politicians shills and evil for changing their perspectives over time, I think that's incredibly unfair.
00:54:31.000Because I'm less impressed with somebody who has so statically believed the same thing for 30 years.
00:54:37.000You know, people criticize a lot of people for that, for their votes in the past.
00:54:40.000I think if they explain why it's fair to
00:55:30.000I look at somebody who I think is willing to do what they think is best for the people.
00:55:35.000I don't think Beto O'Rourke is... First of all, I think Beto O'Rourke is a lot more classic of a liberal, and I'm more of a classical liberal than what a lot of people on the... I don't like saying the left or the right too much, but a lot of people on the left are becoming.
00:55:47.000And I believe that Beto is a moderate guy who's willing to work with people, as opposed to just try and completely rewrite the book.
00:55:56.000And I think that Rubio is out there just doing what he thinks will make the Republicans the happiest.
00:56:02.000Okay, so I have one more question for you, and the question is going to be about what you think you can learn from the older generation, because you've criticized people who are older a lot in the past and here as well.
00:56:12.000What do you think we ought to keep from the older generation?
00:56:45.000The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special is produced by Jonathan Hay, Executive Producer Jeremy Boring, Associate Producers Mathis Glover and Austin Stevens, edited by Alex Zingaro, audio is mixed by Mike Karamina, hair and makeup is by Jeswa Alvera, and title graphics by Cynthia Angulo.
00:56:59.000The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.