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Genu cell dot com slash cactus. 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:53.240 This episode, A Verdict with Ted Cruz is brought to 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:56.280 you by American Hartford Goal. Now, the new inflation numbers 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:57.840 are out, and I think we can all agree they 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:00.840 are incredibly depressing. The price of gas is way up, 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:03.440 the price of housing is up. The US national debt 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:07.040 is way way way up. And unfortunately, given the way 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:10.000 that our current administration prints money and spends money experts 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:13.320 don't see this going away, this inflation going away anytime soon. 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:17.720 So how do you protect your money, your savings, your 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:21.520 retirement from inflation. 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So don't wait, call them right now. 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:53.960 Call eight five five seven six eight one eight eight three. 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:55.760 Or if you prefer texting, you can text the word 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:58.839 cactus to six five five three two again, the phone 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:02.200 number is eight five fives sixty eight eight three, or 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.640 text the word cactus to six five three two. Welcome 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:09.520 back to Verdings with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles, Senator. 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:15.720 Everyone is debating, not just the horrific incident that happened 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:18.680 in Uvaldi, the shooting at this elementary school. But it 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:22.560 seems like from the very second that this happened, you 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:28.160 had demagogues pushing their own pre existing political agenda and 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:31.839 yelling and saying do something, do something, and mocking and 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:35.320 deriding anyone who suggested that we ought to pray about 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:38.200 this and we ought to let people grieve and mourn. 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:41.400 You have not just been observing this from Afar. You've 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:46.200 been down in Uvaldi. What have you seen Yesterday morning? 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:51.520 I flew into Yuvaldi. I went first to meet with 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:55.200 the local leaders in law enforcement, met with a mayor, 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:59.600 met with a county judge, met with a sheriff who's 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:05.880 absolutely distraught, met with TEXASDPS and the FBI, the district 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:11.520 attorney's office, and the superintendent of the school board and 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:16.840 the chief of the school police. And we started the 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:19.320 day with about a two hour briefing of what we 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:22.880 knew at that point. You know, what we know is evolving. 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:26.840 We know more today than we knew yesterday. But the shooter, 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:34.280 eighteen years old, as you know, in the morning, got 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:38.400 up and shot his grandmother in the face, and then 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:41.600 he got in a car, a truck, actually her truck, 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:45.839 and drove the truck just down the street. So her 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:48.640 house is just a couple of blocks from the school, 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:53.880 so he didn't go very far, and he crashed the 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:59.000 truck into a drainage ditch, and the drainage ditch goes 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:01.000 down about six to eight feed And I saw I 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:04.240 was at the school yesterday. I saw the truck which 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:06.600 is still down in the drainage ditch. He had gone 0:06:06.600 --> 0:06:08.960 through a fence and down into the ditch and crashed there, 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:13.159 broken the tires off the axles, and then he got 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:15.320 out of the truck and it was right next to 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:19.520 the elementary school. And he went into the elementary school. 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:25.200 And the facts are still unfolding about when exactly law 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:29.720 enforcement encountered him. What we were told yesterday appears to 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:31.839 be different from what the facts are today. But he 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:36.600 entered the back door of the elementary school, and it 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:39.920 was a door that's right next to the teacher's parking lot. 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:44.400 And by all appearances, that back door was unlocked, and 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:48.760 he walked directly into it. He walked into it carrying 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:54.160 a gun. He went down the hallway and entered a classroom, 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:58.640 was a fourth grade classroom. That classroom was adjoining to 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:01.679 another classroom, so there were two classrooms that were joining, 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:06.599 connected by a door in between, and he terrorized those 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:14.640 children and executed those children, and law enforcement arrived. What 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:19.400 they're saying today, what DPS has said today, is that 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:23.760 law enforcement arrived twelve minutes after he crashed the truck 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:32.760 into that ditch, and he barricaded himself into that classroom 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:39.400 and a gunfight ensued. That gunfight lasted some time anywhere 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:41.760 between forty minutes and an hour. And when I met 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:44.240 with the FBI and law enforcement, they were reviewing the 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:47.360 footage and they're trying to set the precise timeline. But 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:51.680 it was an extended it was a protracted gunfight. Three 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:56.360 law enforcement officers were wounded, although thankfully none of them 0:07:56.400 --> 0:07:59.800 were seriously wounded. And I got to say all day yesterday, 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:05.400 from meeting with the first responders, to going to the school, UH, 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:10.840 to seeing the wreckage firsthand, to going last night to 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:13.320 a prayer vigil. You know, the community had a prayer 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:17.000 vigil and it was packed. It was inside this this 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:21.360 UH big indoor barn where they have bull riding and 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:24.480 they have rodeos there. You know, Vivaldi is a small town. 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:29.240 It's in South Texas. It's it's a pretty rural town. Um, 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:34.640 it's outside of San Antonio, but it's it's it's not 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:36.800 a big city, it's not a big suburb. It is 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:43.199 a small South Texas town and the community is just shattered. 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:50.200 Is the grief, the agony. You could see. You could 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:56.880 see parents just just in tears, whaling. You could see grandparents, 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:01.160 You could see students, high school dudents walking in with 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:04.560 just this look of a sort of glazed shock. You know, 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:08.679 this was the first school shooting since I became a parent. 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:11.439 And obviously there have been lots in my lifetime when 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:13.760 I was a kid, starting with Columbine and then so many, 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:16.720 so many others unfortunately that have occurred. But this was 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:19.400 the first one since I became a parent, and I 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:22.480 I didn't get it. Yeah, Before I was a parent 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:24.960 and I you would always hear people say, you're hugging 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:26.920 your kid closer tonight. This is the worst thing you 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:30.680 could possibly imagine. I always thought, obviously, this is incredibly tragic, 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:33.160 but what does that mean. You hug your kid closer 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:35.839 because you just if you, if you are a parent, 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:38.360 you just you think this is this is the singular 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:41.240 horror that you can imagine, and it is in part 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:45.400 why my reaction just to the politics of it and 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:47.840 the coverage in the media was a little different this time. 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:50.439 I thought, you can you let people more in a 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:52.600 little bit? Can you let people grieve a little bit? 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:56.320 Can you just give it two seconds before this has 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:59.720 to become some national debate on anyone's pet project. And 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:02.080 I to tell you it's it's frustrating for me because 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:03.880 this is not the first time I've been on the 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:08.520 ground where some psychopath has carried out unactive mass murder. 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:13.559 I've represented Texas for ten years and we've had way 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:16.319 too many of these. Santa Fe High School is less 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:20.040 than an hour outside of Houston. When that lunatic began 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:24.280 murdering high school kids there, I was at home. I 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:26.320 got a call at home, I jumped in a truck 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:29.280 and headed down to Santa Fe. I was there within 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:34.560 an hour of when the shooting happened. Sutherland Springs, there's 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:39.080 another small town, rural town outside of San Antonio, worst 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:42.520 church shooting in US history. I was there the day 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:47.199 after Sutherland Springs. I was in that beautiful little sanctuary 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:52.160 when there was still blood and shattered glass, shattered iPhones, 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:58.280 pews thrown in chaos as that lunatic executed people, including 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:02.680 that lunatic executed a child that was eighteen months old 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:07.160 he shot and murdered. I was there in Midland, Odessa 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:10.559 with another mass murderer. There. I was there in El Paso, Texas, 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:13.880 with another mass murderer. There. I was in Dallas with 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:18.120 another mass murderer who targeted police officers. There are broader 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:23.000 causes that we can and should discuss, causes that we've seen. 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:25.640 Whether it's the destruction of the nuclear family, whether it 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:30.439 is the loss of strong and loving father figures and families, Many, 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:33.560 if not most, of these murderers come from a home 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:38.720 without a strong and loving father, Whether it is the 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:44.000 deterioration of faith and community in a church life. And 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:48.720 it seems almost all of these people are detached from 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:52.240 their community. And there are lots of things that have 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:56.199 nothing to do with government and policy that have led 0:11:56.320 --> 0:12:03.040 to angry teenage boys being filled with murderous rage. But 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:05.360 what your political opponents are going to say is they're 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:07.640 going to say, well, okay, yeah, enough, we'll do something 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:11.280 about it. And I almost I mean I guess now 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:13.920 there is this national debate going on, and so it's 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:17.120 been a couple days after this shooting, and people are 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:19.240 just going to be debating all of these policies. But 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:23.320 it seems almost tired at this point to recite the 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:26.240 same old litany because it's the same old debate every time. 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:30.680 But the do something is not enough. In the proposals 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:34.880 that have been made by the Democrats, almost exclusively to 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:39.040 regulate guns, none of them would have prevented any of 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:41.800 these mass shootings. Even the Washington Post admitted that when 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:44.520 Marco Rubio said it in twenty fifteen, even the Post 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:46.960 fact checker had to admit that that point was right. 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:51.800 Then you get onto other proposals that could possibly even 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:54.839 be made here. What would that be, to ban guns entirely, Well, 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:57.440 you're going to run up against a constitutional problem, a 0:12:57.480 --> 0:12:59.960 practical problem. There are more guns than people in this country. 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:03.160 There's no political will whatsoever to ban guns, and there's 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:05.200 not a lot of evidence that banning guns would reduce 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:07.640 the murder rate. When they banned handguns in the UK, 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:11.040 the murder rate increased significantly, almost doubled in about six years. 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:13.640 So it's it's the same old litany of issues, and 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.040 I think I think this is why the people who 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:19.080 criticize thoughts and prayers and the people who say will 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:21.320 do something do something. It's why they don't tend to 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:23.880 get very specific, because they don't have any more of 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:26.520 an answer on what to do than anybody else does. 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:30.760 They're just demogoguing the issue and pretending that their sympathetic 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:35.160 outrage is somehow productive. So let's assess how do we 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:41.559 stop these? Inevitably, when there's a mass murder, within seconds, 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:46.160 democrats and the media begin calling for the exact same 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:49.040 policies they were calling for the day before, which which 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:51.600 they're objective. And more and more the left is quite 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:55.440 candid about it is to disarm law abiding citizens throughout 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:59.120 this country, to take away your firearms, by firearms and 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:03.480 those of law fighting citizens. There are many problems with that, 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:06.160 but let's just start with a basic one. It doesn't work. 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:10.880 Taking away every firearm that Michael Knowles owns would not 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:16.920 have stopped this psychopath from murdering children in Uvaldi. And 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:20.120 by the way, we see that in Chicago and New 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:22.960 York and DC, in California where they have very strict 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:27.640 gun control, and the criminals still have guns and still 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:31.360 carry out murders. If you could wave a magic wand 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:37.320 and eliminate all firearms in America, there would be substantially 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:40.680 more murders than there are today. I'll give you a 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:43.640 statistic from the Obama White House. Now, the Obama White 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:47.040 House is hardly a right wing source. Here's what the 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:50.640 Obama White House concluded is that firearms are used in 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:56.720 the United States defensively between five hundred thousand and one 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:01.560 million times per year, used to stop the commission of 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:04.440 a crime. So if the Left succeeds and taking away 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:09.000 everyone's firearms all of the instances, now, that doesn't mean 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:11.280 that there are between five hundred thousand and a million 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:15.720 gun fights. Many many times firearms are used to stop 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:18.720 a robbery, to stop and attempted murderers, to stop a 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:23.400 kidnapping where the gun isn't fired, but simply brandishing the 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:26.760 gun causes the criminal to abandon the criminal effort, and 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:30.640 that happens, according to the Obama White House, between five 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:34.880 hundred thousand and a million times a year. So eliminating 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:38.200 all firearms, I believe would cause far more loss of 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:41.720 life because it would mean that criminals would be able 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:45.080 to Maraud would be able to commit assaults and not 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:47.600 be worried about people defending themselves. And by the way, 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:50.600 the data, if you look at the jurisdictions with the 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:56.040 strictest gun controls, almost without an exception, they have among 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:59.720 the highest crime rates and the highest murder rates. And 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:03.000 places with lower rates of gun control, in other words, 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:09.240 with more widespread firearms among the citizenry, you have typically 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:12.560 much lower crime rates, much lower murder rates. But let's 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:15.360 not skip this question. Is there something we can do 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:17.360 to stop these And I believe the answer is yes. 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:19.840 When I first arrived in the Senate, I got elected 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:25.320 in twenty twelve. Just after I arrived, Sandy Hook, the 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.920 horrific school shooting in Connecticut occurred, and so we had 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:31.240 this debate ten years ago. And when I looked at it, 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:33.880 I said, then we need to do something. What do 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:36.240 we need to do. Let's get the guns out of 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:38.960 the hands of the violent criminals, the felons and fugitives 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:42.640 and those with serious mental illness. And so I authored legislation. 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:48.320 It was called Grassly Cruise. Grassly Cruise was legislation targeting 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:50.240 the bad guys. And so one of the things it did, 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:54.800 is it improve the background check system. If you look 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:56.240 at we have a background check, so if you or 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:57.560 I go by a gun, you got to run a 0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:00.640 background check. It runs the check to see if you 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:04.280 have a felony conviction. That database is only as good 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:06.919 as the information in it, and a lot of the 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:10.280 federal government has been lousy at reporting felony convictions to 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:14.200 the database, and a lot of states, interestingly enough, many 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:19.399 of them Blue states, have terrible records reporting the felonies 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:22.280 to the background check database. You look at Sutherland Springs, 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:25.879 which was the church shooting in Texas. In that instance, 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:29.000 that crime should have been prevented. Why because the shooter 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:32.120 there it was already illegal for him to buy a firearm. 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:34.960 He was a felon and he had domestic violence conviction, 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:37.720 so it was doubly illegal. So why was he able 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:40.000 to buy his firearm? Well, the reason is that the 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:44.240 Obama Air Force never reported the conviction to the background 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:47.800 check database. So he went into a gun store to 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:50.800 buy his gun. He filled out the background check form 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:52.560 and he live. He was asked, do you have a 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:55.600 felony conviction? He checked the box and said no. He 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:57.600 was asked, do you have a domestic violence conviction. He 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:00.880 checked the box and said no, they in the background check. 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:05.119 And because the federal government, the Obama administration, never reported 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:08.399 his felony conviction to the database, the background check came 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:11.040 up clean, and they sold him the firearm. So one 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:15.199 of the things Grassly Crews did is mandated the federal government, 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:17.440 the Department of Justice, to do an audit of every 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:21.639 federal agency to ensure that all felony convictions were in 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:25.239 the database. It also provided funds for states to do 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:30.719 the same thing for state convictions. But beyond that, every 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:33.680 year there's a vast number of felons and fugitives who 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:39.040 try to illegally buy firearms. The Department of Justice prosecutes 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:40.680 almost none of them. In fact, i'll give you the 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:43.280 stats from twenty ten, which was the last year there 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:46.720 were stats from before when I drafted Grassly Cruse. In 0:18:46.760 --> 0:18:53.320 that year, there were forty eight thousand felons and fugitives 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:57.639 who tried to illegally buy firearms. Forty eight thousand of those. 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:00.000 Do you know how many the Department of Justice prosecute 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:04.800 forty four And by the way, that continues to this day. 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:08.760 The Biden Justice Department still is not prosecuting felons and 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:13.679 fugitives who try to illegally buy firearms. Grassly CRUs mandated 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:16.320 the creation of a Gun Crime Task Force at the 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:21.320 Department of Justice to go and prosecute and put in 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:26.760 jail felons and fugitives who illegally buy firearms. Now, what 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:30.320 happened to Grassley Cruz. We voted on the Senate floor 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:34.840 on that bill. It got a majority. It got fifty 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:38.119 two votes in favor of it. Nine Democrats voted in 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:41.639 favor of Grassly Cruise got the most bipartisan support of 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:45.840 any of the comprehensive legislation that was voted on. So 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:48.520 why didn't it pass? Well, it was the Harry Reid 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:54.760 Democrats Senate, and the Democrats filibustered it. They demanded sixty votes. 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:57.399 So even though I had fifty two votes, we didn't 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:00.720 have sixty, and so it failed. Becau as Harry Reid 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:03.520 and Chuck Schumer and the Democrats filibuster did. They're not 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:06.320 really focused on this issue, right, They're focused on pushing 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:09.560 the same legislation that they've wanted to push for decades now, 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:12.479 and they'll use any circumstance to try to push that. 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:14.679 But what we're seeing here in the specifics of this 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:17.800 actual shooting is, in some ways it seems like it's 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:20.520 a repeat of the Parkland shooting. You've got a kid 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:24.080 who was showing serious signs of trouble. He should have 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:27.840 been identified much sooner. There should have been safeguards placed 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:31.040 around this kid, much much sooner. There are now questions 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:34.080 about when law enforcement got there, if law enforcement did 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:38.040 enough in the moment you're seeing I'm not saying it's 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:39.800 a repeat of history, but you're seeing lots and lots 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:43.359 of similarities, none of which you're addressed by the legislation 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:46.560 that the Democrats are proposing. I sat down and participated 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:49.560 in round tables with the families of the victims who 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:52.760 were murdered in Santa Fe, and it included families who 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:55.600 were in Parkland, families who were in other mass shootings, 0:20:55.600 --> 0:20:58.840 and we talked about how do you prevent them? And 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:01.560 as you talk to experts, one of the things they 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:07.000 said is for schools, many schools are very, very vulnerable, 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:11.160 and there are concrete steps we can take to harden 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:13.800 schools and make them safer. In particular, here's what the 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:18.600 experts have recommended they've said, you don't want multiple means 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:21.000 of entering the school. You don't want lots and lots 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:26.679 of open doors. If you look at how the shooter 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:30.080 got in Uvality, he went into a backdoor that was unlocked. 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:33.080 That's exactly how the shooter went in in Santa Fe. 0:21:33.200 --> 0:21:35.720 A backdoor that was unlocked. He was able to get in, 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:38.119 and then he was able to get right into a classroom. 0:21:39.280 --> 0:21:42.240 Same thing in Santa Fe. So twice the same thing happened. 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:46.719 What the recommendations were is have a single point of 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:51.320 entry for the school, one door that everyone comes through. 0:21:51.359 --> 0:21:53.960 If you think about it, a secure facility, a courthouse, 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:57.119 a federal building, they often have a single point of 0:21:57.240 --> 0:22:02.240 entry because from a security perspective, that much safer at 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:07.040 that point of entry. The single most effective security step 0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:10.800 you can take is to have armed police officers there 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:16.080 at that point of entry. That has a greater impact 0:22:16.080 --> 0:22:18.639 on keeping kids safe than just about anything else you 0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:23.639 can do on school safety. Funding for school safety should 0:22:23.640 --> 0:22:26.920 be a no brainer. There's not a single Democrat who 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:31.960 opposes it on principle, But every time I've tried to 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:36.920 force a vote on it, Schumer has blocked it because 0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:39.560 his view is if he can't take away law abiding 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:43.040 citizens guns, he's not willing to do anything. I hope 0:22:43.080 --> 0:22:48.000 after this that changes. But you know, part of the problem, Michael, 0:22:49.080 --> 0:22:56.880 the press are active advocates and partisans. I've never seen 0:22:56.920 --> 0:23:00.359 one Democrat asked why they vote against in filibusters school 0:23:00.400 --> 0:23:04.040 safety funding funds for police officers in schools, funds to 0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:08.200 put bulletproof doors and bulletproof glass and classrooms and locks 0:23:08.240 --> 0:23:11.000 that an assailant can't enter the classroom. If this guy 0:23:11.000 --> 0:23:13.520 had entered the school and the school classrooms had been 0:23:13.600 --> 0:23:15.800 locked and he couldn't get in, he couldn't have murdered 0:23:15.800 --> 0:23:18.560 these children. Last night, when I was at the prayer vigil, 0:23:18.960 --> 0:23:21.840 there was this British reporter, this this kind of you know, 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:24.000 ran and chase me and stuck his TV camera in 0:23:24.080 --> 0:23:26.280 my face and I'm walking out of the door. And 0:23:26.600 --> 0:23:32.080 the first he asked me about what we were seeing there, 0:23:32.119 --> 0:23:35.920 and I said, look, this is horrific. This is their 0:23:36.000 --> 0:23:38.600 nineteen sets of parents who are not going to be 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:42.000 able to hug their child tonight or see their child, 0:23:42.040 --> 0:23:45.600 and it is it's the most unspeakable evil we could imagine. 0:23:45.640 --> 0:23:47.520 And he immediately jumped into what don't we need to 0:23:47.520 --> 0:23:50.080 pass gun control? And I didn't want to argue with 0:23:50.160 --> 0:23:52.560 this guy, and I'm disengaging. He's a British guy who 0:23:52.600 --> 0:23:55.960 was an obnoxious leftist, and he's like, why does this 0:23:56.080 --> 0:23:59.080 only happen in America? Doesn't happen anywhere else in the world. 0:23:59.080 --> 0:24:04.679 It's only America. Why is American exceptionalism so horrible? The 0:24:04.840 --> 0:24:08.160