Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps in welcome to book a f Daily
Speaker 1: with Meet your Girl Danielle Moody recording not So Live
Speaker 1: in My Brooklyn Cilarium. Folks, let me tell you something
Speaker 1: that is incredibly troubling is that at the time of
Speaker 1: this recording we have the parents of Ethan Crumbly, the
Speaker 1: fifteen year old assassin murderer. Instead of what the media,
Speaker 1: mainstream media is referring to him as as a boy,
Speaker 1: as a troubled boy, as a bullied boy, I'm going
Speaker 1: to call him what he is, a person, not even
Speaker 1: a child, a person that premeditated an act of severe
Speaker 1: violence that costs the lives of four children and wounded seven.
Speaker 1: This story that is coming out, what we are learning
Speaker 1: about Ethan Crumbly and his parents, James and Jennifer that
Speaker 1: at the time of this taping are on the lamb.
Speaker 1: Where are they are they headed to Mara Lago? Who
Speaker 1: the fuck knows? But the reality is this, his parents
Speaker 1: had very important information, you know, when they were called
Speaker 1: in by the teachers who discovered the drawing that showed
Speaker 1: the bullet the gun what seemed to be an ominous
Speaker 1: warning A happy face right teacher sees this, I was
Speaker 1: a former educator. You see that on somebody's desk. You
Speaker 1: look over as you're walking through the aisles of deaths
Speaker 1: in a classroom, and you notice that that same child
Speaker 1: is pulling up ammunition on Amazon, just like casually shopping
Speaker 1: around for bullets. And then you do your due diligence
Speaker 1: as a teacher. You call in the administration, You call
Speaker 1: in the parents. And then when the teacher and the
Speaker 1: administrator said you need to take Ethan home, they said no,
Speaker 1: knowing things that at that time the teacher and the
Speaker 1: administrator didn't know, which is that Ethan did in fact
Speaker 1: have access to a gun, that his father had purchased
Speaker 1: a gun four days prior on Black Friday, that he
Speaker 1: had been texting with his mother while at school, and
Speaker 1: she was making a joke of the fact that, oh,
Speaker 1: as you're looking for ammunition while you're in school, l ol,
Speaker 1: don't get caught. We know now through the Daily Beast,
Speaker 1: which I had talked about earlier in the week, the
Speaker 1: affinity that the crumblies have for violence, the affinity that
Speaker 1: they have for the Second Amendment, how they delighted in
Speaker 1: reaching out to the twice impeached, disgraced President Donald Trump
Speaker 1: to tell him that they were so thankful for their
Speaker 1: guns because of him, because apparently he was there when
Speaker 1: the Constitution was being written, and that, you know, Jennifer Crumbly,
Speaker 1: the lady that she is, would rather be grabbed by
Speaker 1: the pussy than fucked up the ass by the government.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what she wrote in the letter to the
Speaker 1: former president of the United States. So you can already
Speaker 1: get a sense that this entire family seems to be unwell.
Speaker 1: Now I don't say unwell as in I'm making excuses
Speaker 1: for the actions that they have taken. No, I mean
Speaker 1: unwell as and I think that most of the radical
Speaker 1: right is unwell. I think that racists are unwell. I
Speaker 1: think that people who buy into white supremacy, Islamophobia, homophobia,
Speaker 1: transphobia are unwell. I think the people that are addicted
Speaker 1: to QAnon are unwell. Does that mean that they don't
Speaker 1: face accountability? Does that mean that they don't have a
Speaker 1: responsibility as citizens and or parents to alert the community
Speaker 1: when they know that their child is not doing so
Speaker 1: hot in school? They knew exactly that their son was
Speaker 1: on the verge, because why else would Jennifer Crumbly decide
Speaker 1: to text her child once news had broke that there
Speaker 1: was a shooting at his high school and say, don't
Speaker 1: do it right. You know what always used to piss
Speaker 1: me off is when people would local newscasters would go
Speaker 1: around and they would interview the families of somebody that
Speaker 1: just committed a horrible crime, and then they interviewed the neighbors,
Speaker 1: and the neighbors say, he was such a nice boy.
Speaker 1: I would have never had any idea, except in this case,
Speaker 1: everyone had an idea that this kid was not okay.
Speaker 1: And the mandate by the school was that once they
Speaker 1: were alerted to the picture and they called in the
Speaker 1: parents and they literally followed all of the right protocols
Speaker 1: that they had the family forty eight hours to get
Speaker 1: him counseling. But you see, if you look back at
Speaker 1: the letter that Jennifer Crumbly wrote to Donald Trump, where
Speaker 1: she is railing against big Pharma, which is giving you
Speaker 1: a clue and an idea that they probably are against
Speaker 1: mask mandates. They're probably against the vaccine, which means that
Speaker 1: the idea of counseling and mental health. I can only assume,
Speaker 1: right based on what was said and written in that letter,
Speaker 1: that they would probably be against that as well, that
Speaker 1: those would be the actions of some liberal right and
Speaker 1: that the school, as the now governor Junkin had said,
Speaker 1: is that parents should have a choice. Well, you see
Speaker 1: what happens when you give these kinds of parents' choices.
Speaker 1: Because when the school administrator and the teacher said you
Speaker 1: need to take this student home because we do not
Speaker 1: feel safe with him on campus, and then they said no,
Speaker 1: they should have never been able to leave the school
Speaker 1: without taking their son with them. And just think for
Speaker 1: a moment, I can only imagine, My god, my heart
Speaker 1: goes out to the families of those four kids that died,
Speaker 1: aging from fourteen years old to seventeen years old. The
Speaker 1: stories of the football player that rushed in to try
Speaker 1: and grab the gun and was shot and died later
Speaker 1: in the hospital. This is the choice that we are
Speaker 1: making for our children, that they are forced into a
Speaker 1: position where they have to be brave, where they have
Speaker 1: to be soldiers instead of students. This is what we
Speaker 1: are setting up for them. You know, in the conversation
Speaker 1: coming up with our friend doctor Jonathan Metzel, you know,
Speaker 1: he opens up with talking about how traumatized the last
Speaker 1: two generations of kids really are. Just think, about it.
Speaker 1: I can't even fathom. I don't have the number, but
Speaker 1: the amount of mass shootings, school shootings that we have
Speaker 1: heard about since Columbine, the amount of mass shootings that
Speaker 1: have happened that have been headline news, right, that have
Speaker 1: literally ricocheted around the country over the last two and
Speaker 1: a half decades. You're talking about kids who now are
Speaker 1: either in college or are just starting their first jobs,
Speaker 1: that have no idea what it would be like to
Speaker 1: go to school and not have gun drills. When I
Speaker 1: was in school, the only drills that we had were
Speaker 1: fire drills, right, So this is what we have allowed
Speaker 1: our kids to become accustomed to, to become accustomed to
Speaker 1: randomly sitting in class and then an alarm sounding and
Speaker 1: them having to run for cover and barricade themselves. Not
Speaker 1: the stop, drop and roll that I was taught, but
Speaker 1: instead how to crouch into your body, how to use
Speaker 1: your desk as a shield. We have parents that spent
Speaker 1: this summer threatening the lives of school officials and health
Speaker 1: officials because they believe that masks were going to traumatize
Speaker 1: their kids. Are you fucking kidding me? But I don't
Speaker 1: hear about any protests in front of schools are up
Speaker 1: on Capitol Hill after every single time that there is
Speaker 1: a mass shooting that happens that takes the lives of children.
Speaker 1: But they want to protest masks. But the right wing
Speaker 1: wants to make little fucking bumper stickers that say that
Speaker 1: wearing a mask to protect yourself from a global health
Speaker 1: pandemic is child abuse. But we think that the actions
Speaker 1: that we are forcing children to become accustomed to in
Speaker 1: elementary school with active shooter drills, that that's normal, that
Speaker 1: that's so okay. Instead of taking action, we have heard
Speaker 1: reporters ask the sheriff and ask the district attorney Karen McDonald,
Speaker 1: who I'll get to in a moment, Well, what can
Speaker 1: schools do? What can schools do? Schools have done enough.
Speaker 1: You have already try to turn teachers into cops, like
Speaker 1: they are doing in Florida by saying, oh, do you
Speaker 1: know how we protect our students from active shooters? Oh,
Speaker 1: we just give teachers guns. How about we give teachers
Speaker 1: fucking pay right deserving of the job that they have.
Speaker 1: How about we give them the support and resources so
Speaker 1: that they don't need to have fucking cookouts and bake
Speaker 1: sales in order to provide for their students, because our
Speaker 1: public education system doesn't provide our education system with the
Speaker 1: resources to have kids have all of the things that
Speaker 1: they need that parents and teachers are still having to
Speaker 1: dig into their pockets. But no, let's sell them bulletproof backpacks, right,
Speaker 1: let's get them body armor. Let's make suggestions like, oh,
Speaker 1: metal detectors in all schools. Why don't we then put
Speaker 1: bars on the windows and blackout windows and bulletproof windows,
Speaker 1: make the doors like the doors in prisons so that
Speaker 1: bullets can't get through. Because you see, that's the kind
Speaker 1: of contortion that this society is willing to do. But
Speaker 1: not to change the policies to ensure that you have
Speaker 1: to be a responsible gun owner, unlike the crumblies. You know,
Speaker 1: the state of Michigan doesn't have any laws on the
Speaker 1: book that require people who own guns to lock them
Speaker 1: up in any type of way, right, because, my God,
Speaker 1: any type of restraint that you put on the Second
Speaker 1: Amendment is an affront to it completely, God forbid. Right.
Speaker 1: I can't believe that we don't have protests from these
Speaker 1: motherfuckers so that there are no safeties on guns, because
Speaker 1: they should just be able to be trigger happy. Right,
Speaker 1: we are living in a wild fucking country right now.
Speaker 1: And when I look at this fifteen year old, when
Speaker 1: I think about Kyle Rittenhouse seventeen years old, when I
Speaker 1: think about the fact that Ron death Santis just made
Speaker 1: the suggestion that he creates civilian armies in Florida to
Speaker 1: have the armed forces of Florida that only report to him.
Speaker 1: You know where this is headed. The crumblies. Damn near
Speaker 1: we're training They're to be a murderer. And now just
Speaker 1: think about the fact, right, because by the time that
Speaker 1: you all hear this, I'm assuming that the Crumblies will
Speaker 1: be in custody and will have been arraigned for each
Speaker 1: of them having four counts of manslaughter, each of which
Speaker 1: could carry up to fifteen year penalties if convicted. Right,
Speaker 1: And I think to myself, white people in America really
Speaker 1: fucking got it good. And like, I know that you
Speaker 1: all know this, but my God, to be able to
Speaker 1: evade the police, to be able to curse the police out,
Speaker 1: to be able to commit murder and somehow and literally
Speaker 1: have the bodies littered around you but be taken in alive,
Speaker 1: It's some wild ass shit to be told by your
Speaker 1: lawyer that you're about to be charged, and then you
Speaker 1: decide to take the buck off right and then want
Speaker 1: to say that, oh, it's the mainstream media that are
Speaker 1: twisting things around. No, the sheriff's office called your house
Speaker 1: and you were not there. That's called evasion. Do you
Speaker 1: know who never gets to act out in any type
Speaker 1: of way, who actually has fucking real rage black and
Speaker 1: brown people? You see Ethan Crumbly is able to murder
Speaker 1: four of his classmates and get taken alive. Trayvon Martin
Speaker 1: wasn't able to walk to the corner store. Kyle Rittenhouse
Speaker 1: is able to sling a real rifle on his shoulder
Speaker 1: and stalk the streets of Kenosha and get patted on
Speaker 1: the back called son by police officers. But Tamir Rice
Speaker 1: couldn't play with a toy gun on a playground. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is so absurd where we are, and it's so
Speaker 1: absurd for anybody to be able to look at what
Speaker 1: we have experienced, just folks, just over the last two years.
Speaker 1: Let me not even go all the way back six
Speaker 1: seven years almost to the murder of Trey von Martin.
Speaker 1: Just look at the last two Brianna Taylor couldn't sleep
Speaker 1: in her fucking bed. Armand Aubrey couldn't go for a jog.
Speaker 1: George Floyd couldn't purchase anything from the store. These people
Speaker 1: are dead. They are victims. And the mainstream media, along
Speaker 1: with the defense attorneys in each and every one of
Speaker 1: those cases, except for Brianna Taylor, because she didn't even
Speaker 1: get to have a real case, right because the district
Speaker 1: attorney said, Na, there was no wrongdoing here. She just
Speaker 1: shouldn't have been asleep, she shouldn't have been home telling
Speaker 1: us that, oh, the millions of dollars that are family
Speaker 1: got that should be enough. While it doesn't bring back
Speaker 1: their fucking daughter or their niece, or their friend or
Speaker 1: their fiancee. We have to continue marching and screaming that
Speaker 1: black lives matter, because they don't. And when you see
Speaker 1: these cases of white rage and extremism and violence and cruelty,
Speaker 1: and yet they're all alive, every single fucking one of them,
Speaker 1: how is that? How is it that the dealing roofs
Speaker 1: of the world, and the kyle rittenhouses of the world,
Speaker 1: and the even crumblies of the world are all alive
Speaker 1: and their actual fucking murderers, But black people just existing,
Speaker 1: just trying to breathe, maybe falling asleep, and a drive
Speaker 1: through at a fast food then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you're dead. So you tell me that police officers are
Speaker 1: trained to take down people that are actually holding real weapons,
Speaker 1: not what they thought that Stefan Clark was holding in
Speaker 1: his grandmother's backyard, which was his cell phone until he
Speaker 1: was riddled with bullets. These are choices that these cops
Speaker 1: are making, right, These are choices that are being made
Speaker 1: by white people in power to never hold other white
Speaker 1: people accountable because you get to do whatever the fuck
Speaker 1: you want. And then we're all just supposed to continue
Speaker 1: sitting around and taking this in day after day after day,
Speaker 1: headline after headline, and thinking that what at some point
Speaker 1: the pressure ain't gonna pop, You know it is. This
Speaker 1: country is beyond addicted to guns. It is a dick
Speaker 1: did to the lie of this cowboy swagger and this
Speaker 1: pull them up by the bootstraps and this shoot them
Speaker 1: up Western that poor grieved white men just can't get
Speaker 1: over with their toxic masculinity and fragility. But we won't
Speaker 1: have those conversations, we won't dig into this. We'll just
Speaker 1: once again say that Ethan was disturbed right loan Wolf
Speaker 1: over here, except guess what. Sixty fucking schools in Michigan
Speaker 1: were shut down following this shooting. Sixty schools why because
Speaker 1: of copycat threats that were called in. This is the
Speaker 1: world that we are leaving to our kids, to the
Speaker 1: next generation. If I were them, I would look at
Speaker 1: adults with fucking disdain and disgust. We're leaving them a
Speaker 1: world that is on fire with climate change. We're leaving
Speaker 1: them a world filled with extremism and fascism and authoritarianism
Speaker 1: and democracies backsliding and full on slip sliding away. We're
Speaker 1: leaving them crumbling infrastructure and economy that is shit, capitalism
Speaker 1: that is so unbalanced that you have people that are
Speaker 1: using their spare money to rocket into outer space while
Speaker 1: people on Earth can barely put food on the table,
Speaker 1: sitting around standing in food lines. When I think about
Speaker 1: all of those things, how is it that anybody could
Speaker 1: say that America is the best country in what world?
Speaker 1: How we're getting ready to outlaw abortion. Meanwhile, Mexico, a
Speaker 1: religious nation, just past abortion throughout the country. But yet
Speaker 1: we are the ones that look down on these black
Speaker 1: and brown countries and want to come in with our
Speaker 1: paternalistic ideas of how they should be better. We want
Speaker 1: to go around the world and admonish countries in the
Speaker 1: Middle East and in Asia about their treatment of women
Speaker 1: and girls and human rights. Give me a fucking break.
Speaker 1: If I were a foreign leader of anywhere else, I
Speaker 1: would tell America to go sit the fuck down, have
Speaker 1: a seat. Why don't you go get your own house
Speaker 1: in order before you tell me how to run mine.
Speaker 1: This country is sick and I am unclear these days
Speaker 1: of what the antidote is going to be. Coming up
Speaker 1: next is my conversation with our friend doctor Jonathan Metzel
Speaker 1: about the trauma that children are facing these days and what,
Speaker 1: if anything, we plan to do about it. It has
Speaker 1: been another exhausting week in America, and you know, at
Speaker 1: the time of this taping with our friend doctor Jonathan Metzel,
Speaker 1: charges against the parents of Ethan Crumbly, the fifteen year
Speaker 1: old who shot and killed four of his classmates, wounding
Speaker 1: seven of them. His parents have now been charged with
Speaker 1: four counts I believe of manslaughter. The district attorney Karen McDonald,
Speaker 1: who gave a press conference telling the chilling tale Jonathan
Speaker 1: of I mean if they're I don't know how many
Speaker 1: warning signs one would need in order to take action.
Speaker 1: And from a drawing of a gun and the and
Speaker 1: the bullet to you know, comments about his new toy
Speaker 1: being beautiful, which is which was the gun, his mother
Speaker 1: saying L O L don't get caught, um, his parents
Speaker 1: texting him, you know, don't do it. After they denied
Speaker 1: taking him home, when the school officials had called and said,
Speaker 1: we would like you to take him home and they
Speaker 1: said no. I mean, what do you make just of
Speaker 1: of of the story that we are learning, of all
Speaker 1: of all that transpired before that fateful afternoon in Oxford, Michigan. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean talk about red flags on fire. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's incredible. There's just like basically there was a sign
Speaker 1: over this guy's head saying I'm going to comm into
Speaker 1: mass shooting, and his parents, when they found that out,
Speaker 1: said here go com into mass shooting. Um. And so
Speaker 1: there there's never been a more clear case of somebody
Speaker 1: who is the exact profile of high risk person. Now
Speaker 1: it's frustrating for me in part. I mean, first of all,
Speaker 1: another horrible tragedy and just I don't know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I teach college. Right. Kids are so traumatized right now
Speaker 1: anyway because the pandemic, the world, the future and now
Speaker 1: they've got to worry about you know this still and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. It's just I don't know, they're so
Speaker 1: first of all, pain and trauma and loss because kids
Speaker 1: again are getting let down by grown ups. The world
Speaker 1: we're creating for them is not a better world. And
Speaker 1: so partially I'm just super fucking sad about all this stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, watching that video of those poor kids, just
Speaker 1: like it's like, oh my god, you know, we have
Speaker 1: just failed an entire generation. So first of all that,
Speaker 1: but second of all, I've been doing interviews all week
Speaker 1: about this with and I'll just vant a little bit
Speaker 1: if you don't mind, because I've did like the Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal yesterday, for example, and they kept asking me
Speaker 1: what can schools do to prevent this? And what were
Speaker 1: the warning signs and stuff like that, And I gave
Speaker 1: a forty five minute interview of which they took one
Speaker 1: sense and the one sentence was the only one sentence
Speaker 1: where I wasn't saying, this isn't a school problem, this
Speaker 1: is a society problem, This is a parents problem, This
Speaker 1: isn't access to guns problem and probably somewhere in the
Speaker 1: middle of it, I said, but the schools seem to
Speaker 1: do things that did help along the way, which it did.
Speaker 1: But I said, like, you know, if we're in a
Speaker 1: world where kids are going to have to be doing
Speaker 1: mass shooter drills all the time, that's not a good world.
Speaker 1: And it's preventable, and it's the result of policy, crappy policy.
Speaker 1: So it's just a little weird that then they chose
Speaker 1: that one snippet of that and not what I was
Speaker 1: also saying, which is that you know, this is a
Speaker 1: society problem. It's not a school problem. I mean, certainly
Speaker 1: there are issues about like who can you predict, what
Speaker 1: are the red flags or something like that, But this
Speaker 1: case makes so clear that this is a guns problem,
Speaker 1: and a whiteness problem, and an access problem and what
Speaker 1: guns mean problem. All these things are so encapsulated, and
Speaker 1: it's not just this case. There's lillion other cases just
Speaker 1: like this where people get their guns from their parents.
Speaker 1: I mean, so many mass taters get their guns from
Speaker 1: their parents. It's crazy because they're like fifteen, um. But
Speaker 1: so it's just all these things together, you know, anger, frustration,
Speaker 1: and you know, I want to stick with you know,
Speaker 1: what what you what you open with, because I I
Speaker 1: you know, we've been talking for you know, every week
Speaker 1: for two years, and it's really interesting to kind of
Speaker 1: start two years, I know, right the the just the
Speaker 1: sadness in your voice, right like as you are thinking
Speaker 1: about like, you know, sometimes it doesn't really occur to
Speaker 1: me because I am not around young people in the
Speaker 1: way that you are teaching. Just how much trauma young
Speaker 1: people in America from Columbine until now have been that
Speaker 1: we've forced them under that the adults that say that
Speaker 1: tweet out like the GOP did about the sanctity of
Speaker 1: life as it pertains to a collection of cells in
Speaker 1: a uterus, as opposed to the fact that we have
Speaker 1: become almost numb to watching videos of young children run
Speaker 1: out of their schools right into parking lots being covered
Speaker 1: by police in combat gear. And that is a normal,
Speaker 1: goddamn image in America, and it has been for at
Speaker 1: least twenty five years. And so you know, at this point,
Speaker 1: I think that it's a foolish question that journalists are
Speaker 1: even asking about, well, what can schools do right? Because
Speaker 1: you know, I heard one one reporter asked the sheriff,
Speaker 1: And this was just a few hours after the shooting
Speaker 1: had happened in Oxford. Well, do schools need metal detectors?
Speaker 1: And it's like, so again we're not addressing the societal
Speaker 1: problem of our addiction two guns, but instead we would
Speaker 1: rather turn our schools into prisons. If it's just I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just as you speak, I'm seeing the
Speaker 1: flash of students in Connecticut rushing out of the school,
Speaker 1: and students in Florida rushing out of the school. Certainly
Speaker 1: every pretty much every school rushing out of the school.
Speaker 1: And I guess the word that comes to mind as
Speaker 1: a kind of central question here is culpability. Right, So
Speaker 1: who is culpable for kids running out of their schools?
Speaker 1: Pretty much every week? There are schools that have metal detectors.
Speaker 1: In fact, schools in New York now have metal detectors.
Speaker 1: A school confiscated twenty one guns apparently in New York
Speaker 1: yesterday with a metal detector. So kids are bringing guns
Speaker 1: to school, um, and and that there's no doubt about that.
Speaker 1: But the question is who's culpable for all this stuff?
Speaker 1: And so as great as I think it is that
Speaker 1: the parents are going to be held accountable, and I
Speaker 1: think they should be made an example of, honestly, because
Speaker 1: this is the most egregious, egregious enablement of UM of this.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, these people should go to jail, honestly,
Speaker 1: And I don't I don't say that lightly, um along
Speaker 1: with their kid. But but let me let me finish,
Speaker 1: let me finish. But I will say that that in
Speaker 1: a way blaming the parents or asking the schools, um,
Speaker 1: what can they do? It's the wrong question, right, because
Speaker 1: the entire industry has no culpability. There's no culpability by
Speaker 1: the gun manufacturers, the gun sellers, UM. And and that's
Speaker 1: not the case. You know, if you sell cigarettes, cigarettes
Speaker 1: have a culpability, car manufacturers, every other consumer project. And
Speaker 1: so if we're not asking what's the culpability of the
Speaker 1: gun sellers and the gunmakers, then we're just going to
Speaker 1: keep having the same conversation over and again. And you know,
Speaker 1: it seems to me too that with this particular case,
Speaker 1: which to your point, is egregious, and it is because
Speaker 1: based on the information that we have been privy to
Speaker 1: up until this point, it's as if these the crumblies
Speaker 1: wanted Ethan to commit a massacre because they were the
Speaker 1: only ones, right that knew when looking at this drawing
Speaker 1: when they were called into the school, that he had
Speaker 1: access to a gun, right like, they were the only
Speaker 1: ones that knew that. And so when we're casting this
Speaker 1: wide net that is now going to make an example
Speaker 1: of these parents, what is it going to take Jonathan
Speaker 1: for that net to them and capture the gun manufacturers,
Speaker 1: capture the gun lobbyists, capture the Republicans that are going
Speaker 1: to die on the Second Amendment Hill, you know you
Speaker 1: brought up cigarettes, right, which that took decades, Right, that
Speaker 1: took us decades. What is the parallels, if any, that
Speaker 1: you see between what it took for us to hold
Speaker 1: people accountable? And I don't remember, and maybe you do.
Speaker 1: I don't remember anybody talking about their liberty and freedom
Speaker 1: when we started to divide smokers and non smokers, and
Speaker 1: then it expanded to you can't smoke in front of
Speaker 1: this building, and now cigarettes in some places cost like
Speaker 1: seventeen dollars a pack. I don't remember anybody talking about
Speaker 1: their liberties and their freedom to die of cancer, right
Speaker 1: or to spread secondhand smoke. So what are the parallels
Speaker 1: that you see? Well, I mean, you know, if I'll say,
Speaker 1: first the discordant, which is that everybody hides behind the
Speaker 1: Constitution for the guns and say, oh, this is all
Speaker 1: about the Second Amendment and freedom and liberty. But the
Speaker 1: Constitution has been just used and bastardized. And so I
Speaker 1: think that in a way we're well beyond I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, imagine going back and interviewing people who wrote,
Speaker 1: you know, interview Thomas Jefferson or Hamilton or somebody you know,
Speaker 1: and say, hey, this one sentence you guys wrote is
Speaker 1: going to be used to support school massacre. Are you
Speaker 1: guys down with that? Um? You know, I don't think
Speaker 1: that they'd be so excited about that. And so and
Speaker 1: none of this is in the constitution. So people will say, well,
Speaker 1: cigarettes aren't in the constitution, but guns are. Yes, guns
Speaker 1: are in the constitution. What's happening now is not in
Speaker 1: the constitution. And even yesterday or the day before when
Speaker 1: we saw the the abortion case, sometimes people say, well,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if it's in the constitution. So it's
Speaker 1: like this, it's like this, you know, you can't win
Speaker 1: either way. But I will say that people say, oh,
Speaker 1: it's because cigarettes are not in the constitution, but guns
Speaker 1: are now read the Constitution, and only where this is
Speaker 1: in the Constitution, this thing it's not. And and nobody
Speaker 1: in the Constitution said, well, people who make guns should
Speaker 1: be free of any kind of legal recourse. There doesn't
Speaker 1: say that in the Constitution. And so in a way,
Speaker 1: just this frame of this veneer of the constitution is
Speaker 1: used to block the methods that were effective with automakers
Speaker 1: were effective with cigarettes. You know, probably somebody could say
Speaker 1: now like oh, Hamilton, he smoked a pipe and therefore
Speaker 1: it's constitutionally protected and we couldn't do what we did
Speaker 1: with cigarettes now. But part of the issue is that
Speaker 1: that this notion that guns have a constitutional sacrosanct nature,
Speaker 1: which again is fake, is then used to justify all
Speaker 1: the politics, all the NRA stuff, all the gun sales,
Speaker 1: all the exporting of weapons that we're doing now, which
Speaker 1: is making the world buss safe and more militarized. And
Speaker 1: so this is all like veneer for an industry. Right,
Speaker 1: It's not not any mystery there. But I will say that,
Speaker 1: you know, part of the issues, I think the public
Speaker 1: health establishment and the Democrats thought, well, the methods that
Speaker 1: would that worked against cars, that worked against cigarettes, and
Speaker 1: would work here that is just it's a different it's
Speaker 1: a different beast. I think it needs a different playbook.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, is your opinion. And let me
Speaker 1: ask this that these parents could particularly it could become
Speaker 1: the next martyrs on the right, Yeah, I mean is this?
Speaker 1: I mean is this because look, I don't I question
Speaker 1: nothing now, right, Like, I assume that if I can,
Speaker 1: if I can imagine it, it can happen. Right. And
Speaker 1: so we already saw the deetization of Kyle Rittenhouse, right,
Speaker 1: and so now you have the other side of this.
Speaker 1: Couldn't Ethan say, well, I was protecting, this was self defense.
Speaker 1: This was blah blah blah blah blah, like I should
Speaker 1: have the right to bear arms and this and this
Speaker 1: is that case. Would you foresee this being that like
Speaker 1: the step into Dante's inferno. Further for the Republicans, well,
Speaker 1: there's two parts of that question. I don't think the
Speaker 1: parents are going to be held up on anybody's top
Speaker 1: ten list. I certainly don't think that's the case. I
Speaker 1: think when you shoot kids, you're you're in a separate category.
Speaker 1: And so I don't think, you know, maybe they'll be
Speaker 1: like the John Wayne Bobbitt on infomercials or something like that,
Speaker 1: or you know, some kind of crap like that like there.
Speaker 1: But but I don't think that they're I don't think
Speaker 1: that they're going to be held up. I mean, nothing
Speaker 1: surprises me anymore. But I would say that these these
Speaker 1: crimes are so egregious and so obvious and so blatant
Speaker 1: that I don't think anybody on any side of this
Speaker 1: is going to support Hey, you know, bring a gun
Speaker 1: to school and shoot your classmates. I don't think that's
Speaker 1: going to happen. I think that's a bridge too far,
Speaker 1: I really do. But I will say that the bigger
Speaker 1: question that you ask is very important, which is what
Speaker 1: is self defense? And what we saw in rittenhouse and
Speaker 1: in every defense here is that it's impossible to prove.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's kind of the point that the minute
Speaker 1: somebody says I feel threatened or bullied or you name it,
Speaker 1: fill in the blank, and guns become the answer at
Speaker 1: that moment. It's really hard because you're basically going off
Speaker 1: of a subjective feeling. And what we see in this
Speaker 1: case is that leads to all and other cases leads
Speaker 1: to all kinds of violence, right, and certainly this kid
Speaker 1: probably did feel like he was being bullied. So is
Speaker 1: that a justifiable use? I mean, no, not in this
Speaker 1: case clearly, but in general, you know, it leads to
Speaker 1: racial profiling. It leads to killing of black and brown
Speaker 1: victims very often. I mean, when you look at like
Speaker 1: the standard ground literature, for example, people get off for
Speaker 1: killing people basically, and then they just say I felt threatened,
Speaker 1: and they didn't feel threatened because somebody pulled a gun
Speaker 1: on then they felt threatened because of implicit bias and
Speaker 1: racism and things like that. And so these these laws
Speaker 1: are designed to to create shootouts, honestly. So so I
Speaker 1: don't so I guess the short answer is, I don't
Speaker 1: think the parents are going to be on the Johnny
Speaker 1: Carson Show. But I do think that the bigger issue
Speaker 1: of claiming self defense lets off a lot of murders,
Speaker 1: you know. I also wonder too if this will bring
Speaker 1: up the solution that death Santis had in Florida, which is,
Speaker 1: will let's just have teachers be able to carry guns?
Speaker 1: Right like this, This is this is what will stop
Speaker 1: the problem we'll have. We'll give teachers the ability to
Speaker 1: be able to carry guns. Now, if I'm a kid
Speaker 1: in my home the gun is who wherever in a
Speaker 1: draw that's unlocked because there are no in Michigan, apparently
Speaker 1: there are no laws about how you're supposed to handle
Speaker 1: your guns, right like you can. Everybody can just do
Speaker 1: whatever that put it on the kitchen counter and you know,
Speaker 1: go sit in a living room. Do you think that
Speaker 1: this brings up an argument as to why even having
Speaker 1: guns in schools if you have a resource officer or
Speaker 1: a teacher, would be problematic and turn into exactly what
Speaker 1: you had said earlier, which is just mass shootouts. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's it's It was a horrible idea when it was
Speaker 1: first introduced. It still is a horrible idea. I mean,
Speaker 1: the irony is that college campuses, for example, historically gun
Speaker 1: free zones also historically thus safest places for people eighteen
Speaker 1: to twenty two years old because they're gun free zones.
Speaker 1: Even in the middle of places where there's a lot
Speaker 1: of shooting. I mean Tennessee, for example, the Vanderbilt campus
Speaker 1: has like a point o one shooting rate and Tennessee
Speaker 1: has like four something or other. It's it's and so like,
Speaker 1: even in the middle of places where there's a lot
Speaker 1: of guns and a lot of gun violence. The fact
Speaker 1: that school camp says have historically been gun free zones
Speaker 1: makes them incredibly safe because there's a lot of conflict,
Speaker 1: a lot of bullying, a lot of you know, what
Speaker 1: kids do on the you know, playground and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: but people don't shoot it out. And and you also
Speaker 1: don't introduce guns into this scene by having the teachers
Speaker 1: armed or armed guards or things like that. And so
Speaker 1: what we're doing is just basically militarizing schools and it's
Speaker 1: just going to I mean, look at this case, right,
Speaker 1: It's the shooter is always going to have the upper hand.
Speaker 1: It'sn't like you're going to win a shootout without casualty
Speaker 1: in a case like this, you know. So one of
Speaker 1: the other things that I want to talk about with
Speaker 1: you too is the fact that if correct me if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong, But this is also one of the first
Speaker 1: mass shootings that we've seen in a school where sixty
Speaker 1: plus schools in Michigan closed because of copycat threats? And Jonathan,
Speaker 1: have we seen that before? With the shootings that you know,
Speaker 1: you have kind of rattled off in Florida and Connecticut,
Speaker 1: you know, xamples, California and other places. Has there been
Speaker 1: that kind of active copycat you know, mentality pop up
Speaker 1: right after Well, let me just put it in context.
Speaker 1: There's a ton of despair right now. There's despair in schools.
Speaker 1: The pandemic is extracting a huge cost on people. Kids
Speaker 1: in particular, Like again, the future they think they were
Speaker 1: going to have is is closing in front of their eyes.
Speaker 1: In part because of this pandemic, We've got this new
Speaker 1: oh microphobia, you know, the whole country, and so there's
Speaker 1: a lot of tension right now, and so I think
Speaker 1: that threats are real, right, Threats feel very real, and
Speaker 1: so I'm not surprised that this shooting had a ripple effect. Now,
Speaker 1: certainly it's the case that mass shootings in general have
Speaker 1: strong copycat phenomenon. That was true through the twenty tens
Speaker 1: when we were having tons and tons of mass shootings.
Speaker 1: So there would mass shooters would try to run up
Speaker 1: each other. And so I think that schools are prone
Speaker 1: to take this very seriously in general because of the
Speaker 1: copycat effect of this. Also, again it's in Michigan, where
Speaker 1: there's just a ton of guns around, and so a
Speaker 1: lot of kids do have access to guns. And the
Speaker 1: other part is, you know that it's just such a
Speaker 1: moment of heightened tension because of what's happening in the
Speaker 1: world right now, and so all these things are a
Speaker 1: pretty toxic mix. It's a dangerous moment in general, and
Speaker 1: schools are reflective of that. But I do also think
Speaker 1: it's very important that we also, I mean, I'm not
Speaker 1: I don't want to get schools off the hook here.
Speaker 1: It's important that we give schools more tools and parents
Speaker 1: more tools when people are at risk. I mean, there
Speaker 1: are things called gun violence restraining orders, red flag laws.
Speaker 1: When somebody's escalating, you have there's a way to get
Speaker 1: that person and disarmed, right. Um. And so now obviously
Speaker 1: the law on the logic is like if your parents
Speaker 1: are like taken out for shooting practice the day before
Speaker 1: you do a mass shooting, it's not going to work.
Speaker 1: But I will say that we need to empower schools
Speaker 1: more to address situations like that. I certainly think that's true.
Speaker 1: Schools need more authority to be able to even do
Speaker 1: more than this this school did in Michigan. Last question
Speaker 1: for you, do you think that the fact that these
Speaker 1: these parents are going to be charged, are now charged
Speaker 1: and will be you know, arraigned and face their own
Speaker 1: trial separate from Ethan Crumbly now being tried as an
Speaker 1: adult with account of terrorism along with all of the
Speaker 1: other counts of murder that he has against him. Do
Speaker 1: you think that this will spark discussions around the fact
Speaker 1: that there needs to be laws on the books that
Speaker 1: your weapons are locked up that like that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know that that is the case in some states,
Speaker 1: but it's not at all. Yeah, I mean, the parents
Speaker 1: are a far part of a spectrum, but they're on
Speaker 1: a spectrum, right, I mean, so they're on a spectrum
Speaker 1: of gun owners resisting any kind of gun laws in
Speaker 1: ways that make it easier for their kids to get guns,
Speaker 1: and so there, I mean, it would a gun safe,
Speaker 1: a trigger lock probably wouldn't have helped in this case
Speaker 1: or in general, because usually trigger locks and gun safes
Speaker 1: are for toddlers when toddlers are in the house. But
Speaker 1: I will say that there are safe storage laws that
Speaker 1: have been tried in multiple states, including in Tennessee. We
Speaker 1: had we had a case where a five year old
Speaker 1: kid picked up one of their parents guns that was
Speaker 1: just lying around and shot another like four year old kid,
Speaker 1: And the question was were the parents liable in that case,
Speaker 1: and we had support from across the aisle Republicans and Democrats.
Speaker 1: The pre vote was almost unanimous, saying parents are responsible
Speaker 1: for gun storage when they have toddlers or kids under
Speaker 1: ten in the house. The day before the vote was
Speaker 1: going to happen, NRA sent thirty lobbyists into town and
Speaker 1: basically said, if you like, if you want your job,
Speaker 1: you're going to vote against this. It's all. There's actually
Speaker 1: an article in Newsweek about this. It was called Michayley's
Speaker 1: Law and the and what happened was they just all
Speaker 1: turned around and they voted against it. And so even
Speaker 1: safe storage for like little kids is something that is
Speaker 1: that is not permissible. And so I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just you know, this is the world
Speaker 1: that these guys want. But it's it's just sad that
Speaker 1: we have again, at this moment in time, we should
Speaker 1: be taking care of kids. We should not be having
Speaker 1: parents so afraid to even I mean it's ironic, right, Like,
Speaker 1: we want our kids to go back to school and
Speaker 1: we're not going to do mass and we don't want
Speaker 1: critical race theory. We just want them to go back
Speaker 1: to school. But we're not going to do anything for
Speaker 1: the biggest threat possible, Like how many people did critical
Speaker 1: race theory shoot? You know, and so and so and so.
Speaker 1: It's just the irony here and again. We want the
Speaker 1: same thing, right. We want kids to be able to
Speaker 1: feel safe in school and think critical thoughts and become
Speaker 1: great leaders. We want to create a world that's better
Speaker 1: for them. But I don't know. This is just there's
Speaker 1: something profoundly sad about this happening in general, and this
Speaker 1: happening right now. Yeah, profoundly sad. It is where we
Speaker 1: will end it today, doctor Jonathan Metzel, author of Dying
Speaker 1: of Whiteness. As always, we appreciate your insight and analysis
Speaker 1: here on Woke a F. Take care of everybody. That
Speaker 1: is it for me today on Woke a F. As always,
Speaker 1: power to the people and to all the people. Power,
Speaker 1: get woke and stay woke. As fun