“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Nevaeh Alyssa Bravo – 10 years old can’t debate that. I still can.
First, it’s the second amendment, not the second commandment. The Constitution was written with the ability to change it as circumstances warrant. How do I know? Because they did it 10 times right off the bat. That’s called The Bill of Rights. It’s been done successfully 17 more times since then.
Second, the first 12 (or 13 if you take out the hyphen in “well regulated”) words make its intention clear, particularly in historical context. “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…” Everyone needed to be soldiers then because there was practically no national defense. I absolutely promise you the Red Coats won’t be invading your town tomorrow night.
Finally, I think we can all agree that you don’t want your neighbor to keep a nuclear warhead in the back yard. We’re willing to accept some limitations, but we disagree about what those limits should be. We can debate that later. Someone could do an entire podcast around just that one subject. Not a single show, mind you. They could do hundreds of episodes. I can’t solve that in the brief time available to me here.
“Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.”
Jacklyn Jaylen Cazares – 9 years old. She would have been 10 in June, but she can’t debate that. I still can.
I agree with your statement completely. Guns commit zero homicides, at least not yet. (Let’s see what the automated future brings. I should have asked The Time Traveler.) It is always people who kill people. You know what they use to do that a lot of times? They use guns. Could they use rocks, or sticks, or knives, or chain saws to kill someone? Why, yes. Yes, they could. Strangely enough, I’ve never heard of any of those weapons used in mass killings. I wonder why that is…
“More people are killed by cars than by guns. Do you want to ban cars too?”
Makenna Lee Elrod – 10 years old can’t debate that. I still can.
The primary function of a car is to move people from one place to another. The primary function of certain types of guns is to kill people. Vending machines kill an average of 13 people a year. I don’t want to ban those. I don’t want to ban anything unless its primary function is to kill people. I understand why the military needs them. I wish they didn’t, but that’s not the world in which we live yet. I fail to see a reason a law-abiding citizen needs something primarily intended to kill people. If they do, I would love to be sure they’re not planning to use it for that purpose before we let them have one.
Can people still get guns even if we make it more difficult? Absolutely. That doesn’t absolve us from making an effort to slow them down a little.
“We need a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun.”
Jose Flores Jr. – 10 years old can’t debate that. I still can.
First, the law enforcement that showed up at Robb Elementary School have destroyed that argument. A few excerpts from the timeline published by ABC News will provide evidence. For reference, Steven McCraw is the Director of The Texas Department of Public Safety.
11:30 a.m. — 911 receives a call saying there was a crash and a man with a gun at the school, McCraw said.
11:35 a.m. — Three city police officers enter the school through the same door that Ramos used and are later followed by four other officers, McCraw said, putting a total of seven inside the building. Two officers receive “grazing wounds” from Ramos, McCraw said.
11:37 a.m. — Gunfire continues, with 16 rounds being shot in total, McCraw said. It’s unclear who fired the shots.
12:50 p.m. — Officers open the doors with keys from a school employee, enter the classroom and kill Ramos, McCraw said. Shots can be heard over the 911 call.
It was an hour and 20 minutes from the time of the first 911 call to the time the good guys with a gun took out the bad guy with a gun. There were several more 911 calls from children who were actively being murdered while 19 armed police officers stood in the hall. And there are 21 dead bodies.
Second, the good guy with a gun scenario almost never occurs anywhere. It’s unbelievably rare. Does it happen? Yes. Yes, it does.
In a 2014 report, the FBI examined 160 active shooter incidents that took place between 2000 and 2013.
The report found that in five of those incidents, armed individuals who were not members of law enforcement exchanged gunfire with the shooter, leading to either the shooter being killed, wounded or taking his own life.
By contrast, 21 of the 160 incidents ended after unarmed citizens “safely and successfully restrained the shooter,” the report stated.
“Most of the time, if you’re talking about a civilian stopping a mass shooter, it’s the unarmed guy without the gun because they’re right there,” Donohue said.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/breaking-nra-backed-theory-good-guy-gun-stops/story?id=53360480
“We need fewer doors to schools.”
Eliana ‘Ellie’ Garcia – about to turn 10 can’t debate that. I still can.
What would you have schools do in the event of a fire? Should hundreds of students try to get through a single door? If there’s only one door, a shooter can stand by it and shoot down the kids one by one as they try to escape from the only exit available. Is our love of guns so deep that we’re going to blame the deaths of children on the number of doors in their schools? Doesn’t that feel just a little pathetic to you? It does to me.
“We need to arm the teachers.”
Irma Garcia – a teacher at Robb Elementary School can’t debate that. I still can.
I taught Elementary School for 29 years, from 1987 to 2016. I dealt with more than 1,000 students in that time. I did everything I could to help them. I loved them. Any teacher will tell you that our students become something like our own children.
In that time, I had several students who, had things gone just a little differently, could have been school shooters. If one of them had come into my classroom, and I was armed, and trained to use a gun correctly, and I had time to reach it, I still don’t know that I could have shot that child. If I could, I feel sure that I would hesitate for some time before doing it. This gives him (it could be a female, but it rarely is) ample opportunity to take out the most important target, the only person capable of offering any significant resistance. That would be me.
Teachers make very little money. They are counselors, and parents, and friends, and social workers, and drug enforcement agents, and guardians for their students. I promise you they don’t do it for the money. They do it because they want to make a difference. I know many teachers. I know very few who have the necessary killer instinct to kill a child without hesitation. It’s simply not in most of them. This is why we have law enforcement officers who are trained to do this.
19 trained law enforcement officers in protective gear took an hour to do anything except keep parents from trying to rescue their own children, but you expect a school teacher to be Rambo?
“It’s a mental health problem.”
Uziyah Garcia – 10 years old can’t debate this. I still can.
First, the mentally ill are substantially more likely to be victims of crimes than we are to be criminals. (Yes, I’m mentally ill. Depression is a mental illness. I don’t, however, present a threat to anyone other than, perhaps, myself.
People with a mental health disorder have a significantly higher risk of becoming victims of violence compared to the general population (1–6). Previous research has focused largely on violent crimes such as physical assault, aggravated acquisitive crimes, violent threats, and sexual offenses in this population. Fewer studies have observed rates of victimization of non-violent crimes such as theft, robberies, or threats in this population for which the elevated risk compared to the general population persists (2). Significant differences between male and female individuals have also been described in the general population and among people with severe mental illness: men are more often victims of violence overall while women are more likely to be victims of domestic violence and sexual offenses (3, 7).
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.563860/full
Second, I agree we need to do more for people’s mental health. People are suffering from mental illnesses. They need help. We provide very little. Most of it isn’t covered by insurance. Getting an appointment with a psychiatrist, or a psychologist, or a therapist can be exceptionally difficult. It’s impossible if you don’t have any money. Those with the least money are the most likely to suffer from depression, and there is little help available to them.
Finally, if it’s a mental health problem, let’s enact some laws that will help with people’s mental health. Shockingly enough, the first one I would suggest would be UBI. Reducing desperation reduces crime. I’m more than happy to entertain any other ideas to help people get the mental health services they need.
We have a pretty good handle on what causes people to become school shooters. There’s plenty of research on this.
There’s this really consistent pathway. Early childhood trauma seems to be the foundation, whether violence in the home, sexual assault, parental suicides, extreme bullying. Then you see the build toward hopelessness, despair, isolation, self-loathing, oftentimes rejection from peers. That turns into a really identifiable crisis point where they’re acting differently. Sometimes they have previous suicide attempts.
What’s different from traditional suicide is that the self-hate turns against a group. They start asking themselves, “Whose fault is this?” Is it a racial group or women or a religious group, or is it my classmates? The hate turns outward. There’s also this quest for fame and notoriety…
I don’t think most people realize that these are suicides, in addition to homicides. Mass shooters design these to be their final acts. When you realize this, it completely flips the idea that someone with a gun on the scene is going to deter this. If anything, that’s an incentive for these individuals. They are going in to be killed.
It’s hard to focus on the suicide because these are horrific homicides. But it’s a critical piece because we know so much from the suicide prevention world that can translate here.
I am absolutely in favor of more mental health facilities, counselors, therapists, and social workers who can make a difference in the lives of those who suffer from any sort of mental illness. They should be free of charge and free from stigma. Would you like to propose some funding for this?
“We need automatic weapons to protect us from feral pigs.”
Amerie Jo Garza – just turned 10 years old can’t debate that. I still can.
I recognize the feral pig problem is significant. They cause billions of dollars’ worth of damage every year. This is a national problem that will require a national effort. Traps are being designed that have been shown to be remarkably effective. Drones are taking out many swine. I understand the need to solve the problem. I submit this is not the only tool available for that purpose. If that is the purpose of having the gun, then let’s license that gun for that purpose only. There are plenty of ways of handling the legal issues. Switzerland does licensing in similar ways.
“Everyone in Switzerland is required to have a gun. They have fewer gun crimes.”
Jayce Carmelo Luevanos – 10 years old can’t debate that. I still can.
No. Everyone in Switzerland doesn’t have a gun. Switzerland has many steps in licensing citizens to own guns.
Unlike the US, Switzerland has mandatory military service for men.
The government gives all men between the ages of 18 and 34 deemed “fit for service” a pistol or a rifle and training on how to use them.
After they’ve finished their service, the men can typically buy and keep their service weapons, but they have to get a permit for them…
In 2000, more than 25% of Swiss gun owners said they kept their weapon for military or police duty, while less than 5% of Americans said the same…
The Swiss government has estimated that about half of the privately owned guns in the country are former service rifles. But there are signs the Swiss gun-to-human ratio is dwindling.
In 2007, the Small Arms Survey found that Switzerland had the third-highest ratio of civilian firearms per 100 residents (46), outdone by only the US (89) and Yemen (55)…
Switzerland still has one of the highest rates of gun violence in Europe, and suicides account for most gun deaths in the country.
Switzerland makes getting a concealed carry permit extremely difficult. There are only rare circumstances in which a gun is allowed outside of the home. Licensing is a longer process. Psychiatrists are often consulted. There are many people not allowed to own a firearm in Switzerland.
In contrast, America’s licensing is quick and requires no proof of one’s ability to use a gun properly or responsibly. A 13-year-old can buy a gun in America. He can’t buy a beer, a pack of cigarettes, or a lottery ticket. But, in America, it’s perfectly legal to sell him a gun. I won’t play them on the podcast, but I’m going to drop some links to some videos in which this happens in the transcript.
“They have strong gun control laws in Chicago, but Chicago has lots of crime anyway.”
Xavier Javier Lopez – 10 years old can’t debate that. I still can.
In a 2017 report, the Chicago Police Department disclosed that the majority of illegal guns used in crimes came from outside the city limits as well as from across the border in Indiana. “The Chicago Police Department has consistently traced close to 60 percent of its crime guns to other states,” the report explains. “The data speaks for itself, but additional gun offender surveys and time to crime recovery analyses indicate that states with lax gun laws like Indiana and Mississippi are a primary target for gang members and their gun trafficker source buyers.”
Read more at: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/nation-world/national/article261831775.html#storylink=cpy
Interestingly, if you look at the rest of the world, no one else comes close to America for having mass shootings, in general, and school shootings specifically. It’s difficult to keep guns from showing up everywhere when they can be obtained in so many places so easily. Chicago is a big city. There are many other causes of violence there. Adding guns to the mix is likely to increase gun deaths. It’s ridiculous to assume that stricter gun laws cause more gun deaths. It’s more reasonable to assume things would be even worse with more lax laws.
“Before the Holocaust, Hitler disarmed all the citizens of Germany.”
Tess Marie Mata – 10 years old can’t debate this. I still can.
Following Germany’s defeat in World War I, the Weimar Republic passed very strict gun control laws in an attempt both to stabilize the country and to comply with the Versailles Treaty of 1919 – laws that in fact required the surrender of all guns to the government. These laws remained in effect until 1928, when the German parliament relaxed gun restrictions and put into effect a strict firearm-licensing scheme. These strict licensing regulations foreshadowed Hitler’s rise to power.
If you read the 1938 Nazi gun laws closely and compare them to earlier 1928 Weimar gun legislation – as a straightforward exercise of statutory interpretation – several conclusions become clear. First, with regard to possession and carrying of firearms, the Nazi regime relaxed the gun laws that were in place in Germany at the time the Nazis seized power. Second, the Nazi gun laws of 1938 specifically banned Jewish persons from obtaining a license to manufacture firearms or ammunition. Third, approximately eight months after enacting the 1938 Nazi gun laws, Hitler imposed regulations prohibiting Jewish persons from possessing any dangerous weapons, including firearms…
The Nazis sought to disarm and kill the Jewish population. Their treatment of Jews is, in this sense, orthogonal to their gun-control views. Nevertheless, if forced to take a position, it seems that the Nazis aspired to a certain relaxation of gun registration laws for the “law-abiding German citizen” – for those who were not, in their minds, “enemies of the National Socialist state,” in other words, Jews, Communists, etc.
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/1327/
So, right off the top, that interpretation of history is not entirely correct. Hitler disarmed only those he intended to kill.
Second, there are more guns than people in America. How did you think we were going to disarm everyone? Have you ever heard anyone saying they’re going to take all the guns in America? I haven’t. I don’t believe it’s even possible.
Finally, the intent of this argument is in line with the idea that we need guns to protect ourselves from the government in the event it turned Nazi on us. The United States has the most powerful military in the history of the world. Do you really think your AR-15 is going to protect you from bombers? Drones? Nuclear weapons? If the government decides to come for us, guns will be all but useless. They don’t even have to present you with a target at which to shoot before killing you.
“You can take my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.”
Maranda Mathis – 11 years old can’t debate this. I still can.
First, once again, no one is coming for your guns. What we would like to do is make it more difficult for psychotic or dangerous people who are likely to shoot up schools, or supermarkets, or movie theaters, or night clubs, or concerts, or churches, or synagogues, or mosques to get guns.
Second you are statistically more likely to have a gun in your cold dead hands if you own one than if you don’t. Suicides are much easier with a gun than without. They do little to protect your family.
In 2015, David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, and Sara Solnick, an economist at the University of Vermont, analyzed national government surveys involving more than 14,000 people and reported that guns are used for self-protection in less than 1 percent of all crimes that take place in the presence of a victim. They also found that people were more likely to be injured after threatening attackers with guns than they were if they had called the police or run away…
In a study published this June in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers followed more than 26 million adults in California for up to 12 years, keeping track of whether they purchased handguns and if they died by suicide. They found that men who had purchased handguns were then more than three times as likely to die by suicide — primarily gun suicide — compared with men who hadn’t bought handguns, and that women who’d purchased handguns were more than seven times as likely to die by suicide as women who hadn’t bought handguns. As the researchers concluded, “ready access to firearms, particularly handguns, is a major risk factor for suicide.”
https://www.thetrace.org/2020/04/gun-safety-research-coronavirus-gun-sales/
So, yes, you’re more likely to die with your gun in your hand than without it, Mr. Heston.
“They should have armed guards at schools.”
Eva Mireles – 4th Grade Teacher can’t debate this. I still can.
The armed guard plan didn’t work for her. Robb Elementary School had one.
The school district police officer who was working that day wasn’t on campus around this time, contrary to previous reports, McCraw said Friday. The officer drives to the school “immediately” after getting the 911 call and approaches someone at the back of the school who he thought was the gunman. As the officer “sped” toward the man, who turned out to be a teacher, McCraw said the officer “drove right by the suspect who was hunkered down behind” a vehicle.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/timeline-events-surrounding-uvalde-texas-school-siege-85043880
Do we really want to teach our children that it’s normal to see an armed guard at their schools? Do we want to make our schools into prisons? We could have guard towers. We could have fences. We could have attack dogs.
Or… we could keep dangerous people from getting guns.
“Criminals don’t obey laws.”
Alithia Ramirez – 10 years old can’t debate this. I still can.
If we follow this idea to its conclusion, it seems there is no reason to have any laws at all. Why bother to have speed limits? People still speed. Why bother to have DUI laws? People still get drunk and drive. Why bother to make murder or rape illegal? Or kidnapping? People still do these things. Perhaps it’s because we can keep them from doing it more than once. Perhaps it’s because making something illegal sometimes will stop some people from doing it.
“How dare you politicize a tragedy right after it occurred?
Annabell Guadalupe Rodriguez – 10 years old can’t debate this. I still can.
First, we have more mass shootings than we have days in the year. There would be no days to discuss it if we have to wait until there isn’t a mass shooting.
Second, it’s a deeply political issue because we won’t take any action beyond talking points and thoughts and prayers.
The shooter who murdered my beautiful butterfly Dylan carried an AR-15 assault-style weapon into Sandy Hook Elementary.
In approximately four minutes, he shot 154 bullets, killing 20 children and six educators. Five of those bullets hit Dylan, and in an instant, my little boy was gone.
But in the time it took the shooter to reload, 11 children were able to escape. If the sale of military-style assault weapons had been prohibited, just think how many more children could have survived. Perhaps Dylan would still be alive today. Perhaps more people would have escaped from the horrific mass shootings in Parkland, Boulder and so many other communities.
Finally, it’s already and always political. Governor Greg Abbott tell us: “There are thousands of laws on the books across the country that limit the owning or using of firearms, laws that have not stopped madmen from carrying out evil acts on innocent people in peaceful communities. In Uvalde, the gunman committed a felony under Texas law before he even pulled the trigger. It’s a felony to possess a firearm on school premises, but that did not stop him, and what he did on campus is capital murder.”
You’re right, Governor. That law didn’t stop him. But we’re all replaying the incident over and over and searching for solutions. What could have been done to keep this from happening? And so we enter the land of “What if?”
What if the security guard had been sitting in his cruiser in the parking lot when the shooter approached the school carrying an AR-15? The officer could have arrested him, then and there, and charged him with a felony before he even got to the building. He’d already broken the law. There was no need to wait for him to commit additional crimes. There are 21 people who would still be alive in that scenario, and it’s not an unlikely one.
School shootings are political issues whenever they occur. They should be discussed in that context so that we can begin to take action to avoid additional slaughter. They should be discussed every day until we’ve solved this problem.
“We need to put God back in schools.”
Maite Rodriguez – 10 years old can’t debate that. I still can.
Whose God? Which God? You’re madly in love with the second amendment, but have you read the first? Let me remind you of it. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
The very first words in the very first amendment to the very same Constitution that protects your right to own murder machines tell us that Congress can’t make a law that establishes a religion. So, we can’t pass a law that chooses one God over another. Even under the broad auspices of Christianity, there are significant disagreements about how God is to be understood, or worshipped, or what God wants us to do. Mormons, Lutherans, and Catholics will all be more than happy to tell you why each other are wrong. I don’t know to which version of God you would like us to pray.
I’m not a Christian, but if I were, I wouldn’t want the government to tell my daughter (if I had one) how and when and to whom or to what to pray. There are few things more deeply personal than how one relates to whatever it is we call God. I would want that to be something I work out with my children. Wouldn’t you?
I’ve seen precious little evidence that religion does much to promote moral behavior. I know a few Christians who are some of the most moral, most kind, most compassionate, and most loving people I know. I admire them for that. I know, however, many more who are filled with hate. Here are the words of Pastor Greg Locke:
“If you vote Democrat, I don’t even want you around this church. You can get out. You can get out, you demon. You cannot be a Christian and vote Democrat in this nation. I don’t care how mad that makes you. You can get as pissed off as you want to. You cannot be a Christian and vote Democrat in this nation…. You cannot be a Democrat and a Christian. You cannot. Somebody say, ‘Amen.’ The rest of you get out! Get out!… I ain’t playin’ your stupid games…. I’m sick of it. Everyone wanna talk about the insurrection? Mmmm. Let me tell you something: You ain’t seen the insurrection yet. You keep on pushing our buttons, you low-down, sorry compromisers, you God-hating communists, maybe you’ll find out what an insurrection is.”
I’m having a hard time finding the love in those words. I can’t locate the kindness or compassion. All I hear is hatred. No… putting God back into the schools is not the answer.
“I blame the parents!”
Alexandria ‘Lexi’ Rubio – 10 years old can’t debate this. I still can.
There are, undoubtedly, bad parents in America. There are bad parents everywhere. Was Sue Klebold one of them? She is the mother of Dylan, who was one of the shooters at Columbine.
“So I examined and I questioned and I blamed, and to this day I do it still — occasionally I fall back and think, “If I had done this, if I had not done this.” But over time, with all the research I was doing into behaviors and losses due to suicide, I really began to see that these things were things within Dylan’s brain and his thinking, and that I might’ve in some way inadvertently contributed to his perception of something at a given moment, but I did not believe and still don’t believe that I caused this or caused him to have this perception of himself and his worldview.”
— Sue Klebold
If it is the fault of the parents, what would you have us do? Shall we issue licenses to those we deem worthy of parenthood, and then decide all others are not allowed to have children? Shall we force unlicensed mothers to get abortions? Shall we force them to have the child and then instantly take the baby away to be given to licensed parents? Who is going to decide what makes a good parent? I’m sure as hell not smart enough to do that. And whatever set of criteria you invent, I feel sure I can show you parents who check every box and are still rotten, and parents who miss nearly everything on your forms and are still excellent.
No. Blaming the parents is no answer.
“Thoughts and prayers…”
Layla Salazar – 11 years old can’t debate this. I still can.
They accomplish precisely nothing. If prayers were going to get God to prevent this from happening, it wouldn’t have happened. I think about it a lot, too. That’s good. You’re thinking about it now. That helps only if the thought provokes us to do something to change this. I’ve done this podcast. What can you do? That’s the value in thought.
“…what about the Teacher that propped the locked door open to get a cell phone? Nobody wants to say this set a lot in motion. Maybe the shooter couldn’t get in. Maybe he would have been delayed the few precious minutes for the cops to confront him outside. Maybe?”
Jailah Nicole Silguero – 10 years old can’t debate this. I still can.
Okay. What about her? Should we arrest her for breaching a school security protocol? Okay. Go for it. Now, are any of the 21 victims going to be back in school in September? No. So… what’s your point? I see no solution in that argument. It’s little more than a feeble effort to shift the blame in this atrocity.
“Stop making schools gun-free zones. They’re a soft target.”
Eliahana ‘Elijah’ Cruz Torres – 10 years old can’t debate this. I still can.
I addressed part of this already when I answered Governor Abbott above. There is more, however.
The NRA doesn’t allow guns in their meetings. The world’s largest collection of responsible gun owners knows better than to allow people to carry weapons inside. Is the NRA a soft target now?
What is a better solution? We’ve already agreed there is little to be gained from making our schools into concentration camps with armed guards in towers. Shall we issue guns to 11-year-olds too? I can’t imagine what could go wrong with that idea.
“It’s all the violence in video games and music and TV and movies.”
Rojelio Torres – 10 years old can’t debate this. I still can.
There is remarkably little evidence to support the idea that violence in media contributes to mass shootings. I don’t like violent video games, either, but I prefer shooting pixels to shooting people. The Godfather is an incredibly violent movie that I’ve seen dozens of times. I’ve never shot up a school. Neither have most of the other people who’ve seen it. And I’m not going to advocate changing a single frame of that film. Freedom of Expression is an essential right. It’s why you and I can disagree publicly. I can’t tell you not to say what you think. You can’t tell me not to say what I think. (For more on this, you might listen to Episode 152: “Little Boxes.”)
In 2015, the APA Council of Representatives issued a resolution based on a task force report about violent video games. The resolution noted that more than 90 percent of children in the United States played video games, and 85 percent of video games on the market contained some form of violence. The task force’s review of relevant research found an association between violent video game exposure and some aggressive behavior but insufficient research linking violent video games to lethal violence. However, some recent research hasn’t found any link between violent video games and aggressive behavior.
Blaming violent video games for school shootings by white perpetrators could be a sign of a larger racial issue where African American perpetrators are assigned a greater degree of culpability for their crimes, which could lead to unfair treatment in the justice system, Markey said.
https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2019/09/video-games-school-shootings
History shows us the good guys are never in favor of censorship. Repressive authoritarian regimes, however, love it.
So… what can we do?
I don’t have the answers. I have some ideas. Others will have better ones. I would love to hear yours. (480) 331 – 9822. Leave me a message. I’ll play it on the air and discuss it with you.
These are some of the things that make sense to me.
First, let’s acknowledge reality. We live in a world with guns. We will never be rid of them all. It simply can’t be done, unless you switch universes. The Alien Universe Selector isn’t likely to be dropping by this weekend, so we need to figure out how to live in a world with guns.
Doing nothing seems like the height of cynicism to me.
There have been 27 school shootings this year. There have been 119 school shootings since 2018, when Education Week began tracking such incidents. The highest number of shootings, 34, occurred last year. There were 10 shootings in 2020, and 24 each in 2019 and 2018…
27 School shootings with injuries or deaths
83 People killed or injured in a school shooting
27 People killed
24 Students or other children killed
3 School employees or other adults killed
56 People injured
https://www.edweek.org/leadership/school-shootings-this-year-how-many-and-where/2022/01
Doing nothing accomplishes nothing. This has to stop.
Why couldn’t the 19 heavily armed officers who were wearing protective gear go into the room and stop the killings for nearly an hour? They say they were outgunned. I’ll be the first to admit that I know nothing about guns. These officers, however, certainly do. They use them. They are trained. And they knew enough to know they were outgunned. How could that have been avoided?
Maybe we could make it a little more difficult to obtain guns that fire so many shots so quickly. We could also tax the ammunition to the point that it becomes impossible to buy a thousand rounds before you go out to kill people. We could use the tax money to run responsible gun ownership classes.
We could insist, as most other countries do, that anyone who wants to own a gun is highly qualified, responsible, and not likely to use it to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible.
The assumption of the NRA is that any action that might limit the number of people who can easily obtain weapons is an effort to take all of your guns. I am not advocating you turn in your guns and disarm yourself. I’m not saying no one should have guns.
I’m trying to find ways to keep our children alive. I’m looking for reasonable solutions we can implement. I’m looking for more than thoughts and prayers. There are things we could do. I don’t believe I’m an authority on what we should do, but I am willing to make some suggestions. I hope someone else has better ones. I’m not willing to say that children need to die because we have a Second Amendment.
I have frequently been accused of emotional manipulation. I try to make you feel something so that you’ll be moved to take some sort of action. I don’t deny that. All of Art is an attempt to appeal to your emotions. I’m not a lawmaker. I’m an artist. This isn’t a Harvard Debate. It’s a podcast. And I’m going to give you some facts that I believe will make you feel something.
Miah Cerrillo told CNN on Friday that she dipped her hands in the blood of a dead classmate after the shooter left her classroom and wiped it on herself to play dead in case he came back.
Imagine that was your child. Imagine your daughter covering herself in her friend’s blood to try to save her own life. What kinds of nightmares will that child have from now on? How can we let this happen?
“The cop said: ‘Yell if you need help!’ And one of the persons in my class said ‘help.’ The guy overheard and he came in and shot her,” the boy said…
“He shot the next person’s door. We have a door in the middle. He opened it. He came in and he crouched a little bit and he said, he said, ‘It’s time to die,'” the boy recalled.
We’re all relieved the boy lived to tell the story. We’re all sickened by how he must be feeling. We’re horrified at the deaths of his friends. What if this were your child? Would thoughts and prayers be enough?
The formula for this podcast is to start in the darkness, to acknowledge its existence, and then to guide us toward some light. It’s difficult to find light when looking at the specially made caskets for 10-year-olds in Texas. I’ve seen pictures of some of them. One has a Superman logo on it. Another has a TikTok emblem. Where is there hope? Where is the light? How can we Shine?
You’re the Hope. So am I. The dead in Uvalde have no voices anymore. I wouldn’t dream of speaking for people I’ve never met. For all I know they were universally opposed to any form of gun regulations. They were from Texas. Texas likes its guns.
But I know they didn’t deserve to die. I’d be willing to bet every dollar I will ever make from my show that none of them wanted to die… aside from the shooter, who was almost certainly suicidal.
We can light our candles by supporting candidates who will actually try to do something more than thoughts and prayers while they cash their NRA checks. We can remind each other that even in this impenetrable darkness of death and despair, there is still love in the world. We can be that love. We can remember to love the children still in our lives. I never had any of my own, but I worked with more than a thousand children in my time. When I think how easily any of them could have been among those at Robb Elementary School, I can remind myself how lucky I am that today nearly all of them are still alive.
Mass shooters can kill many people. We can love many more. We can put more love into the world. We can try to find ways to help people before they become mass shooters. We can try to keep guns away from them. And we can open our minds to any ideas that might help.
The world hasn’t ended just yet, no matter how much it may feel that way. We can still act. We can still search for ways to save those who are left to us. That’s what I’ve done tonight. I hope you’ll do the same.
I love you. And I love the children in your lives. I want to keep them there forever. Let’s see what we can do to make that more likely.
Fred's Thoughts 
Fred, my dear friend, here is another area we are opposites. I was raised with guns. I was taught how to handle them. I was taught to respect them. I served in the military where I was issued my very own M16A1. I was taught to use it, grenades, grenade launchers, even machine guns…which were really fun! We had to sleep with our weapons. We had to keep anyone from taking them away…so I actually had to fight my drill sergeant when he tried to sneak mine away.
I didn’t have one with me, the day my work place was invaded and we were held hostages at gunpoint for 8 hours. I didn’t have one with me when my home was invaded. These things caused me to change that immediately.
The day I was shopping and my son called me in a panic from his car that people were chasing him… oh Fred, this Momma took off and drove like a crazy woman to meet her son’s car. I slid my car in front of his, and got out with my gun in hand. Smart guys…they took one look at the crazed Momma and exited the race.
My son knows how to use guns. He taught his wife. We are all teaching my granddaughter…who owns her very own, pink hand gun. Which is kept in a gun safe.
Would I use one to take another human life? To save other humans…without a doubt. Would I have to know that person? No…they are just another human being who needs protection. Something I swore under oath to do, when I enlisted in the military. That oath has never been rescinded.
Love you, Fred.
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I love you, too, Jane. Please note that I specifically said, several times, I don’t have any interest in disarming everyone. I would prefer to make it more difficult for people who are not responsible gun owners to get their hands on them.
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No Fred, not what I intended. It was just one person, with reasons why they carry.
There will probably be an earthquake or tsunami somewhere today because I have to state that I agree with you. Getting firearms, should be more difficult. (Do you need a paper bag to breathe in?)
People DO need training with them. People SHOULD be verified by a health official that they are mentally able to handle ALL aspects of owning a firearm. People NEED to be held accountable.
Owning firearms is a right, but that doesn’t mean everyone should have one. I, too, have mental illness. Depressive Disorder and Anxiety. But I am responsible with firearms. If I find myself sinking into a funk…I give my son my firearms. I’m not a danger to anyone but myself…and I can harm myself simply by walking across a room!
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We secretly agree more often than we disagree. But I won’t tell if you won’t.
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