＂Christians Are Under Attack＂ - Michigan LDS Church Shooting Sparks OUTRAGE After 4 Dead, 8 Wounded
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Summary
4 dead, 9 injured in shooting and fire at Michigan church, police say. Victims identified as Thomas J. Sanford, 40, Thomas Jacob Sanford, a 40-year-old former Marine from Burton, Michigan, served in Iraq in his tenure, and lived there in Burton which is near Grand Blanc, Michigan.
Transcript
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Michigan, one person dead, nine injured in a shooting and fire at Michigan Church.
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Police say, Rob, if you want to pull up the story, there's multiple stories I have of this one here.
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I'm going to go to the CNN one first, and I'm going to go to the other one.
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Imagine, all you want to do is go to church, and all of a sudden, you're there, and at least four people were killed.
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And eight others were wounded in a shooting at Church of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc Township, Michigan, police said.
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Authorities say gunmen rammed a vehicle through the front of the church during a large service, began shooting, and intentionally set a fire that grew into a large blaze.
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Officers exchanged fire with gunmen and killed them, according to police.
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Investigators have identified the man as Thomas Jacob Sanford, a 40-year-old from the nearby city of Burton.
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The FBI is now leading the investigation into a deadly shooting and suspected arson at a Michigan church.
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Bureau is investigating the incident as an act of targeted violence, according to Reuben Coleman.
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This is from inside the church as the shooting took place yesterday.
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Then here's the, this is the police chief yesterday talking about the shooting, and then I also have him talking about the shooter, which would you prefer?
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That call came out here today at 1025 a.m. at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is located at 4285 McCandlish Road.
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During this incident, what we know right now is that a 40-year-old suspect from Burton, he's a male, he drove his vehicle through the front doors of the church.
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He then exited his vehicle, firing several rounds at individuals within the church.
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Ten gunshot victims have been transported to local hospitals at this time, including one who has been deceased.
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Officers who were trained immediately responded to the area.
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One was a DNR officer, and then one was a Grand Blank Township officer, where they met the suspect, and they engaged in gunfire with that particular individual, neutralizing that suspect.
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As I said, it is a 40-year-old male from Burton.
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During all this incident as well, there was a fire that occurred, and we believe that that was deliberately set by the suspect.
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We do believe that we will find additional victims once we have that scene secure.
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Okay, so a few things I'm seeing here about the guy.
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40 years old, former Marine from 04208, served in Iraq in his tenure.
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He lived there in Burton, Michigan, which is near Grand Blanc.
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You're going through the whole thing that he just explained there.
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The attack occurred one day after the death of LDS Church President Russell M. Nelson.
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I think he died at 101 years old, if I'm not mistaken.
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It could be the 14th or the 17th president, Rob, if you can verify that on which of the two he was.
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So, Vinny, what are your thoughts on this story?
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Well, I mean, if you're out there and you're listening to this and you're paying attention even a little bit,
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Christians are under attack, and we are the most persecuted religion on the planet.
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This weekend, Tom, I was listening to the audio Bible, and I'm not even joking.
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Right when this was happening, Matthew, the verse of Matthew came up while he was saying,
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blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, and theirs will be the kingdom of heaven.
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I'm not even going to get into the second part of it, but, you know, in the last few weeks,
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Minneapolis trans shooter opens fire inside of a church while children are praying, okay?
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The guy apparently had IEDs driving into a church and started shooting.
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And I've said this before, and I apologize to everybody that thinks that I'm just repeating the same talking points
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Everybody thinks we're fighting Antifa or China or Muslims.
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His power is being manifested here on earth, Tom, and it's undeniable at this point.
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Guys, could you imagine if every week, Adam, and this is for you guys too,
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a synagogue was getting bombed, and look at that footage.
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Pat, every week, that was happening to synagogues or, you know, mosques or temples, a Hindu temple.
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But for some reason, when it comes to us, when it comes to Christians, nobody cares.
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This is going to be talked about for one more day, and then it's over.
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And it's pissing me off because we need to step the hell up.
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Everybody steps up for everybody else, Pat, but nobody steps up for us.
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The Lord gave us Jesus Christ to save us from a broken world and did not promise that this
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But living in the foundation of Christ, you go to make a strong and positive impact on
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And we are a very angry nation right now, and there are things that are manifesting.
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And people say, well, it's not just Christians.
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But the amount of persecution globally is worse among Christians.
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Sometimes it's inconvenient to talk about that if you have a narrative that you want to
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And you have this Church of Latter-day Saints, these people with their kids going to worship,
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mind their own business, and a guy with a truck comes through.
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And people say, well, it's all about gun control.
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He had these large apparent jerry cans with gasoline that set it on fire.
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So what prevents him from driving through and setting it on fire?
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But you've still got—it's not about the weapon.
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And I want to know—I want to know this guy's background.
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I want to know how we could have noticed it, how we could have stopped it, how we could
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Okay, so he was a supporter of Trump 2020 pens outside of—so he had a sign of
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Trump and Pence outside of his house in his Sanford home.
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A 2019 social media photo post shows that Sanford wore in a Trump t-shirt, slogan,
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No verified records of Huntington Party registration of Republicans.
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Investigators have explicitly said that speculation about his motives or political leanings is
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just that speculation and that they won't draw conclusions.
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But there's nothing that's—let me—is this him still, Rob, or is this someone else?
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Politically active Democratic Socialist, progressive, and proud union member.
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Yeah, are we sure this is the right, you know, account?
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I don't see the picture on his face, so I don't know if that's going to be him.
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Okay, so then what is that other picture that people are posting?
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Zoom in a little bit more on the shirt, Rob, see if you can.
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So wait, in 2020, he joined and he's saying he's a progressive—
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Hang on, go back to the—there's something in here.
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Look at his—if this is the right account, there is a pinned tweet, Pat.
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Take a look at this pinned tweet, Rob, because you go to that—
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Yeah, if this is correct, on 2021, a single $1,400 payment when the unemployment system owes me over $10,000 to show no remorse for cheating me.
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So he appears to be upset if this is the correct account.
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If the news media is publishing this as the correct account from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, okay.
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He's wearing a Trump shirt, says 2020, and there sure appears to be some, like, anger at the system.
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Like, I've been cheated or something's going on.
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Democrat, socialist, progressive, union member.
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He seems to have donated to Blue numerous times.
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So he donated to Blue Political Action Pack, $192, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
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About 12 times he donated to the Democratic Party, if that's the same person we're talking about.
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I think it was, like, Thomas J., like, the account that you had up there, Rob.
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And we say allegedly, but this is what the police has indicated.
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This guy works for a PTI professional, yeah, and he has a Ukraine flag.
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There's another story talking about that, you know, it could be a former member of the church
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that had a bad experience that was going after that.
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I don't know if the guy was LDS or not, but there's a lot of different stories that come
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Yeah, well, I can't believe I need to say this, but political violence or religious violence
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We've seen multiple situations where places of worship, whether it's this LDS church in
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Michigan, whether there's the Catholic church in Minnesota, there's the synagogue in Pittsburgh,
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whether there's a Sikh temple, this seems to be a common theme here.
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It is incumbent on our cities, on our police forces to protect the most vulnerable.
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The places of worship and schools and social gatherings should be just that.
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And it's becoming all too common that it's a crime scene at a church, crime scene at a
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So churches, you know, Rob, I sent you some data.
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You know, people, America has becoming more secular and secular and secular over the last
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And there seems to be at least a pause in people becoming less religious, less Christian
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Here's a here's a of you have this stat right here.
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But since the shooting of Charlie Kirk, more people have gone back to church.
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The biggest challenge that churches have, whether it's churches, whether it's synagogues, whether
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You know, we can keep that separate is at one point you want to get people to come in.
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But how do you keep the bad people out at this particular church?
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I guess LDS is known for saying visitors welcome.
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They want people to come in and experience church.
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But they want people to come in and experience this.
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That's the that's the OK, that's the that's such a heavy question that you have.
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It's not you're not going to be able to do it because what do churches say?
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The most broken people are welcome because they come in, they get on their knees and they
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give their life to Christ and you can be forgiven.
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That's the part that some other religions and denominations have a hard time with Christianity
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where they say we've had this conversation before.
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You mean to tell me I can go do X, Y, Z and I can come and accept Jesus Christ, my Lord
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And if you truly believe it and if it's coming from your heart, that's what makes this, you
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know, as unique of a, you know, faith that it is, you know, when it becomes you, you want
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I can't stand hearing stories like this because the last place people need to be worried when
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That's where you need to go and sit down, pray, go through whatever phases you're going
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I mean, listen, the weekend when the Charlie Kirk assassination happened, that was like
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If you ran a church, that was not the weekend to be asking for money and to come out and
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say, hey, we have a twenty eight million dollar building project.
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We're like, we're not those guys that are not going to bring it up and not cover it.
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For a man to do something like this, you have issues, but I want to know more.
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I want to know every single thing about this guy's records, what church he went to, what
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happened with his family, what happened the week before, what happened two weeks before.
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So I think churches need to and schools, for that matter, need to do a better job of playing
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You know, my point was you want people to come in.
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But at what point, at what price this past week, it was the Jewish New Year, which is
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And if you were going to go to temple, oh, there's no way that a shooter is getting in
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there because a temple at this point has become a full on SWAT driven security establishment
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because the attacks on Jews that are happening.
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You know, we talk about tolerance and don't don't take my kindness as weakness.
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They're coming after you, whether that's a certain type of people, whether that are
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atheists, whether that are anarchists and Jewish people, for that matter, have learned
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And my hope and prayer is that churches realizes, wow, guys, like, have you not noticed what's
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The shootings, this this thing that happened in Michigan and, you know, protect yourself.
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In America, we have this sort of like toggling.
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I mean, this last vault conference, we spent the we spent three times as much last vault
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I mean, I was late because I was running through metal detectors.
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It was taken a long time to get people to come in purely because of trying to get everybody
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You didn't have to worry about this 10 years ago, five years ago.
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I'm like, you think I want to be armed at my church?
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I was at a I was at a soccer tournament this weekend and I was I was I was armed the entire
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You know, which is what they announced last week.
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You saw that image of that dude on the back of the bike in Florida.
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Do you remember, Pat, we had a conversation a couple of years ago with Zubi and it was a
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conversation of what's a better city, Riyadh and Saudi Arabia or New York City?
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And which prompted a conversation between the difference between America and certain other
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places in the world between freedom and safety.
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Another great Patrick, Patrick Henry said, give me liberty or give me death.
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You have stuff like this where you have other cities where there's zero religious or I'm
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sorry, freedoms in a lot of the Middle Eastern countries, UAE or Saudi, there's no freedoms,
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You hear stories like you could leave your wallet out there.
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I'd much rather have the freedom that we have in America, but we need protection as well.
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But everything is based on what you had to escape.
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So what we had to escape caused the way the founding fathers created America was to allow
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you to have guns to say, you shouldn't be afraid of us.
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We want you to also be able to protect yourself, that if the government ever wanted to become
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tyrannical and come after you, you're fully protected.
00:18:31.840
It's not not everybody has the same story of reasoning of how they start their countries.
00:18:38.440
I see, you know, support how this place was built.
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