Australia last month and um they heard we were from Texas and they were like oh you guys still have guns over there ours were taken away after the poort Arthur Massacre and they were sitting there kind of happy because nothing bad like that has happened since so I was at a
Place where I didn’t quite know how to respond to them but at the same place I came away from it thinking how far are we from that kind of thing here in the United States so I’ll start with that question how far are we from something like a Port Arthur in our country
They’ve certainly attempted it many times we saw it in Virginia this last legislative session we had a bill that would have made it illegal to um purchase let’s say an AR-15 or or really a whole series of of rifles that are currently legal that are semi-automatic we’re not even talking about fully
Automatic or anything like that they would have made it a they would have made you a criminal to own a 15 round magazine and and it’s amazing because you look at a lot of this and you wouldn’t just lose your gun rights you’d potentially be in jail and you’d also
Lose your voting rights and so it’s it’s important to understand that when they say all we want is common sense gun control that is we do not interpret Common Sense the same way the other problem is when you look at what happened with Port Arthur and you look
At the statistics they use um Thomas Soul says this and it’s very important it’s really important on when you start the statistics when you start the historical narrative and U yes if you start from Port Arthur and you go forward then you’re going to find that yes there hasn’t been another mass
Shooting in Australia clearly gun control worked except there hadn’t been one really significant up to that point and there gun violence had actually been significantly dropping year after year in fact if you look at the data overall 538 which is not a conservative it’s not
A pro Second Amendment 538 which is a uh I would say a center left think take but they actually look at data and properly analyze it they even came back and they said look if you’re trying to attribute a drop and gun violence to the B that
They did in Australia the math doesn’t add up it doesn’t work uh cuz the trend was already going that direction I see and so that’s the part where again it’s very easy to say oh we did something that must have been that that’s a causation correlation fallacy here’s the
Other thing that I always bring up in um in the United States when we’re talking about this issue conservative estimates suggest that 500,000 times a year somebody uses a firearm in order to defend themselves somebody uses a firearm to prevent themselves from being a victim that doesn’t mean they shot
Somebody that doesn’t mean they killed somebody sometimes all it means is they brandished it to somebody that was trying to hurt them and that person decided to not hurt them here’s the question I have if we decide to ban guts or severely restrict or make it incredibly
Difficult for a law Bing citizen to get one you can’t just look at what you hope will happen which is you hope that that’ll make it harder for a bad guy to get one but I guarantee you it will make it harder for a good guy to get one so
What happens to the 500,000 or the broader estimates 2 million people every year that use a fire to protect themselves what happens to them see when they become a victim they now become a victim as a direct result of your policy which disarmed them or made
It more difficult for them to get a firearm in the first place you were just speaking in terms of the use of guns in the United States the population using them in self-defense in actually good situations versus the population using them for nefarious purposes what’s the
Ratio like so we have about 33,000 gun related deaths per year now if you take out suicides that gets rid of 2/3 of them so now you’re down to 1/3 out of that oneir the vast majority of that is Inner City crime in fact if if you take
I think it’s the five largest metropolitan areas in the United States and you take those out of the statistics for the us our murder rate drops significantly within the within the developed World um so again it’s all about it’s not about just the data they constantly throw out there to justify it
It’s it’s about looking behind the the broad numbers that they give you and again on the other side of this is when you have between 500,000 to 2 million depending on how you look at the stats of people using a firearm every year to defend the M themselves if you make it
Harder for them to do that and then become a victim they are a victim now of not only the crime they’re a victim of your policy which disarmed them and I think that’s a very important thing to take into consideration before we look at how we’re we’re crafting policy for
This a free people should not be entirely dependent upon somebody else to be able to provide for their security um and that’s a very very dangerous proposition I think history gives us plenty of examples of what happens when people feel like they are completely at the mercy of their government to be able
To protect themselves all right so we are at a place to where we’re having things like Port Arthur within our country would you say that’s a true statement or not look I think whenever we look at mass shootings and whenever we look at gun violence especially when it’s targeted again very vulnerable
People like school children at school that’s horrifying um the question is is how do you actually prevent that and and you know we we’ve had guns in this country forever we used to have like I’m old enough to remember a time where students had shotguns in the rifle Rack
In their pickup trucks and that way when school got out they went hunting no mass shootings so the causation correlation is okay well the gun equals the shooting no we need to look at why has there been such a a diminishing of of the value of human life why have these becomes
Targets and then how do we properly address that culturally and if the only way you can think of to properly address it culturally is to disarm people that did nothing wrong then what you’re ultimately telling them is that one you’re going to provide for their security okay well the government has
Done a real bang up job of of making sure that happens two you’re not assuming any responsib as the politician if they get hurt as a result of your policy and three what you’re saying is that your rights and your civil liberties and your ability to defend yourself are riant completely on whether
Or not somebody else abuses their rights if your rights are are forfeit the moment somebody else abuses theirs you don’t have any rights what you have is privileges that the government will give to you and take away whatever they want and that has horrible implications across the board for a free Society not
To mention a safe Society cuz I don’t think we’re safer when essentially we we’ve told people you’re not allowed to defend yourself um question here as a citizen how can we remain proactive we see these things happen they try to gain ground and they are how can we be proactive on the
Legislative side you need to make sure that the people that you’re electing actually see this as an important issue both from keeping the public safe but also from protecting your essential civil liberties to include your right to defend yourself so it’s not good enough for someone to say I’m Pro Second
Amendment now what does that mean and why are you Pro Second Amendment um are you Pro Second Amendment because you the philosophical argument here or are you just saying that to get elected so that’s the political side the other thing I always encourage people to do if
You have a friend that has never been around firearms firearms are scary to them the moment you actually show them that this is a useful tool and it can be something that is that is actually they can use to protect themselves as opposed to something they just see on the 12:00
News that is constantly scaring them that changes the dynamic all the arguments that we see in politics they are all Downstream from culture so if you’re actually creating an environment in a society that is comfortable with firearms because they know how to use them they use them appropriately and
They use them the way that they were intended to be used for a a good purpose it’s going to be a lot harder for some politician to manipulate their feelings in a particular situation in order to Rob them of their civil liberties and that that’s I so it’s not just political
It’s also about creating a culture that understands their proper use yeah um do phone calls matter do they make a difference um usually I’m posting things about bills that are coming up and I’m encouraging people to make phone calls is there a better way to go at making
Our voices heard or being corrective in Virginia we had a situation where again they were going to make you a criminal for owning a 15 round magazine now we’re not even talking about a firearm about 25 to 30,000 protesters showed up in Richmond uh we have open
Carry laws in Virginia so many of them had Firearms they showed up they were polite they talked to their legislators they picked up their trash when they left nobody got arrested there was no violence nothing at the same time that was happening we had 100 localities in Virginia out of 120 local jurisdictions
We had 100 localities come I think it’s 120 100 localities came out Boards of Supervisors sheriffs and said if you attempt to do this in Virginia we find it to be a violation of the Virginia Constitution we find it to be a violation of the Federal Constitution
And we’re not going to help you enforce it that impact was huge that bill died in the Senate with a senate that would have been happy to pass it the only reason they did it is because people showed up and because people showed up not only in Richmond they showed up
Their local Board of Supervisors they called their sheriffs and that Grassroots effort across the Commonwealth of Virginia was enough to make those legislators think twice about what would happen during their re-election campaign if they decided to infringe on essential civil liberties so it matters and and working with organizations that understand how the
State legislature matters that’s critical being involved at your local level don’t give your Board of Supervisors your Town Council or your Sheriff a pass uh the sheriff is actually one of the most unique law enforcement um positions in the world and they have an important role to play
Not just as law enforcement but actually as a constitutional officer and so make sure that you are electing and engaging with people at that level to to see where they stand on issues like this that’s a really good point with respect to the local governments I think we’re
All looking at who’s going to be president next but you just said it get in touch with your local sheriff oh yeah I I would yeah make sure that when somebody’s running for a local office especially based off what your state laws and in Virginia I didn’t vote for
This but in Virginia when the anti-gun people were completely in control of the legislature they passed a law which gave your local authorities an amazing amount of power a horrible amount of power to be able to restrict your ability to purchase own transport Firearms so you better ask those questions of your Town
Council of your Board of Supervisors if they have that sort of authority at the local level what is their position on this issue not to mention the fact that what is their position if the state or the federal government comes in and says no we’re Banning this um you know we we
Need people at all levels of government that understand how important this is and are willing to defend it right good all right thank you so much for your time so far I so appreciate it and it’s so good to meet you
