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Speaker 1: Whole zone media.

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Speaker 2: Nine years ago, someone very close to me died, and

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Speaker 2: shortly after that something very funny happened.

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Speaker 1: The person in.

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Speaker 2: Question was old, but not dying, old, had been sick

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Speaker 2: but was not dying. Sick someone about to die wouldn't

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Speaker 2: be a night owl with an encyclopedic knowledge about SNL

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Speaker 2: and professional hockey. They just wouldn't. But then one day

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Speaker 2: it was. They died suddenly and terribly, the sort of

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Speaker 2: loss where I still find myself wanting to pick up

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Speaker 2: the phone ten years later and try to explain what

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Speaker 2: a podcast is to them. I really missed them, and

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Speaker 2: it was a huge shock at the time, and everyone

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Speaker 2: was still very in shock when the funeral happened. It

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Speaker 2: had been in this really hectic week right like no

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Speaker 2: one saw it coming or knew what sort of shape

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Speaker 2: their affairs were in. Half of us were still actively

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Speaker 2: in denial. I brought some loser I was dating to

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Speaker 2: the wake.

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Speaker 1: Why did I invite him?

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Speaker 2: Why did I invite him? It was a Catholic funeral

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Speaker 2: and we were all instructed to either read something from

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Speaker 2: the Bible or just say a few words. I hope

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Speaker 2: you haven't been through this, but I know that you

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Speaker 2: very likely have. So the night before I said my

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Speaker 2: few words, I stayed up late drinking PBR and writing

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Speaker 2: out a set, and then I had to keep reminding

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Speaker 2: myself it's not a set, it's a eulogy. A eulogy

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Speaker 2: is not stand up comedy unless.

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Speaker 1: You're really good at it.

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Speaker 2: At the service the next morning, I sat next to

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Speaker 2: someone that I'm very close with. He had his notes

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Speaker 2: for what he was going to say and was pretty quiet,

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Speaker 2: and before we were supposed.

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Speaker 1: To go up and speak, he leaned.

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Speaker 2: Over to me and asked, hey, like, should we give

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Speaker 2: our Twitter handles before we talk?

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Speaker 1: Like do you think this is.

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Speaker 2: A good opportunity to get new.

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Speaker 1: Followers on Twitter?

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Speaker 2: It was this really strange moment, you know, because something

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Speaker 2: so terrible had just happened, and then this was said.

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Speaker 2: I tell this story to people and they never laugh.

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Speaker 2: But it's the sort of thing that's like, it's almost funny,

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Speaker 2: but it's a little too weird to be an actual joke.

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Speaker 2: It's just completely absurd in this way that you can

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Speaker 2: never get.

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Speaker 1: Out of your brain. And if you were.

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Speaker 2: Asking, yes, I did read my Twitter handle, definitely don't

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Speaker 2: do that at your grandma's funeral. I said who it

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Speaker 2: was in that moment. If something just sad was said

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Speaker 2: or something just funny was said, I probably wouldn't remember

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Speaker 2: this moment as well as I do. It's just something

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Speaker 2: in between. In August twenty nineteen, many terrible things happened

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Speaker 2: on the same day in Dayton, Ohio. In al Paso, Texas,

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Speaker 2: there were mass shootings within hours of each other. First

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Speaker 2: in El Paso, when a white nationalist entered a Walmart

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Speaker 2: with a semi automatic weapon and killed twenty three people.

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Speaker 2: That same day, in an entertainment district in Dayton, a

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Speaker 2: man used an ar pistol to kill nine people. And

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Speaker 2: even in a country where these types of shootings had

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Speaker 2: become increasingly commonplace, according to twenty twenty three research from

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Speaker 2: the Pew Research Center and also anecdotally from being a

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Speaker 2: person active shooter, events in the United States have steadily

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Speaker 2: increased since two thousand, over twenty times over and so on.

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Speaker 2: This weekend in August twenty nineteen, the whole world went

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Speaker 2: into mourning for the victims of these senseless, horrible shootings,

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Speaker 2: and as the days lurched on, online discourse on the

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Speaker 2: many horrific questions that the shootings introduced began while journalists

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Speaker 2: worked to report on them as clearly and faithfully as possible,

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Speaker 2: and in fact, it involves some of the main players

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Speaker 2: in this show. The executive producer of this show, the

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Speaker 2: great Wonderful Robert Evans, who has definitely never falsely accused

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Speaker 2: me of murder, famously reported on the Elpasa shooter, detailing

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Speaker 2: his radicalization online on eight Chan before he resolved to

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Speaker 2: become a domestic purist, which was a part of a

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Speaker 2: disturbing trend that continued from earlier that year, most notoriously

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Speaker 2: the christ Church mosque shooting in New Zealand. These murders,

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Speaker 2: stoked by white supremacy, had everything to do with the Internet.

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Speaker 2: The Internet was where shooters became radicalized and where they

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Speaker 2: would often livestream their own atrocities, and so after two

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Speaker 2: mass shootings in the same weekend, a familiar question emerged,

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Speaker 2: how do we stop this? What will we need to

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Speaker 2: change to fucking stop this? The days that followed restoked

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Speaker 2: a debate that raged in real life and online spaces

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Speaker 2: with increasing frequency, and Democrats put pressure on then Senate

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Speaker 2: Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Devil's pet Turtle, to cancel

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Speaker 2: the Senate summer recess to reopen a discussion on gun control.

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Speaker 1: He didn't, and.

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Speaker 2: So people were frustrated their leaders weren't doing anything, and

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Speaker 2: so many took to the Internet as they had in

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Speaker 2: the past, and hoped that saying how they felt would

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Speaker 2: accomplish something. Many demanded action on gun control. Many mourned

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Speaker 2: the victims of these shootings, and many started a familiar

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Speaker 2: discourse around the weapons that were used to slaughter people.

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Speaker 2: And among these people were public figures weighing in as

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Speaker 2: they tend to do. One was American singer songwriter Jason

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Speaker 2: I Isbel. On August fourth, twenty nineteen, he.

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Speaker 3: Tweeted, if you're on here arguing the definition of assault

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Speaker 3: weapon today, you are part of the problem. You know

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Speaker 3: what an assault weapon is, and you know you don't

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Speaker 3: need one.

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Speaker 2: So, as the world mourned and tried to figure out

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Speaker 2: what they could do in a world where normal people

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Speaker 2: are so often rendered powerless, people began to yell at

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Speaker 2: each other on the Internet, and then, to everyone's surprise,

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Speaker 2: something kind of funny happened. A Twitter user who I

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Speaker 2: would describe as a random guy, a normal man, Willie McNabb,

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Speaker 2: responded to this tweet from Jason Isbel.

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Speaker 1: He says the following legit.

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Speaker 4: Question for rural Americans, how do I kill.

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Speaker 2: The stop stop stop stop stop stop stop?

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Speaker 1: Yes that tweet? Okay, grant you can finish.

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Speaker 4: Legit question for rural Americans? How do I kill the

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Speaker 4: thirty to fifty feral hogs that run into my yard

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Speaker 4: within three to five minutes while my small kids play.

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Speaker 2: So in the absolute middle of this awful moment, people

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Speaker 2: stopped and asked, Wait, what the fuck did that guy

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Speaker 2: just say thirty to fifty feral hogs? Your sixteenth minute starts, now.

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Speaker 5: Finish.

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Speaker 1: Okay, you sickos.

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Speaker 2: I'll give you what you want, and what you want

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Speaker 2: is what many rural communities have been plagued by, which

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Speaker 2: is thirty to fifty feral hogs.

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Speaker 1: It's feral Hogs.

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Speaker 2: Day on sixteenth minute. One of our most requested main

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Speaker 2: characters bar none, and like every single one of the

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Speaker 2: Internet's main characters, all thirty to fifty feral hogs come

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Speaker 2: with a lot of personal baggage. So let's throw some

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Speaker 2: feral bacon into the feral pan. But before we do,

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Speaker 2: just one quick note in a rear showing of keeping

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Speaker 2: my mouth shut for forty minutes. I'm not going to

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Speaker 2: get into my detailed opinions on gun control at the

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Speaker 2: very top of this episode, although I'm sure you can

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Speaker 2: guess what they are.

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Speaker 1: I'm not a fan of guns.

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Speaker 2: And that's not the case for everyone I'm speaking with today,

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Speaker 2: and each of them are going to explain why that is.

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Speaker 2: And with that, come with me if you will to

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Speaker 2: August twenty nineteen, the first death from vaping is reported

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Speaker 2: in Illinois. Jeffrey Epstein is found dead in his prison

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Speaker 2: cell under very normal circumstances. I'm performing at the Edinburgh

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Speaker 2: Fringe Festival with a show called Boss Whom Is Girl?

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Speaker 2: In which I play a demented girl boss hell bent

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Speaker 2: on killing an island full of DJs using surveillance technologies.

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Speaker 2: It got good reviews, and following two horrific massacres in

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Speaker 2: the United States back to back, a man from Arkansas

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Speaker 2: named Willie McNabb asked how he could kill the thirty

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Speaker 2: to fifty faral hogs that run into his yard within

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Speaker 2: three to five minutes while his small kids play. I'm

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Speaker 2: gonna say it, this is one of the funniest things

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Speaker 2: that's ever happened on the Internet. For me like you

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Speaker 2: get it. Replying to a conversation denouncing people who are

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Speaker 2: getting overly into semantics about assault weapons after two horrific

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Speaker 2: mass shootings with a question about thirty to fifty faral

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Speaker 2: hogs is weird. It's confusing to most people. It makes

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Speaker 2: no sense. I was one of those people. Willie McNabb,

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Speaker 2: what are you talking about? Everything about the Farrell hogs

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Speaker 2: tweet is so funny. It's great American poetry. Now Here

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Speaker 2: are my top five funny things about the Farall Hogs tweet.

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Speaker 2: Your mileage may vary, and I actually do encourage you

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Speaker 2: to share it with me. Number one, starting a statement

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Speaker 2: about Farrell hogs with the phrase legit. Question number two

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Speaker 2: thirty two fifty. It's such a wide range. It feels

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Speaker 2: like a census taker's question. Number three the qualifier that

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Speaker 2: the kids are small, which kind of goes without saying right,

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Speaker 2: but it feels like it's sort of implying that fifty

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Speaker 2: feral hogs would be less threatening to larger children.

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Speaker 1: Number five. The tone of the question.

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Speaker 2: Overall, the way that Willy phrases this makes it sound

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Speaker 2: like this is something that was on the tip of

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Speaker 2: everyone's tongues and he's the first person brave enough to

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Speaker 2: articulate what we were all thinking. Number five, of course,

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Speaker 2: the imagery a father gunning down feral hogs like a

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Speaker 2: game of Halo in your high school boyfriend's basement. Game

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Speaker 2: over the image of small kids surrounded by malevolent hogs,

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Speaker 2: the only line of defense being an assault rifle, and

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Speaker 2: between three and.

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Speaker 1: Five minutes, just say four minutes.

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Speaker 2: As sad and bizarre as the circumstances that prompted this

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Speaker 2: reply tweet are, it is awesome, and it squarely puts

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Speaker 2: mister McNabb in a category of main character that was

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Speaker 2: not intentional, because again, this.

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Speaker 1: Was just a reply.

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Speaker 2: It's like every person who replies to dunk on Elon

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Speaker 2: Musk and raise their own profile was doing it with

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Speaker 2: the expectation of becoming the most famous person on the Internet.

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Speaker 2: On top of that, the reply tweet itself isn't really accusatory.

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Speaker 2: It's just the weirdest phrasing of a question that the

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Speaker 2: person seems to genuinely be asking. And so interestingly, the

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Speaker 2: reason that Willy becomes Internet famous doesn't seem to be

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Speaker 2: the algorithm itself. It's because of Jason isbel So let's

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Speaker 2: go full forensic let's talk about how this happened. Willy

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Speaker 2: asks the question of our time, that of the perilous

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Speaker 2: haw at twelve oh one pm Eastern Standard time on

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Speaker 2: August fourth, twenty nineteen, which is the day of the Dayton,

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Speaker 2: Ohio massacre and the day after the El Paso, Texas massacre.

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Speaker 2: After the reply, Jason isbel quote tweets Willie McNabb three

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Speaker 2: minutes later at twelve oh four pm, responding with the

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Speaker 2: following Pithy's statement.

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Speaker 3: If you have dozens of hogs chasing your children around

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Speaker 3: your yard, you have problems. No weapon will fix.

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Speaker 2: He then adds at twelve oh eight pm, I.

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Speaker 3: Don't think William is serious, guys, and.

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Speaker 2: Willy McNabb is having none of it, he retorts at

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Speaker 2: twelve eleven pm.

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Speaker 4: No, sir, I am.

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Speaker 2: And now we as passive viewers, know that Willy McNabb

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Speaker 2: is ready to go to the mat for this. And look,

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Speaker 2: I know it sounds like I am like rehashing and

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Speaker 2: pausing the Zapruder tape, but it is significant. It is

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Speaker 2: clear ten minutes in that Willie McNabb is, for whatever reason,

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Speaker 2: willing to go to the mat with a public figure

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Speaker 2: on this topic, shots had been fired, only this time

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Speaker 2: not from an assault rifle and not at a murderous pig.

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Speaker 1: But and I can.

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Speaker 2: Confirm this as someone who was observing this unfolded real time.

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Speaker 2: Very few people on Twitter seem to have any idea

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Speaker 2: what Willie is talking about, and so at first, instead

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Speaker 2: of trying to understand what he's talking about, they.

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Speaker 1: Make fun of him.

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Speaker 2: People went nuts on Twitter over this reply tweet, and

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Speaker 2: it seemed like for many this was almost a breath

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Speaker 2: of fresh air, a little bit of absurdity to joke

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Speaker 2: about while processing.

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Speaker 1: The horrors of the world.

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Speaker 2: And we do get some pretty solid riffs on the

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Speaker 2: treacherous hog like these thirty to fifty faral hogs sounds

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Speaker 2: like my dating history.

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Speaker 3: Take me down to the paradess city where the hogs

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Speaker 3: are farrel in the thirty to fifty.

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Speaker 2: My therapist, thirty to fifty faral hogs can't hurt you,

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Speaker 2: they aren't real. Thirty to fifty faral hogs in my

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Speaker 2: yard threatening my children, And finally my favorite, take.

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Speaker 6: A long drag for my cigarette. As I stare out

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Speaker 6: of my foxhole hollow eye at the tree line, the

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Speaker 6: distant sounds of winking, coming nearer and nearer as the

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Speaker 6: sun sets, the cold steal of my ar fifteen the

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Speaker 6: only thing that stands between those hogs and my kids

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Speaker 6: behind me.

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Speaker 2: So this reply tweet spawned news articles, podcast episodes, a

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Speaker 2: flash mini game where you're playing as Willy and your

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Speaker 2: goal is to mow down as many hogs as quickly

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Speaker 2: as possible in eight bit. This is as close to

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Speaker 2: a seminal main character experience as you can get, and

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Speaker 2: as a first timer to the main character game, Willie

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Speaker 2: McNabb makes what many would consider to be a rookie mistake.

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Speaker 1: He posts his way.

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Speaker 2: Through it, and while in most cases I would discourage

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Speaker 2: this behavior, all main characters, especially when it's from something

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Speaker 2: weird or innocuous as opposed to actually offensive, are advised

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Speaker 2: to acknowledge their main characterhood then either fake their own

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Speaker 2: death or start a rap career. Posting through it almost

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Speaker 2: never helps because random Twitter users also have a vested

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Speaker 2: interest in proving themselves to be the world's most normal person,

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Speaker 2: and Willie McNabb is very much caught in the middle

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Speaker 2: of it. So who is this guy? At the time

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Speaker 2: of Ferrell Hoggate, Willie's Twitter bio.

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Speaker 4: Read husband, father, Christian, libertarian, West Carolina University alum, and

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Speaker 4: fan of Pearl Jam and Red Sox.

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Speaker 2: But critically, his profile also reveals that he lives in

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Speaker 2: rural Arkansas. Collectively, all of these things add up to

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Speaker 2: he is some guy who has decided to post through

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Speaker 2: it after Jason isbel quote tweeted him.

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Speaker 1: But in this.

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Speaker 2: Case, Willie's posting through it is part of why this

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Speaker 2: story is so interesting. He was not going to back down,

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Speaker 2: no sir, I am. But the thing he was not

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Speaker 2: back in down on wasn't gun control.

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Speaker 1: It was feral hoggs.

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Speaker 2: Willy smars against other Twitter users who connect his hog

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Speaker 2: problem and gun advocacy with his personal politics. He tweets

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Speaker 2: at twelve twenty four pm.

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Speaker 4: Funny thing about these responses. I would challenge any of

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Speaker 4: you to find on my timeline where I say I

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Speaker 4: voted for Trump. Do any of you people know what

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Speaker 4: Arkansas's mascot is. It's for a reason, and a wall

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Speaker 4: or fence over ten acres of land with a swamp

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Speaker 4: in the backside isn't feasible.

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Speaker 2: He writes again at two twenty one pm.

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Speaker 4: I'm for the First Amendment. For those that say I

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Speaker 4: should eat my kids, not have children, advocate the state

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Speaker 4: taking them away from me, the ones who are driving

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Speaker 4: by my home, taking aerial photos of my house, googling

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Speaker 4: where I work, et cetera. This is why I'm for

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Speaker 4: the Second Amendment.

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Speaker 2: So at this point, Willy does bring it back to

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Speaker 2: gun control because he has become the main character. He

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Speaker 2: needs a gun. Actually, in twenty nineteen, he had fully

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Speaker 2: lost me at this point, but the story somehow continues.

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Speaker 2: The next day, Jason Isbel is still joking about the

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Speaker 2: hogs on Twitter, and Willie replies to him again. He

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Speaker 2: is determined to get through to Jason isbel about these hogs.

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Speaker 4: He writes, even though people have threatened my kids, taking

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Speaker 4: pics in my home, driven by my house, my job,

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Speaker 4: and threatened me, I'm still a fan of your music.

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Speaker 4: And I never said my situation was applicable to the

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Speaker 4: entire country. It's real.

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Speaker 2: Attached to this tweet is a video entitled wild hogs

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Speaker 2: are fair Game to hunt from the air in Texas.

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Speaker 7: In Texas, they're going hog wild over a wild hogs.

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Speaker 7: The feral animals are causing hundreds of millions of dollars

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Speaker 7: of damage to crops across the state, and to help

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Speaker 7: deal with the problem, state lawmakers have approved the hunting

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Speaker 7: of wild hogs and coyotes from hot air balloons. People

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Speaker 7: had already been allowed to sh shoot the animals from helicopters,

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Speaker 7: but it was an expensive and ineffective way to deal

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Speaker 7: with the problem. Higher balloons apparently much better.

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Speaker 2: So in case you're five years late and have never

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Speaker 2: been to the rural South, the hog problem is real

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Speaker 2: then now, and it might be getting actively worse. Brace

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Speaker 2: yourself for some unbelievable hog facts. The current estimated population

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Speaker 2: of faral hogs in the United States is six million.

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Speaker 2: That's one feral hog for every dollar in the budget

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Speaker 2: of the movie The Room. Adult faral hogs can weigh

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Speaker 2: anywhere from seventy five to two hundred and fifty pounds.

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Speaker 2: That is, anywhere from the size of a fifth grader

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Speaker 2: to the size of a football player. That is so large,

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Speaker 2: and for my money, if thirty to fifty feral fifth

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Speaker 2: graders or NFL players are charging my small kids in

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Speaker 2: three to five minutes, I'd be scared too. Willie is

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Speaker 2: also right that these hogs are mainly in the rural South.

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Speaker 2: Most of them live in Texas, but in Arkansas, where

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Speaker 2: Willy lives. They're in all seventy five counties and there's

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Speaker 2: about two hundred thousand of them, which, for comparison, is

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Speaker 2: close to one gigantic feral hog for every resident of

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Speaker 2: Little Rock, Arkansas.

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Speaker 1: There are entire.

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Speaker 2: Government agencies dedicated to protecting the general public from the

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Speaker 2: wrath of the hogs. So while there's plenty to unpack

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Speaker 2: in this story, before we can talk to the faral

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Speaker 2: hogs guy. Because yes, I did talk to the faral

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Speaker 2: hogs guy, I went to maybe the authority in the

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Speaker 2: US on this. John Thomas k is an associate professor

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Speaker 2: at Texas A and M and even more to the point,

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Speaker 2: he's the chair of both the National Feral Swine Task

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Speaker 2: Force and the Texas Feral Swine Task Force. Okay, now,

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Speaker 2: imagine I'm doing a pickup truck commercial. This man knows

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Speaker 2: big pigs.

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Speaker 1: I had to talk to him.

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Speaker 8: I'm John Tomachek. I'm an associate professor working on wildlife damage,

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Speaker 8: wildlife disease, and carnivore management at Texas A and M University.

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Speaker 8: When this came up, some friends of mine that are

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Speaker 8: not in the space of working in wildlife, they're not

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Speaker 8: in the space of living and working on the land.

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Speaker 8: They're urban folks. They saw this and sent it to me,

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Speaker 8: and I really appreciated it because they said, John, this

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Speaker 8: is going around, but everybody's making fun of it. It

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Speaker 8: sounds ridiculous, but you're an expert, what do you think?

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Speaker 8: And I just shrugged and said, yeah, sure, thirty or

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Speaker 8: fifty faral hogs in a group is not uncommon. Makes

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Speaker 8: perfect sense to me. And that really was kind of

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Speaker 8: my moment of going, Oh, Okay, what's the big deal?

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Speaker 8: What is so absurd about this? And I remember, you know,

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Speaker 8: it was a conversation around like firearms and that kind

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Speaker 8: of thing. And so friends of mine that are not

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Speaker 8: gun owners, they're not hunters, but they know I am.

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Speaker 8: They said, you know, what's your thought on this? And

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Speaker 8: I said, you know, I never actually owned an ar

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Speaker 8: platform rifle before I started working professionally on faral hogs.

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Speaker 8: And this is one of the scenarios in which it

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Speaker 8: actually does make sense because of the numbers of animals

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Speaker 8: you're dealing with. And I think that that's really the

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Speaker 8: kind of the juxtaposition here is when a person is

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Speaker 8: engaging in sport hunting or meat hunting, or whatever it is.

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Speaker 8: You are focused on the one animal and the search

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Speaker 8: for that animal and the take of that animal, Whereas

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Speaker 8: with feral hogs, it's this deluge of invasive, exotic animals

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Speaker 8: that are destroying everything from clean air and clean water,

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Speaker 8: to the food that we rely on for our tables,

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Speaker 8: to the health and well being of our wild animals

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Speaker 8: and wild places, and it's just everything. And so it's

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Speaker 8: at times kind of an overwhelming sense of how will

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Speaker 8: we ever get control over this problem? And so when

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Speaker 8: the internet sensation kicked up to me, it was an

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Speaker 8: interesting moment to say, ah, you know, for those of

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Speaker 8: us that are actively engaged every day in this space,

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Speaker 8: this makes perfect sense, but to the outside world it

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Speaker 8: seems a little absurd. I took a different job, and

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Speaker 8: academic job, and I was working with ranchers, landowners, farmers

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Speaker 8: and just asking them, you know, what are the issues

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Speaker 8: that are most i ortant to you? What are the

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Speaker 8: issues that are facing you that you need help on it?

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Speaker 8: And almost unanimously, everyone was talking about damage that was

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Speaker 8: caused by wildlife to their agricultural operation, whether they were

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Speaker 8: farming your fruits and vegetables that come to the market.

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Speaker 8: Everybody wants to eat right or livestock production or whatever

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Speaker 8: it was, and it was the idea of they don't

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Speaker 8: hate the animal, they hate the damage, and they don't

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Speaker 8: know how to fix it to balance the production with

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Speaker 8: the animals. So I got involved in that world of

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Speaker 8: wildlife damage, and then feral hogs kind of came as

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Speaker 8: an interesting track to that because it's an exotic, invasive

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Speaker 8: animal that doesn't belong in the system that makes the

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Speaker 8: sustainability of native plants and animals as well as humans

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Speaker 8: much more difficult. And so over the years, I've done

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Speaker 8: more and more work in feral hogs simply because it's

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Speaker 8: in my mind it's one of the greater conservation challenges

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Speaker 8: of our generation, simply because we are fighting a human

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Speaker 8: created problem that we essentially engineered these animals to be

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Speaker 8: as effective at doing what they do, and now we're

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Speaker 8: fighting against this. Like I said earlier, deluge. So, like

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Speaker 8: I said, long story, and I could go on for

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Speaker 8: quite a while, but basically what brought me to the

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Speaker 8: table was kind of looking at how people that live

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Speaker 8: on the land and take care of the land because

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Speaker 8: it is their livelihood as well, are struggling to do so.

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Speaker 8: In the face of this exotic, invasive species that seems

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Speaker 8: to have blown up in the last twenty or thirty years.

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Speaker 1: So could you tell me a.

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Speaker 2: Little bit about how did Farrell hogs get here and

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Speaker 2: what were people misunderstanding as they were encountering the.

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Speaker 5: Story in thirty to fifty number.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, so what I love about this and I really

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Speaker 8: can't emphasize this enough for your listener base. Most of

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Speaker 8: us that work professionally with Farrell hogs, whether it's as

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Speaker 8: researchers or managers or what have you. When the thirty

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Speaker 8: to fifty number was thrown out, pretty much everyone, like

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Speaker 8: I said, shrugged and said, yeah, it seems reasonable. Farrel

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Speaker 8: hogs got here a few different ways. Ironically, so Christopher

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Speaker 8: Columbus brought them on his second voyage to the New World.

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Speaker 8: Voyage no second voyage had pigs, their domestic pigs at

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Speaker 8: that time, and they were brought as a food source.

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Speaker 8: And it's important to remember in this period in history,

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Speaker 8: pigs were raised in what we call a free ranging environment,

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Speaker 8: meaning you let them go forage, they do what they do,

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Speaker 8: and then once a year you round them all up,

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Speaker 8: usually before the winter time if you're in a cold

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Speaker 8: climate and you slaughter pigs, you keep a few in

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Speaker 8: the barn over the winter, and then you feed them

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Speaker 8: right and then you make salt pork or sausages, whatever

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Speaker 8: you're doing to put away food for the winner. And

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Speaker 8: that's a pretty common European way of managing pigs. So

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Speaker 8: they're brought to the New World by Columbus and then

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Speaker 8: subsequent Spanish conquistadores brought them with them. Early explorers in

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Speaker 8: Florida brought them. And it's important to note that the

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Speaker 8: first couple of expeditions brought those pigs, and then future

438
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:51,440
Speaker 8: expeditions in their diaries commented they needn't have bothered bringing

439
00:24:51,520 --> 00:24:55,800
Speaker 8: pigs because they were so abundant here already. Ugh, okay,

440
00:24:56,119 --> 00:24:58,160
Speaker 8: And they're not native to the New World, so there

441
00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:02,800
Speaker 8: are no classics swine native to the Western hemisphere. There

442
00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:06,720
Speaker 8: are pekerees, like in Texas we have habelina. It's a

443
00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:09,560
Speaker 8: collared pekerey. We just use the Spanish words typically because

444
00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:13,479
Speaker 8: that's what we're used to here. But pekeres are not pigs.

445
00:25:13,560 --> 00:25:16,119
Speaker 8: I can't emphasize that enough. They kind of look like pigs,

446
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 8: that's just convergent evolution making a thing look similar, but

447
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:21,280
Speaker 8: they are not the same animal.

448
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:23,840
Speaker 1: Those are the native species.

449
00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:27,679
Speaker 8: Correct, and they're native to southwestern US and then farther

450
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:31,399
Speaker 8: south in Central America and South America, and they do

451
00:25:31,480 --> 00:25:33,639
Speaker 8: not have the problems that I'm about to describe. So

452
00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:37,360
Speaker 8: one of the things about pigs, it is mankind's oldest

453
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:40,560
Speaker 8: livestock animal as far as we know. So they're bred

454
00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:43,480
Speaker 8: from Eurasian wild boar, which are a wild animal still

455
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:47,280
Speaker 8: around in Europe. But animal husbandry over thousands of years

456
00:25:47,280 --> 00:25:50,639
Speaker 8: produced an animal that could breed at any time of

457
00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:54,400
Speaker 8: the year because that's important to produce sustainable food. And

458
00:25:54,720 --> 00:25:57,639
Speaker 8: they would have more offspring in a litter, which makes

459
00:25:57,680 --> 00:26:00,760
Speaker 8: sense when we're making sure they stay feds so they

460
00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:03,560
Speaker 8: can have the ability to make sure those animals survive,

461
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:06,719
Speaker 8: and more of those animals survive. They're heavier when they

462
00:26:06,760 --> 00:26:08,960
Speaker 8: wean from their mothers. All of these things that in

463
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:13,240
Speaker 8: the wild wouldn't necessarily make sense, but in a farmed

464
00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:16,600
Speaker 8: context or a raised context makes sense because it's a

465
00:26:16,640 --> 00:26:19,240
Speaker 8: relationship where humans are also taking care of that animal.

466
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:24,600
Speaker 8: So we broke a natural reproductive cycle to create an

467
00:26:24,680 --> 00:26:28,320
Speaker 8: animal that is the largest animal on the planet physically,

468
00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:32,480
Speaker 8: that can reproduce that quickly with that many offspring. So

469
00:26:32,680 --> 00:26:35,199
Speaker 8: I talked about the Spanish brought them, but then Anglo

470
00:26:35,280 --> 00:26:38,680
Speaker 8: settlers in New England, you know, the British colonies brought them.

471
00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:41,720
Speaker 8: And in our part of the world, when Anglos started

472
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:46,040
Speaker 8: moving from what's now the Midwest to Texas when it

473
00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 8: was still a Spanish colony and then later part of Mexico,

474
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:52,200
Speaker 8: they brought pigs with them. And what we have today

475
00:26:52,280 --> 00:26:54,720
Speaker 8: is a history of over the years those free ranging

476
00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:58,159
Speaker 8: pigs escaped, or when the pork industry was in a

477
00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:00,560
Speaker 8: bad spot, farmers might have just turned and their pigs

478
00:27:00,560 --> 00:27:02,840
Speaker 8: loose because they couldn't afford to feed them. And in

479
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:05,040
Speaker 8: the context of am I going to let those animals

480
00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:07,320
Speaker 8: starve or am I going to let them go forage

481
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:10,359
Speaker 8: and live because they can? Which one would you pick?

482
00:27:10,480 --> 00:27:12,280
Speaker 8: I know what I would pick, and I get that right.

483
00:27:12,800 --> 00:27:15,600
Speaker 8: I don't think any of it was malicious. But we

484
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:19,360
Speaker 8: live in a situation now where we have a tremendous

485
00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:23,200
Speaker 8: number of these animals and their ability to reproduce means

486
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:26,520
Speaker 8: that the population is growing all the time. So when

487
00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:30,159
Speaker 8: we talk about managing numbers, it's not enough just to

488
00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:32,640
Speaker 8: remove one or two. We have to try to get

489
00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:35,320
Speaker 8: the whole group, and now here comes the thirty to fifty.

490
00:27:35,640 --> 00:27:37,840
Speaker 8: And I think it's important to recognize I'm not mad

491
00:27:37,880 --> 00:27:41,119
Speaker 8: at the pigs. Nobody's mad at the pigs, but I

492
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:44,199
Speaker 8: have an exotic invasive that's hurting the environment. And that

493
00:27:44,320 --> 00:27:47,040
Speaker 8: is the thing that I liked your city mouse, country

494
00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 8: mouse analogy. For people that live on the land and

495
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:53,639
Speaker 8: work on the land, they understand the issue because they

496
00:27:53,640 --> 00:27:57,840
Speaker 8: see it every day. Or people that may be perennial

497
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:00,399
Speaker 8: urbanites and that's their world and that's fine. They may

498
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:02,760
Speaker 8: not understand in the same way of watching the land

499
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 8: be ripped apart and when the next rain comes all

500
00:28:05,320 --> 00:28:08,399
Speaker 8: the soil washes away because of this animal. We're not

501
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:10,440
Speaker 8: mad at them per se, but they have to go.

502
00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:12,920
Speaker 8: They're damaging the environment and that at the end of

503
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:15,280
Speaker 8: the day, we as humans rely on that environment to

504
00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:18,200
Speaker 8: survive as well. You're in New England in the northwest

505
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:21,360
Speaker 8: or northeast, excuse me, when you have black bears. They're

506
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:22,240
Speaker 8: much bigger.

507
00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:23,040
Speaker 3: Than ours bears.

508
00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:26,560
Speaker 8: Most animals in northern climates colder climates are larger, and

509
00:28:26,600 --> 00:28:29,400
Speaker 8: warmer climates they're smaller, even if they're the same species.

510
00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:33,280
Speaker 8: So our bears in Texas. Though three hundred pounds is

511
00:28:33,320 --> 00:28:36,640
Speaker 8: not an unusual size for a bear. I have pigs

512
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:37,880
Speaker 8: that are bigger than bears.

513
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:42,120
Speaker 9: That is, yeah, a crazy sentence.

514
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:44,120
Speaker 8: To me, and that's why I wanted to get to

515
00:28:44,160 --> 00:28:46,840
Speaker 8: that point of like, forgive all aback info. But if

516
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:49,800
Speaker 8: you remember nothing else, remember that. And that is the

517
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 8: resource issue.

518
00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:52,800
Speaker 9: But the way you're describing it, it sounds like it

519
00:28:52,840 --> 00:28:57,520
Speaker 9: is also related to colonialism that goes back hundreds of years,

520
00:28:57,520 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 9: Like this problem exists because of colonialism, Which is.

521
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:05,160
Speaker 8: An interesting tac one thing that I often will bring

522
00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:08,200
Speaker 8: up in these conversations, and it's something that comes up

523
00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:11,440
Speaker 8: a lot in conservation. Is most of the population lives

524
00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:15,080
Speaker 8: in urban centers, and that's very true, been that way

525
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:17,200
Speaker 8: for better part of one hundred years. It's been that way,

526
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:21,000
Speaker 8: and the issues that face folks in rural areas are

527
00:29:21,040 --> 00:29:24,120
Speaker 8: often cast aside or maligned or that kind of thing,

528
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:27,920
Speaker 8: which I think anytime we delegitimize the problem that anybody's facing,

529
00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:30,040
Speaker 8: that is a real issue. This is an issue that

530
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:32,600
Speaker 8: affects everybody. If you don't think it affects you and

531
00:29:32,640 --> 00:29:35,040
Speaker 8: your geography, just wait because it will.

532
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:38,520
Speaker 9: Thank you so much for speaking with me about this,

533
00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:40,000
Speaker 9: I really really appreciate it.

534
00:29:40,280 --> 00:29:41,040
Speaker 8: Yeah, my pleasure.

535
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:44,760
Speaker 2: Thank you so much to John Thomas Sek keep fighting

536
00:29:45,080 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 2: the good fight. And of course the villain was colonialism

537
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:53,080
Speaker 2: all along. In my estimation, almost everyone is a casualty

538
00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:57,040
Speaker 2: in the story of the hogs, especially the hogs themselves.

539
00:29:57,200 --> 00:30:00,280
Speaker 2: Of course, people and crops should be protected. The fact

540
00:30:00,320 --> 00:30:03,320
Speaker 2: that we can draw a direct line from European colonialism

541
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:07,719
Speaker 2: to shooting gigantic pigs from hot air balloons is you know,

542
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:23,240
Speaker 2: we need to keep moving. But you know, the wildest

543
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:26,040
Speaker 2: thing to me about the Willie McNabb saga is, while

544
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:28,760
Speaker 2: the subject felt completely out of left field, given that

545
00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:33,200
Speaker 2: Jason Isbel was referencing a larger cultural conversation around mass shootings,

546
00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:37,200
Speaker 2: what he was saying wasn't absurd, And while farrel hog

547
00:30:37,280 --> 00:30:41,640
Speaker 2: discourse continued for truly weeks after this first reply, I

548
00:30:41,640 --> 00:30:44,840
Speaker 2: think the key to why people misunderstood it is contained

549
00:30:45,080 --> 00:30:50,520
Speaker 2: in the very beginning legit question. For rural Americans, most

550
00:30:50,520 --> 00:30:52,920
Speaker 2: of the people I quoted earlier are like me. They

551
00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:56,240
Speaker 2: live in cities, they work in some vaguely entertainment or

552
00:30:56,280 --> 00:30:58,560
Speaker 2: media job, and they like to make little jokes on

553
00:30:58,600 --> 00:31:02,240
Speaker 2: the computer guests that if a Twitter user lived in

554
00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:05,360
Speaker 2: the rural South or ever had the comment about feral

555
00:31:05,440 --> 00:31:08,440
Speaker 2: hoggs might still sound weird, but it wouldn't have struck

556
00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:11,640
Speaker 2: them as the complete topic change that it was made

557
00:31:11,680 --> 00:31:14,520
Speaker 2: out to be by most people. That's because, and on

558
00:31:14,560 --> 00:31:18,120
Speaker 2: Twitter especially, the Internet doesn't make the same space or

559
00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 2: consideration for people who live in rural areas. It reminds

560
00:31:21,800 --> 00:31:24,960
Speaker 2: me of my conversation with Meredith Broussard last week when

561
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:27,720
Speaker 2: we were talking about the black TikTok strike of who

562
00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:31,320
Speaker 2: is considered to be neutral. They're white, they're young, they're

563
00:31:31,320 --> 00:31:34,320
Speaker 2: a man, and they live in a city. Kew research

564
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:37,680
Speaker 2: indicates that only about thirteen percent of Twitter's user base

565
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 2: lives in a rural area, so Willie was quite literally

566
00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:45,040
Speaker 2: surrounded by users who just had no idea what he

567
00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:47,440
Speaker 2: was talking about. This was picked up on at the

568
00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 2: time as well. There's an episode of Reply All about

569
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:53,760
Speaker 2: it that I remember vividly. Twenty nineteen is also the

570
00:31:53,840 --> 00:31:58,240
Speaker 2: year that Twitter introduced the algorithmically driven topics feature that

571
00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:01,560
Speaker 2: showed users' stories that were trending, meaning that even people

572
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:04,800
Speaker 2: who didn't follow Jason isbel found out about the farreal

573
00:32:04,840 --> 00:32:08,880
Speaker 2: Hoggs debate. Isbel's skepticism about Willy was further credited by

574
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:11,840
Speaker 2: the fact that both of these men are Southerners. Isbel

575
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:15,040
Speaker 2: is from Alabama, and there's no shortage of Farrell Hoggs

576
00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:17,960
Speaker 2: in Alabama, so, like main characters were wont to do

577
00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:21,560
Speaker 2: at this point, the mainstream media swept this story up.

578
00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:25,240
Speaker 2: Explainer pieces were written breaking down the absurdity, and most

579
00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:27,760
Speaker 2: of them ended with a flourish sort of a and

580
00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:30,440
Speaker 2: in case he didn't know, the hogs are real. Not

581
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:34,480
Speaker 2: only had Willy McNabb achieved main character status, he'd managed

582
00:32:34,520 --> 00:32:38,160
Speaker 2: to start a conversation about a very rural problem on

583
00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:42,080
Speaker 2: an app where rural people were not very present. As

584
00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:45,160
Speaker 2: the days wore on, Jason Isbel got a huge bump

585
00:32:45,160 --> 00:32:48,600
Speaker 2: in social media engagement from bringing the Hogs to the masses.

586
00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:51,719
Speaker 2: The tweet was on August fourth, and by August sixth,

587
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:54,280
Speaker 2: the Internet was so swept up in the hogs that

588
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:58,000
Speaker 2: Isabel was featured and interviewed in the La Times on

589
00:32:58,040 --> 00:32:58,840
Speaker 2: August seventh.

590
00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:02,440
Speaker 3: He said, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people

591
00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:05,560
Speaker 3: making hog jokes this week without knowing why. I saw

592
00:33:05,640 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 3: quite a few farrel hogjokes are taking my mind off

593
00:33:08,160 --> 00:33:11,080
Speaker 3: all the sadness in the world tweets yesterday. The sadness

594
00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 3: was the whole reason for the hog talk in the

595
00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:15,040
Speaker 3: first place. This is like a TV show on an

596
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:16,920
Speaker 3: RFD network hog Talk.

597
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:19,200
Speaker 2: His Bell gets a bump from this, but he was

598
00:33:19,240 --> 00:33:22,080
Speaker 2: already a celebrity. Willy was left to his own devices

599
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:24,840
Speaker 2: to figure out how to handle the sudden, massive wave

600
00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:27,800
Speaker 2: of attention he was receiving. The people who have lived

601
00:33:27,800 --> 00:33:30,920
Speaker 2: in rural areas replying to him mainly say some version

602
00:33:30,960 --> 00:33:33,880
Speaker 2: of hey man, try an electric fence. Worked great for me.

603
00:33:34,120 --> 00:33:37,000
Speaker 2: But the vast majority of people are making fun of him.

604
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:40,560
Speaker 2: And meanwhile, Jason isbel is holding his ground in saying

605
00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:43,040
Speaker 2: that the concern Willy brought up in the weirdest way

606
00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:45,960
Speaker 2: possible is a nothing burger. Here's another quote from the

607
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:47,280
Speaker 2: same La Times interview.

608
00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:50,400
Speaker 3: I've seen a damn hog in my time, and yes

609
00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:52,800
Speaker 3: they're scary, but I'd much rather face a few dozen

610
00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:55,400
Speaker 3: wild hogs than a freaked out dad with an AR fifteen.

611
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:56,320
Speaker 1: Yeah.

612
00:33:56,400 --> 00:33:59,640
Speaker 2: Point taken, but it never quite feels to me like

613
00:33:59,800 --> 00:34:03,479
Speaker 2: is Bell and McNabb are having the same conversation. Isabel

614
00:34:03,680 --> 00:34:07,200
Speaker 2: is railing against American's access to assault weapons. There was

615
00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:09,799
Speaker 2: a ban on assault weapons from nineteen ninety four to

616
00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:13,480
Speaker 2: two thousand and four that lapsed and has yet to unlapse,

617
00:34:13,680 --> 00:34:16,799
Speaker 2: with mass shootings continuing throughout in the meantime. And while

618
00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:20,839
Speaker 2: Willy is inarguably a defender of the Second Amendment, it

619
00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:22,520
Speaker 2: does seem like he mainly.

620
00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:23,520
Speaker 1: Wants to talk about hogs.

621
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:26,799
Speaker 2: All This happened almost five years ago, and Willy has

622
00:34:26,840 --> 00:34:28,520
Speaker 2: never shied away from the infamy.

623
00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:29,840
Speaker 1: In fact, he's.

624
00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:33,319
Speaker 2: Taken up the cause of raising feral hog awareness, regularly

625
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:36,839
Speaker 2: retweeting reports about hog attacks and attempts to curb them.

626
00:34:37,080 --> 00:34:39,160
Speaker 2: At the time I'm running this, there is a tusk

627
00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:43,600
Speaker 2: hog emoji next to his name on Twitter, and his bioreads.

628
00:34:43,040 --> 00:34:48,280
Speaker 4: Internet folk hero husband and dead hog emoji American flag emoji.

629
00:34:48,680 --> 00:34:50,640
Speaker 2: I reached out to him on Twitter to see how

630
00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:55,440
Speaker 2: this bizarre incident, this one reply has shaped the last

631
00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:57,040
Speaker 2: half decade of his life.

632
00:34:57,440 --> 00:34:59,120
Speaker 1: Here's our talk and.

633
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:03,280
Speaker 5: My name's Willie mcnah. I guess infamous from the tweet

634
00:35:04,040 --> 00:35:08,040
Speaker 5: I tweeted out five years ago to Jason Iswell. I

635
00:35:08,080 --> 00:35:12,319
Speaker 5: lived in South Arkansas. I'm a business owner originally from

636
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:18,160
Speaker 5: North Carolina. I graduated from Western Carolina University, moved here

637
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:21,880
Speaker 5: soon thereafter. My father had started a company here, and

638
00:35:21,960 --> 00:35:24,600
Speaker 5: so I've been here ever since. So I'm a proud

639
00:35:24,640 --> 00:35:25,799
Speaker 5: resident of Arkansas.

640
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:29,279
Speaker 2: My first question, because I feel self conscious about it,

641
00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:32,719
Speaker 2: is is it annoying that people are still asking you

642
00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:36,040
Speaker 2: about a reply tweet from five years ago?

643
00:35:36,800 --> 00:35:41,800
Speaker 5: You know, it's I wouldn't say annoying. No, I think

644
00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:46,520
Speaker 5: that initially, you know, it's a little overwhelming the initial

645
00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:50,560
Speaker 5: response that I received, and I was I remember the

646
00:35:50,600 --> 00:35:55,279
Speaker 5: first few days of it that I was very cognizant of. Okay,

647
00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:57,319
Speaker 5: a lot of people are paying attention, and this is

648
00:35:57,360 --> 00:36:01,080
Speaker 5: a public forum, and even one at that time, I

649
00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:03,239
Speaker 5: didn't have a hundred followers. You know, it was a

650
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:06,759
Speaker 5: very small platform, or what I thought was, and so

651
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:10,680
Speaker 5: I was just you know, expressing an opinion or a

652
00:36:10,760 --> 00:36:15,359
Speaker 5: thought or something that i'd heard. And so I came

653
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:18,720
Speaker 5: to realize pretty quick that this was a global forum

654
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:21,360
Speaker 5: and a platform. And it only took one person like

655
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:23,520
Speaker 5: Jason to be able to amplify that to see it.

656
00:36:23,560 --> 00:36:27,640
Speaker 5: And I don't think he did it in a I

657
00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:29,839
Speaker 5: don't think he was trying to get me in any way.

658
00:36:29,920 --> 00:36:35,240
Speaker 5: I think he was just replying to somebody. He probably

659
00:36:35,239 --> 00:36:38,360
Speaker 5: thought it was a troll at the time, frankly probably.

660
00:36:39,520 --> 00:36:43,319
Speaker 5: So you know, after five years of it, there's not

661
00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:45,440
Speaker 5: a day that goes by that I don't get some

662
00:36:45,640 --> 00:36:49,960
Speaker 5: interaction or somebody saying something about it or so. No,

663
00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:56,200
Speaker 5: I don't look at it as negative. Actually it's But

664
00:36:56,239 --> 00:36:58,400
Speaker 5: on the other hand, I mean I can't reply to

665
00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:02,759
Speaker 5: every feral hall thing that I see, you know, Yeah,

666
00:37:02,760 --> 00:37:03,360
Speaker 5: it's a lot.

667
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:08,759
Speaker 2: So okay, Well, now that I cleared the air in

668
00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:10,960
Speaker 2: that sense, tell me a little bit more about yourself.

669
00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:14,080
Speaker 5: I grew up in western North Carolina. It is a

670
00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:18,600
Speaker 5: very rural upbringing, and by the time I was ten

671
00:37:18,680 --> 00:37:22,000
Speaker 5: twelve years old, I could handle a firearm. It wasn't

672
00:37:22,080 --> 00:37:25,520
Speaker 5: unusual for us to hunt for squirrel or rabbits or

673
00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:30,560
Speaker 5: my goodness, deer or grouse or quail or dove. And

674
00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:35,440
Speaker 5: I have touched on this before, but you know, we

675
00:37:35,440 --> 00:37:38,200
Speaker 5: we were not a family of many means. You know.

676
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:43,600
Speaker 5: It was a rural appalachious so we ate what we hunted,

677
00:37:43,640 --> 00:37:48,719
Speaker 5: and grew a garden and a very rural upbringing. But

678
00:37:48,880 --> 00:37:51,440
Speaker 5: it was a way of life for people like myself,

679
00:37:51,560 --> 00:37:54,400
Speaker 5: especially this was in the seventies and early eighties, you know,

680
00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:57,800
Speaker 5: when I was a kid, and so there was nothing

681
00:37:57,960 --> 00:38:01,239
Speaker 5: unusual about it. You know, at that time, there was

682
00:38:01,280 --> 00:38:04,880
Speaker 5: still my goodness, I had a couple of friends that

683
00:38:04,960 --> 00:38:07,600
Speaker 5: I grew up with that didn't even have indoor plumbing.

684
00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:11,200
Speaker 5: I mean, this was a it's probably hard for people

685
00:38:11,239 --> 00:38:14,359
Speaker 5: to even believe or grasp, but it was real, but

686
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:18,360
Speaker 5: we didn't. The great equalizer was was that all of

687
00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:20,720
Speaker 5: us were like that. All my friends, all the families

688
00:38:20,719 --> 00:38:24,440
Speaker 5: that I knew, everybody grew up that way. So you know,

689
00:38:24,480 --> 00:38:27,240
Speaker 5: I hunted some when I first came here. I'm not

690
00:38:27,239 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 5: not an avid outdoorsman like I was. After having my

691
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:34,680
Speaker 5: own family. My kids were never They weren't into hunting

692
00:38:34,719 --> 00:38:36,799
Speaker 5: and fishing like I was as a kid. They're more

693
00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:41,480
Speaker 5: into basketball and volleyball and sports and video games. And

694
00:38:41,520 --> 00:38:44,320
Speaker 5: culturally it's changed a lot, especially even in the South,

695
00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:46,200
Speaker 5: from what it was when I was a kid. Yeah,

696
00:38:46,239 --> 00:38:50,800
Speaker 5: it was a very simple upbringing. But I did travel

697
00:38:50,880 --> 00:38:54,160
Speaker 5: some as a kid. My father was a business agent

698
00:38:54,239 --> 00:38:58,680
Speaker 5: for a labor local labor union for years, and so

699
00:38:58,800 --> 00:39:01,560
Speaker 5: I spent a lot of time. Home base was always

700
00:39:01,640 --> 00:39:04,600
Speaker 5: the Carolinas, but I would spend a year in Arizona,

701
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:08,040
Speaker 5: or I would be in Mexico or Texas or the

702
00:39:08,080 --> 00:39:13,200
Speaker 5: Gulf Coast or Salt Lake City, and we just traveled

703
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:15,560
Speaker 5: around a lot with mining. And he was working a

704
00:39:15,560 --> 00:39:19,800
Speaker 5: lot of work with the mining companies and refineries and

705
00:39:19,880 --> 00:39:23,040
Speaker 5: chemical plants and things like that. So he worked on

706
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:28,360
Speaker 5: specialty equipment in these mines and refineries and chemical plants.

707
00:39:28,400 --> 00:39:32,920
Speaker 5: Actually it was specific to environmental control. So he traveled

708
00:39:32,920 --> 00:39:34,560
Speaker 5: a lot, and we traveled a lot with him, And

709
00:39:34,600 --> 00:39:38,280
Speaker 5: so I would be exposed to a lot of different

710
00:39:38,800 --> 00:39:42,719
Speaker 5: parts of the United States and cultures. And I would

711
00:39:42,719 --> 00:39:45,000
Speaker 5: go back to home base in Carolina, and then we

712
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:47,759
Speaker 5: would travel again. And then when I got to about

713
00:39:48,160 --> 00:39:51,880
Speaker 5: junior high for stability reasons, my mother and him agree,

714
00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:54,640
Speaker 5: but it's not good for the kids. I have two brothers,

715
00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:57,759
Speaker 5: an older brother and a younger brother, and we just

716
00:39:57,800 --> 00:40:01,719
Speaker 5: didn't travel anymore. We stayed finished school in North Carolina

717
00:40:01,920 --> 00:40:04,839
Speaker 5: and then went on to college and found our way

718
00:40:04,840 --> 00:40:06,920
Speaker 5: out here at art So awesome.

719
00:40:07,040 --> 00:40:09,560
Speaker 1: And what sort of business do you run now? If

720
00:40:09,640 --> 00:40:10,880
Speaker 1: you're okay saying.

721
00:40:11,120 --> 00:40:13,600
Speaker 5: No, I don't mind saying it is a construction company

722
00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:17,280
Speaker 5: slash manufacturing company. We do some work in the chemical

723
00:40:17,320 --> 00:40:20,520
Speaker 5: industry and refinery and mining industries. It's what my father did.

724
00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:24,000
Speaker 5: But the largest portion of our work is in the

725
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:31,160
Speaker 5: healthcare sector for radiation shielding for I think, in practical terms,

726
00:40:31,200 --> 00:40:35,840
Speaker 5: in cts or pet scans or cancer treatment or anything

727
00:40:35,920 --> 00:40:40,320
Speaker 5: like that. We build specialty shielding systems, stores systems, wall systems,

728
00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:43,879
Speaker 5: et cetera. Wow, Me and and my younger brother hold

729
00:40:43,880 --> 00:40:47,239
Speaker 5: a United States patent for some operators for some of

730
00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:50,960
Speaker 5: these doors. And yeah, so we've been successful.

731
00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:55,359
Speaker 1: You Wow, that's incredible. Prior to.

732
00:40:56,920 --> 00:41:00,919
Speaker 2: However you think of it, Feral Hogsgate, what was your

733
00:41:01,080 --> 00:41:04,399
Speaker 2: relationship to the Internet, Like, when did you start using it?

734
00:41:04,560 --> 00:41:05,920
Speaker 1: How did you get into Twitter?

735
00:41:06,360 --> 00:41:11,760
Speaker 5: Sure in nineteen ninety five when my father started this company,

736
00:41:12,040 --> 00:41:15,520
Speaker 5: I remember getting an HTML for idiots and writing code

737
00:41:15,560 --> 00:41:19,560
Speaker 5: to put up our first website. OK, so that was

738
00:41:19,600 --> 00:41:24,600
Speaker 5: my first introduction to it. And I was always adamant

739
00:41:24,600 --> 00:41:27,919
Speaker 5: to try to every two to three years to redo

740
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:31,439
Speaker 5: our website and try to advertise in that way because

741
00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:34,080
Speaker 5: it's a niche industry and we do work domestically as

742
00:41:34,080 --> 00:41:37,920
Speaker 5: well as internationally. But from the social media aspect, I've

743
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:41,480
Speaker 5: never had Facebook. I don't have Facebook today. My platform

744
00:41:41,719 --> 00:41:44,400
Speaker 5: I do have a private Instagram account. It's just pictures

745
00:41:44,400 --> 00:41:48,759
Speaker 5: of my kids. That's untill it. But as far as

746
00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:52,920
Speaker 5: me engaging with other people, Twitter or x now as

747
00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:58,279
Speaker 5: the platform I've always used and I enjoy it, and

748
00:41:58,320 --> 00:42:01,080
Speaker 5: it is a you know, it's like the Wild West

749
00:42:01,160 --> 00:42:05,160
Speaker 5: on there now it's not what it was. But any

750
00:42:05,400 --> 00:42:09,279
Speaker 5: any ideas or things that I advocate for, uh, I'm

751
00:42:09,840 --> 00:42:12,960
Speaker 5: I usually post on there, but I am cognizant that

752
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:15,799
Speaker 5: I don't. I don't wait off into debates that I

753
00:42:15,840 --> 00:42:19,560
Speaker 5: don't have any understanding of or you know, and there's

754
00:42:19,600 --> 00:42:23,799
Speaker 5: so many of these cultural issues that that I just

755
00:42:23,880 --> 00:42:27,520
Speaker 5: try to stay out of. I think by nature, I

756
00:42:27,520 --> 00:42:30,120
Speaker 5: don't look for conflict and I don't look for division,

757
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:32,239
Speaker 5: and I don't like those type of things, and so

758
00:42:32,840 --> 00:42:38,239
Speaker 5: I intentionally do not. I don't take positions on the

759
00:42:38,320 --> 00:42:41,680
Speaker 5: platform because if I say I'm for this, I lose

760
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:44,120
Speaker 5: half the audience, and if I say I'm for something else,

761
00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:47,360
Speaker 5: I lose the other half of my audience. You understand

762
00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:49,600
Speaker 5: what I mean. And I'm trying to get people to

763
00:42:49,640 --> 00:42:51,959
Speaker 5: communicate with each other and talk to each other. And

764
00:42:52,560 --> 00:42:56,800
Speaker 5: the difficulty in all of these these issues are in

765
00:42:56,880 --> 00:43:00,000
Speaker 5: the nuances of them. You know, if these were easy,

766
00:42:59,760 --> 00:43:03,320
Speaker 5: if these were indy issues to fix, they would have

767
00:43:03,320 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 5: been fixed by now. And so I really like the

768
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:10,800
Speaker 5: engagement part in getting people to get outside their comfort

769
00:43:10,880 --> 00:43:15,040
Speaker 5: zone and try to understand somebody else's perspective and then

770
00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:18,279
Speaker 5: try to look at those nuances and get resolution to them.

771
00:43:18,320 --> 00:43:23,200
Speaker 5: So I do not I'm not a big advocate for conflict,

772
00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:25,800
Speaker 5: but I do like debate. I like people to actually

773
00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:28,240
Speaker 5: sit and have conversations and try to figure out these problems.

774
00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:29,640
Speaker 5: I think that's the only way we get through.

775
00:43:29,520 --> 00:43:31,239
Speaker 1: Them, depending on the conversation.

776
00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:33,440
Speaker 2: I think this is an interesting example of it where

777
00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:38,960
Speaker 2: I certainly learned a lot from just delving deeper into

778
00:43:39,400 --> 00:43:42,120
Speaker 2: thirty to fifty faral hogs. So you're careful about the

779
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:44,839
Speaker 2: kinds of conversations you started on Twitter. Why was this

780
00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:48,440
Speaker 2: specific tweet something that you thought I have to reply?

781
00:43:49,960 --> 00:43:54,080
Speaker 5: Well, it's look, it's a tough it's a tough issue,

782
00:43:54,160 --> 00:43:58,600
Speaker 5: and I think Jason was coming from a very intellectually

783
00:43:58,760 --> 00:44:02,920
Speaker 5: honest place. And for me, when I believe that people

784
00:44:02,960 --> 00:44:07,160
Speaker 5: are not being surrogates necessarily for a cause, but they're

785
00:44:07,360 --> 00:44:10,879
Speaker 5: they're being intellectually honest, like they believe these things need

786
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:14,799
Speaker 5: to from their perspective, these things need to change, and

787
00:44:14,840 --> 00:44:20,200
Speaker 5: there needs to be there's legitimate ways we can do it.

788
00:44:20,320 --> 00:44:24,200
Speaker 5: Because of the personal experience that I had on this issue,

789
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:28,480
Speaker 5: and it was you know, I've told the story a

790
00:44:28,520 --> 00:44:32,640
Speaker 5: lot of times, but it was very real. It happened,

791
00:44:32,719 --> 00:44:35,839
Speaker 5: and my kids were very small at the time, and

792
00:44:36,520 --> 00:44:39,080
Speaker 5: once it happened to me, and I started reaching out

793
00:44:39,080 --> 00:44:43,200
Speaker 5: to people trying to understand the wise and realizing how

794
00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:46,960
Speaker 5: complex it was, but on a very local, small level

795
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:50,480
Speaker 5: for an individual that you know, that's protecting his house

796
00:44:50,560 --> 00:44:54,560
Speaker 5: or as kids, my ability to have the firearm to

797
00:44:54,600 --> 00:44:57,000
Speaker 5: go out in no easier way of saying, is shooting

798
00:44:57,000 --> 00:45:00,279
Speaker 5: these pigs to get them out of my yard? It

799
00:45:00,440 --> 00:45:04,160
Speaker 5: seemed like it always it has always seemed to me

800
00:45:04,239 --> 00:45:07,040
Speaker 5: that it was a fair question. It was a fair

801
00:45:07,080 --> 00:45:10,840
Speaker 5: debate to have. And I think it's the disconnect between

802
00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:15,000
Speaker 5: urban and rural areas in the country that someone living

803
00:45:15,239 --> 00:45:19,440
Speaker 5: in an urban atmosphere they simply can't comprehend it, they

804
00:45:19,440 --> 00:45:22,840
Speaker 5: don't know, and living in a rural area, you know,

805
00:45:22,880 --> 00:45:25,160
Speaker 5: I've got ten acres or whatever it is, but I've

806
00:45:25,200 --> 00:45:27,880
Speaker 5: got a two acre yard in the yard itself is huge.

807
00:45:28,440 --> 00:45:29,879
Speaker 5: You know, I'm not going to put a gate up

808
00:45:30,040 --> 00:45:31,680
Speaker 5: or a fence up for my kids to play in

809
00:45:31,680 --> 00:45:33,480
Speaker 5: the yard. I don't have neighbors. I mean I can

810
00:45:33,640 --> 00:45:35,720
Speaker 5: look in any direction and I don't see any houses.

811
00:45:35,880 --> 00:45:37,920
Speaker 5: And so my kids are just being kids playing in

812
00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:42,480
Speaker 5: the yard and so. But also the hogs feel like

813
00:45:42,520 --> 00:45:44,080
Speaker 5: they've got a right to come in the yard too,

814
00:45:44,680 --> 00:45:47,400
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. And know it's a long

815
00:45:47,520 --> 00:45:50,560
Speaker 5: answer to a short question, but I just felt there

816
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:53,319
Speaker 5: was a legitimacy to it. I mean, there is this

817
00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:55,640
Speaker 5: is a two and a half billion dollars worth of

818
00:45:55,760 --> 00:46:01,359
Speaker 5: damage annually in the country, Arkansas spending over or has

819
00:46:01,400 --> 00:46:05,560
Speaker 5: over forty million dollars worth of damage to crops here.

820
00:46:05,840 --> 00:46:10,840
Speaker 5: And I remember it was three months after it was

821
00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:14,719
Speaker 5: about three months after the tweet, Arkansas got almost three

822
00:46:14,760 --> 00:46:16,560
Speaker 5: and a half million dollars in federal.

823
00:46:16,280 --> 00:46:19,279
Speaker 1: Funding strictly to repair hog damage.

824
00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:23,160
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, they were. There was the Arkansas Feral hal

825
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:25,839
Speaker 5: Eradication Passports had been established.

826
00:46:26,040 --> 00:46:27,280
Speaker 1: Well what a title.

827
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:31,400
Speaker 5: It's something that's a mouthful. Yeah, and so that funding

828
00:46:31,480 --> 00:46:34,600
Speaker 5: came in. Now, I can't specifically say that it was

829
00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:37,439
Speaker 5: because of the tweet, but I've got to believe that

830
00:46:37,560 --> 00:46:41,040
Speaker 5: you know, all things point to the attention that was

831
00:46:41,120 --> 00:46:44,600
Speaker 5: on that issue at that time, and the funding came in,

832
00:46:44,760 --> 00:46:47,560
Speaker 5: and there's been additional funding since. I think Senator to

833
00:46:47,600 --> 00:46:51,240
Speaker 5: Bozeman has been able to get some additional funding. But

834
00:46:51,640 --> 00:46:54,760
Speaker 5: it's just a it's a huge issue. There's no easy

835
00:46:54,880 --> 00:46:59,640
Speaker 5: answers to it. But I do believe the tweet probably

836
00:46:59,719 --> 00:47:01,919
Speaker 5: led to some of that funding coming in, so that's

837
00:47:01,920 --> 00:47:02,880
Speaker 5: a positive to it.

838
00:47:03,239 --> 00:47:06,359
Speaker 2: I certainly didn't know what a huge issue this was

839
00:47:06,920 --> 00:47:10,160
Speaker 2: really until I saw your tweet and then saw all

840
00:47:10,160 --> 00:47:12,520
Speaker 2: the memes about the tweet, and then read the explainers

841
00:47:12,520 --> 00:47:15,160
Speaker 2: about the tweeting, you know, sort of that classic internet cycle.

842
00:47:15,320 --> 00:47:17,920
Speaker 2: But I wanted to go back because again I'm coming

843
00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:21,080
Speaker 2: into this conversation in a pretty naive way.

844
00:47:21,239 --> 00:47:22,600
Speaker 1: I'm not going to shy away from that.

845
00:47:22,719 --> 00:47:25,200
Speaker 2: When you were talking with your community, what were the

846
00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:27,560
Speaker 2: potential solutions to take care of it?

847
00:47:27,680 --> 00:47:29,000
Speaker 1: Was it just the gun?

848
00:47:29,239 --> 00:47:29,400
Speaker 5: Was it?

849
00:47:29,480 --> 00:47:31,960
Speaker 1: Were there other options? How? Yeah, walk me through that.

850
00:47:32,280 --> 00:47:34,160
Speaker 5: You know, I mentioned earlier, I grew up in North

851
00:47:34,200 --> 00:47:39,400
Speaker 5: Carolina and I hunted a lot deer and pheasants or grouse,

852
00:47:39,440 --> 00:47:42,760
Speaker 5: et cetera. But hall counting was not really a big

853
00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:45,319
Speaker 5: thing there. When I was growing up. And so when

854
00:47:45,320 --> 00:47:49,600
Speaker 5: I moved here, I lived in town for six or

855
00:47:49,640 --> 00:47:53,759
Speaker 5: seven years, and then I moved. I moved out of

856
00:47:53,840 --> 00:47:57,480
Speaker 5: town and got a bigger home, more land and more

857
00:47:57,640 --> 00:48:01,120
Speaker 5: conducive to the way I grew up. And i'd been

858
00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:04,239
Speaker 5: out there several years, four or five, six years, and

859
00:48:04,320 --> 00:48:08,080
Speaker 5: my kids were small, and you know, it's Arkansas. You

860
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:11,120
Speaker 5: hear about hogs the whole time. You hear it's the

861
00:48:11,520 --> 00:48:15,719
Speaker 5: mascot for the university. So you hear about hogs, and

862
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:18,560
Speaker 5: you hear about people killing them. But I'd never actually

863
00:48:18,640 --> 00:48:22,600
Speaker 5: hunted hogs. I'd never never really been around them, and

864
00:48:22,640 --> 00:48:26,239
Speaker 5: so when my kids were small was my introduction. All

865
00:48:26,360 --> 00:48:30,160
Speaker 5: these pigs and hogs all over my yard, and so I,

866
00:48:30,320 --> 00:48:33,480
Speaker 5: you know, I shot three of them and then and

867
00:48:33,520 --> 00:48:35,960
Speaker 5: then they came back a few more times. And when

868
00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:40,359
Speaker 5: I started speaking to my neighbors, that was their Their

869
00:48:40,440 --> 00:48:42,560
Speaker 5: answer was that, you know, you've just got to get

870
00:48:42,600 --> 00:48:44,440
Speaker 5: a gun, and a lot of them. I had the

871
00:48:44,440 --> 00:48:47,279
Speaker 5: the you know, the ars and aks or whatever type

872
00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:49,760
Speaker 5: of assault style weapons they had, and they were using

873
00:48:49,800 --> 00:48:54,280
Speaker 5: them to eradicate hogs or get them off their their lands.

874
00:48:54,320 --> 00:48:57,640
Speaker 5: And timber industry is really big here in South Arkansas

875
00:48:58,160 --> 00:49:02,400
Speaker 5: large tracts of land as well as soy and you

876
00:49:02,440 --> 00:49:06,359
Speaker 5: know crops. You know, it'll destroy the crops, and it'll

877
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:08,799
Speaker 5: destroy the timberland, especially when they go in and don't

878
00:49:08,840 --> 00:49:11,160
Speaker 5: have a clear cut and they'll put seedlings out. So

879
00:49:11,200 --> 00:49:15,440
Speaker 5: there's real problems with it. And these are not large

880
00:49:16,040 --> 00:49:20,080
Speaker 5: corporate farming. It's a small farming, you know, this individuals

881
00:49:20,120 --> 00:49:23,040
Speaker 5: and family farms. And so their answer was to go

882
00:49:23,120 --> 00:49:26,400
Speaker 5: out and to just shoot these hogs. You know, I

883
00:49:26,440 --> 00:49:29,960
Speaker 5: know that in Texas they're looking at there's like a

884
00:49:29,960 --> 00:49:32,960
Speaker 5: strict nine or something like that. They're they're poisoning the

885
00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:36,200
Speaker 5: hogs and those type of methods. That was never no

886
00:49:36,239 --> 00:49:38,400
Speaker 5: one ever mentioned anything to me like that. It was

887
00:49:38,480 --> 00:49:40,960
Speaker 5: always just you know, you get a gun, you go out,

888
00:49:40,960 --> 00:49:42,839
Speaker 5: you shoot them. That's what you do. I don't want

889
00:49:42,840 --> 00:49:45,720
Speaker 5: to get sidetracked here, but I remember a specific argument

890
00:49:45,800 --> 00:49:47,919
Speaker 5: that people would say is that, you know, every day,

891
00:49:47,960 --> 00:49:50,759
Speaker 5: Willy's out there fighting hogs in his yard and there's

892
00:49:50,800 --> 00:49:52,960
Speaker 5: just backs of them running over his yard. And that's

893
00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:55,200
Speaker 5: not really the way it works. You know, they would

894
00:49:55,200 --> 00:49:57,279
Speaker 5: show up and I wouldn't see them for months, and

895
00:49:57,320 --> 00:49:58,840
Speaker 5: then they would come back, or it might be a

896
00:49:58,960 --> 00:50:01,279
Speaker 5: year or two and they come and then there was

897
00:50:01,320 --> 00:50:03,839
Speaker 5: a lot of environmental factors that could drive them up.

898
00:50:03,880 --> 00:50:06,000
Speaker 5: There could be it could be a rainy season that

899
00:50:06,040 --> 00:50:09,040
Speaker 5: would drive them out of the bottoms. You know, this

900
00:50:09,080 --> 00:50:11,479
Speaker 5: is kind of swamp land. I never heard of any

901
00:50:11,520 --> 00:50:13,080
Speaker 5: other solutions other than just.

902
00:50:13,040 --> 00:50:14,439
Speaker 1: Shooting Jason as Bell.

903
00:50:14,640 --> 00:50:16,839
Speaker 2: It seems like the undercurrent of what he's saying is

904
00:50:16,840 --> 00:50:20,000
Speaker 2: in relation to recent mass shootings that took place. You

905
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:25,160
Speaker 2: bring up, well, here is a use for a rifle,

906
00:50:25,360 --> 00:50:29,919
Speaker 2: that is, you know, to protect my children, and then

907
00:50:30,120 --> 00:50:32,719
Speaker 2: the tweet takes off. So the two of you are

908
00:50:32,719 --> 00:50:36,000
Speaker 2: having a ridiculously complicated conversation.

909
00:50:36,480 --> 00:50:37,800
Speaker 1: When the tweet takes off.

910
00:50:38,160 --> 00:50:41,800
Speaker 2: What uh what is the initial reaction? As you remember,

911
00:50:42,040 --> 00:50:43,440
Speaker 2: how do you choose who to talk to and who

912
00:50:43,760 --> 00:50:44,400
Speaker 2: to kind of be like?

913
00:50:45,040 --> 00:50:47,440
Speaker 5: I was very careful and what I said once I

914
00:50:47,520 --> 00:50:50,960
Speaker 5: realized the magnitude of it and I had I remember

915
00:50:51,120 --> 00:50:54,000
Speaker 5: it was on a Sunday that I tweeted that. By Tuesday,

916
00:50:54,040 --> 00:50:56,799
Speaker 5: I came into the office and I had calls from

917
00:50:56,840 --> 00:51:00,239
Speaker 5: Sky News and do seeing in all these major your

918
00:51:00,320 --> 00:51:05,120
Speaker 5: media publications that were listening some type of response from me,

919
00:51:05,200 --> 00:51:08,080
Speaker 5: and quite frankly, my major in college is communications, So

920
00:51:08,120 --> 00:51:11,440
Speaker 5: I did a little studying in journalism, and I've always

921
00:51:11,480 --> 00:51:15,080
Speaker 5: had such an admiration for what you guys do. But

922
00:51:15,239 --> 00:51:17,680
Speaker 5: I felt that there was there was an agenda from

923
00:51:17,680 --> 00:51:19,040
Speaker 5: a lot of them, and I didn't want to be

924
00:51:19,080 --> 00:51:21,279
Speaker 5: part of that. If I was going to speak to

925
00:51:21,320 --> 00:51:23,439
Speaker 5: the media, I wanted people that I felt would give

926
00:51:23,480 --> 00:51:26,080
Speaker 5: me a fair a fair shake and what I was

927
00:51:26,080 --> 00:51:29,000
Speaker 5: trying to say, because they didn't understand the situation. And

928
00:51:29,040 --> 00:51:32,440
Speaker 5: I wasn't interested in a corporate media. I like independent media.

929
00:51:32,600 --> 00:51:35,760
Speaker 5: I think that you guys come from an intellectually honest

930
00:51:35,800 --> 00:51:37,640
Speaker 5: place and you're just trying to get this story out.

931
00:51:38,000 --> 00:51:42,640
Speaker 5: So I was intentional in that. Uh, and I'll give

932
00:51:42,680 --> 00:51:44,520
Speaker 5: you I'll give you a little something to me that

933
00:51:44,560 --> 00:51:48,480
Speaker 5: I haven't told anybody else. I've referenced since a couple

934
00:51:48,520 --> 00:51:53,239
Speaker 5: of times in tweets subsequently. You know, I in those

935
00:51:53,239 --> 00:51:56,080
Speaker 5: first few days, I was I was really worried because

936
00:51:56,440 --> 00:51:59,759
Speaker 5: I was worried, I was worried about I was worried

937
00:51:59,760 --> 00:52:04,279
Speaker 5: about my family's safety because people were taking Google Earth

938
00:52:04,320 --> 00:52:06,719
Speaker 5: pictures of my home and saying, you can put a

939
00:52:06,719 --> 00:52:08,680
Speaker 5: fence right here, you can put a gate right here.

940
00:52:08,800 --> 00:52:11,319
Speaker 5: They were driving by my house and taking pictures of

941
00:52:11,360 --> 00:52:15,040
Speaker 5: my driveway. They called Health and Human Services and said

942
00:52:15,040 --> 00:52:17,600
Speaker 5: I should have my kids taken away from me. I mean,

943
00:52:17,680 --> 00:52:21,480
Speaker 5: just some of the craziest stuff. And I remember my

944
00:52:21,560 --> 00:52:25,160
Speaker 5: profile picture at the time on my Twitter feed was

945
00:52:25,200 --> 00:52:27,360
Speaker 5: me and my daughter. We had been on vacation in

946
00:52:27,360 --> 00:52:29,839
Speaker 5: San Francisco, my family had and it was just an

947
00:52:29,840 --> 00:52:33,239
Speaker 5: innocent picture. But somebody had sent me some links that

948
00:52:33,920 --> 00:52:37,400
Speaker 5: they were taking my daughter's picture in mine and selling

949
00:52:37,560 --> 00:52:40,480
Speaker 5: cups and t shirts on Etsy and all these places.

950
00:52:40,840 --> 00:52:41,480
Speaker 1: Oh my god.

951
00:52:42,120 --> 00:52:44,160
Speaker 5: I had to hire an attorney. I mean, I spent

952
00:52:44,200 --> 00:52:45,800
Speaker 5: ten thousand dollars in legal fees.

953
00:52:46,600 --> 00:52:49,719
Speaker 1: What you had to break that down for me?

954
00:52:50,200 --> 00:52:52,600
Speaker 5: Sure, I don't mind. So they had to tweet with

955
00:52:52,719 --> 00:52:54,480
Speaker 5: a picture of me and my daughter and they were

956
00:52:54,520 --> 00:52:57,080
Speaker 5: selling it on these platforms, and I said I had

957
00:52:57,120 --> 00:52:59,600
Speaker 5: to hire. I had two attorneys. I had one that

958
00:52:59,760 --> 00:53:02,160
Speaker 5: was cease and assist letters. This was all in the

959
00:53:02,160 --> 00:53:05,120
Speaker 5: first couple of weeks to quit selling the image or not.

960
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:09,200
Speaker 5: And then I went to a copyright trademark lawyer said, okay,

961
00:53:09,680 --> 00:53:12,880
Speaker 5: let's try to copyright this phrase thirty to fifty parrel

962
00:53:12,960 --> 00:53:15,360
Speaker 5: hogs so people can't use it. To make money off of.

963
00:53:16,440 --> 00:53:19,360
Speaker 5: And I learned pretty quick within a few weeks, Okay,

964
00:53:19,400 --> 00:53:21,640
Speaker 5: I can't control this. There's just no way. I can't

965
00:53:21,680 --> 00:53:24,759
Speaker 5: control this. I can't control any of this. And so

966
00:53:24,840 --> 00:53:27,480
Speaker 5: I remember, I remember in the first few days, Mad,

967
00:53:27,520 --> 00:53:29,239
Speaker 5: It's like, you ought to make some merchandise. I'm like,

968
00:53:29,280 --> 00:53:32,640
Speaker 5: I'm not making merchandise off this. And then after three weeks,

969
00:53:32,680 --> 00:53:35,239
Speaker 5: I'm like, okay, i spent ten grand in legal fees here,

970
00:53:35,280 --> 00:53:37,120
Speaker 5: I've got to recoup some of it. And what a

971
00:53:37,320 --> 00:53:40,360
Speaker 5: horrible idea that was because the T shirt or a bomb,

972
00:53:40,760 --> 00:53:43,160
Speaker 5: they didn't do anything. And so I've got boxes full

973
00:53:43,200 --> 00:53:46,560
Speaker 5: of T shirts no way, well yeah, that I never

974
00:53:46,640 --> 00:53:48,560
Speaker 5: sold and it was strictly to try to help pay

975
00:53:48,600 --> 00:53:50,719
Speaker 5: for my legal expenses. So I spent ten thousand in

976
00:53:50,800 --> 00:53:54,560
Speaker 5: legal foods. House was being surveilled by people coming up

977
00:53:54,600 --> 00:53:57,360
Speaker 5: and taking pictures of my driveway. I was getting called

978
00:53:57,400 --> 00:54:00,719
Speaker 5: in for child and danger. Man. I mean, the craziest

979
00:54:00,760 --> 00:54:04,480
Speaker 5: things those first few weeks. For they were a little

980
00:54:04,600 --> 00:54:05,480
Speaker 5: they were a little crazy.

981
00:54:05,920 --> 00:54:09,520
Speaker 2: They really were just see hearing the particulars of what

982
00:54:09,600 --> 00:54:11,880
Speaker 2: it's like to not even just like mentally have to

983
00:54:11,920 --> 00:54:15,920
Speaker 2: process that volume of attention, especially when most people who

984
00:54:15,960 --> 00:54:18,480
Speaker 2: are replying don't know what you're talking about, and then

985
00:54:18,520 --> 00:54:22,400
Speaker 2: to have to take those sorts of measures, that is wild.

986
00:54:22,680 --> 00:54:26,200
Speaker 2: So how did your family and just your community in

987
00:54:26,239 --> 00:54:30,720
Speaker 2: general react to you becoming feral hogs guy overnight? Because

988
00:54:30,760 --> 00:54:33,440
Speaker 2: they certainly knew about the hogs.

989
00:54:33,440 --> 00:54:36,439
Speaker 5: Well locally, everybody here thought it was hilarious. They thought

990
00:54:36,480 --> 00:54:40,160
Speaker 5: the whole thing was just ludicrous and hilarious because you know,

991
00:54:40,239 --> 00:54:42,960
Speaker 5: this is normal way alive for people here. You know

992
00:54:43,000 --> 00:54:45,520
Speaker 5: that I wasn't the only person dealing with hogs because

993
00:54:45,600 --> 00:54:48,440
Speaker 5: I wasn't not even an avid outdoorsement and people are

994
00:54:48,480 --> 00:54:51,279
Speaker 5: like you, you're the Faral Hall guy. You don't even

995
00:54:51,320 --> 00:54:55,280
Speaker 5: really hunt. Everybody else are these hunters that definitely people

996
00:54:55,320 --> 00:54:59,040
Speaker 5: more equipped to have this debate. You know, my I

997
00:54:59,040 --> 00:55:01,520
Speaker 5: remember my wife, It's like, I'm not talking to anybody.

998
00:55:01,600 --> 00:55:04,600
Speaker 5: This is ridiculous. I'm not speaking to anybody about this.

999
00:55:05,200 --> 00:55:10,440
Speaker 5: She thought the whole thing was crazy. My kids they

1000
00:55:10,960 --> 00:55:14,440
Speaker 5: got I think they probably got a little popularity because

1001
00:55:14,480 --> 00:55:16,479
Speaker 5: their dad was the Faral Hall guy, so they thought

1002
00:55:16,480 --> 00:55:19,520
Speaker 5: it was hilarious, you know, but it was stressful. I mean,

1003
00:55:19,800 --> 00:55:21,279
Speaker 5: the truth of it is, if I would have been

1004
00:55:21,920 --> 00:55:24,640
Speaker 5: twenty years younger it would have. You know, I don't

1005
00:55:24,640 --> 00:55:30,000
Speaker 5: know how anyone I remember having that conversation with my attorney.

1006
00:55:30,040 --> 00:55:32,640
Speaker 5: I don't know how anyone fifteen to thirty years of

1007
00:55:32,719 --> 00:55:36,400
Speaker 5: age could deal with that type of attention. You know,

1008
00:55:36,480 --> 00:55:39,280
Speaker 5: you see people having meltdowns that are these public figures.

1009
00:55:39,760 --> 00:55:42,200
Speaker 5: My goodness, no wonder. I mean, this is just a

1010
00:55:42,360 --> 00:55:45,280
Speaker 5: very small thing that I dealt with in the age

1011
00:55:45,320 --> 00:55:49,520
Speaker 5: I was. It was hard, especially the first few weeks

1012
00:55:49,560 --> 00:55:52,040
Speaker 5: of it. So, yeah, that was difficult. As far as

1013
00:55:52,320 --> 00:55:55,719
Speaker 5: the positive, I think that there was at the root

1014
00:55:55,760 --> 00:55:59,279
Speaker 5: of it is a legitimate problem, and I think the

1015
00:55:59,400 --> 00:56:03,359
Speaker 5: monies that been allocated for that that there's legitimacy to it.

1016
00:56:03,400 --> 00:56:06,719
Speaker 5: And I remember after I put out my statement, like

1017
00:56:06,760 --> 00:56:10,640
Speaker 5: a week into it, the amount of it's like people

1018
00:56:10,680 --> 00:56:15,400
Speaker 5: switched one eighty. I remember Jason was interacting with like

1019
00:56:15,480 --> 00:56:17,600
Speaker 5: Kevin Bacon or something on a tweet and they were

1020
00:56:17,680 --> 00:56:20,719
Speaker 5: laughing about it, and I thought, you know, this is

1021
00:56:20,840 --> 00:56:25,560
Speaker 5: kind of crazy. Yea even has an opinion on something

1022
00:56:25,640 --> 00:56:29,840
Speaker 5: like this, right, and I put it. But when I

1023
00:56:29,840 --> 00:56:33,320
Speaker 5: put out that statement, it's like public sentiment changed, and

1024
00:56:33,640 --> 00:56:37,480
Speaker 5: quite frankly, Jason was he could have been a lot

1025
00:56:38,680 --> 00:56:40,960
Speaker 5: har sure, and a lot. He was kind to me.

1026
00:56:41,520 --> 00:56:43,960
Speaker 5: He was just you know, I've never met him, I've

1027
00:56:43,960 --> 00:56:48,640
Speaker 5: never spoke to him personally. We have communicated over Twitter,

1028
00:56:48,960 --> 00:56:51,719
Speaker 5: but he was genuinely kind to me. He could have

1029
00:56:51,760 --> 00:56:54,239
Speaker 5: been a lot different type of person, and I think

1030
00:56:54,280 --> 00:56:57,280
Speaker 5: that speaks to who he is and what he believes

1031
00:56:57,280 --> 00:57:00,480
Speaker 5: in and what he advocates for. I'm still just as

1032
00:57:00,520 --> 00:57:02,319
Speaker 5: big a fan of his as I ever was.

1033
00:57:02,680 --> 00:57:04,400
Speaker 1: You were you a fan of his beforehand?

1034
00:57:04,840 --> 00:57:07,160
Speaker 5: Oh? A massive fan, But you know, it was weird.

1035
00:57:07,600 --> 00:57:10,080
Speaker 5: I kind of backed into his music. He had been

1036
00:57:10,120 --> 00:57:12,600
Speaker 5: around for a while. I didn't really follow him when

1037
00:57:12,600 --> 00:57:15,719
Speaker 5: he was Drive by Truckers. Then he put out a

1038
00:57:15,719 --> 00:57:21,200
Speaker 5: couple of albums and Southeastern had already kind of blown

1039
00:57:21,320 --> 00:57:23,800
Speaker 5: up and he was coming out with something more than

1040
00:57:24,560 --> 00:57:26,959
Speaker 5: something more than pre is at the album, Yeah, that's

1041
00:57:27,000 --> 00:57:30,640
Speaker 5: the one that I really started paying attention. And then

1042
00:57:30,680 --> 00:57:33,960
Speaker 5: I went back and discovered Southeastern and I saw him

1043
00:57:33,960 --> 00:57:38,200
Speaker 5: on that tour last ball with my daughter, which was

1044
00:57:38,200 --> 00:57:41,840
Speaker 5: a good Yeah. I took her, Yeah, we got I

1045
00:57:41,880 --> 00:57:44,280
Speaker 5: got front row seeds. We went down to Streetport and

1046
00:57:44,320 --> 00:57:46,440
Speaker 5: saw him at the Auditorium down there and it was

1047
00:57:46,480 --> 00:57:47,600
Speaker 5: a fantastic show.

1048
00:57:47,760 --> 00:57:49,480
Speaker 1: And did he know you were there.

1049
00:57:49,880 --> 00:57:53,080
Speaker 5: Yeah, he tweeted something about it. He tweeted something about it. Yeah,

1050
00:57:53,200 --> 00:57:55,440
Speaker 5: And like I said, he's been nothing but kind of

1051
00:57:55,840 --> 00:57:59,320
Speaker 5: And those first few days, once he realized that I

1052
00:57:59,480 --> 00:58:03,600
Speaker 5: was a sincere person and not some troll, he was,

1053
00:58:03,880 --> 00:58:06,640
Speaker 5: you know, he was very nice to me and and

1054
00:58:06,720 --> 00:58:09,320
Speaker 5: I'm I'm still a huge Jason is many.

1055
00:58:09,760 --> 00:58:14,520
Speaker 2: My last question now is has your relationship changed to

1056
00:58:14,640 --> 00:58:17,800
Speaker 2: the Internet since this incident.

1057
00:58:18,760 --> 00:58:22,160
Speaker 5: I'm very careful to what I say. If I'm advocating

1058
00:58:22,160 --> 00:58:25,080
Speaker 5: for something specifically, I'm you know that there are a

1059
00:58:25,080 --> 00:58:28,120
Speaker 5: few causes that I openly advocate for and I speak to.

1060
00:58:28,640 --> 00:58:32,240
Speaker 5: But I like listening, you know. I spend a lot

1061
00:58:32,280 --> 00:58:35,560
Speaker 5: of time on Twitter, you know, that's where I get

1062
00:58:35,560 --> 00:58:37,000
Speaker 5: a lot of my news from. I've listened to a

1063
00:58:37,040 --> 00:58:39,680
Speaker 5: lot of podcasts. I don't think there's any issue that

1064
00:58:40,000 --> 00:58:43,720
Speaker 5: it's any that's confronting the American people right now that

1065
00:58:43,800 --> 00:58:47,120
Speaker 5: if we would just just step back to the half

1066
00:58:47,200 --> 00:58:49,640
Speaker 5: step and listen to each other. I really don't think

1067
00:58:49,640 --> 00:58:52,320
Speaker 5: we're that far apart on our things. I think it's

1068
00:58:52,360 --> 00:58:55,040
Speaker 5: in the nuances of it, and it requires some some

1069
00:58:55,600 --> 00:59:00,320
Speaker 5: long form conversations, some true discussion of the issues I

1070
00:59:00,360 --> 00:59:04,480
Speaker 5: still believe that what is it's the wild West out there,

1071
00:59:04,520 --> 00:59:09,360
Speaker 5: But there's people there that will have honest, intellectual conversations

1072
00:59:09,360 --> 00:59:12,800
Speaker 5: with you, and I've made some friends on there. You know.

1073
00:59:12,880 --> 00:59:15,840
Speaker 5: I'm just I'm probably more careful than what I say

1074
00:59:16,120 --> 00:59:17,720
Speaker 5: and just try to listen a little bit more. And

1075
00:59:17,760 --> 00:59:20,840
Speaker 5: I think twice about it. I remember somebody had quoted,

1076
00:59:21,680 --> 00:59:23,760
Speaker 5: if you're going to take a real position on something,

1077
00:59:23,800 --> 00:59:26,800
Speaker 5: you better believe in it because you never know, you

1078
00:59:26,880 --> 00:59:30,640
Speaker 5: never know how it may blow up. And it's truly

1079
00:59:30,680 --> 00:59:33,200
Speaker 5: a public forum out there. So I don't know if

1080
00:59:33,200 --> 00:59:34,720
Speaker 5: that answers the question, but.

1081
00:59:35,400 --> 00:59:36,480
Speaker 1: It absolutely does.

1082
00:59:36,680 --> 00:59:40,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a story about the different ways that

1083
00:59:40,600 --> 00:59:41,640
Speaker 2: Americans view guns.

1084
00:59:41,680 --> 00:59:43,000
Speaker 1: It's a story about.

1085
00:59:43,040 --> 00:59:49,360
Speaker 2: Rural and urban online audiences trying to understand the same interaction.

1086
00:59:49,920 --> 00:59:53,160
Speaker 2: And to me, it's ultimately like thirty to fifty is

1087
00:59:53,200 --> 00:59:56,960
Speaker 2: a very funny amount of specific for a range of hogs.

1088
00:59:57,800 --> 01:00:00,240
Speaker 2: Where does thirty for fifty come from? Uh?

1089
01:00:00,600 --> 01:00:03,840
Speaker 5: You know the uh I've spoken about that a couple

1090
01:00:03,880 --> 01:00:07,440
Speaker 5: of times. The numbers were literally just pulled out of

1091
01:00:07,440 --> 01:00:09,760
Speaker 5: the air. You know, there was a lot of hogs.

1092
01:00:10,000 --> 01:00:13,280
Speaker 5: I don't know it was, you know, I'd said that

1093
01:00:13,320 --> 01:00:15,480
Speaker 5: to DJ it could have been twenty to twenty five.

1094
01:00:15,640 --> 01:00:17,280
Speaker 5: You know, it was just a number. It was a

1095
01:00:17,360 --> 01:00:20,000
Speaker 5: large number of hauls. I was trying to convey. It

1096
01:00:20,040 --> 01:00:22,040
Speaker 5: was a large number of hogs. They were in my yard.

1097
01:00:22,080 --> 01:00:23,600
Speaker 5: I had to get him out of their fast. There

1098
01:00:23,680 --> 01:00:25,840
Speaker 5: was literally no more thought put into it than that

1099
01:00:26,600 --> 01:00:28,680
Speaker 5: I've learned since that I didn't know it then that

1100
01:00:28,800 --> 01:00:31,760
Speaker 5: you know, a large pack of hogs is called a sounder,

1101
01:00:31,920 --> 01:00:35,720
Speaker 5: and a sounder can be thirty hogs. Is a large sounder,

1102
01:00:35,800 --> 01:00:38,480
Speaker 5: a large group of hogs. And you know when when

1103
01:00:38,480 --> 01:00:40,920
Speaker 5: your kids are out in your yard playing and a

1104
01:00:40,960 --> 01:00:42,960
Speaker 5: bunch of them out is out there, you don't know

1105
01:00:42,960 --> 01:00:45,440
Speaker 5: how many. You just know your whole car yards covered

1106
01:00:45,480 --> 01:00:47,240
Speaker 5: with fogs, and so it's just a bunch, you know,

1107
01:00:47,280 --> 01:00:48,720
Speaker 5: it's just a lot. I could have said there was

1108
01:00:48,720 --> 01:00:49,560
Speaker 5: a lot of hogs.

1109
01:00:51,040 --> 01:00:53,920
Speaker 2: Well, I feel like if you had just said a

1110
01:00:53,920 --> 01:00:57,000
Speaker 2: lot of hogs, we would not be sitting here. And

1111
01:00:57,600 --> 01:00:59,640
Speaker 2: it was a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much.

1112
01:00:59,680 --> 01:01:02,720
Speaker 2: WILLI thank you so much to Willy for his time

1113
01:01:02,920 --> 01:01:05,240
Speaker 2: and just for being such a kind person and a

1114
01:01:05,280 --> 01:01:09,560
Speaker 2: good sport about faral hogs over the years. He was

1115
01:01:09,640 --> 01:01:12,640
Speaker 2: so so kind to me and I really really appreciate it.

1116
01:01:12,840 --> 01:01:15,400
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, Willy, you can still catch.

1117
01:01:15,160 --> 01:01:16,840
Speaker 1: Him on Twitter today.

1118
01:01:17,360 --> 01:01:19,600
Speaker 2: And when we come back, I try to slide that

1119
01:01:19,800 --> 01:01:37,680
Speaker 2: final piece of the piggy puzzle into place. Welcome back

1120
01:01:37,680 --> 01:01:39,919
Speaker 2: to sixteenth minute. When I was a kid, my mom

1121
01:01:39,920 --> 01:01:42,200
Speaker 2: would not let me even look at a Halo game

1122
01:01:42,480 --> 01:01:46,360
Speaker 2: and would constantly repeat that guns are for squirting, not hurting.

1123
01:01:46,480 --> 01:01:49,680
Speaker 2: And today we are talking about the legend of thirty

1124
01:01:49,720 --> 01:01:52,160
Speaker 2: to fifty feral hogs that run into my yard within

1125
01:01:52,200 --> 01:01:54,640
Speaker 2: three to five minutes while my small kids play. I

1126
01:01:54,680 --> 01:01:56,560
Speaker 2: put a pin in it at the top of the episode.

1127
01:01:56,680 --> 01:01:59,040
Speaker 2: But I want to get back into the reason that

1128
01:01:59,120 --> 01:02:02,320
Speaker 2: this conversation had happened in the first place, when two

1129
01:02:02,400 --> 01:02:05,120
Speaker 2: mass shootings happened in the space of the same day

1130
01:02:05,240 --> 01:02:08,080
Speaker 2: in the US. It's something I haven't seen discussed as

1131
01:02:08,200 --> 01:02:10,880
Speaker 2: much in the scope of this story, that this moment

1132
01:02:10,960 --> 01:02:14,200
Speaker 2: of the Internet coming together to make hog jokes was

1133
01:02:14,240 --> 01:02:16,520
Speaker 2: prompted by something really awful.

1134
01:02:16,680 --> 01:02:17,640
Speaker 1: So before we get to our.

1135
01:02:17,640 --> 01:02:21,439
Speaker 2: Last interview today, here's the thing. I don't have an

1136
01:02:21,480 --> 01:02:25,400
Speaker 2: expert opinion on gun control. I only have my opinion,

1137
01:02:25,520 --> 01:02:27,600
Speaker 2: and it's that I hate guns, and I struggle to

1138
01:02:27,640 --> 01:02:30,760
Speaker 2: hear out defenses of them, even in cases where that

1139
01:02:30,840 --> 01:02:34,480
Speaker 2: defense makes some sense. And that opinion is built on

1140
01:02:34,600 --> 01:02:37,440
Speaker 2: the way anyone built opinions. It's informed by how I

1141
01:02:37,480 --> 01:02:40,080
Speaker 2: grew up, where I live now, and what my personal

1142
01:02:40,160 --> 01:02:42,840
Speaker 2: experiences are. I grew up in a small city and

1143
01:02:42,960 --> 01:02:45,360
Speaker 2: not really around gun owners. I live in a city

1144
01:02:45,400 --> 01:02:47,840
Speaker 2: now and don't know many gun owners now, and my

1145
01:02:47,880 --> 01:02:51,160
Speaker 2: personal experience with a school shooting where there were thankfully

1146
01:02:51,240 --> 01:02:54,760
Speaker 2: no fatalities. Any anxiety that I have for a family

1147
01:02:54,840 --> 01:02:59,040
Speaker 2: that mainly consists of teachers who have to conduct these terrifying,

1148
01:02:59,400 --> 01:03:03,000
Speaker 2: tedious and necessary drills with their students more or less

1149
01:03:03,040 --> 01:03:05,880
Speaker 2: solidifies that opinion. I was talking about this with my

1150
01:03:05,880 --> 01:03:07,720
Speaker 2: brother last night. He is a friend who grew up

1151
01:03:07,720 --> 01:03:11,040
Speaker 2: in a rural area, is queer, and felt necessary to

1152
01:03:11,080 --> 01:03:14,440
Speaker 2: have a gun because outside of things like the hogs.

1153
01:03:14,560 --> 01:03:17,320
Speaker 2: Their perspective is that the people who pose an active

1154
01:03:17,360 --> 01:03:20,760
Speaker 2: threat to them in their community certainly have guns, and

1155
01:03:20,800 --> 01:03:23,360
Speaker 2: they want to be able to defend themselves in their

1156
01:03:23,400 --> 01:03:27,400
Speaker 2: community should anything happen. And I know that hobbyists are

1157
01:03:27,440 --> 01:03:29,960
Speaker 2: an argument for guns, that argument was kind of a

1158
01:03:30,000 --> 01:03:31,600
Speaker 2: non starter for us as well.

1159
01:03:31,720 --> 01:03:33,160
Speaker 1: A hobby is totally.

1160
01:03:32,760 --> 01:03:35,520
Speaker 2: Fine, but leave your gun at the range, but a

1161
01:03:35,560 --> 01:03:37,440
Speaker 2: horse girl leaves her horse.

1162
01:03:37,200 --> 01:03:37,840
Speaker 1: In the stable.

1163
01:03:37,920 --> 01:03:40,360
Speaker 2: A hobbyist shouldn't need a gun in their house anymore

1164
01:03:40,360 --> 01:03:42,960
Speaker 2: than a horse girl needs a horse in her bathroom.

1165
01:03:43,080 --> 01:03:45,480
Speaker 2: You don't want the wrong person with a loaded gun

1166
01:03:45,840 --> 01:03:49,640
Speaker 2: or a temperamental horse within arm's reach. That's my opinion,

1167
01:03:49,800 --> 01:03:52,560
Speaker 2: and I'll admit it lacks nuance. I've never had a

1168
01:03:52,600 --> 01:03:55,160
Speaker 2: reason to own a gun, and outside of being just

1169
01:03:55,320 --> 01:03:58,720
Speaker 2: really fucking juice after seeing Atomic Blonde.

1170
01:03:58,400 --> 01:03:59,800
Speaker 1: I hope I never have reason too.

1171
01:04:00,120 --> 01:04:02,840
Speaker 2: It's absurdly frustrating to me how easy it is to

1172
01:04:02,920 --> 01:04:06,240
Speaker 2: acquire an ar weapon in most places in the United States,

1173
01:04:06,320 --> 01:04:09,240
Speaker 2: and the consequences are what we saw in Dayton and

1174
01:04:09,360 --> 01:04:12,880
Speaker 2: San Antonio and many times since. And so, while this

1175
01:04:13,000 --> 01:04:16,080
Speaker 2: is pretty immovably how I feel, talking to today's guests

1176
01:04:16,160 --> 01:04:18,320
Speaker 2: pulled me out of the bubble of my own experience

1177
01:04:18,360 --> 01:04:21,600
Speaker 2: a little bit. With shootings like these, the gun isn't

1178
01:04:21,640 --> 01:04:24,480
Speaker 2: the only problem. There's a massive need to make some

1179
01:04:24,560 --> 01:04:27,600
Speaker 2: movement on how people are radicalized to do things like this,

1180
01:04:27,800 --> 01:04:30,440
Speaker 2: But I don't see how making it way more difficult

1181
01:04:30,440 --> 01:04:33,560
Speaker 2: for guns to fall into these hands isn't a place

1182
01:04:33,640 --> 01:04:34,120
Speaker 2: to start.

1183
01:04:34,240 --> 01:04:34,600
Speaker 1: A lot of.

1184
01:04:34,680 --> 01:04:37,720
Speaker 2: Arguments I've heard for guns rarely acknowledge or account for

1185
01:04:37,720 --> 01:04:39,919
Speaker 2: the people who are most likely to be harmed by them,

1186
01:04:40,000 --> 01:04:44,760
Speaker 2: disproportionately people of color, specifically unarmed black Americans. And while

1187
01:04:44,800 --> 01:04:47,240
Speaker 2: all of this is true, do I have an answer

1188
01:04:47,440 --> 01:04:51,320
Speaker 2: of how to defend one's self from the colonizer's hogs?

1189
01:04:51,480 --> 01:04:52,640
Speaker 1: No, I don't.

1190
01:04:53,000 --> 01:04:55,320
Speaker 2: I wanted to talk to someone who felt more like

1191
01:04:55,400 --> 01:04:58,960
Speaker 2: Willie McNabb than about me on gun ownership because it's

1192
01:04:58,960 --> 01:05:02,080
Speaker 2: a perspective that I I genuinely struggle with, especially with

1193
01:05:02,160 --> 01:05:04,880
Speaker 2: people who have politics that are very similar to mine.

1194
01:05:04,920 --> 01:05:08,000
Speaker 2: And the perfect person to speak to was Carl Cassarta,

1195
01:05:08,160 --> 01:05:11,760
Speaker 2: whose YouTube channel in Range TV is described as the

1196
01:05:11,840 --> 01:05:15,840
Speaker 2: channel where firearms, culture, history, and human rights meet. He's

1197
01:05:15,840 --> 01:05:18,360
Speaker 2: a friend of the producers of this show, Sophie and Robert,

1198
01:05:18,440 --> 01:05:20,120
Speaker 2: and he was so kind to talk to me for

1199
01:05:20,160 --> 01:05:20,800
Speaker 2: this episode.

1200
01:05:20,840 --> 01:05:21,600
Speaker 1: Here's our talk.

1201
01:05:21,920 --> 01:05:24,400
Speaker 10: So, Hi, I'm Carl Casarta, and I am the creator

1202
01:05:24,480 --> 01:05:28,160
Speaker 10: and producer of in range TV, which is a ostensibly

1203
01:05:28,160 --> 01:05:31,680
Speaker 10: of firearms content creation YouTube channel, but really it's extended

1204
01:05:31,680 --> 01:05:34,320
Speaker 10: beyond that. It's much more about We do a lot

1205
01:05:34,360 --> 01:05:35,920
Speaker 10: to do with firearms, but I also do a lot

1206
01:05:35,960 --> 01:05:41,120
Speaker 10: of content about history, civil rights, essentially the intersectionality of

1207
01:05:41,720 --> 01:05:44,560
Speaker 10: how firearms have really shaped society.

1208
01:05:45,120 --> 01:05:45,840
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so.

1209
01:05:45,840 --> 01:05:49,000
Speaker 2: Much for being here to talk about the pressing issue

1210
01:05:49,280 --> 01:05:52,920
Speaker 2: of thirty to fifty faral hogs five years ago. So

1211
01:05:53,240 --> 01:05:55,760
Speaker 2: Jason DISWELLI yes, says, if you're on here arguing the

1212
01:05:55,800 --> 01:05:58,920
Speaker 2: definition of assault weapon today, you are part of the problem.

1213
01:05:59,320 --> 01:06:01,360
Speaker 2: You know it in aalt weapon is and you know

1214
01:06:01,440 --> 01:06:03,640
Speaker 2: you don't need one. What's your take on that?

1215
01:06:03,720 --> 01:06:06,800
Speaker 10: Well, the thing about that term assault weapon is actually

1216
01:06:07,240 --> 01:06:12,240
Speaker 10: a politically charged term or essentially like legislative attempts to

1217
01:06:12,360 --> 01:06:15,560
Speaker 10: restrict firearms, right, it's whether you agree or disagree that

1218
01:06:15,680 --> 01:06:19,200
Speaker 10: term assault weapon is not actually something that's ever used

1219
01:06:19,240 --> 01:06:22,680
Speaker 10: in any firearms realities, Like there is the term assault rifle.

1220
01:06:23,080 --> 01:06:25,960
Speaker 10: And oddly, of course, as all things seemed too sadly

1221
01:06:26,160 --> 01:06:28,480
Speaker 10: goes all the way back to Hitler when he called

1222
01:06:28,520 --> 01:06:30,520
Speaker 10: when he coined the gum the storm gaverra, which was

1223
01:06:30,560 --> 01:06:33,280
Speaker 10: the storm rifle, which is where assault rifle comes from.

1224
01:06:33,600 --> 01:06:36,440
Speaker 10: So what that did is that codified a type of

1225
01:06:36,480 --> 01:06:39,760
Speaker 10: firearm which was an intermediate cartridge, meaning something that wasn't

1226
01:06:39,760 --> 01:06:43,680
Speaker 10: a full size cartridge, but not a pistol cartridge, something

1227
01:06:43,720 --> 01:06:46,480
Speaker 10: between the two that had a box fed magazine, meaning

1228
01:06:46,520 --> 01:06:49,960
Speaker 10: a detachable magazine usually of thirty round capacity that could

1229
01:06:50,000 --> 01:06:54,640
Speaker 10: fire single shot or fully automatic. And that is actual, technically,

1230
01:06:54,920 --> 01:06:59,080
Speaker 10: the firearms definition of what an assault rifle is. But

1231
01:06:59,200 --> 01:07:02,600
Speaker 10: in the nineties and when we saw a gun control

1232
01:07:02,640 --> 01:07:05,880
Speaker 10: on the rise, this term assault weapon was used by

1233
01:07:05,880 --> 01:07:09,400
Speaker 10: politicians and it was vague and they never could really

1234
01:07:09,440 --> 01:07:12,320
Speaker 10: define it because they were trying to say things like

1235
01:07:12,440 --> 01:07:14,840
Speaker 10: the shoulder thing that goes up. I'm not kidding that

1236
01:07:14,960 --> 01:07:17,360
Speaker 10: one politician said that a shroud.

1237
01:07:17,680 --> 01:07:17,800
Speaker 5: Like.

1238
01:07:17,840 --> 01:07:19,840
Speaker 10: They had all these ideas of what they were just

1239
01:07:19,880 --> 01:07:24,160
Speaker 10: trying to like codify this phrase assault weapon, but there

1240
01:07:24,320 --> 01:07:29,680
Speaker 10: is no such actual thing technically, and so so it's

1241
01:07:29,680 --> 01:07:30,880
Speaker 10: a political term.

1242
01:07:30,680 --> 01:07:33,840
Speaker 2: Actually, because I know the cultural moment that Jason as

1243
01:07:33,880 --> 01:07:36,160
Speaker 2: Bell's responding to here, but I can't tell if he

1244
01:07:36,200 --> 01:07:39,720
Speaker 2: is responding to a specific person making a semantic argument

1245
01:07:40,160 --> 01:07:40,520
Speaker 2: or what.

1246
01:07:40,880 --> 01:07:42,760
Speaker 10: First of all, I want, I want I hope the audience,

1247
01:07:43,080 --> 01:07:44,880
Speaker 10: at least some of the audience is familiar with my

1248
01:07:44,960 --> 01:07:47,040
Speaker 10: work and they'll know that I'm not making light of

1249
01:07:47,040 --> 01:07:49,880
Speaker 10: any of these horrific events. This is a terrible thing,

1250
01:07:50,080 --> 01:07:53,080
Speaker 10: but we're not directly talking about it. We're talking about

1251
01:07:53,080 --> 01:07:56,800
Speaker 10: this phrase assault weapon, and it came about as far

1252
01:07:56,840 --> 01:07:59,520
Speaker 10: as I know, the real phraseology came about in the

1253
01:07:59,560 --> 01:08:03,280
Speaker 10: early nineties, which is what ultimately turned into the nineteen

1254
01:08:03,360 --> 01:08:07,320
Speaker 10: ninety for Assault Weapons Bill, which was a restriction on

1255
01:08:07,400 --> 01:08:11,200
Speaker 10: the ownership of a large swath of firearms that were

1256
01:08:11,200 --> 01:08:14,760
Speaker 10: defined initially by name, but then they realized they couldn't

1257
01:08:14,800 --> 01:08:17,120
Speaker 10: define them by name because there was too many variants

1258
01:08:17,120 --> 01:08:19,920
Speaker 10: in like manufacturers, So then they tried to define them

1259
01:08:19,920 --> 01:08:24,040
Speaker 10: by features like a pistol grip, or a shroud, or

1260
01:08:25,040 --> 01:08:27,880
Speaker 10: a flash hier or a bayonet lug. I'm not kidding.

1261
01:08:27,920 --> 01:08:31,679
Speaker 10: One of the defining characteristics of an assault weapon legally speaking,

1262
01:08:31,840 --> 01:08:34,960
Speaker 10: has frequently been a bayonet lug. And so this is

1263
01:08:34,960 --> 01:08:37,880
Speaker 10: where it starts to get a little absurd, because we

1264
01:08:38,400 --> 01:08:41,160
Speaker 10: don't hear about a lot of drive by bayonettings, right like,

1265
01:08:41,400 --> 01:08:47,800
Speaker 10: so it became almost esthetic and not really functionally in practice.

1266
01:08:47,880 --> 01:08:50,640
Speaker 10: And that's where the challenge is because and this is

1267
01:08:50,640 --> 01:08:53,599
Speaker 10: where you hear like the trope from gun people like, well,

1268
01:08:53,640 --> 01:08:56,040
Speaker 10: an assault weapon is a weapon, is a weapon. It's

1269
01:08:56,040 --> 01:08:58,800
Speaker 10: how you use it to determine difference assault weapon And

1270
01:08:58,840 --> 01:09:03,120
Speaker 10: you know that's not totally incorrect, but at the same time,

1271
01:09:03,160 --> 01:09:06,280
Speaker 10: when someone says a soult weapon because of the politics

1272
01:09:06,320 --> 01:09:08,680
Speaker 10: behind it, you know what they mean, right. It's kind

1273
01:09:08,720 --> 01:09:11,280
Speaker 10: of like, you know, you can't define porn, but you

1274
01:09:11,320 --> 01:09:13,080
Speaker 10: know when you see it kind of thing. That's what

1275
01:09:13,120 --> 01:09:15,360
Speaker 10: they were trying to do with the law, and they

1276
01:09:15,400 --> 01:09:19,200
Speaker 10: could never really pull it off because it's really it's

1277
01:09:19,680 --> 01:09:21,599
Speaker 10: kind of a morpheus and hard to hold on.

1278
01:09:21,560 --> 01:09:24,880
Speaker 9: To sounds so much like they're talking about two very

1279
01:09:24,920 --> 01:09:25,759
Speaker 9: different things?

1280
01:09:26,080 --> 01:09:28,800
Speaker 2: Are they talking about two very different things? Where is

1281
01:09:28,840 --> 01:09:33,920
Speaker 2: the disconnect happening here outside of this being a rural

1282
01:09:33,920 --> 01:09:36,280
Speaker 2: issue that a lot of city people would not be

1283
01:09:36,360 --> 01:09:37,200
Speaker 2: aware exists.

1284
01:09:37,840 --> 01:09:43,120
Speaker 10: Wherever anyone's falls on the topic of firearms and firearms

1285
01:09:43,160 --> 01:09:45,639
Speaker 10: ownership in this country, This is a really good moment

1286
01:09:46,120 --> 01:09:50,160
Speaker 10: to kind of like really distinctively show the very different

1287
01:09:50,240 --> 01:09:53,680
Speaker 10: worldview that are existing in this space. Right, So I

1288
01:09:53,800 --> 01:09:58,120
Speaker 10: know what his original post mean, right, So, like he's

1289
01:09:58,200 --> 01:10:00,400
Speaker 10: using a political term of assault weapon, but I also

1290
01:10:00,479 --> 01:10:02,680
Speaker 10: understand the context of why this person is saying this.

1291
01:10:03,000 --> 01:10:06,639
Speaker 10: They're talking about a weapon that is probably thirty round

1292
01:10:06,680 --> 01:10:10,200
Speaker 10: capacity semi automatic, can fire many rounds, you know quickly,

1293
01:10:10,760 --> 01:10:12,920
Speaker 10: or to be honest with you, a lot of people

1294
01:10:12,920 --> 01:10:15,000
Speaker 10: that are not familiar with firearms. Just assume these things

1295
01:10:15,040 --> 01:10:18,400
Speaker 10: are fully automatic machine guns and they're not. Like there's

1296
01:10:18,479 --> 01:10:23,200
Speaker 10: such a broken conversation being had that neither side can

1297
01:10:23,240 --> 01:10:26,160
Speaker 10: really speak the same language. And part of that is

1298
01:10:26,160 --> 01:10:28,840
Speaker 10: one side's defensive and doesn't want to lose the thing

1299
01:10:28,840 --> 01:10:31,719
Speaker 10: that's important to them. In some ways may be important

1300
01:10:31,760 --> 01:10:35,519
Speaker 10: only psychologically, and in some ways may be important actually

1301
01:10:35,600 --> 01:10:38,160
Speaker 10: in reality when you live in a rural life, because

1302
01:10:38,200 --> 01:10:40,840
Speaker 10: I do live a rural existence for most of my existence.

1303
01:10:41,240 --> 01:10:44,400
Speaker 10: The truth is in those spaces like where I'm at,

1304
01:10:45,200 --> 01:10:48,080
Speaker 10: whether or not you like police or not calling them,

1305
01:10:48,240 --> 01:10:50,240
Speaker 10: is the chances are you're going to have a thirty

1306
01:10:50,280 --> 01:10:53,720
Speaker 10: minute to one hour response time. And so that's just

1307
01:10:53,800 --> 01:10:56,519
Speaker 10: how it works. And so there is a reality there

1308
01:10:56,600 --> 01:11:00,360
Speaker 10: that in a world filled with items like this, there

1309
01:11:00,400 --> 01:11:02,240
Speaker 10: is a chance that that item could very well be

1310
01:11:02,280 --> 01:11:04,599
Speaker 10: the thing that saves your life, like maybe not against

1311
01:11:04,600 --> 01:11:07,120
Speaker 10: fifty hogs, but it could be something else like I

1312
01:11:07,160 --> 01:11:11,439
Speaker 10: means or even five or whatever. But the thing is

1313
01:11:11,479 --> 01:11:14,800
Speaker 10: that's interesting about this is that, let's be realistic. When

1314
01:11:14,800 --> 01:11:17,000
Speaker 10: people say assault weapon, they almost always now think of

1315
01:11:17,040 --> 01:11:20,760
Speaker 10: an AR fifteen, right, And so here's the thing that's

1316
01:11:20,800 --> 01:11:23,559
Speaker 10: so interesting about this. Yes, an AR fifteen does hold

1317
01:11:23,560 --> 01:11:26,280
Speaker 10: thirty rounds or even sixty rounds. It can fire very quickly,

1318
01:11:26,720 --> 01:11:28,479
Speaker 10: but you know what else it can do. It's actually

1319
01:11:28,640 --> 01:11:32,040
Speaker 10: very capable for someone who doesn't have the opportunity to

1320
01:11:32,160 --> 01:11:35,719
Speaker 10: train a lot, or have like lots of upper body strength,

1321
01:11:35,920 --> 01:11:39,200
Speaker 10: or isn't necessarily proficient to actually be capable to use.

1322
01:11:39,640 --> 01:11:42,080
Speaker 10: So there's actually a weird sense of ableism in this

1323
01:11:42,320 --> 01:11:45,640
Speaker 10: sometimes because there are places I believe in spaces in

1324
01:11:45,680 --> 01:11:48,120
Speaker 10: this world where people do need well. I do believe

1325
01:11:48,160 --> 01:11:51,240
Speaker 10: in the right assault defense across the board, but there

1326
01:11:51,280 --> 01:11:54,479
Speaker 10: are places where that weapon may very well be the

1327
01:11:54,560 --> 01:11:57,559
Speaker 10: right choice because the person who needs to use it

1328
01:11:57,600 --> 01:12:01,519
Speaker 10: really couldn't handle something else. So that's never talked about,

1329
01:12:01,640 --> 01:12:03,800
Speaker 10: and it's like it's kind of an interesting thing. But

1330
01:12:03,840 --> 01:12:06,479
Speaker 10: when you live in the city, you of course are

1331
01:12:06,479 --> 01:12:09,120
Speaker 10: in a place where ostensibly, with the pushup a button

1332
01:12:09,160 --> 01:12:12,040
Speaker 10: on your phone, hopefully actual help is there to be had,

1333
01:12:12,640 --> 01:12:15,599
Speaker 10: or you're amongst other people, or there aren't feral hogs

1334
01:12:15,680 --> 01:12:19,599
Speaker 10: rolling in the streets of Times Square, I assume, And

1335
01:12:19,640 --> 01:12:22,519
Speaker 10: so this worldview when you live in a rural place,

1336
01:12:22,960 --> 01:12:25,240
Speaker 10: it's almost like they're on different We're in the same country,

1337
01:12:25,280 --> 01:12:27,400
Speaker 10: but we're on different planets. One of the interesting things

1338
01:12:27,439 --> 01:12:32,240
Speaker 10: about social media is that it's caused everyone like we

1339
01:12:32,360 --> 01:12:34,400
Speaker 10: used to have like our circles we existed in, like

1340
01:12:34,439 --> 01:12:36,040
Speaker 10: these people hung out over there and those people hung

1341
01:12:36,080 --> 01:12:37,719
Speaker 10: over there, and sometimes they would talk at the local

1342
01:12:38,080 --> 01:12:41,320
Speaker 10: supermarket or whatever, the coffee shop, but it was somewhat

1343
01:12:41,320 --> 01:12:44,479
Speaker 10: cursory interaction. But social media has forced us all into

1344
01:12:44,520 --> 01:12:50,920
Speaker 10: one giant communal living space. But without context, these worldviews

1345
01:12:51,000 --> 01:12:54,160
Speaker 10: really very foreign to each other. That person living with

1346
01:12:54,200 --> 01:12:58,360
Speaker 10: those quite possibly thirty hogs in the yard can't fathom

1347
01:12:58,439 --> 01:13:01,920
Speaker 10: walking down in New York City or New Orleans. That's

1348
01:13:01,960 --> 01:13:04,320
Speaker 10: like it is a different planet, and someone from one

1349
01:13:04,360 --> 01:13:07,599
Speaker 10: of those places can't fathom a bunch of wild creatures

1350
01:13:07,640 --> 01:13:10,200
Speaker 10: in the yard that actually could legitimately kill them. Like

1351
01:13:10,400 --> 01:13:11,320
Speaker 10: those are very.

1352
01:13:11,200 --> 01:13:13,800
Speaker 2: Such different world I am very possibly ask you to

1353
01:13:14,120 --> 01:13:18,160
Speaker 2: solve the entire world for me right now. But is

1354
01:13:18,240 --> 01:13:21,680
Speaker 2: there in this conversation that they're having, is there a

1355
01:13:21,680 --> 01:13:25,120
Speaker 2: solution Where Jason isbel is asking essentially how can we

1356
01:13:25,200 --> 01:13:31,160
Speaker 2: get mass shootings to stop? And William mcnabbus asking, how

1357
01:13:31,160 --> 01:13:32,880
Speaker 2: can I protect my children from the hot.

1358
01:13:32,760 --> 01:13:34,280
Speaker 10: Well you're going to hear the opinion of a person

1359
01:13:34,320 --> 01:13:37,479
Speaker 10: that's a big proponent of of of self defense rights,

1360
01:13:37,520 --> 01:13:41,639
Speaker 10: So you're gonna get my bias there is. Everyone's got

1361
01:13:41,640 --> 01:13:43,120
Speaker 10: to have a line somewhere, right, So I don't know

1362
01:13:43,120 --> 01:13:44,519
Speaker 10: that you should. I don'tlieve you should walk down to

1363
01:13:44,520 --> 01:13:46,400
Speaker 10: the street and be able to buy an RPG like

1364
01:13:46,640 --> 01:13:49,360
Speaker 10: this is a problem, right, Okay, And maybe some people's

1365
01:13:49,400 --> 01:13:52,320
Speaker 10: line is an AAR fifteen. But the reality is anyone

1366
01:13:52,439 --> 01:13:54,880
Speaker 10: using any of these things for the things they're doing

1367
01:13:55,439 --> 01:13:58,880
Speaker 10: is to me, the symptom of a much deeper cultural

1368
01:13:58,920 --> 01:14:03,400
Speaker 10: problem isn't being discussed. Why is this happening? And when

1369
01:14:03,439 --> 01:14:05,760
Speaker 10: it comes historically? Because you said you watch some of

1370
01:14:05,760 --> 01:14:09,000
Speaker 10: my history work. The reality is from a firearms perspective,

1371
01:14:09,479 --> 01:14:11,280
Speaker 10: this is a topic that's been really dwelling on me

1372
01:14:11,360 --> 01:14:15,120
Speaker 10: for a while. Technologically speaking, we didn't have AR fifteens

1373
01:14:15,160 --> 01:14:19,120
Speaker 10: in like eighteen eighty, but the types of firearms that

1374
01:14:19,200 --> 01:14:22,519
Speaker 10: existed in eighteen eighty we're capable of doing almost the

1375
01:14:22,560 --> 01:14:24,479
Speaker 10: same sort of horrific things you can do now with

1376
01:14:24,520 --> 01:14:26,720
Speaker 10: an AR fifteen. It almost it's not trying to be

1377
01:14:26,760 --> 01:14:30,080
Speaker 10: a cockyl, but something happened somewhere where these things which

1378
01:14:30,120 --> 01:14:33,320
Speaker 10: are prolific in this country and always have been, started

1379
01:14:33,360 --> 01:14:37,400
Speaker 10: taking this even darker turn. And that darker turn, to

1380
01:14:37,439 --> 01:14:40,080
Speaker 10: me is where we should be focusing, is why is

1381
01:14:40,120 --> 01:14:42,360
Speaker 10: this happening? And what is it we're doing in our

1382
01:14:42,400 --> 01:14:48,200
Speaker 10: society that's making everybody in all directions feeling I don'tan

1383
01:14:48,200 --> 01:14:50,640
Speaker 10: it sounds so dark, but like America is feeling like

1384
01:14:50,680 --> 01:14:53,599
Speaker 10: a dark place, and there's reasons, and I think it's

1385
01:14:53,600 --> 01:14:56,439
Speaker 10: across the spectrum, right. It's like almost anyone you talk

1386
01:14:56,479 --> 01:14:59,439
Speaker 10: to isn't happy with how it is, and there's a reason.

1387
01:14:59,479 --> 01:15:03,440
Speaker 10: Something's wrong, something's deeply wrong. And you hear things like capitalism,

1388
01:15:03,439 --> 01:15:06,479
Speaker 10: which is true for sure, but the social ills that

1389
01:15:06,560 --> 01:15:10,800
Speaker 10: we are built in and aren't addressing are manifesting in

1390
01:15:10,840 --> 01:15:14,040
Speaker 10: so many ways beyond just isn't the right word, because

1391
01:15:14,040 --> 01:15:16,360
Speaker 10: you can't see just a mass shooting, because these are lives.

1392
01:15:16,400 --> 01:15:21,200
Speaker 10: But that is one example of many manifestations of I'm

1393
01:15:21,200 --> 01:15:23,479
Speaker 10: going to go ahead and say a diseased society.

1394
01:15:23,280 --> 01:15:23,920
Speaker 5: To be blah.

1395
01:15:24,240 --> 01:15:28,839
Speaker 2: You know, both people are essentially talking about being failed

1396
01:15:28,880 --> 01:15:31,880
Speaker 2: in various ways by their government. The conversation doesn't quite connect,

1397
01:15:32,000 --> 01:15:34,439
Speaker 2: and I don't know, I mean, just based off of

1398
01:15:34,439 --> 01:15:36,880
Speaker 2: what you were just saying it feels very much like

1399
01:15:37,160 --> 01:15:40,920
Speaker 2: contributing to this disease while also being a place that

1400
01:15:40,960 --> 01:15:42,720
Speaker 2: I love, a place where I've found a lot of

1401
01:15:42,760 --> 01:15:44,439
Speaker 2: dear friends is the Internet.

1402
01:15:44,720 --> 01:15:46,240
Speaker 10: And I'm not trying to take us off topic because

1403
01:15:46,240 --> 01:15:48,639
Speaker 10: I know we're talking about the wild hogs issue versus

1404
01:15:48,680 --> 01:15:51,439
Speaker 10: assault weapons, but like, hopefully you brought some context of

1405
01:15:51,520 --> 01:15:54,400
Speaker 10: where that phrase comes from. And the reality of the

1406
01:15:54,439 --> 01:15:57,479
Speaker 10: cultural divide that exists in this country is diverse. And

1407
01:15:57,520 --> 01:16:01,519
Speaker 10: here we are all in one space using American style English,

1408
01:16:01,520 --> 01:16:03,080
Speaker 10: but we're not speaking the same language.

1409
01:16:03,160 --> 01:16:03,840
Speaker 5: We just aren't.

1410
01:16:04,160 --> 01:16:07,160
Speaker 10: And I how to get people to get on a

1411
01:16:07,200 --> 01:16:10,960
Speaker 10: better page is a hard call. I don't know, but

1412
01:16:11,120 --> 01:16:13,760
Speaker 10: like what I do in my opinion, what I do know,

1413
01:16:13,960 --> 01:16:17,080
Speaker 10: or believe at least, is that the best answer ever

1414
01:16:17,200 --> 01:16:19,559
Speaker 10: is education, and I'm not sure how to do that

1415
01:16:19,600 --> 01:16:21,599
Speaker 10: when the algorithm just wants to make it a war.

1416
01:16:22,040 --> 01:16:23,800
Speaker 10: And that's what this is, why this is kind of

1417
01:16:23,880 --> 01:16:26,080
Speaker 10: like that, right, because this guy posts the thing and

1418
01:16:26,120 --> 01:16:27,840
Speaker 10: he's his heart's on the right place. We should never

1419
01:16:27,920 --> 01:16:30,040
Speaker 10: have another matterting again. And the other guy's like, well,

1420
01:16:30,080 --> 01:16:32,200
Speaker 10: what do I do about these things in my yard

1421
01:16:32,240 --> 01:16:35,080
Speaker 10: that are trying to kill my kids, and they're both.

1422
01:16:35,160 --> 01:16:37,200
Speaker 10: They're not neither ones wrong right.

1423
01:16:37,880 --> 01:16:41,080
Speaker 2: Thanks so much to Carl Casarta. You can follow his work.

1424
01:16:41,280 --> 01:16:45,000
Speaker 2: I would particularly recommend the historical stuff over on in

1425
01:16:45,160 --> 01:16:48,520
Speaker 2: Range TV linked in the description of this episode.

1426
01:16:48,640 --> 01:16:49,040
Speaker 1: I don't know.

1427
01:16:49,360 --> 01:16:51,559
Speaker 2: Maybe there is a version of the world where most

1428
01:16:51,560 --> 01:16:54,680
Speaker 2: people could handle a weapon as dangerous and volatile as

1429
01:16:54,720 --> 01:16:57,599
Speaker 2: an AR fifteen, but I don't think we're living in

1430
01:16:57,640 --> 01:17:01,040
Speaker 2: that world. The issues that the hog tweet prompted, those

1431
01:17:01,080 --> 01:17:03,800
Speaker 2: of mass shootings and gun violence, and that of a

1432
01:17:03,840 --> 01:17:07,599
Speaker 2: hostile and violent species hell bent on killing children are

1433
01:17:07,640 --> 01:17:11,640
Speaker 2: more similar than I realized. They're both invasive species, and

1434
01:17:11,720 --> 01:17:15,320
Speaker 2: outside of supporting people who are trying to prevent these horrors,

1435
01:17:15,439 --> 01:17:18,200
Speaker 2: I'm not the person that has the solution. I don't

1436
01:17:18,200 --> 01:17:20,800
Speaker 2: even have a driver's license. But what I do want

1437
01:17:20,840 --> 01:17:23,280
Speaker 2: to do here is include the voice of someone who

1438
01:17:23,360 --> 01:17:26,559
Speaker 2: is doing their level best to prevent further gun violence

1439
01:17:26,560 --> 01:17:29,320
Speaker 2: in the US in a genuine way, because the loss

1440
01:17:29,320 --> 01:17:33,240
Speaker 2: that's caused by US policies on guns is huge. One

1441
01:17:33,280 --> 01:17:35,640
Speaker 2: story that really stuck with me in the researching for

1442
01:17:35,680 --> 01:17:38,479
Speaker 2: this episode is an ongoing effort organized by a man

1443
01:17:38,600 --> 01:17:41,200
Speaker 2: named Dion Green, the son of a victim from the

1444
01:17:41,280 --> 01:17:44,479
Speaker 2: Dayton mass shooting. Since he lost his father, he is

1445
01:17:44,520 --> 01:17:48,160
Speaker 2: focused on helping people and communities affected by this kind

1446
01:17:48,200 --> 01:17:51,080
Speaker 2: of violence and showing them a path to healing or

1447
01:17:51,120 --> 01:17:53,679
Speaker 2: He is speaking on the local news last year after

1448
01:17:53,720 --> 01:17:56,760
Speaker 2: traveling to Maine following the mass shooting in Lewiston that

1449
01:17:56,840 --> 01:17:58,240
Speaker 2: left eighteen people dead.

1450
01:17:58,880 --> 01:18:00,600
Speaker 11: The sad thing about it is there's going to be

1451
01:18:00,640 --> 01:18:03,840
Speaker 11: another shooting, and they're going to disperse out, and when

1452
01:18:03,880 --> 01:18:06,760
Speaker 11: they disperse out, the resources to leave with them as well.

1453
01:18:06,840 --> 01:18:10,679
Speaker 11: So I need them to know that there are still

1454
01:18:10,720 --> 01:18:12,479
Speaker 11: people around that are willing to help.

1455
01:18:12,800 --> 01:18:16,559
Speaker 12: Green knows their grief well. He lost his father, Derek Fudge,

1456
01:18:16,560 --> 01:18:20,360
Speaker 12: in the twenty nineteen Oregon District mass shooting. Green taking

1457
01:18:20,400 --> 01:18:23,760
Speaker 12: his pain and creating an outlet for support. He now

1458
01:18:23,880 --> 01:18:27,360
Speaker 12: leads the Fudge Foundation, a nonprofit in his father's name.

1459
01:18:27,800 --> 01:18:30,559
Speaker 12: Its mission is to help those dealing with traumatic events

1460
01:18:30,760 --> 01:18:33,520
Speaker 12: and advocate at the local and national level.

1461
01:18:33,640 --> 01:18:37,400
Speaker 11: That band aid comes off and that trauma surfaces, so

1462
01:18:37,760 --> 01:18:39,720
Speaker 11: to have people there to be able to help and

1463
01:18:39,760 --> 01:18:42,320
Speaker 11: assist and let them know how to get through it

1464
01:18:42,400 --> 01:18:47,360
Speaker 11: and just share opinions and things of how other survivors

1465
01:18:47,360 --> 01:18:50,760
Speaker 11: got through it is monumental to the next survivors that

1466
01:18:50,800 --> 01:18:54,440
Speaker 11: are being able to process these things.

1467
01:18:55,160 --> 01:18:57,599
Speaker 2: I think Dion's work is really amazing. I will link

1468
01:18:57,640 --> 01:18:59,880
Speaker 2: to it in the description. And I'm so sorry that

1469
01:18:59,880 --> 01:19:04,080
Speaker 2: the hogs episode got so sad. Jesus, So what happened

1470
01:19:04,120 --> 01:19:06,719
Speaker 2: to these hogs? The hogs that we were told numbered

1471
01:19:06,800 --> 01:19:11,040
Speaker 2: between thirty and fifty, but in retrospect was probably less. Listener,

1472
01:19:11,120 --> 01:19:13,960
Speaker 2: I wish I had better news. The hogs are probably dead,

1473
01:19:14,160 --> 01:19:17,320
Speaker 2: giving the average life expectancy of a hog, or potentially

1474
01:19:17,360 --> 01:19:19,800
Speaker 2: them being shot from a balloon. And when it comes

1475
01:19:19,800 --> 01:19:22,559
Speaker 2: to gun policy in the US, at the time i'm writing,

1476
01:19:22,840 --> 01:19:25,800
Speaker 2: assault weapons are prohibited in only nine states, and while

1477
01:19:25,840 --> 01:19:26,880
Speaker 2: mass shootings.

1478
01:19:26,520 --> 01:19:28,560
Speaker 1: Are lower this year than the previous.

1479
01:19:28,240 --> 01:19:32,160
Speaker 2: View, the United States still has markedly more gun violence

1480
01:19:32,400 --> 01:19:35,040
Speaker 2: than in other developed nations. And that's where we are

1481
01:19:35,240 --> 01:19:38,719
Speaker 2: five years later. Gun laws are stagnant, the hogs are loose.

1482
01:19:39,040 --> 01:19:41,519
Speaker 2: But at least Willie McNabb and Jason isbel got to

1483
01:19:41,560 --> 01:19:43,200
Speaker 2: hang out at a concert one time.

1484
01:19:43,320 --> 01:19:49,400
Speaker 1: That's not nothing. It's just almost nothing. And so my suite.

1485
01:19:48,560 --> 01:19:53,360
Speaker 2: Probably dearly departed thirty to fifty feral hogs. Your sixteenth

1486
01:19:53,439 --> 01:19:54,519
Speaker 2: minute ends.

1487
01:19:55,160 --> 01:20:01,759
Speaker 12: Now I'm seeing things.

1488
01:20:02,680 --> 01:20:04,760
Speaker 1: Mister Zuckerman, Mister.

1489
01:20:04,560 --> 01:20:06,840
Speaker 5: Zuckerman, Something's happened to Leervy?

1490
01:20:09,960 --> 01:20:11,480
Speaker 4: Do you see what I see?

1491
01:20:12,120 --> 01:20:13,080
Speaker 5: Some pie?

1492
01:20:14,720 --> 01:20:16,560
Speaker 4: You don't suppose that spider.

1493
01:20:16,840 --> 01:20:20,160
Speaker 2: If we have received a sign, we have a very

1494
01:20:20,240 --> 01:20:29,240
Speaker 2: unusual pig. Sixteenth Minute is a production of Full Zone

1495
01:20:29,280 --> 01:20:30,679
Speaker 2: Media and iHeart Radio.

1496
01:20:31,200 --> 01:20:34,720
Speaker 1: It is written, posted, and produced by me, Jamie Loftus.

1497
01:20:34,720 --> 01:20:37,759
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Sophie Lichterman and Robert Evans.

1498
01:20:38,080 --> 01:20:38,519
Speaker 1: You amazing.

1499
01:20:38,560 --> 01:20:42,840
Speaker 2: Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor. Our

1500
01:20:42,960 --> 01:20:46,760
Speaker 2: theme song is by Sad thirteen and Pet. Shout outs

1501
01:20:46,760 --> 01:20:49,880
Speaker 2: to our dog producer Anderson, my cat's fleeing Casper, and

1502
01:20:49,960 --> 01:20:50,839
Speaker 2: my pet Rockbert.

1503
01:20:51,000 --> 01:20:53,760
Speaker 1: You will outlive us all. Bye.