 It's June the 16th, 2022. It's Thursday, the 11 o'clock. That can mean only one thing. Time for American Issues, Take Two. Today, our title is The Senate Agrees on Gun Safety Reform, Long and Coming. I would like to introduce our co-host, special guest, Stephanie Dalton. Welcome, Stephanie. Hi. Good morning. Did you ever think this moment would come where you had 10 Republicans? 10 Democrats getting together and they actually hammered out a informal agreement about some gun safety reform. I'll try not to use the word gun control, because semantically gun control means you're trying to control. And we all know that the GOP doesn't like that word control because they just don't think they want to be controlled, particularly when it comes to the Second Amendment and assault rifles. So we won't call it gun control, call it gun safety. That'll make them feel better. Well, for me, I want to thank Senator Cornyn, who has jumped into this project along with Senator Cornyn and all the others that are participating in it. Because as you know, it's since 1993, since we've had any legislation developed or passed or put into law. And it's so long overdue making whatever they come up with a major advance. And that's really pitiful to have to accept that. But that's where we are. And we have to learn how to develop our commonalities, common understandings, and where we can agree. So once I can thank partly a Republican senator from Texas. Yeah, that's exactly it. And that keeps it up. Well, let's talk about what kind of in principle the two groups have come up with as far as what they're going to try to craft language into a bill, what that might look like. One key component is called the red flag provision, which is to say, if someone's having some issues, most of these mass shooters actually advertise what they're going to do before they do it. Or they discuss that they're having severe mental issues. And they kind of weave that into their gun ownership. So this red flag law just gives the opportunity for family and friends to contact the authorities and say, hey, there might be an issue here. Would you go talk to this individual? Right now, that is a key component of this. And we'll talk about it a little bit later. Another one is, and I don't really care for the way it's being the moniker of this one, it's called the boyfriend provision, which is to say there's a history of domestic violence that this individual who's applying for a gun would probably be prohibited from purchasing a gun, because it has a history of domestic violence. There is a background check for people that are under 21 years of age. There is a whole bunch of money for school fortification. I'm not sure I agree with that, but a lot of money for schools and teachers to pack weapons if they want and probably door safety and security officers signed to each school. There's money, incentive money for those states that want to implement a red flag law. And there's money for mental health, counseling, things of that nature. So that's what's kind of in the roundhouse. Stephanie, what do you think is missing? What's obviously missing? Well, what's missing? There's plenty of good protections in what they're thinking about putting into legal language. Well, what's missing is a very long list. But I think the upfront missing one, the big disappointing missing one, I think, is getting the age raised from 18 to 21 for ownership. I just think that a case has been made for the teenager. That's what an 18-year-old is and a 19-year-old. And they're just not steady enough or settled in their growth and hormonal systems development to get away from impulsive kinds of unthinking acts. So I think. OK, we might have some other problems here, technical difficulties. I'll take over what's missing in the bill. And I think a big part of it, which the House Democrats have passed, is an assault weapons ban. The fact that people are allowed to carry an AR-15 and carry it about, not even have to do a background check in some states to get an AR-15. And that's a multi-rapid-fire weapon. It's an assault weapon. It was meant for military usage, certainly not for hunting. And other than target practicing, it's one of those weapons that is often used in these mass shootings. Another provision, which I don't see here in this discussion, are the extended ammo clips. I don't see that component being addressed. It's one thing to have a Glock 17 that holds 14 rounds and quite another to get a 30-round clip to use in your Glock 17 or an extended clip in your AR-15. So extended ammo clips I don't really see as part of the discussion here. And those are the two main things I think that most Democrats would like to see. And it's just not even up for discussion. So the concept is, hey, we've got to start somewhere. Are you with me again, Stephanie? Can you hear me? Thank you, I'm here. I just wanted to reinforce my point when I realized that even to go rent a car and car is a very good model for how to handle guns, since it's a very dangerous piece of equipment as well. But to rent a car, you can't even get one until you're 25. So people who are in business on cars and vehicles, they're not wasting any time on having people they can't depend on being careful in their driving habits and following the law. So I think that that's another argument in it. I don't know that we're talking so much about the points of the debate, but there it is. Well, why are you having some technical difficulties? I mentioned two brief points. One is what we don't have in this discussion, and we won't see it for years to come, is an assault ban, a assault weapon ban, a complete ban on assault weapons. And the other part was extended ammo clips for those assault weapons. And we have lost Stephanie again. All right. Well, I might just be doing a solo show here today, but we'll get it back. So one of the. So I'll just dump them. Are you with me? Hello, Stephanie. OK, so she's going in and out. One of the things that also I think is a key component of the discussion in the Senate is looking at domestic violence and those who are desirous to have a weapon, even be it AR-15 or even if it's a five shot Smith and Wesson detective special. If you have a background of domestic violence, should you be allowed to obtain a weapon legally? And the answer, I think, is a good one that they're discussing is no, no weapons for you. Background checks. Again, Stephanie, you were talking about that. Go ahead. Background checks for anyone who's under 21. That's part of the part of the discussion in the Senate. Well, I think, you know, we need to raise it a little higher because what what is the point of that? I mean, more print principled, higher principles. What is it that they're getting the guns for? I mean, so there's some other questions that could be asked here. I mean, for instance, with the AR-15 and the other assault weapons tanks, I don't know about those, but a person with these long rifles, you know, is asking to be able to carry those out in the streets too. And people are questioning that. But as far as the hunting excuse cover or purpose, the hunting, the respected, the self-respected hunter is not going to take an AR-15. No, they won't go to the hunting, but a lot of kids, yeah. I think a lot of people like to go target shooting. That's what they like to do. It's a lot of fun. It's very expensive because one round of ammo for some of these weapons is almost a dollar. So it's extremely expensive to do these days. But it's, you know, the other argument, and I could see where they're coming from, is that when someone's breaking your door down, by the time the police get there, the crime has been committed. The time is to defend yourself and the weapons you need to do so now in the society where everyone has an automated weapon and a rapid-fire weapon is, you know, trying to match match or like and trying to match AR-15 for AR-15. I don't know if that's really the case. Certainly not here in Hawaii, but I could say that the castle doctrine is well in place and the need for you to have a weapon in your home to protect yourself or your family or friends is paramount. But to take it out in the streets, I see no value in that whatsoever, zero. From what I've read, the data does not show that it helps or that the weapon in the home is used often successfully to protect one's property or one's self. The data does not support having a weapon in the home to protect yourself. So that deserves some further look if anybody wants to discuss it more. Just what are those data points? I mean, I'm sure anyone who's not practiced and been to, you know, the shooting gallery is not going to be real good with the gun no matter that they have it. So, I mean, there are a number of issues there, but I think that we need to look at the data on some of these questions to see what does that tell us? And by that same token, we will get that when we see Canada go without these weapons and we'll right there have a natural experiment. We can- Let me ask you a question about, I think one of the most important provisions is that red flag law provision. And that's to say, if someone's having some issues that may be mentally unstable or emotionally disturbed, that there's an opportunity to contact somebody and say something. You see something, say something, and it's exactly that. A lot of states now are starting to wonder whether they want to have that provision. And I think it's the key component of this discussion in the Senate. And so what do you think, how do you feel about the fact that if some of these states, I'm thinking of Texas or Georgia, some of the Southern states where we have a lot of mass shootings, what do these states say? No, we're not interested in that. Is this discussion, is this proposed bill gonna be worth anything? Well, you know, that's such a good question, Tim. And I know that just looking at it, first of all, from a personal standpoint, most of us don't take lightly hearing from someone whether police officer or counselor that are youngster or our relative or loved one as a problem. So I think we get into some diagnostic challenges here and certainly some who's gonna enforce this thing. And I just see there's so many trips and wires to getting that to work really, really well. There's 19 states that have it and Hawaii certainly is one of them. We have a red flag law. The way I read it is if you're a family member, you have the right to raise the alarm. But that leaves out the whole bunch of people like coworkers or people in the community that may know a certain individual and have a lot more exposure on a more frequent basis with that individual than maybe a family member does. And so even in Hawaii, those individuals are barred from raising a concern. So on a national level, I would like to see a national bill that opens up that door to allow more people to say, I think we have a problem here at Houston. Well, who's gonna take that problem on? That's where I see that. So you, Mr. Smith come and report that. And then me, Mrs. Jones, with that aiming at my kid or husband or boyfriend, how is everybody gonna make that work? I think you're implying, maybe you're not implying but I'm starting to read it that way, that this could be used as a retaliatory tool against an individual, kind of like a TRO, a temporary restraining order. Sometimes it's used as a retaliation tool and as we all know, a TRO has to go in front of a judge. And I think the concept of that, there will be some kind of due process before someone's approached about confiscation of their weapon. So I would have to think there'd have to be due process but the problem is it has to be acted upon immediately and not linger out in the court system for weeks and months. The time is now. The point you get to the pitfall right there at the end because that due process is gonna take time and the diagnostics and the testing and the evaluation approaches we have for mental health aren't perfect. And so that's very difficult diagnosis process to go through. It's certainly difficult in terms of the time that it's gonna take to get to some agreement and then probably it needs to be consensual. So yeah, you bring it up. I think that that's my concern about relying on that. I definitely would like it after. I'm pleased didn't know that they're gonna fund it and we're gonna get more resources for that. That's good, let's go. Cause that'll make the tools and the instruments and the professionals better at what they do, which will take time and maybe we can get it more clearly. What do you say? Defined and knack faster, your point. You know, you're an educator. How do you feel about more money for the schools? I mean, this is, as you came up many years ago, I remember doing an interview, a man on the street interview about how, as a teacher, how do you feel about the opportunity to pack heat? How do you feel about that? Or how do you feel about fortifying each and every elementary school or junior high or high school into some kind of war wagon fortress? Why, I guess I can take it from your tone there that you know what I'm gonna say. Not too subtle, is it? Why is the fire department speaking up here? I mean, how many times have all of us had the experience of the fire department? Oh, by the way, you can't put that in front of that. You know, I mean, there are all of these fire rules that nobody's mentioning that would prohibit the kind of fortification that would have to be used to really be protective. And then you got the problem of getting everybody in and getting everybody out in a timely manner. So I do think there's an absent voice that it's a fire. I think Stephanie was saying that there's some provisions that are worthwhile, but the issues of fire safety will prevent some of the fortification of schools. We're gonna go on to the next topic. And the next topic of course is the January 6th hearings and today is the third day where we are hearing testimony. Specifically, most of this testimony is centering around Mike Pence and his involvement and the pressure that he received to basically disrupt the peaceful transition from one president, number 45 to number 46. And the testimony that Mike Pence is, you know, that we're hearing is that he basically was running the country while Donald Trump was sitting in the dining room watching the insurrection unfold. And to General Milley's point that Mark Meadows, who's the chief of staff said, hey, we gotta change the narrative. We can't let people think that Mike Pence, the vice president of the United States was running the show on January 6th. We gotta change that narrative. Well, in fact, you can't change the narrative because Mike Pence was running the show. Mike Pence was the one who was responsible to get more assistance, more military support, more security support to the Capitol because it was overrun. And had it not been for Mike Pence on the phone doing that, things may well change out differently. The testimony today shows that those who invaded the Capitol were not more than 40 feet away from Vice President Mike Pence. I remember well that the Capitol Police, I forget his name, he basically lured them in the opposite direction and they followed him. But had they gone in the other direction, Mike Pence was in the room 40 feet away and that would have been a completely different story. So I think we've lost Stephanie. I'm not sure she's not here. So I'll continue as to what I think are the salient points of what we've experienced in the three hearings that we've been listening to. And I think the one that captivates my attention is the blatant repeated statements from Trump's staff that no, Mr. President, you cannot have the Vice President overturn the count of the electoral votes. You cannot do that. Also, the constant is that, Mr. President, there was no fraud in the vote counts in Arizona. There were no fraud counts in the city of Philadelphia. There were no fraud counts in Georgia. And Donald Trump's repeated insistence to say, oh yes, there was. And rather than listening to his safe and sane team, they called team normal, Donald Trump decided on his own to listen to Drunk Rudy, Rudy Giuliani intoxicated on an election night. He decided to listen specifically to Rudy Giuliani and he went out at one in the morning, two in the morning to say, I have won this election. Stop the count. It's over. I'm now a second term president. Well, he was advised not to do that, but he did it anyway. So the question is if Donald Trump willingly and knowingly ignored that, created a false narrative, created what we call the big lie, and then that big lie gathered momentum and then resulted into an invasion of our capital and certainly led to the deaths of a number of individuals that day on January 6th and the day after, to what degree is there a culpability? What degree was Donald Trump well informed, had the conscious of mind to ignore multiple messages that there was no stone election, that he had not won the election, that the vice president, Mike Pence did not have the authority to overturn the count, to what degree is he culpable on all that? And I suppose that's not the job of the House Select Committee to decide, but certainly the Department of Justice and specifically Merritt Garland. Hi, Stephanie, glad to see you back. So apologize to you and the viewers. Oh, that's okay. I can pontificate for many things and for a long time. So thank you so much for coming back. Hey, we're just talking about the January 6th Committee and the two main points I've got now, the hearing is all the advice from his counsel, from his staff saying, hey, no big lie here, no stone election and two, Mike Pence doesn't have the authority to do this, yet Donald Trump did it anyway. And so the testimony today really went into a lot of detail and there'll be more about Mike Pence and his act and his role in basically a coup of the free and fair election of the United States. Your thoughts about the hearing that either in the last three days, that's transpired? I didn't wanna say wrapping up on the gun issue. I know we're not wrapped up on it, but if we're gonna be interstitial on this, Matthew McConaughey is now getting involved with the Uvalde shooting, school shooting. And I wanted to mention him because he is addressing raising the age and some of those items that were left out as you asked that question, what was left out? Well, here's somebody powerful and with some influence that might help move that needle a little bit, Tim. So I just wanted to make sure we included that. A good point, you know, he was raised in Uvalde. Yeah, and so another text. So he does have some skin in the game and credibility on that point. Definitely. And so the January 6th committee is absolutely riveting and astoundingly upsetting that we came so close, I think anybody that watches it gets a real chill thinking that, you know, we could be back in Dodge City. I mean, is that where we wanna go? I mean, here's the violence. I mean, all they wanna do is solve the problems by violence and in any means necessary, like a mob boss. And that's the Trump approach. Anything that will work to get him in the position he wants to be. Well, let me ask you this. What about the comment, well, you know what? That's just Donald being Donald. Haven't we given him a pass for five years of Donald being Donald and gee whiz, he really didn't mean it or he was just kidding. Haven't we had enough of that? Haven't we seen enough evidence in the last three hearing meetings to say, wow, he really calculated, along with Eastman, his attorney, really calculated a coup d'etat. When does giving Donald Trump a pass stop? Well, it's the base. I think we have to realize that there's, you know, a lot of people in the United States who are of that way of thinking about matters. Something, and I think that that has kept him and that of course he takes care of his base. And remember, that's the first time they've been given power like this. And they've gotten power and more power to keep these things in play and that we haven't been able to address them because of concern about that base. And so we can see it playing out in the election going on now. Yes, we have done enough of this, but the point is, who is America? America is these people and it's other people who have a different way of thinking about it that is demonstrated in these hearings about the tremendous way you go about solving our problems and setting up our democracy and our government. I mean, I like to, I like the historical references and these people were also talking about Jefferson and Adams and talking about even as vice presidents, they didn't pull this stuff. In the early days of the Constitution. So showing what it takes to get a system in place like our democracy, I think is a good thing and definitely a lesson for all of us about America's democracy. And yet, we have an appreciation for it even if we don't know all the details like we're learning from this presentation. But hopefully the rest of the people that are in this other group who just wanna solve it by violence might learn that we did that for thousands of years with kings and lords and tribes that then America came along and we decided to do it in another way. Say, let's take her in before I try and get with it. You know, I think a lesson that comes out of this is two things. One is, if you're working for the president of the United States that's quite an honor. You know, as if I was an American and the president of the United States said I want you to be on my administration, it's an honor to serve my country in that capacity. But, you know, a lot of the testimony specifically like Bill Barr, you know, they're trying to resurrect the reputation. I'm saying, well, I really was instrumental trying to tell the president he couldn't do what he wanted to do. But during the process after or during before, they were mom, they were silent, they were mute. And I can't help but think that there's the importance of someone following their oath to the office versus their allegiance and loyalty to an individual, in this case, Donald Trump. And I think if there's any lessons to that is an awareness that if you do take the oath of office, I don't care if you're a, you know, a police officer or whatever, or a congressman or a state legislator, you owe the oath to the constitution and the principle of democracy to preserve the republic. And I think that was missing all this time in Trump's administration. He picked loyal, lovable lackeys. We're not so lovable. Well, you know, many of them were really, well, are shocking that they stayed loyal to him and didn't say anything, even those who have helped move this discovery process along. But I think people thought because this base has been brought out, opened the Gorgans cage, right? So all of these people came out and I don't mean demeaning them because they are who they are and they do what they do. But now I think everybody was so comfortable with having that base and having it be almost equal to the rest of the country that I think they feel have a different way of looking at things and that they want to have a disparate point, way to do things which involves violence. And somehow we're going to have to come together. But you bring up the most important, these people are just as Liz changed. Okay, I think that will basically be ended over a program. You know what? Oh, you're back, okay. I'm so sorry, Tim. Not to worry, you know, let's do this. We've run out of time on the program. So let's get your last thoughts on either the gun safety matter in the Senate or on January 6th hearings and whatever point you would like to really leave us an impression with. Well, thank you for the chance to say something and I'll be brief, I'm very... Alrighty, I'm going to assume that will be the last freeze for today. I'd like to say Stephanie Dalton for joining us today. I hope she can hear me sign off with thanking her for appearing on the show. She leaves me with a memory or a vision of the Gorgon case. Oh, you're back, okay. Been tough. Go ahead, Stephanie. Something is definitely going to sign off as best you can and we're going to wrap it up. Not to be the motive, but that, yeah. And so you're based in Aloha. All right, thank you, Stephanie. I'm Tim Appatillo, the host filling in for Jay Fidale for American Issues, take two. Won't you please join us next Thursday at 11 o'clock and until then, Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.