WEBVTT - Fear of the NRA 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.400 Good morning, peeps, and welcome to will Gate f Daily 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:17.800 with me your girl, Danielle Moody recording a live from 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:23.919 the Brooklyn Cilarium. You know, folks, I've recorded my normal 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:28.440 interview with our friend in house, doctor doctor Jonathan Metzel, 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:31.479 and I got to tell you that when I finished 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:36.360 the interview with him, I was thoroughly depressed. Not because 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:41.560 I find Jonathan depressing, but because I'm just wondering how 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:47.000 many times we're going to be talking about the same things, 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:52.880 and recognizing that the only thing that our politicians are 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:58.360 offering us as we experience multiple pandemics, as we are 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:03.560 forced to live through trauma, and all that they offer 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:08.640 thoughts and prayers. Today's conversation with Jonathan is about the 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:14.720 fact that this week in Michigan, once again, multiple schools 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:19.560 across the state are closed. Multiple middle schools and elementary 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:25.120 schools are closed. Why is that because of copycat threats 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:29.360 of gun violence, of massacres taking place at these schools, 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:35.039 and so they've shut down. Now, what's funny to me 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:40.480 is that these are the same people who, if the 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:44.679 school was shutting down because of COVID, would be flipping out, 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:49.840 turning over deaths at school board meetings because their children 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:52.600 are forced to wear a mask and that is traumatizing, 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:54.960 you know, to protect them from a virus that is 0:01:55.040 --> 0:02:01.120 killed over eight hundred thousand Americans. At this point. The 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:05.200 area that Oxford High School is in, Jonathan Will tell 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:09.480 us later in the show, is the reddest of red States. 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:14.720 You're talking about gun country, USA, And there's a petition 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:20.520 right now out in order to make the schools go 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:24.160 virtual until the new year. And I'm thinking to myself, 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:28.520 that's just kicking the can down the road. What happens 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:31.640 in the new year. We also thought that, you know, 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:34.120 we wouldn't see any mass shootings. Are here of them 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:37.560 during twenty twenty? Will it comes to come to find out, 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:39.919 according to the New York Times, is that there was 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:43.600 over six hundred mass shootings that took place in twenty twenty. 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:45.919 It was just that the news which is too busy 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:49.800 covering the other pandemic being COVID nineteen that was ravaging 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:53.320 our country, as opposed to the fact that, you know, 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:58.680 gun purchases were at a record high in twenty twenty 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:04.760 in this country. That gun stores were made to be essential, right, 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:11.480 so we need toilet paper Purerell Clorox wipes and a 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:18.480 nine millimeter. But that is America and what is troubling 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:24.119 me today so much is the trauma that is being 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:29.000 inflicted on the nation's children, and no one seems to 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:33.920 give a fuck. I want us to think about today, 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:37.800 if you have kids, if you don't have kids, think 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:41.240 about yourself when you were in middle school and high 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:46.520 school during your most vulnerable time. Hormones are changing your 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:51.400 figuring out who you are, how you fit in was 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:57.320 enough anxiety? Right? We often watch movies and read, you know, 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:03.560 young adult novels on teen angst. We'll think about what 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:08.080 we're actually putting teens through in the twenty first century. 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:13.680 Where we don't do fire drills anymore, we do active 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:16.960 shooter drills. Where we're not sending our kids to school 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:19.359 with regular backpacks. Some of them are going to school 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:25.159 with bulletproof backpacks. Where we're requiring student athletes to turn 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:29.960 into some type of superhero to protect their classmates and 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:34.720 lose their life in the process. Where we're shutting down 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:38.839 schools because of threats of copycat violence. But then once 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:42.120 we get the AOK, we're sending those kids back and 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:45.680 telling them what the coast is clear, everything is safe, 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:48.719 and then we expect them to be able to take 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:53.400 in their normal curriculum and just act as if all 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:56.680 is okay. You know, one of the things about this 0:04:56.760 --> 0:05:00.559 new century is that we've had more open conversation about 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:03.400 mental health. I mean, just think about what we saw 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:08.320 over the summer with the Summer Olympics and Simone Biles 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:11.640 talking about mental health and saying that she's taking herself 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:15.280 out of competition because her mind isn't together. We saw 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:18.920 that with Naomi Osaka. We've seen that with other athletes 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:23.000 like Michael Phelps talking about depression and anxiety right and 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:31.159 now being an ambassador for therapy and mental health. But 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:36.240 we're not having that same conversation about what happens to 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:42.000 a generation generations at this point since Columbine of children 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:48.599 that no no other reality. While according to US News 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:53.560 and World Report, suicide attempts among teenagers are up damn 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:57.440 near fifty percent in this country, you would think that 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:00.719 that would be something that we would all regards of party, 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:06.200 regardless of geographic origin, would be rallying around. Except we 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:12.440 have turned our children into political pawns and footballs. You 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:16.039 have the GOP tweeting out during the Scotus hearings on 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:19.360 abortion on the abortion case in Mississippi, that they are 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:22.480 pro life and they are the pro life party, where 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:25.560 when you have the Lauren Boberts of the world and 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:31.400 others posing with their children with ar fifteens. Meanwhile, for 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:35.640 the first time, we're seeing the parents of Ethan Crumbly 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:41.680 be charged with four counts of manslaughter each for the 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:45.320 fact that they just left a loaded weapon in their 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:48.800 house with the child that they knew wasn't fucking right. 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:52.680 But they made jokes much in the same way that 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:55.320 Lauren Bobert had a big fucking smile on her face 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:57.920 while her children are holding guns that are bigger than 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:02.760 they are, just a week after a mass shooting at 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:06.800 a high school that claimed the lives of four goddamn kids. 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:11.880 But that shit is normal. Wrap your mind around what 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:13.600 it would have looked like if one of the black 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:17.080 members of Congress, one of the latinxt members of Congress, 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:24.520 we're posing with ar fifteens in front of their religious symbols. 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:31.520 It would look like, righte some type of recruiter video. 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:35.200 It would look like some type of cult like shit. 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:39.240 That's what we would say, because we only criminalize and 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:44.840 penalize and question the pathology of people of color in 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:50.000 this country, But we don't talk about the pathology of 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:54.640 white violence in this country and how it is not 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:59.480 only tolerated, but fucking celebrated. That was a goddamn member 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:03.600 of Chris She has no business being one, because she's 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:07.640 about as smart as a fucking empty bucket. But at 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:14.000 the end of the day, the outrage was mild, just 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:18.920 like the outrage is tepid in response to what it 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:23.280 is that we are asking our nation's children to participate 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:28.640 in day after day. You know, I gotta think that 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:34.360 during quarantine during twenty twenty, when the majority of the 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:39.560 nation's schools were closed, that some parents were breathing a 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:43.600 sense of relief. And why would that be, well, because 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:46.520 they don't have to look at their phone and worry 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:50.280 about the breaking news and wondering if the next shooting 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:53.760 was coming to a neighborhood and a school near by them, 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:58.960 because that's the kind of trauma that parents and caregivers 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:03.760 deal with as well. We don't give a fuck about 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:07.840 kids in this country, and that is obvious because in 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:11.000 one of the wealthiest nations, as we love to say it, 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:14.920 over and over again. Child poverty and hunger is at 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:18.800 an all time fucking high. That we're sending kids to 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:23.480 school and teaching them how to evade predators rather than 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:30.240 taking away the weapons that predators use. I am so 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:34.640 sick to death of hearing where public opinion is. And 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:38.920 you'll hear me with the conversation with Jonathan. Does it 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:43.160 matter anymore? Seventy percent of the public is against this 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.280 and ninety percent of the public is for x Y 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:50.319 and c our politicians don't give a fuck about where 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:54.360 public sentiment lies. If they did, we would have had 0:09:55.600 --> 0:10:02.240 gun protection laws in Columbine, right. It wouldn't have taken 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:08.600 over twenty years of mass shootings, the martyring of a 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:15.679 classroom of elementary school children, and still no goddamn action. 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:21.840 We don't care about kids. We show more outrage for 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:26.720 teaching Tony Morrison in school. We show more outrage for 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:29.280 teaching them about the truth of the founding of this nation, 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:32.600 which doesn't even fucking happen in K through twelve. Then 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:35.559 we do about the fact that we are traumatizing generations 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:41.520 of children with gun violence. You know, these kids. When 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:48.079 I was reading the report about the increase in suicide attempts, 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:55.160 particularly among young girls, and I'm thinking to myself, how 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:59.320 is this happening? Why is this happening? And I thought 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:06.120 about in the early aughts when there was a spat 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:12.480 of high profiled suicides of lgbt Q plus a youth 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:16.160 that were being bullied in schools, and the response to 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:20.400 that was celebrities to create a campaign. The Trevor Project 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:28.880 helped created this campaign, It gets Better, right to be 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:36.040 a campaign of positivity from adult LGBTQ people who are saying, 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:38.520 you can get through this tough time, you will make 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:41.160 it through to the other side, that there is another side. 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:46.600 And I keep thinking about that campaign now because I 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:50.480 think there is no way to tell children, all children, 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:55.520 regardless of their orientation or gender identity, that it gets better. 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:02.719 This is why they are a suicide. These kids are 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:07.560 looking around and the anxiety that they have, the PTSD, 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:14.040 that they have adults who are supposed to be in charge, 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:18.680 not adulting and definitely not taking charge of any of 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:21.199 the major issues that they are going to be inheriting 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:25.680 young people that have absolutely no power and no say 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:28.319 in the direction that this country takes and are just 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:34.679 sider it literally sitting ducks and they're looking around and 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:38.439 they're saying, does it get better? Because what I'm seeing 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:45.360 is that things are getting tremendously fucking worse. Where do 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:48.560 we point to and tell them, oh, when you're an 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:51.080 adult and you're in charge, you know things will be 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:54.800 better then, or my hope is with the youth, it's not. 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:58.800 We are giving them a country and a planet that 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:03.040 is ravaged by client I'm a change right that is 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:07.520 so aggressive, so aggressive right now that for the last 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:11.920 two fucking years, we've had more century once in a century, 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:19.960 historic storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, fires, than ever before, but 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:27.240 we take no action on it. We have racial uprisings, 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:33.120 white supremas arming themselves, shooting people in the street and 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:37.800 walking around free afterwards, not convicted, but we're telling them, no, 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:49.439 you're safe, things will be good. We have gun drills 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:54.559 in elementary schools and we're telling kids, don't worry. This 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:59.760 is the greatest nation in the world. How how is 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:02.400 it the greatest nation in the world when we are 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:09.880 back to book burning. That's our defiance and not looking 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:13.320 at what is really going on with our kids and 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:18.559 how we really should be protecting them. I am sick 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:23.280 to death, sick to death, and honestly, I must say 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:26.080 that parents have got to be some of the most 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:30.200 hopeful people on the planet, because I, for one, couldn't 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:34.760 imagine what it is like to be bringing children into 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:38.000 the world right now, to be rearing them in the 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:42.200 hopes that they inherit something better. When you know, good, God, 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:45.840 damn well, the amount of anxiety and stress you have 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:53.000 right now about how rapidly our country is declining. It 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:57.720 is a disgrace where we are. It is a pure, 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:08.440 pure disgrace. This should be a bipartisan issue. We should 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:16.240 care about the future generations. But every single act or 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:21.320 inaction that we make tells us where we care, tells 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:31.520 us where we are. I'm worried, folks. I am so 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:37.200 scared for the future. And I can't imagine what it's 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:43.080 like to be ten eleven, to be a teenager when 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:47.080 you should have little care in the world right you 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:53.800 should be playing and having fun and exploring, and instead 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:59.640 you're learning how to barricade yourself in your classroom, you 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:05.000 learn how to do army crawls on your school grounds. 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:13.560 This is America, this is who we are, and this 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:18.160 is nothing to pound on your chest. And be proud of. 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:24.360 We should be ashamed every single one of us. Coming 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:27.400 up next is my conversation with our in house doctor, 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:33.600 doctor Jonathan Metzel. Folks, you know that when we have 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:37.040 our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel join us on 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:41.160 Woke Wednesdays, we unpack so much the thing that is 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:45.960 troubling me Jonathan, as it does each and every week, 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:52.200 but particularly this week is America's obsession with guns. It's 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:55.440 been what has it been over a week maybe two 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:59.560 weeks at this point since the shooting at Oxford, Michigan 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:05.600 High School. And again there are several schools, middle schools 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:11.480 in particular, that are out this week because of threats 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:15.240 of copycat gun violence. And we're thinking that this shit 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:18.600 is totally normal, that it's completely normal that we would 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:22.680 tell our middle schoolers that, oh, there's you're not home 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:25.719 from school because of snow, You're not home from school 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:29.000 because of you know, a teacher workday. You're home from 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:31.600 school because there's a threat that somebody's going to come 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:34.000 in and shoot it up. And so whenever that threat 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:36.960 is lived in, I want you to feel comfortable going 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:39.320 back into school. And that's the norm that we have 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:43.080 allowed our kids to become accustomed to what are your 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:48.359 thoughts on where we are right now? And that I 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:50.719 think that is this the first time that we're seeing 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:54.520 this kind of level of copycat threats because I don't 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:59.800 remember post other school shootings neighboring schools being shut down 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:04.840 because of a consistent perceived threat. Well, there's a ton 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:06.679 to unpack there. I mean, first, in terms of the 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:13.200 Oxford schools, the you know, the horrible, tragic irony is that, 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:18.480 of course the masterings themselves are copycat phenomenon very often. 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:20.840 That's why for a while there they stopped publishing the 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:23.560 name of the shooter. They stopped publicizing it was a 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:26.120 kind of unsuccessful attempt to say, if we don't glorify 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:31.359 these shooters, maybe they won't there won't be copycats. But 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:34.720 that wasn't a very successful strategy for a bunch of reasons, 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:37.240 largely because social media is there and you're not going 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:39.280 to be able to stop it anyway, but also because 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:42.000 you know, it's it's really just the horrific nature of 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:45.080 the crime more than the name of the shooter. And 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:48.399 especially now it's such a tense moment, there's so much anger, 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:53.359 so much frustration, and so many darn guns around, um, 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:55.640 and and so in a way, it's just a very 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:58.640 volatile moment, and so the you know, I don't think 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:00.960 people who study this are very prized by the by 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:04.000 the copycat. We've seen this a lot. The you know, 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:06.680 the weird thing in Oxford is now there's a petition 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:09.479 going around because there are so many threats, and there 0:19:09.480 --> 0:19:12.439 are threats toward middle schoolers, threats toward kindergarten. I mean, 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:15.840 it's really sick stuff, um, that there's a big petition 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:18.920 going around in Oxford to have school be all virtual 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:24.480 until after January, until the beginning of January m basically saying, man, 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:26.560 we don't know what what threat is real and people 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:30.160 of course feel so traumatized and so vulnerable. But it's 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:33.240 just ironic because you know, this is like rural wide 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:35.960 America gun country. I guarantee you if they said there's 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:38.879 a petition to go virtual because of the covid um 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:42.800 stuff that that that people would say, oh, forget it, man, 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:44.760 we'll bring our kids back into school. But it's really 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:47.840 it's interesting that that the gun, the gun issue, fear 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:51.399 of guns is now having people there support the idea 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:54.240 of having kids not go into school. So you know it, 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:56.360 it just shows you that we're having kind of overlapping 0:19:56.560 --> 0:20:00.200 pandemics in a way right now, you know it. It's 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:05.399 so disturbing to me that I mean, one, I just 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:08.520 you know, Jonathan, for the first time in a while, 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:11.760 right when I'm seeing the fact that these schools are 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:15.040 still are closed or are closing, and that the threats 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:20.560 are middle schoolers and and elementary school children, right, which 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:24.479 is hearkening back to Newtown? Right, And you know the 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:27.680 fact that I recognize then that if we're going to 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:32.240 do nothing about classrooms of first and kindergarteners and first 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:35.199 graders being mowed down by an AAR fifteen, if we 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:38.880 didn't do anything about gun violence, then um, we're not 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:42.160 going to do anything. And so here we now fast forward. 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:46.040 How many years has it been. It's been what five 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:50.760 or six years since since Newtown happened at the kind 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:55.359 of towards the end of the Obama presidency. And you know, 0:20:56.520 --> 0:20:58.760 I am I'm at a loss for the fact that 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:03.160 these parents will protest your kids not wearing a mask 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:05.560 because they think that that's going to traumatize them. You're 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:08.800 going to traumatize my child. It's child abuse, to have 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:11.080 them wear a mask in school all day to protect 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:14.200 them against a virus that is killed now over eight 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:19.639 hundred thousand Americans. Right, But there's no protest for the 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:22.320 fact that I don't want my kids to have to 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:26.560 go to school under duress and post traumatic stress disorder 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:30.800 and the threat of violence because one of their classmates 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:34.320 or not one of their classmates, just like an armed 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:38.320 shooter rolls up into the school. There's no protest there, 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:43.200 there's no outrage. So tell me more about this petition 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:46.600 and if it has any real legs in the way 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:50.439 that let's say, you know, protecting our children from a 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:54.320 Pulletzer Prize winner like Tony Morrison, the late Tony Morrison 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:59.640 garnered a petition. I mean honestly, when I started reading 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:01.760 about that, so I felt bad for kids. You know, 0:22:01.880 --> 0:22:06.120 kids are getting kids are being used as as political 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:08.439 pawns right now and in all these different ways, and 0:22:08.440 --> 0:22:10.920 the issues are real. I mean, imagine being a kid 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:14.720 just during the pandemic with COVID and all that stuff 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:17.960 that's scary and dangerous enough, and then all of these 0:22:18.000 --> 0:22:19.959 debates about what does it mean to be in school 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:21.800 and all these politics. So my first thought when I 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:26.640 saw the petition was, man, just you know, we need 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:28.640 to do a better job with our kids right now. 0:22:29.640 --> 0:22:32.480 And I haven't really gone into detail about how how 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:36.760 much how much this petition is going to make a difference, 0:22:36.840 --> 0:22:39.399 so it'll see. It was just reported literally just before 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:42.280 we recorded this segment today, so we'll have to see 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:45.480 what happens. But it is just it just made me think, 0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:48.800 like how vulnerable people are right now in a way, 0:22:48.840 --> 0:22:50.640 And again, this is an area, this is a part 0:22:50.680 --> 0:22:53.040 of Michigan where there are an awful lot of guns, 0:22:53.080 --> 0:22:56.240 and people would not be thinking in any critical way 0:22:56.320 --> 0:22:59.080 about the threat that guns posed. But again I think 0:22:59.119 --> 0:23:01.840 I think it just shows you that when a mass 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:07.560 shooting impacts your community, or your kids school, or your environment, 0:23:08.040 --> 0:23:10.960 just how much that can change to a profound sense 0:23:11.000 --> 0:23:13.919 of vulnerability. So we'll have to see what happens. I 0:23:14.000 --> 0:23:16.679 do think it's important to note that this case against 0:23:16.680 --> 0:23:20.600 the parents is a pretty important case, and so if 0:23:20.640 --> 0:23:24.040 something comes out of this horrible tragedy, I mean, we've 0:23:24.080 --> 0:23:26.440 been trying this for a very long time, but if 0:23:26.480 --> 0:23:29.280 something comes out of this that suggests that parents are 0:23:29.280 --> 0:23:33.640 responsible for the armed actions of their children, that would 0:23:33.640 --> 0:23:36.320 actually be a step forward, because we've failed in that 0:23:36.359 --> 0:23:40.439 regards lots of different times and so and so, you know, 0:23:40.520 --> 0:23:43.160 we'll have to see what happens. So the parents are 0:23:43.160 --> 0:23:46.480 expected back in court this week and each of them 0:23:46.520 --> 0:23:50.919 are facing I think four counts of manslaughter for the 0:23:51.040 --> 0:23:56.080 four students that were murdered in cold blood by Ethan Crumbly. 0:23:56.600 --> 0:24:03.680 And you know, I look at the videos of the parents. 0:24:03.880 --> 0:24:09.480 I read the text messages between Ethan Crumbly and his mother. 0:24:10.200 --> 0:24:13.760 Don't get caught l ol about looking up ammunition as 0:24:13.760 --> 0:24:17.560 he's sitting in the classroom, and you know, and everyone 0:24:17.600 --> 0:24:21.800 clutching their pearls in the mainstream media, how could these parents? 0:24:21.800 --> 0:24:28.720 How could these parents? And then last week Congresswoman Lauren 0:24:28.800 --> 0:24:34.400 Bobert post a picture with four of her children with 0:24:34.560 --> 0:24:37.359 guns that are bigger than they are, in front of 0:24:37.359 --> 0:24:40.840 a Christmas tree. And so how is it that we 0:24:41.800 --> 0:24:45.520 look to the Crumbles and say, these people are deranged? 0:24:45.600 --> 0:24:49.199 How could they buy a gun for their child? And 0:24:49.320 --> 0:24:54.119 you have a sitting member of Congress that is posing 0:24:54.359 --> 0:24:57.879 a week after yeah, well actually there were two. There 0:24:57.960 --> 0:25:01.920 was the congressman from Kentucky I think posted like two 0:25:02.000 --> 0:25:04.600 days after with his whole family with a R fifteens also, 0:25:04.720 --> 0:25:09.159 And so I mean I've been tracking this, as you know, 0:25:09.320 --> 0:25:13.399 for quite some time, and the just the horrible bad taste. 0:25:13.440 --> 0:25:17.200 So there were actually two two congress people who posted 0:25:17.240 --> 0:25:20.960 family pictures with guns right afterwards, and Bobert's was a 0:25:21.040 --> 0:25:25.320 response to another congressman from Kentucky who also had posted 0:25:25.359 --> 0:25:28.040 with with semi automatic weapons for his family. And so 0:25:28.440 --> 0:25:31.560 on one hand, it's horrible and cruel and bad taste 0:25:31.640 --> 0:25:34.880 and just horrible timing. It shows just how tone deaf 0:25:34.880 --> 0:25:37.240 and you know, for a lot of people out of 0:25:37.280 --> 0:25:40.959 touch that these that this is. But it's also representative 0:25:41.080 --> 0:25:43.879 of the logic in many parts of America where no 0:25:43.920 --> 0:25:47.280 matter the trauma or the effect, the answer always is 0:25:47.560 --> 0:25:50.080 more guns. And this idea of you know, you're not 0:25:50.080 --> 0:25:52.240 going to take the guns away from me. Guns represent 0:25:52.320 --> 0:25:54.199 my freedom and liberty, all these kinds of things. And 0:25:54.240 --> 0:25:58.000 so it's a performance that is meant that The Atlantic 0:25:58.000 --> 0:26:00.520 had a good piece on this. It's a performs that's 0:26:00.560 --> 0:26:05.080 meant to stir liberal outrage and liberal fear about the 0:26:05.160 --> 0:26:12.280 irrationality of this. Now again, Oxford School District in Michigan 0:26:12.520 --> 0:26:17.120 is very far from a liberal progressive multicultural school district. 0:26:17.160 --> 0:26:20.879 This is red state Michigan in a certain kind of way. 0:26:21.119 --> 0:26:24.800 And so the people that they were trolling were you know, 0:26:24.840 --> 0:26:27.080 you would think their own their own people in a way. 0:26:27.280 --> 0:26:30.119 But it does show about this role of like, you know, 0:26:30.160 --> 0:26:32.280 this debate. We often get into this tug of war 0:26:32.320 --> 0:26:35.000 after mass shootings where it's like, oh, we need more 0:26:35.040 --> 0:26:37.119 gun control. Oh you're not going to pry my guns 0:26:37.119 --> 0:26:38.760 out of my hands. Let me show you how important 0:26:38.800 --> 0:26:40.400 my gun is. All this kind of thing. So it's 0:26:40.400 --> 0:26:43.480 a kind of performance that happens after these and again 0:26:43.520 --> 0:26:45.879 the people who are caught in the middle are kids 0:26:45.880 --> 0:26:49.600 in schools and victims and families. And so I don't 0:26:49.600 --> 0:26:51.439 know when I saw that. When I saw that this 0:26:51.680 --> 0:26:55.000 Bobert and the other thing, I just thought, you know, God, 0:26:55.040 --> 0:27:00.280 it's just the cruelty is just imaginable. Yeah, it's so 0:27:00.760 --> 0:27:06.760 you know, it's so disgusting. And I wonder, I wonder, Jonathan, 0:27:06.960 --> 0:27:11.600 if if these parents, right, they've already been charged, if 0:27:11.640 --> 0:27:15.919 they are actually convicted, if this is going to really 0:27:16.000 --> 0:27:19.760 change anything, right, Because you know, Michigan, we talked about 0:27:19.760 --> 0:27:22.520 this a couple of weeks ago. Michigan is a state 0:27:22.560 --> 0:27:26.640 that doesn't have, you know, laws around how you're supposed 0:27:26.640 --> 0:27:30.320 to lock up your firearms, right, so you can leave 0:27:30.359 --> 0:27:32.640 it on the kitchen table, you can you know, put 0:27:32.680 --> 0:27:37.080 it in a in the side table in your bedroom, 0:27:37.160 --> 0:27:41.000 and and that's your prerogative and right. And I'm just like, 0:27:41.359 --> 0:27:45.040 how is it that doing the fucking bare minimum right 0:27:45.440 --> 0:27:49.000 locking your gun up the very bare minimum, maybe leaving 0:27:49.000 --> 0:27:52.159 it unloaded, putting the gun in one place to ammunition 0:27:52.200 --> 0:27:56.120 in another, and having them both under lock and key, Like, 0:27:56.400 --> 0:28:01.800 how is that not something that is just law? I 0:28:01.880 --> 0:28:04.399 feel very strongly that this is actually something that people 0:28:04.440 --> 0:28:07.200 agree on, but it's just like the Capitol riot, people 0:28:07.240 --> 0:28:11.280 can't admit in public that they actually agree. And so 0:28:11.760 --> 0:28:14.359 we learned this week, for example, that Fox News was mortified, 0:28:14.440 --> 0:28:18.240