The Ben Shapiro Show - The Most Shocking Failure In The Parkland Massacre | Ep. 482

00:00:00.000 We just found out three separate bombshells from the Broward County Sheriff's Office, and they are all good reason why you will never want to give up your guns to the authorities.

00:00:09.000 We'll explain all of it.

00:00:09.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:10.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:16.000 If the reports that we are now reading from CNN are true, this is the most shocking law enforcement failure in modern American history.

00:00:21.000 And it is not close.

00:00:22.000 I'm going to bring you all the news about what's going on out of Broward County. 0.94

00:00:25.000 Just shameful, shameful, horrifying nonsense.

00:00:29.000 But first, I want to say thank you to our sponsors over at Movement Watches.

00:00:32.000 So, you know how much I like my Movement Watches.

00:00:34.000 I have two of them.

00:00:35.000 They are fantastic.

00:00:36.000 They are top-notch.

00:00:37.000 They are clean.

00:00:38.000 They look good.

00:00:38.000 They are cleanly designed.

00:00:39.000 They last.

00:00:40.000 When my son beats the crap out of them, they work just fine the next day.

00:00:43.000 They are fantastic all the way through.

00:00:45.000 They've come pretty far from being a bunch of crowdfunding kids working out of a living room.

00:00:49.000 I don't know.

00:01:08.000 We're good to go.

00:01:36.000 And free returns.

00:01:37.000 They are fantastic.

00:01:38.000 Again, I own two of them, and I look forward to buying more of them in the future.

00:01:41.000 Actually, MVMT watches sort of made me a watch junkie, so now I'm into buying watches specifically because they are so affordable and they are so nice.

00:01:47.000 Go join the movement.

00:01:48.000 MVMT.com slash Shapiro.

00:01:50.000 MVMT.com slash Shapiro.

00:01:52.000 All right, so here is the breaking news.

00:01:54.000 Well, let me step back for a second before I get to the breaking news, actually.

00:01:57.000 So, you remember a couple of nights ago,

00:02:00.000 On CNN, there's a two-hour town hall, and this town hall special was specifically designed to make gun owners, members of the NRA, Second Amendment advocates, feel as though they were morally inferior, as though these people were somehow responsible for the horrors of what had happened inside that school over in Parkland, Florida.

00:02:19.000 And all of that was nonsense, of course.

00:02:21.000 The sheriff of Broward County, Scott Israel, did this

00:02:24.000 beating of his chest and this wailing and gnashing of teeth, blaming the NRA and the availability of AR-15s.

00:02:30.000 Well, now we know exactly why this shooting happened.

00:02:33.000 And it happened because authorities failed on every single level.

00:02:37.000 All of them.

00:02:38.000 It wasn't just the FBI got two calls and did nothing. 0.99

00:02:40.000 It wasn't just that the Broward County Sheriff's Office received 39 separate calls to this piece of crap's home over the course of seven years. 0.98

00:02:47.000 It wasn't just that. 0.98

00:02:49.000 Now we have even more information.

00:02:50.000 You ready for this?

00:02:50.000 You want to talk bombshells?

00:02:51.000 Here are the bombshells.

00:02:53.000 On Thursday night, the American public learned that Broward County Sheriff's Office was told in November that the Parkland shooter, quote, could be a school shooter in the making, but deputies didn't bother to write up a report.

00:03:03.000 That report came just weeks after a relative called urging the BSO, the Broward County Sheriff's Office, to seize his weapon.

00:03:09.000 Then, here's the even more shocking news.

00:03:11.000 We learned that an armed school resource officer — this one's just mind-boggling — an armed school resource officer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School sat outside and waited for four minutes.

00:03:21.000 The entire shooting episode was six minutes.

00:03:23.000 The Broward County deputy was outside, heard the shots, waited outside with his gun for four minutes, and did not enter the school.

00:03:32.000 That attack ended with 17 dead people, including at least a dozen dead kids.

00:03:36.000 And the Broward County Sheriff's deputy, whose job it was, he's the armed school officer.

00:03:41.000 It is his job to rush that guy.

00:03:43.000 He sat outside and he didn't do anything.

00:03:46.000 He sat outside and did nothing.

00:03:48.000 We also know, by the way, that the schools

00:03:50.000 Scott Peterson was absolutely on campus through this entire event.

00:03:53.000 He was armed.

00:03:54.000 He was in uniform.

00:03:54.000 But what I saw was

00:04:21.000 A deputy arrived at the west side of building 12, take up a position, and he never went in.

00:04:32.000 And he never went in.

00:04:32.000 Okay, this guy sat outside and he did not go in.

00:04:35.000 Now a lot of people today on the left are doing this because they want to make this about the guns and not about the fact that there was an armed officer there who did nothing.

00:04:41.000 Instead, because they want to make it about the availability of weapons, they say, well, can you blame him?

00:04:45.000 This guy not charging?

00:04:46.000 Yes, I can blame him.

00:04:48.000 And I don't have to be a police officer or a soldier to blame him.

00:04:50.000 I wasn't in that situation.

00:04:52.000 I also didn't volunteer to become an employee of the Broward County Sheriff's Office and become an armed school officer.

00:04:57.000 That is this guy's only job.

00:04:58.000 You had one job, and when the time came, you cowered.

00:05:02.000 And it wasn't just that, okay?

00:05:03.000 Are you ready for this?

00:05:03.000 This gets even worse.

00:05:05.000 This gets significantly worse.

00:05:06.000 This is breaking in the last 15 minutes.

00:05:08.000 CNN reporting, quote,

00:05:10.000 When Coral Springs Police Officers, this is a different district, when Coral Springs Police Officers arrived at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14th, in the midst of the school shooting crisis, many officers were surprised to find not only that Broward County Sheriff's Deputy Scott Peterson, the armed school resource officer, had not entered the building, but that three other Broward County Sheriff's Deputies were also outside the school and had not entered.

00:05:37.000 The deputies had their pistols drawn and they were behind their vehicles, the sources said, and not one of them had gone into the school.

00:05:44.000 So while this monster was roaming classroom to classroom with his rifle, mowing down students, four deputies—four armed, uniformed deputies—were sitting outside.

00:05:56.000 They didn't get in there to try and save the kids.

00:05:57.000 They didn't get in there to try and rescue the kids after the kids had been shot.

00:06:00.000 They waited for an entirely new police department to get there and go inside.

00:06:04.000 There's something fishy going on here, folks.

00:06:06.000 There is something going on here, because I promise you, when people sign up to be sheriff's deputies, they're not doing so thinking that they're going to cower behind a car.

00:06:13.000 They're doing so thinking that they want to help save people.

00:06:16.000 So there is something going on, and this thing, Steve Israel knows the answer, and he ain't telling us.

00:06:20.000 Steve Israel, this sheriff, he knows exactly what happened here and he is not telling us.

00:06:25.000 There's a rumor online that I hesitate to report because I don't know that it's well substantiated.

00:06:29.000 This has more to do with sheriff's policy than anything else.

00:06:33.000 But we're going to find out because something happened here where four deputies were sitting outside with their guns drawn and a monster inside massacring children and they didn't go inside.

00:06:42.000 And you're going to tell me that's the NRA's fault?

00:06:44.000 You're going to tell me that's Dana Lash's fault?

00:06:47.000 You're going to tell me that's my fault, living in Los Angeles, with my guns in my safe?

00:06:50.000 You're going to tell me that's the fault of 100 million gun owners who weren't there, many of whom would have rushed the shooter and tried to do something, just like what happened in the Texas church shooting, where an armed citizen took down the bad guy?

00:07:02.000 That guy was just an armed citizen, did a hell of a lot more than any of these cops did in Broward County.

00:07:07.000 This is insanity.

00:07:08.000 And I'll tell you something that's even more insane.

00:07:11.000 Here's something that's even more insane. 0.86

00:07:13.000 Again, remember, just a couple of days ago, it was this schmuck, Steve Israel, who was standing on stage amidst a bunch of the citizens from Broward County and shouting at Dana Lash and telling Dana Lash that it was her fault that all of this had happened, that it was the NRA's fault that all of this has happened, virtue signaling and posturing about how we just need to get guns out of the hands of bad people. 0.97

00:07:33.000 Well, the guns were in the hands of the right people, but they didn't do a damn thing, according to CNN. 0.95

00:07:39.000 This is the worst law enforcement failure in modern American history.

00:07:43.000 17 dead people because there were cops waiting outside who didn't go in there.

00:07:47.000 And here's the thing that's amazing about this, OK?

00:07:49.000 So I ripped down the CNN special because I thought that it was an emotional setup.

00:07:53.000 I think that it was an emotional setup.

00:07:55.000 It was specifically designed to destroy the proponents of Second Amendment rights.

00:08:01.000 It was, I thought, disreputable.

00:08:04.000 I thought it had no news value.

00:08:05.000 It was just two minutes of hate.

00:08:07.000 It was Orwell's two minutes hate.

00:08:08.000 Okay, but here's what makes it even worse.

00:08:10.000 While Israel was doing this, there were questions, right? 0.93

00:08:12.000 Because all this came out this morning.

00:08:14.000 There were questions that came out over the last couple days about what Israel knew and when he knew it.

00:08:19.000 Because now we know he's admitting it full-on that he had a deputy there who didn't pull his gun and didn't go inside.

00:08:24.000 And now we're finding out from CNN there were three more deputies.

00:08:27.000 So the question is, when did he know that?

00:08:28.000 Did he only find out about that after he ripped Dana Lash to shreds?

00:08:31.000 And after he ripped the NRA to shreds?

00:08:33.000 And after he blamed Second Amendment proponents for what happened?

00:08:36.000 Or did he know that while he was on that stage, and as he's such a dishonest piece of human debris, that he went on that stage and blamed everybody but himself, when he's the guy in power, he's the guy with the star on his chest.

00:08:45.000 He's the man responsible for taking care of those kids.

00:08:48.000 That is his duty.

00:08:49.000 That is his job.

00:08:50.000 That is what he was hired to do.

00:08:51.000 That is what he's paid to do.

00:08:52.000 That's what he'll get his pension from.

00:08:54.000 And that guy was standing there.

00:08:55.000 So when did he know it?

00:08:57.000 Well, fortunately for us, CNN reports.

00:08:59.000 It isn't me reporting it.

00:09:00.000 It isn't Daily Wire reporting it.

00:09:02.000 It isn't a right-wing piece of news media reporting it.

00:09:04.000 It ain't Fox News.

00:09:05.000 This is CNN.

00:09:06.000 Okay, according to Coral Springs City Manager Mike Goodrum, on February 15th, the day after the shooting, this is a direct quote from CNN.

00:09:15.000 Okay, direct quote from CNN.

00:09:19.000 The Coral City Springs manager, city manager, chewed out Steve Israel over that malfeasance on February 15th.

00:09:28.000 He approached him the day after the shooting.

00:09:29.000 He said, my people told me that they got there and your people were outside doing nothing.

00:09:34.000 Which means that not only did Israel probably know it, he was informed of it directly by somebody else.

00:09:41.000 And then a week later, he went on national television and ripped somebody who had nothing to do with it and blamed them for the problem.

00:09:49.000 How disgusting is that? 0.84

00:09:51.000 How repulsive is that?

00:09:52.000 I mean, that is just, the level of moral despicability necessary to do that is just astonishing.

00:10:01.000 So two levels of absolute degradation, moral degradation.

00:10:05.000 One, four police officers waiting outside while kids get mowed down.

00:10:09.000 One guy inside with a gun.

00:10:10.000 Four people outside with guns.

00:10:12.000 That's level number one, which is the worst.

00:10:14.000 And then level number two is the cover-up where you blame everybody but yourself when you're the one responsible for it.

00:10:19.000 Absolutely horrifying.

00:10:21.000 Absolutely horrifying in every possible way.

00:10:24.000 Now, what have the media done about this?

00:10:25.000 Well, the media, of course, have continued to blame the NRA.

00:10:28.000 The media have continued to suggest that it's gun owners, Second Amendment advocates everywhere, who are doing all of this.

00:10:33.000 You know, President Trump said today, he was speaking at CPAC, and President Trump said today that the Second Amendment was under threat.

00:10:40.000 And Jesse Singel, a guy who I'm friendly with from Formerly of New York Magazine, he and I got into it on Twitter because he said, what kind of nonsense is that the Second Amendment is under threat?

00:10:48.000 Well, that same Steve Israel was on stage calling for a full ban on semi-automatic rifles, which is any working rifle in the United States that's not a bolt-action or a lever-action rifle, or a muzzle-loaded rifle.

00:11:01.000 So basically they're calling for a vast ban on the most common guns in the United States, and then telling us that's not a violation of the Second Amendment, and we're supposed to feel comfortable with this?

00:11:11.000 You roll out a 24-7 propaganda effort by the news media to say that guns are responsible for something where it's pretty clear the authorities didn't do their job, and I'm supposed to feel comfortable with you guys?

00:11:23.000 So here's the case you're making to me, Steve Israel.

00:11:26.000 Here's the case you're making to me, Barack Obama.

00:11:27.000 Here's the case you're making to me, all the folks in the media on the left.

00:11:31.000 The case that you're making to me today is the FBI failed twice to do anything about this school shooter.

00:11:37.000 And then the Broward County Sheriff's Office failed 39 times to do anything about that shooter.

00:11:42.000 And then there were armed people from the Broward County Sheriff's Office there, four of them apparently, and they didn't do anything about the shooter.

00:11:48.000 And I'm supposed to hand over my gun to you?

00:11:51.000 I'm supposed to hand over my ability to defend myself to you?

00:11:55.000 Why in blue blazing hell would I do that?

00:12:01.000 Why would I hand over my only ability to protect myself to people who are going to stand outside with the guns that I gave up and not rush the shooter?

00:12:10.000 Again, the people in the media are just—it's Scott Israel, not Steve Israel, rather.

00:12:14.000 The people in the media have been attempting to spin away from this story all day.

00:12:20.000 Now it's even worse, obviously, because it's not just one officer, it's four.

00:12:22.000 The way they've been spinning away from this—so, Lawrence O'Donnell was the worst.

00:12:25.000 Lawrence O'Donnell last night goes on TV, and he says, how can you expect

00:12:29.000 One man to charge into the line of fire, even if he's wearing a uniform. 0.94

00:12:33.000 I love these same people who say that the cops are racists, the cops are pathetic, we shouldn't trust the cops, we can never trust the cops, and now all of a sudden they're the big defenders of cops. 0.97

00:12:40.000 They only like cops when cops don't actually do anything, apparently. 0.97

00:12:43.000 So this cop didn't run in, he didn't do anything.

00:12:46.000 So Lawrence O'Donnell says, you know why he didn't do that?

00:12:48.000 Because the muzzle velocity of a rifle is three times the muzzle velocity of a handgun.

00:12:53.000 So the officer's gun had a lower muzzle velocity than the shooter's rifle. 1.00

00:12:59.000 Do you have any idea how ridiculously stupid this is? 1.00

00:13:02.000 This defense? 1.00

00:13:04.000 So, is the idea that this guy would be able to avoid a fired bullet from a handgun?

00:13:09.000 Does he have Matrix-like ability?

00:13:10.000 As soon as he picks up an AR, suddenly he can bend over backwards like Keanu Reeves and make sound waves in the air behind the bullet?

00:13:17.000 Is that the idea here?

00:13:18.000 Let's say they're standing 100 feet apart.

00:13:20.000 We'll do a quick back-of-the-envelope math here.

00:13:22.000 A typical rifle fires about 3,900 feet per second.

00:13:25.000 That's the muzzle velocity.

00:13:26.000 It's about 3,900 feet per second.

00:13:28.000 A typical handgun is about 1,300 feet per second.

00:13:30.000 Let's say they were standing 100 feet from one another.

00:13:32.000 Let's say that he ran into the hallway, and they're standing 100 feet from one another.

00:13:35.000 That means that if they fired the bullets simultaneously, the bullet fired from the rifle would hit approximately five one-hundredths of a second before the bullet fired from the handgun.

00:13:44.000 Are you telling me it's purely impossible for that officer to get in there and have a five hundredths of a second advantage?

00:13:51.000 Because it's not even fast enough for you to blink your eyes.

00:13:53.000 You literally would not even see that.

00:13:55.000 That's how fast it is.

00:13:57.000 And yet we're told that this is the deciding factor.

00:14:00.000 We have to have tremendous sympathy for this officer.

00:14:02.000 Again, I wouldn't want to be in that position as an officer.

00:14:05.000 But that's why I didn't sign up to be an officer. 0.96

00:14:08.000 And if I had a gun as a civilian, I hope that I would have the balls to rush in there and try to do something.

00:14:13.000 But if you're going to make the case that the government should have the only authority to stop mass shooters, if you're trying to make the case that we shouldn't arm teachers, or we shouldn't arm private security guards, or that citizens shouldn't be armed, you're going to have to do better than that. 0.78

00:14:27.000 You're going to have to do better than that.

00:14:29.000 But who's really to blame on all of this?

00:14:30.000 Who's really to blame?

00:14:31.000 According to the media, of course, it's always Republicans.

00:14:33.000 It's obviously Republicans who are a problem.

00:14:35.000 So the boycotts are now beginning against the NRA.

00:14:38.000 So even though we've learned in the past 48 hours that the authorities failed on every single possible level, multiple times,

00:14:45.000 Who's going to blame the NRA?

00:14:46.000 So a bunch of folks on the left are now going to people who have business deals with the NRA and urging them to cut off the business deals.

00:14:52.000 So Enterprise Rent-A-Car announced today that they would end the discount that they have for NRA members, which is a business deal.

00:15:00.000 Enterprise Rent-A-Car tweeted, Thank you for contacting us.

00:15:02.000 All three of our brands, this would be Enterprise, Alamo, and National, have ended the discount for NRA members.

00:15:08.000 This change will be effective March 26.

00:15:10.000 Thank you again for reaching out.

00:15:11.000 Kind regards, Michael.

00:15:12.000 So there we are.

00:15:13.000 Now it turns out that our corporations are going to be pressured to blame gun owners, law-abiding gun owners, for members of the NRA for this.

00:15:21.000 Remember, if the NRA played any role in these shootings, the most role the NRA played in these shootings was having shooting classes for Jay Razzi students, and also training the guy who took down the shooter in Texas.

00:15:34.000 Not one of these shooters has been a member of the NRA.

00:15:36.000 Not one.

00:15:37.000 And yet the NRA is being blamed for this, and Scott Israel is not.

00:15:41.000 Just amazing.

00:15:41.000 It wasn't just Enterprise, by the way.

00:15:43.000 Hertz came out, and they've said now they're going to disassociate from the NRA.

00:15:47.000 Now, listen, we'll get to the NRA in a second and how the NRA has handled this, because I don't agree with everything that was said yesterday at CPAC.

00:15:53.000 I was at CPAC.

00:15:53.000 It was wonderful.

00:15:54.000 Thank you for coming.

00:15:55.000 It was great to see all of you.

00:15:56.000 I had a blast talking to all the students and the young people.

00:15:58.000 And I think I—I hope I said some important things to the media about how they've treated people who are gun owners and what they can do to help stop the spate of mass shootings.

00:16:07.000 But I don't agree with everything that Wayne LaPierre or even Dana, with whom I'm good friends, said yesterday at CPAC.

00:16:14.000 But the media's drive to blame this on gun owners is just insane.

00:16:18.000 So Trevor Noah, the excreble host over on Comedy Central, the least funny man in America, I can safely say that because Samantha Bee's the least funny woman in America.

00:16:27.000 So he's the least funny man in America, Trevor Noah.

00:16:29.000 And he says that Marco, he mocks Marco Rubio because Marco Rubio went to this CNN show trial

00:16:37.000 People were baying for the head of Marco Rubio and baying for the head of Dana Lash.

00:16:40.000 Apparently, they were calling her a murderer.

00:16:42.000 And Trevor Noah rips into Marco Rubio.

00:16:45.000 That was a really powerful moment. 0.99

00:16:46.000 And now, thanks to that father, we all know what Marco Rubio's face looks like when he's crapping his pants. 0.69

00:16:53.000 He looked like a dad trying to explain to his son why he cheated on his mom.

00:16:57.000 He was like, you see, Cameron, sometimes a politician has needs, and when the NRA opens their wallet, it's so hard to resist.

00:17:06.000 You know what this reminded me of?

00:17:08.000 It reminded me of the reaction a lot of men had to the Me Too movement.

00:17:11.000 You know, when people were like, if we carry on like this, we're going to live in a world where men can't even hit on their female staff?

00:17:17.000 Huh?

00:17:19.000 Oh, that is what we want?

00:17:20.000 OK.

00:17:21.000 OK, fair enough.

00:17:22.000 I misunderstood.

00:17:24.000 Okay, so this idea that Rubio is, of course, the bad guy here.

00:17:27.000 I'll be interested to hear what Trevor Noah has to say about the law enforcement officers.

00:17:30.000 Already, you're seeing the spin starting from the left.

00:17:33.000 What this really demonstrates is that a good guy with a gun can't stop a bad guy with a gun.

00:17:37.000 No, what it demonstrates is that a useless person with a gun cannot stop a bad guy with a gun.

00:17:42.000 It does not demonstrate that a good guy with a gun can't stop a bad guy with a gun, because it's always been a good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun.

00:17:48.000 The problem here is you didn't have a good guy.

00:17:50.000 Where were the good guys?

00:17:51.000 They were absent.

00:17:52.000 They were missing.

00:17:54.000 The media treatment here is so egregious.

00:17:56.000 It's so egregious.

00:17:57.000 And again, they just keep hosting these students to go on there.

00:18:00.000 And the ones who they keep hosting are, of course, the ones who are the biggest advocates for gun control.

00:18:05.000 There was one Parkland student who was—he was—this is the one of Zeif, actually, the next clip—where he was talking about Trump and suggesting, of course, that Trump listens to people like the NRA who are putting blood money in his pocket.

00:18:19.000 I wonder how Samuel Zeif's parents voted for a county sheriff in Broward County, actually.

00:18:24.000 Here's Samuel Zeif blaming Trump for the NRA giving him money or some such.

00:18:29.000 Everyone saw on his note card and said, I hear you.

00:18:33.000 And I think he did hear us.

00:18:35.000 But he wasn't listening to us, mainly because he only listens to people putting money in his pocket.

00:18:41.000 In this case, blood money.

00:18:43.000 My friend's blood.

00:18:44.000 A lot of my classmate's blood.

00:18:48.000 And it's

00:18:50.000 I don't think we're gonna get far with him right now.

00:18:52.000 The NRA does not have blood on its hands.

00:18:55.000 To use this kind of language as I said yesterday at CPAC.

00:18:58.000 is despicable and vile.

00:19:00.000 And I don't care if you have suffered in terms of whether it makes that statement moral or not.

00:19:05.000 I care if you've suffered in terms of your suffering.

00:19:07.000 I feel terrible for anybody who's suffered had to go through this.

00:19:09.000 But again, as I said yesterday, it does not make what you are saying moral.

00:19:13.000 It is not moral.

00:19:14.000 It is not moral to blame people who are not responsible for bad actions for bad actions.

00:19:18.000 That is an immoral act.

00:19:19.000 It's an immoral thing.

00:19:20.000 Now, I want to take a quick note here before I move on.

00:19:24.000 And I do want to debunk something that's been going around.

00:19:26.000 So there's been a lot of talk about CNN scripting the people at the town hall.

00:19:29.000 Now, CNN was biased in that town hall.

00:19:31.000 They knew full well that this was going to be a crowd bang for anti-gun measures.

00:19:35.000 They knew that these people were going to mistreat Rubio.

00:19:37.000 They knew that these folks were going to mistreat Dana Lash. 0.63

00:19:39.000 They knew that there was going to be screams.

00:19:41.000 They didn't do anything to shut it down.

00:19:42.000 They knew that all the people who were asking questions were going to be anti-gun advocates.

00:19:45.000 They knew exactly how this was going to go.

00:19:46.000 I know this because I know people at CNN.

00:19:48.000 OK?

00:19:48.000 They knew exactly how this was going to go.

00:19:50.000 The notion that this was all scripted, that all these students were told what to say by producers at CNN, that is not so true.

00:19:56.000 So the right-wing media, I think, have suggested something that isn't true, and I want to point that out.

00:20:00.000 What probably happened is that these students were asked to boil down their questions into little pieces of paper that they could read.

00:20:06.000 Now, is there a bias to that?

00:20:08.000 Clearly there is, because Cameron Caskey, the student who castigated Rubio on stage, and said to him that he was like the Parkland shooter himself, which is, again, just morally deficient in every possible way.

00:20:18.000 That was allowed to go on for minutes at a time, but some of the pro-gun students were told to basically condense their questions into the smallest soundbite.

00:20:24.000 So there is a bias, but the bias does not extend to CNN producers were actually writing out the questions for the students.

00:20:30.000 There's not any clear evidence of that at this point.

00:20:33.000 Jake Tapper says that this is normally how it's done, and from what I've seen at other town halls, that's not a surprise.

00:20:39.000 Okay, so I want to get to the NRA response to this now.

00:20:43.000 And the NRA response to this has been some good and some bad.

00:20:48.000 So first of all, I let Dana Lash speak for herself.

00:20:50.000 So Dana, as I've said before, is a friend of mine.

00:20:52.000 I'm going to try and put my biases aside here, because I like Dana.

00:20:55.000 I think she's a nice gal. 1.00

00:20:56.000 And talk in all honesty about the NRA response.

00:21:00.000 So Dana was at CPAC yesterday, and she was talking about what happened at the CNN town hall.

00:21:04.000 And here's what she had to say.

00:21:05.000 You heard that town hall last night.

00:21:06.000 They cheered the confiscation of firearms.

00:21:09.000 And it was over 5,000 people.

00:21:11.000 I had to have a security detail to get out.

00:21:13.000 I wouldn't have been able to exit that if I did not have a private security detail.

00:21:17.000 There were people rushing the stage and screaming, burn her. 1.00

00:21:21.000 And I came there to talk solutions, and I still am going to continue that conversation on solutions, as the NRA has been doing for before I was alive.

00:21:29.000 Okay, so that story is confirmed by the fact that you can actually hear in the audio, we played it yesterday, people shouting out at her that she's a murderer while she's on stage, and Jake Tapper, nobody at CNN stops it and says, guys, calm down, we're trying to have a discussion here.

00:21:41.000 Instead, it just continues, and Jake has said online, well, I didn't want to, I didn't want to tell people what they could feel.

00:21:47.000 It's not a matter of telling people what they can feel.

00:21:49.000 It's a matter of providing good news stuff.

00:21:51.000 It's a matter of providing good news content.

00:21:54.000 It's a matter of ensuring that you're not just doing a propaganda special, and CNN failed in that.

00:21:58.000 I mean, I've never seen a propaganda special quite like that on national TV.

00:22:01.000 Now, Dana, in response to this, said something that I think is not true, and I don't think is useful or good.

00:22:07.000 She said that many people in the media love mass shootings.

00:22:09.000 Now, maybe what she meant by this is that there are people in the Ratings Bureau who look at the ratings, and they say, look at our ratings today.

00:22:14.000 They're really great.

00:22:15.000 If what she meant by this is that people in the media are fine with mass shootings, or want to, or are happy about mass shootings, then that of course is not true.

00:22:24.000 She should have been a lot more specific in her language here.

00:22:26.000 She said at CPAC yesterday, a lot of folks in the media love mass shootings.

00:22:30.000 I will say again, I think there are people in the media who use mass shootings as a lever for their favorite politics.

00:22:36.000 But I don't think anybody in the mass media is sitting around going, God, I hope 15 kids die today at a school.

00:22:39.000 I think that's a slander on members of the media.

00:22:42.000 And I say that because I think the media have been slandering me.

00:22:44.000 I think the media have been slandering Dina. 1.00

00:22:45.000 I think the media have been slandering everybody on the right by suggesting that we have bad motivations, that we don't care when kids get shot.

00:22:51.000 So I think it's silly for us to suggest people on the left don't care when kids get shot.

00:22:54.000 We cannot have a good conversation, a useful conversation in this country if we keep saying the other side doesn't care when kids get shot.

00:23:00.000 If you really believe that your political opponents are such evil human beings that they don't care when kids die, we can't have a conversation at all.

00:23:07.000 It's the end of our country.

00:23:08.000 There will be a civil war.

00:23:09.000 If you actually believe the person who lives next door to you doesn't care if your child dies in a bloody hail of bullets, then you're going to be much more likely to pick up a gun and go after that guy.

00:23:19.000 Let's just put it that way.

00:23:20.000 Here's Dana saying this yesterday at CPAC.

00:23:22.000 Now I'm going to say something that some people are going to say is controversial.

00:23:26.000 So I'll say it really slowly, so all the people on the platform in the back can hear me loud and clear.

00:23:35.000 Many in legacy media love mass shootings.

00:23:42.000 You guys love it.

00:23:44.000 Now, I'm not saying that you love the tragedy.

00:23:49.000 But I am saying that you love the ratings.

00:23:53.000 Crying white mothers are ratings gold to you and many in the legacy media in the back.

00:24:01.000 OK, but the suggestion here is that they care more about their ratings than they do about the dead kids.

00:24:06.000 I don't think that's right.

00:24:07.000 I don't think that's right.

00:24:08.000 Listen, I think they care too much about their ratings.

00:24:09.000 I ripped them from the stage yesterday suggesting that they should put their morality ahead of their ratings and stop showing the names and faces of the shooters.

00:24:16.000 But I wouldn't suggest that they actually like the shootings, that they actually want the shootings to happen.

00:24:20.000 Like, that I don't think is appropriate.

00:24:22.000 Wayne LaPierre from the NRA did this, too.

00:24:24.000 Again, I think this doesn't actually serve the NRA's interests.

00:24:25.000 What the NRA should be doing right now is saying, listen,

00:24:27.000 We want to stop this stuff as much as you do, and it's insulting and disgusting when you suggest that we don't.

00:24:32.000 But to reverse the charge and suggest that people in the media actually like the mass shootings, it's too much.

00:24:36.000 Wayne LaPierre did the same thing yesterday.

00:24:37.000 Again, I don't think this is the smart move.

00:24:39.000 The elites don't care not one whit about America's school system and school children.

00:24:47.000 If they truly cared, what they would do is they would protect them.

00:24:52.000 For them,

00:24:54.000 It's not a safety issue.

00:24:56.000 It's a political issue.

00:25:13.000 He doesn't want to talk about the fact that since the assault weapons ban lapsed in 2004, we've seen a 239% increase in gun-related deaths.

00:25:23.000 He doesn't want to talk about the blood that has spilled all over his hands because of the lax policies that he's pushing.

00:25:31.000 He wants to make people afraid, and he wants to tell people lies and distortions, rather than deal with the fact that he is essentially a trafficking

00:25:41.000 In fear, in order to line the pockets of his clients in the gun manufacturing industry. 0.79

00:25:45.000 This stuff is just gross.

00:25:45.000 It's just gross, and it's not worthwhile.

00:25:47.000 It doesn't do credit to the NRA.

00:25:49.000 It doesn't do credit to the NRA's opponents.

00:25:50.000 It doesn't do credit to any of that.

00:25:51.000 Now, Alison Camerata had on Dana Lash today, and I want to show you two clips of that, because one of them, I think, demonstrates the lack of credibility on the part of the media, and the other demonstrates why it's a mistake to castigate the media and say they don't care about mass shootings, which, of course, is not true.

00:26:05.000 Here's the first one, Alison Camerata saying, listen,

00:26:07.000 When you say that we like mass shootings, that's just nonsense.

00:26:09.000 And here, I have to agree with Alison Camerota.

00:26:22.000 I do think that many in the media do, because they like the ratings aspect of it.

00:26:26.000 And that's true, because it's wall-to-wall coverage.

00:26:29.000 They put the murderer's face up on loop, on televisions all across America, more than they discuss even the victims or survivors.

00:26:37.000 That individual's name has been mentioned and is still mentioned on your network.

00:26:43.000 It's just malicious, actually, that you would say that.

00:26:45.000 I don't know anybody in the media who likes mass shootings.

00:26:49.000 You're wrong on every single level.

00:26:52.000 Okay, so this is why Dana shouldn't have said what she said about the media.

00:26:56.000 Now, Dana says, but you say that about me, right?

00:26:58.000 You guys say that I'm a murderer.

00:27:00.000 You guys yell at me. 0.99

00:27:01.000 You say burn her. 1.00

00:27:02.000 You say that I'm responsible for these mass shootings.

00:27:04.000 And now, Alison Camerota, the shoe's on the other foot, and Alison Camerota can't even acknowledge that this is exactly what the media have been doing, which they have, right?

00:27:11.000 So here is Dana being in the right and Camerota being in the wrong.

00:27:14.000 This is 19, yeah.

00:27:15.000 It is.

00:27:15.000 You're saying that it's malicious, but yet on your network you've allowed accusations against me and millions of law-abiding Americans to be indicted as child murderers.

00:27:24.000 I've watched you, Allison, on your program.

00:27:25.000 We've never said that, Jana.

00:27:26.000 At this very time slot.

00:27:28.000 And you've allowed that to stand uncorrected on your network.

00:27:31.000 You've allowed it to stand uncorrected on your network.

00:27:34.000 That's not true, Dana.

00:27:35.000 It's not true.

00:27:36.000 You've allowed the accusations to stand.

00:27:39.000 You've done nothing to correct it.

00:27:40.000 You've done nothing.

00:27:41.000 And making it even easier for these horrifying people to get guns because if you can't get elected without taking money from child murderers, why are you running?

00:27:51.000 Hey guys, are you gonna be able to go back to school?

00:27:54.000 Right, we played that clip on the show the other day.

00:27:55.000 So here's Alison Camerota saying, no one's called you a murderer.

00:27:58.000 That kid called her a murderer right on Alison Camerota's show, and Alison Camerota sat by and did nothing. 0.50

00:28:05.000 So that is not, so again, dishonesty, dishonesty, and more dishonesty from the media.

00:28:09.000 That doesn't mean the people on the right should fall into the trap of accusing their political opponents of being bad human beings, except insofar as the people on the left accuse us of not caring about dead kids.

00:28:18.000 Okay, by the way, another piece of breaking news.

00:28:21.000 This is just—how many red flags do you have to miss here?

00:28:24.000 And then standing outside, four deputies.

00:28:25.000 I mean, it's just—it's heartbreaking.

00:28:26.000 It's heartbreaking.

00:28:27.000 Somebody should go to jail for this.

00:28:28.000 They really should.

00:28:29.000 Here is—this is a call, according to The New York Times, a transcript excerpt from Adam Goldman of The New York Times of an FBI tipster warning the Parkland shooter in January, quote,

00:28:40.000 Okay.

00:28:40.000 I just figured I was talking to the operator and she transferred me.

00:28:42.000 I'm like, I said to her, I don't know how to go about this, but on the Instagram account I have, I wouldn't say he's crazy by blood, but I would consider him bleep.

00:28:49.000 He's only 18. 0.93

00:28:50.000 He's got the mental capacity of a 12 to 14 year old.

00:28:53.000 His mother just passed away on the 1st of November. 0.80

00:28:54.000 He's got Instagram accounts.

00:28:55.000 He started off saying he wanted to kill himself.

00:28:57.000 So what I did was I called the Parkland, which is where he lived.

00:29:00.000 Parkland Police Department.

00:29:00.000 I spoke to an officer.

00:29:02.000 I didn't hear anything.

00:29:03.000 I left a message.

00:29:03.000 I gave him all the information I had.

00:29:05.000 And then just recently, now he's switched it. 0.99

00:29:07.000 He wants to kill people. 0.99

00:29:08.000 And then he put that on his Instagram. 0.99

00:29:09.000 And about two days later, he took it off.

00:29:11.000 If you go onto his Instagram pages, you'll see all the guns.

00:29:14.000 He's very into ISIS. 0.93

00:29:15.000 I'm afraid this is something that's going to happen because he doesn't have mental capacity. 0.94

00:29:18.000 He can't.

00:29:19.000 He's so outraged if someone talks to him about certain things.

00:29:21.000 And he had pulled a rifle on his mother before.

00:29:23.000 She passed away because she wanted to get money.

00:29:25.000 Another problem is that he's 18, and his mother's life insurance policy is coming in.

00:29:29.000 He's going to receive $25,000 from that, and then $21,000, $24,000, up to $30,000 he's receiving.

00:29:33.000 $25,000 every year after that.

00:29:36.000 He went out.

00:29:36.000 He took money out of his mother's account.

00:29:37.000 I don't know how he got the debit card, but he did.

00:29:39.000 He took the money, and then the Social Security money, and he bought all these rifles and ammo.

00:29:43.000 He posted pictures of them on the Instagram.

00:29:44.000 This is a transcript of a call to the FBI.

00:29:48.000 Transcript of a call to the FBI.

00:29:49.000 He never graduated high school.

00:29:50.000 He's thrown out of all these schools because he would pick up a chair and just throw it at somebody, a teacher or a student, because he didn't like the way they were talking to him.

00:29:55.000 I just think about, you know, getting into a school and just shooting the place up.

00:29:59.000 Direct transcript to the FBI. 0.93

00:30:01.000 Nobody did a damn thing. 0.99

00:30:03.000 And you're gonna tell me I'm supposed to give up my gun to these clowns? 1.00

00:30:06.000 To these jokers? 1.00

00:30:07.000 I'm supposed to give up my ability to defend myself to these morons? 1.00

00:30:10.000 You've got to be freaking kidding me. 1.00

00:30:13.000 Never going to happen.

00:30:15.000 Not going to happen.

00:30:17.000 All right, well, when we come back, I have a couple more things to say on this.

00:30:20.000 We'll do some things I like, things I hate.

00:30:21.000 We'll do the mailbag as well.

00:30:23.000 But first, you're going to have to go over to dailywire.com and subscribe.

00:30:25.000 For $9.99 a month, you get a subscription to dailywire.com.

00:30:28.000 And when you do, you get the rest of this show live.

00:30:29.000 You can be part of the mailbag today, so you can send us questions live in the mailbag right now.

00:30:33.000 You can also go over to our site, and you can get the annual subscription.

00:30:37.000 That means that you get all of those things, plus the leftist tier is hot or cold tumbler, the greatest of all beverage vessels.

00:30:44.000 I feel refreshed.

00:30:45.000 Amazing.

00:30:46.000 So check it out.

00:30:47.000 $9.99 a month for the monthly and the $99 for the annual.

00:30:50.000 If you want the cup, then you have to get the annual subscription.

00:30:53.000 If you just want to listen later, then iTunes, SoundCloud, please subscribe to Lewis Reviews.

00:30:56.000 Subscribe over our YouTube channel as well.

00:30:58.000 We are the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast in the nation.

00:31:07.000 All righty, so, you know what, let's just go right to things I like, things I hate in the mailbag, because I'm all, honestly, I'm emotioned out at this point.

00:31:16.000 I'm not one to run on feelings.

00:31:19.000 That's not the gas that I usually have in my tank, but this has been such a disturbing, upsetting,

00:31:25.000 Pathetic week for the country. 0.77

00:31:27.000 Really a terrible week for the country. 0.98

00:31:28.000 The last week and a half.

00:31:29.000 The way that Americans are treating each other and seeing each other.

00:31:31.000 It's really heartbreaking to watch.

00:31:33.000 So let's just go to the mailbag and say, so first let's do things I like and things I hate.

00:31:37.000 So first, things I like.

00:31:38.000 So there's a movie that came and went and wasn't really seen by a lot of folks called Thank You for Your Service with Miles Teller.

00:31:44.000 I really like Miles Teller a lot as an actor.

00:31:46.000 It's basically a new

00:31:48.000 I wrote shotgun and lead humvee.

00:32:07.000 And I look for bombs.

00:32:10.000 Stop the truck. 0.86

00:32:11.000 You don't see the bomb unless they want you to.

00:32:14.000 What you got?

00:32:14.000 I don't see nothing, man.

00:32:16.000 You don't see, he feels it.

00:32:21.000 Okay, so the movie is pretty gritty.

00:32:23.000 It really doesn't focus too much about what happened in Iraq.

00:32:26.000 It focuses a lot more about the adjustment home and how there's a lot of veterans who are falling through the cracks, which certainly is true. 0.59

00:32:33.000 I guess it's a little bit hard on the military, but as somebody who's never been through this, I can't really say that that's for sure.

00:32:41.000 Whatever it is,

00:32:42.000 Anything that helps propel more money to the VA, more resources to soldiers who are coming home from war, I'm very much in favor of.

00:32:51.000 Hopefully it's as accurate as possible, of course.

00:32:53.000 Okay, time for a quick thing that I hate, and then we'll get to the mailbag.

00:33:01.000 So, the thing I hate today is the movie Lady Bird.

00:33:03.000 So, everybody loves this movie.

00:33:05.000 Mathis loves this movie.

00:33:06.000 I know Moles liked this movie, which is one reason to hate it. 1.00

00:33:09.000 But the movie Lady Bird is getting all sorts of plaudits because Greta Gerwig is a first-time director, and apparently if you're an actress and you can also do a plausible job of direction, then we think that you're the greatest thing that ever lived.

00:33:19.000 This movie, I thought, was extraordinarily twee.

00:33:22.000 Twee is just a word meaning kind of cutesy.

00:33:25.000 Too cutesy by half.

00:33:26.000 All of the dialogue is overwritten.

00:33:29.000 It's, you know, the performances are good all around, but every beat of the movie is predictable.

00:33:34.000 There are a bunch of threads that are just left hanging for no reason.

00:33:37.000 And the theme of the movie is actually nice, right?

00:33:40.000 I like it in spite of the theme of the movie.

00:33:41.000 The theme of the movie is there's a girl who's basically obnoxious. 0.97

00:33:44.000 She's an atheist. 0.69

00:33:46.000 She is pro-abortion.

00:33:47.000 And over the course of the movie, she learns that she should be less obnoxious.

00:33:50.000 That's essentially the plot.

00:33:51.000 Sunny Bunch at the Weekly Substandard, I think, put this well, and The Free Beacon, I think that he put this well.

00:33:56.000 He said this is basically an hour-and-a-half long version of Roseanne, except filmed a little bit nicer.

00:34:01.000 And that's basically right. 0.99

00:34:02.000 The mom's kind of, you know, the tough-talking but truthful one, and the dad is the pushover, and the girl's a pain in the butt. 0.99

00:34:09.000 So, you know, if it's your cup of tea, enjoy. 0.99

00:34:12.000 It was not mine.

00:34:13.000 I didn't think that it was any great shakes.

00:34:15.000 The fact that it's nominated for Best Picture, I think, is a little bit weak.

00:34:17.000 They should have nominated, for sure, the Florida Project, which is not nominated for Best Picture.

00:34:20.000 They should have nominated that.

00:34:21.000 They should have left this off the list instead.

00:34:24.000 But, yeah, we'll show you a little bit of the preview, I suppose.

00:34:27.000 I hate California.

00:34:28.000 I want to go to the East Coast.

00:34:30.000 I want to go where culture is, like New York, or at least Connecticut, or New Hampshire, where writers live in the woods.

00:34:36.000 Get into those schools anyway.

00:34:38.000 Mom! 0.97

00:34:38.000 You should just go to City College. 0.97

00:34:40.000 You know, with your work ethic, just go to City College and then to jail, and then back to City College, and then maybe you'd learn to pull yourself up and not expect everybody to do everything.

00:34:49.000 Lady Bird?

00:34:50.000 Is that your given name?

00:34:51.000 Yeah.

00:34:51.000 Why is it in quotes?

00:34:53.000 I gave it to myself.

00:34:54.000 It's given to me by me.

00:34:56.000 Lady Bird always says that she lives on the wrong side of the tracks, but I always thought that that was like a metaphor.

00:35:00.000 But there are actual train tracks.

00:35:03.000 Okay, so here's the good news about the preview.

00:35:04.000 You just saw every clever line in the film.

00:35:06.000 So, most of the cleverness in the film is actually in that two-minute segment right there, that one-minute segment.

00:35:14.000 I thought the move dragged a little bit.

00:35:15.000 Not a fan.

00:35:16.000 Okay.

00:35:17.000 I know there are people who disagree, but just...

00:35:20.000 Meh.

00:35:21.000 OK.

00:35:22.000 Time for some mailbag. 0.98

00:35:23.000 So, if you have questions, now is your time to send them in live.

00:35:25.000 If you're in our Daily Wire chat room, then you can send in your questions now.

00:35:29.000 OK.

00:35:29.000 Seth says, Hi Ben.

00:35:30.000 I'm a pro-Second Amendment gun-toting Texan.

00:35:32.000 It seems American values have changed so much since the Second Amendment was enacted.

00:35:35.000 Is it possible that in today's society we're too far gone to be trusted with the freedoms that so many have sacrificed for?

00:35:42.000 Well, I would say that there are a lot of people who are certainly misusing their freedoms.

00:35:45.000 But that's not a problem with freedom, that's a problem with virtue.

00:35:47.000 And it's our job to re-inculcate virtue.

00:35:49.000 The solution to lack of virtue is not curtailing freedom, it's to reinstall virtue.

00:35:55.000 But those are the two choices, you're right.

00:35:56.000 Those are the two choices.

00:35:57.000 And this is why when people who are cultural libertarians, not even governmental libertarians, I'm sort of a governmental libertarian, but cultural libertarians, people who say that community values don't matter very much, that we're atomized individuals.

00:36:09.000 When people on the left say that you can just destroy the social fabric, no problem.

00:36:12.000 That virtue no longer is an aspect of our common heritage.

00:36:17.000 When people say that, it inevitably is going to lead to more governmental tyranny, or it's going to lead to a reinculcation of virtue.

00:36:23.000 I vote for virtue.

00:36:24.000 Okay, so yes, that is true.

00:36:25.000 It is also true that the people who are voting for the higher levels of welfare on the federal level are not from the red states.

00:36:45.000 So if people from the blue states are whining about this, maybe they should stop voting for all the welfare programs.

00:36:49.000 We could start there.

00:37:02.000 This is a great question.

00:37:11.000 The answer is that you have to have a certain burden of proof.

00:37:14.000 So, danger to self or others is usually a pretty high burden of proof.

00:37:17.000 Involuntarily committing somebody, even for a 24- or 48-hour hold in the state of California, for example, is actually pretty difficult.

00:37:24.000 You have to show the person's suicidal or that the person is violent.

00:37:27.000 I assume that you'd have to show the same thing to a judge.

00:37:29.000 And that wouldn't just mean you going there and testifying that's the case of the judge.

00:37:32.000 You'd probably need some form of evidence that that is the case.

00:37:36.000 And you'd have to need more—if it was based on witness testimony, it would have to be more than one witness.

00:37:40.000 And, you know, the truth is that I think judges are fairly good at sussing this out.

00:37:44.000 I don't think that you're facing a—

00:37:47.000 If the worry is that your leftist family members are going to forcibly prevent you from getting guns by going and testifying in front of a judge, then maybe that would happen once in a bajillion tries.

00:38:00.000 I don't see this as a major problem.

00:38:02.000 Maybe I'm wrong.

00:38:02.000 It's possible that I'm wrong, but this is why you need a high evidentiary bar.

00:38:05.000 You can set a high evidentiary bar by suggesting that it's not just by preponderance of the evidence, that it's beyond a reasonable doubt that this is the case, for example.

00:38:12.000 There are different standards of proof that you have to meet.

00:38:14.000 Beyond a reasonable doubt is usually a criminal standard.

00:38:17.000 Preponderance of the evidence is usually a civil standard, but you can set up whatever standard you want there.

00:38:21.000 Brandon says, Ben, what is your opinion on right-to-work states?

00:38:24.000 I'm an employee of Washington state.

00:38:25.000 I'm forced to pay union dues regardless of me joining a union or not.

00:38:28.000 As expected, Washington state leans very heavily to the left with its policies and the liberals' lifestyle choices.

00:38:33.000 So this, of course, is true. 0.88

00:38:34.000 I used to do a show up in Seattle.

00:38:36.000 And it is certainly the case that Washington is a lefty state.

00:38:40.000 It is also true in the state of California.

00:38:41.000 You have to be a member of a union in order to work in certain areas.

00:38:44.000 Right to work should be a constitutional amendment.

00:38:47.000 You should be able to work in any industry that you want to without being a member of a union.

00:38:51.000 Unions are fine in the private sector when people are voluntarily joining them and when kneecaps aren't being broken. 0.96

00:38:55.000 They're not good in the public sector, and the silly, idiotic, legislative idea that you are going to legislate, that you have to be a member of a union to work as a teacher, undermines the interests of students. 0.94

00:39:07.000 Remember, when there's a public sector union, the people they are collectively bargaining against are the taxpayer. 0.98

00:39:11.000 That's the person on the other side of the table.

00:39:13.000 If you're in a private sector union, and you are collectively bargaining, you're doing so against the person who owns the business.

00:39:18.000 Who owns the federal government?

00:39:20.000 Okay, we own the federal government, which means that every time a union bargains with the federal government, they are bargaining with the taxpayer.

00:39:25.000 What makes it worse is that when they're not actually bargaining with you or me, they're bargaining with elected representatives.

00:39:29.000 And those elected representatives take donations from whom?

00:39:33.000 From exactly the people with whom they are bargaining.

00:39:35.000 So that's not, that's a pretty corrupt cycle.

00:39:38.000 There's a good book called Shadow Bosses by a friend of mine named Mallory Factor that goes into all of this.

00:39:42.000 Yes.

00:39:42.000 I mean, I have said that I think that a huge percentage of people who are on the streets are either drug addicts or mentally ill or both.

00:40:04.000 That's obviously true.

00:40:04.000 You can see it in the needles on the streets.

00:40:06.000 I was walking a block from my house the other day and I found a needle on the street.

00:40:09.000 It's just horrifying.

00:40:12.000 And this is, you know, one of the arguments against legalizing hard drugs is that this skews your ability to reason and makes it so that you can't actually have free choice in how you choose to behave.

00:40:23.000 And so we have to limit that dramatically.

00:40:24.000 Whatever it is, there's no excuse for people to be living on the streets.

00:40:27.000 One of the ways that you can clean up this problem is by taking people who are living on the streets and either putting them in a facility against their will, so they can clean out.

00:40:35.000 And if they're mentally ill doing that, or if they're a drug addict, putting them in a facility where they will clean out and be taken off of drugs.

00:40:40.000 So, here's my view of romance.

00:40:41.000 And this is a very realistic view of romance, I think.

00:40:53.000 The first thing that has to happen is, of course, there has to be physical attraction.

00:40:55.000 You're not going to want to talk to the person if you think that they're not attractive.

00:40:59.000 That is always the first thing.

00:41:00.000 So when I first saw my wife, I thought, this is a smoking hot person. 0.99

00:41:03.000 So that was the first thing that I thought. 0.72

00:41:05.000 When she saw me, by the way, she thought, dorky but cute.

00:41:08.000 I think that's still a very flattering response to my physical appearance, but that's how she felt about it. 0.98

00:41:15.000 She actually thought I was a jackass when I drove up.

00:41:17.000 I used to drive a 2006 GT Mustang convertible, baby blue. 1.00

00:41:20.000 And so I drove up in that, and she thought, oh, who is this jerk? 0.99

00:41:24.000 And then I got out, and I was wearing, like, mom jeans and a beat-up polo shirt, and she's like, oh, he's just a nerd. 0.99

00:41:28.000 Okay.

00:41:29.000 And she was happy about that, which is why I love my wife. 0.61

00:41:31.000 The reason that—what made me think of this—so,

00:41:34.000 Number one, I could hold an intelligent conversation with her.

00:41:36.000 Number two, we had values in common.

00:41:38.000 So as I've said before, we dated for marriage.

00:41:40.000 That meant that our first date was about free will and determinism.

00:41:42.000 Our second date was about, if I recall, gun control and the death penalty.

00:41:47.000 And our third date, we finally talked about TV shows.

00:41:49.000 So there was a...

00:41:52.000 A heavy bias toward talking about things that matter to us.

00:41:55.000 We talked a lot about our religious heritage.

00:41:56.000 We talked a lot about how many... I mean, I asked her on first date how many kids she wanted.

00:42:01.000 This is the difference between dating for marriage and dating to just date.

00:42:03.000 Now, in the Orthodox community, you're typically dating for marriage because you can't date for sex because that's not something you're supposed to be doing. 0.99

00:42:08.000 So that means that you actually have to date for values, which I think is a good thing as a general matter.

00:42:13.000 And as a specific matter, actually.

00:42:14.000 Ann says, Dear Ben, I've been enjoying you in the DailyWare for the past six months.

00:42:17.000 After the crazy election, I started taking the Hillsdale College Constitution 101 online, being frustrated when politicians, MSM, and people toss around tidbits of the Constitution to suit their agenda.

00:42:26.000 What I've discovered is very few people understand or have truly studied the Constitution.

00:42:30.000 I know it's true for me.

00:42:31.000 My question is about executive orders.

00:42:33.000 When, how, and what is the criteria for their use?

00:42:35.000 Seems since FDR it's been used regularly and may be out of control.

00:42:37.000 The answer is yes, it has been used regularly, and yes, it is out of control.

00:42:41.000 So, executive orders have existed since George Washington, but what an executive order was designed to do is there was a piece of legislation and it would say, we direct the president to go and impose this law.

00:42:51.000 And so the president would then write an order to like the three people who worked for him, because it was a very small executive branch,

00:42:56.000 And say, you three people are authorized to go do it.

00:42:59.000 Right?

00:42:59.000 So it was just a question of filling in a gap that the law left.

00:43:02.000 But the law had to mandate that the executive was to do that.

00:43:04.000 Now the executive does things like President Obama saying he's not going to enforce the law with DACA, which is unconstitutional.

00:43:11.000 Or the President of the United States going into war on the basis of an executive order where he doesn't have the authority to do so.

00:43:17.000 So that is absolutely an overreach on the part of the executive branch.

00:43:24.000 Not really.

00:43:25.000 I think that maybe it should be heightened, actually.

00:43:26.000 When the minimum age to be president was 35 years old, the average life expectancy in the United States was probably 50.

00:43:40.000 You know, 55.

00:43:42.000 So, 35 was probably the equivalent of 50 in our society.

00:43:45.000 So, in an age when people who are 26 years old are still on mommy and daddy's insurance and live at home and aren't married and have no kids, no, I don't think we should necessarily lower the age to be president.

00:43:55.000 I wouldn't want—like, right now, if one of these kids from Parkland were to run against Trump, that kid might win.

00:44:02.000 That seems not like a great idea to me, because I don't—

00:44:07.000 The standards for our presidency are so low already.

00:44:09.000 Do we need to lower them any further?

00:44:10.000 We just had an election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. 0.97

00:44:13.000 Is this what we want to do?

00:44:15.000 Is this what we want to do?

00:44:16.000 Let's make it more rigorous to become a candidate for high office.

00:44:18.000 How about that?

00:44:19.000 Andrew says, hey Ben.

00:44:21.000 I recently had a civil conversation with my classmate about gay marriage.

00:44:24.000 I used her argument how the federal government shouldn't be in the business of marriage. 0.68

00:44:27.000 The main purpose of marriage is the procreation of children, and it provides a stable foundation for family and society.

00:44:31.000 She agreed with most of my argument.

00:44:32.000 She didn't agree with it completely, because she believes gay married couples should still get the same tax bonus as heterosexual married couples do.

00:44:38.000 I said to her I didn't know about this specific issue, and we ended the conversation there.

00:44:41.000 How do I make a counterargument?

00:44:43.000 Well, if she already accepts the idea that the federal government only has an interest in marriage because of raising families and children, then why should there be a federal tax benefit that accrues to you because you're sleeping with someone with whom you are incapable of having children naturally?

00:44:58.000 That doesn't seem to me to make a whole hell of a lot of sense.

00:45:01.000 I don't think there should be tax benefits for any of this stuff, by the way.

00:45:03.000 I think the government discriminating in favor of certain couples and against other couples just seems like a fool's errand at this point.

00:45:09.000 I don't think anybody is having more kids based on the tax benefits.

00:45:12.000 That doesn't seem realistic to me.

00:45:14.000 But the idea is that if the government is going to confer advantages based on what it gets out of the deal, the government gets a lot less out of the deal from gay couples than it does from straight couples in terms of childbearing and rearing, obviously by statistics. 0.58

00:45:27.000 And that will always be true no matter what, because people like having sex. 0.67

00:45:30.000 And when straight people have sex, there's a chance of a baby. 1.00

00:45:32.000 And when gay people have sex, presumably with each other, there is no chance of a baby. 1.00

00:45:36.000 Sorry about the biology, folks. 0.99

00:45:37.000 That's the way it works.

00:45:38.000 Well, I appreciate it.

00:45:39.000 Thank you.

00:45:39.000 I mean, I hope so.

00:45:40.000 That's what we do on a daily basis.

00:45:41.000 I think that there are a lot of people joining the NRA for particularly this reason.

00:46:01.000 I don't think that's a terrible idea at all.

00:46:04.000 I think you should go and talk to your local school district about the safety measures that are actually being taken on campus.

00:46:09.000 But, yeah, I mean, this is a real public opinion battle that's being waged right now.

00:46:13.000 And every little bit helps.

00:46:14.000 So we appreciate everybody who's joining up for the memberships.

00:46:16.000 We couldn't do the show without you.

00:46:17.000 So here's a hard pitch for becoming a subscriber.

00:46:21.000 The reason we can do this business every day is because you support us.

00:46:24.000 So please go over and subscribe right now at dailywire.com.

00:46:27.000 Okay, we will be back here on Monday.

00:46:29.000 Try not to ruin the country further in my absence.

00:46:31.000 It's already bad enough.

00:46:33.000 So please, let's have a safe, quiet, as happy as we can weekend, and we'll be back here on Monday.

00:46:39.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:46:39.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:46:44.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Mathis Glover.

00:46:46.000 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:46:48.000 Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:46:49.000 Our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:46:51.000 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:46:53.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.

00:46:54.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Alvera.

00:46:56.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.

00:46:59.000 Copyright Forward Publishing 2018.

The Ben Shapiro Show - February 24, 2018

The Most Shocking Failure In The Parkland Massacre | Ep. 482

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript