 Good morning everybody. I'm Jay Fiedel. Welcome back to Think Tech. Today's show is part of our America Finding Its Way series. We'll be discussing gun control between now and 2022. It's a conflation of issues, but they're definitely connected. With Tim Apachele, Cynthia Lee Sinclair, be clear to distinguish Cynthia from all the other Cynthia Sinclairs that we know. Stephanie Dalton and Winston Welch. Welcome to the show, all you guys. Tim, Cynthia, Stephanie and Winston. Okay, let's start with this. Tim, what's the status of gun control? What's the status of guns in this country? I know, you know, I should give you hours to discuss that, but how about giving us a synopsis? The status of gun control is a state's issue. Every state has different laws on the books about how and how they wish to regulate or not regulate weapons. For example, many states, when you purchase a weapon, you have to go through a background check. You have to have a three day waiting period, minimally three days. They call it the Kuloff period in case you want to purchase a gun and shoot somebody. So we have a network of different laws throughout the country, and we have very few national laws that regulate the purchase of ammunition and firearms. Yes, and why? Is there a good reason to have 50 sets of laws on guns? Well, this has been the patchwork since day one. So you're talking about a new paradigm shift. If you want to go to a national oversight. Now remember, Bill Clinton did sign the automatic weapons ban, the Brady bill. I think it was Bill Clinton that signed that. That did for a brief period, restrict, prohibit automatic weapons. And I thought it was good. I think if you looked at statistics, you would see a lot less shootings, a lot. We didn't have mass shootings back then. And, you know, it was a good thing. It was the Brady bill that actually brought that to the forefront. Did it change? George Bush let it expire. What does that mean? The risk of people shooting each other? No, there was a sunset clause on the Brady bill that was enacted, and the sunset was allowed to expire. Therefore, automatic weapons sales skyrocketed around the country. And every time we talk about gun control, I guarantee you right now, every gun shop owner is going, yes, thank you, because no sooner do these shows end, that sales start climbing for AR-15s and the like. You know, when we have drugs in this country, if federal laws about drugs, we try to control the supply. And, you know, in many ways we also try to control the supply of other negative things like liquor, for example, and other things. Because if we feel that we've controlled the supply, then, you know, people won't use them because they can't use them. But in the case of guns, it doesn't seem to be that way at all. We're really not controlling the supply. You said something, and the other thing, the other day, I'd like to just see if you agree, is that if you had fewer guns, you'd have fewer killings from guns. Do you agree with that? No, I don't agree with that. I think the problem is the lack of who has access to guns. And remember, ultimately, it's not the gun that kills somebody, it's the trigger finger of the individual. It's the ammunition, actually. So, it's the access. It's who's allowed to get a gun. And now we're at the point where there's so many guns, whether it's a law or not, someone's going to get it illegally anyway. So, less guns, ultimately, if it was like England, where there's no guns, then maybe. But we're past that point, the point of no return, where there's so many weapons into this country, I don't believe that would make a difference. Regulating the access of who gets it, background checks, closing the loopholes of gun shows, regulating the amount of clips that you get, you know, 30, 40 round clips that go into these guns. These kind of things, these common sense things that both Republicans and Democrats agree on, but they won't vote for it because they're immortal fear of what Donald Trump and his followers might think about it. Okay, in our area is feckless. It's on the ropes. It's weakened. You know, next time we do a show, we're going to ask him how he really feels. Too much coffee today, guys. Too much coffee. Cynthia, you had some stats. Can you reveal your stats to us? Oh, gosh, I've got a lot of statistics about a bunch of different things. So for a mass shooting, okay, going and this is a from the Washington Post in their statistics, right? The number of mass shootings by race, the shooters, there were between 1982 and 2021 white, 66 of them were white, 21 were black, 10 were Latino, eight were Asian, five were other, three were American Indian. 98% were a majority of men, which I thought was pretty amazing. That white or black? White. Men, just overall, men. And I don't, they didn't separate that one by the race. So like, I don't know how many blacks, how many whites. I just know there were 66 white shooters, mass shooters, 21 black one, and this is from 1982 to 2021, March 2021. But you know what I'd like to really address statistic wise is an article that came out in the times and the title is boulders pain deepened by a lost fight for gun control. This is kind of a perfect example of what gun control can do, right? So after Parkland in 2018, a lot of cities across the country were trying to enforce gun control, but in boulders specifically they passed a law unanimously in their Senate that it's time to say enough is a quote from the city commission, I mean the city commission member, Jill Atler. So, right off the bat, gun supporters filed challenges that only states can regulate fire. Okay, they had stopped large magazines, AR 15s got weapons that you know that they can kill a lot of people at it and the bump stocks and all of those. Those were bad. All right, then, earlier this month, one of the state judges agreed with the gun rights people and, and the way those gun rights less than two I mean, gun controls, less than two weeks later, there was a mass shooting of 10 people in boulder. According to Jill Adler, again, she says, my heart is broken. And then the, the Colorado State Shooting Association at this is the biggest thing that we have to worry about. They said in a statement in official statement, we will oppose all gun control measures as a way to attempt to prevent these shootings. So, um, what does that say that they don't care about these people to plot. Oh, well, you know, it's what it sounds like to me, it's more important for me to be able to have my gun, then it is for me to make sure that people don't get shot. Okay, well, you know, Stephanie, you've heard that before. That's what Mitch McConnell and the NRA say if you want to stop the shootings, have everyone walk around with a gun, everyone. And then they will shoot the shooter. And then we'll have the okay corral. And so, you know, is that a solution? I mean, have the, have the Republicans offered any solution to this? Have they offered any way to reduce the gun violence, the astronomical gun violence we are experiencing and continue to experience in increasing numbers in this country? They continue to abstract it. In other words, all of those people that are in that cadre of folk, mostly, as we say, uneducated or non-college degree people, they can go with these complicated paradoxical abstractions about guns and all of this. And why aren't they getting their degrees? Because they're obviously very bright. So all of this is abstracted convolutedness, talk about that abstraction part of it is very curious to me. But anyway, I think all of this discussion is exhausted. It's just like abortion. It's exhausted. What haven't we heard? What we not know? I think we have got to have international concern. They already are concerned. I mean, I don't think a New Zealand Australian person comes here, you know, without thinking, hey, you know, I could be shot. I want to ask you about that. You know, because Tim was outlining a number of things that we could do to trim down the number of dangerous guns in the country. But in Australia, what happened is they said, this is maybe 10 years ago, they said, look, we're going to buy your gun back. All guns, every single gun, we're going to buy it back. We'll give you fair market value. We'll pay you cash. Okay, so bring in your guns. And also, if you don't sell it to us, you're going to jail. And as a result, all the guns came back. And Australia is pretty much gone free now. Could this happen in the United States? No. Well, we're talking about it earlier. And my brother, I mean, I remember all the, I think you were talking, I was late on that discussion, but you know, all the boys on my group, Jay, you and I, the boys were coming up, holsters hats, belts, whatever, many guns, okay. And so this whole country has been, you know, founded on the Western myth and the Germans love that Western myth. They come here to see that. But the rest of the world, I believe, would have a negative view of this and they could help us if they would stop by and not come. I appeal to the rest of the world. Don't come here, because you could be shot. Oh, your kid can be. It's dangerous. Stay away. Let's have, we've got to have some other influence on this to kind of get some power to make a difference in the way we are, which is a gun culture and nobody, not many of us women. Okay, now a really tough question Winston, it's my conflation question. Okay, okay, we have, we have increasing gun violence. And I think we will all agree it's likely that will continue and probably increase, because it's a monkey see monkeys do kind of thing. If I see what happens in, you know, in Atlanta, I said, Oh, I can do better than that. Oh, I stopped with eight. Let's do 10. The next guy is going to do 15. It's the way it works and the press brings it out and people copycat. So we're going to have increasing gun violence in the country for the next year or two. We're also going to have, let me predict, no action in Congress. No action. It's been that way for years and years. And the Republicans are hard set on stopping any gun control at all for reasons that maybe you can help me understand. Bottom line is this somehow this feeds into the 2022 election, because gun control infrastructure immigration, all those things are getting locked up in the Senate. And all those things are the subject of criticism against Joe Biden, as if it's his fault. And all those things are attempts now by the Republicans to, you know, diminish his influence and get people to vote against him. So where does this fit? What use is Congress. There are two sacred cows in this country. One, I think is Israel that's never going to get cut off and it just it's always just going to be supported and connected and the other one is gun control actually gun controls profit lack of gun control was probably first. Nothing's going to happen with the guns. So might as well forget about it now just offer your hopes and prayers hopes and prayers or whatever it is that the saying is nothing will happen I guarantee you. We have. And if Joe Biden wants to make serious misstep I think and he's his base already agrees with gun control, but for people that are not potentially Joe Biden supporters or on on on the conservative spectrum and even but fair number of liberals will own guns. You know, the second amendment is very powerful, powerfully rooted in our nation, and it's going to stay there. What's happened is, though that as we were talking before the show our inner psychopath and general sociopath this has been released in this nation and it's happened over the last, you know, 30 years we didn't have mass gun shootings really in the 70s I don't remember anything like that they happen now and then, then they started happening more in the 80s 90s certainly then it's exploded since then started with Columbine really in the public consciousness in public consciousness maybe yeah but it would that was special because it was a high school, but I remember coming to Hawaii once and I needed to go somewhere and the and the lady said oh it's it's past the old Xerox building, you know, the old Xerox building. And I didn't know what she was talking about but I knew just from her voice. Oh, that's where it must have been the side of a mass murder. And in fact, it was, it was Brian we as soggy I think killed some of his co workers there I guess it was. He was a disgruntled employee at this point of employee so what the difference is you know we we obsess over it nothing's going to happen so we shouldn't even talk about it I thought that the New Zealand Prime Minister's reaction to their mass shooting a year ago in the mosque was spot on she said we will not mention the shooter's name. We will, we will not give him any. Any attention at all and it was of course in a co in a cohesive society like that you can do that. What are you saying which that we let go just don't mention it just sort of turn back on it and and have the candlelight vigil and everybody feel that is going to have a candlelight vigil Jade nothing is going to happen with this I, I can't see anything changing now you mentioned about Tim said 50 state laws there are 50 state laws if you go online right now and you try and get a gun license in Hawaii. It's quite an onerous process, but it doesn't stop people from buying guns here. In fact, if you want to buy ammunition here, you're on about a six month waiting list, there is such a backlog for people that want to stock up on ammo. And they're, for whatever reasons you know there's some psychology deep psychology here like Stephanie said, nothing is new here this is all been rehashed again and again and again. I don't know. It's pretty pessimistic. It's a pretty pessimistic, you know you can't get there from here so. Nothing's going to change and even in Hawaii where where we know. Okay, let me go to Tim because I have a question for him. Him this this is a political weapon guns are more than weapons against people. The NRA and the second amendment guys and the base and Trump. They're using guns as a political weapon. And so here's a hard question is my same question about conflation of the issues. So what is what are guns have to do with 2022. If Winston is right and I personally agree with what he's saying, nothing is going to happen. How does that play when people go to the polls in 2022. Well it's what Donald Trump got elected on, got elected on a wedges you called immigration, you got elected on a wedges you called the second second amendment rights. These are issues that go to the heart, not to the brain. These are visceral issues that go way back for Americans and I'm not talking about just GOP I'm also talking about Democrats. And these are seeing central to their, their right as a citizen of the United States to possess. And so if you can use that visceral emotional response and transform it into a political decision called a vote. It's a wonderful thing they can do. And the Democrats have to be smart enough, not to fall in the trap. And so far, I think Joe Biden's trying to avoid that pitfall because it's a one way street. And if you look at the polls, the polls are people want common sense gun control, the things I've already mentioned. They want other ideas to run forth to the table, but because we're in a cold civil war that's not going to happen. Again, any victory for a Democrat is a loss for, because it's a zero sum game is a loss for the GOP. Therefore, in this cold civil war, I can't allow you to have a victory. Therefore, we're not going to discuss gun control. And if we do, I'm going to twist it in a way that it will make you look bad, and you'll lose votes. And guess what they will. I totally agree with you too. But Cynthia, we live in a country and a culture where guns are accepted, where there are so many guns, we have such a huge disproportionate number of guns in the country. And I think in some sense they must be phallic symbols. In some sense, we care about the power of a gun. And how did we get that way? I mean, Tim and I were talking before the show about the NRA back when we were kids. The NRA, you had a little card and a very nice logo, and you could go to classes, and you could learn all about gun safety. It had nothing to do with what's going on. And so in those years intervening, somehow the culture in the country changed. And I suspect part of that is our entertainment. Part of that glorifies, you know, the Bonnie and Clyde kind of thing, where the criminal with the gun becomes the hero, and the gun becomes his ticket to immortality. And even if he gets shot somehow in our art form, in our entertainment, he manages to recover. Everybody recovers. This is really remarkable because that's not the way it works in reality. One bullet can put you out. What's happened? And to what extent is our failure of the message with entertainment responsible for the change in our culture about guns? I think it's huge. They had completely desensitized people to bloody brains flowing all over the place. We see it all the time. It's in regular TV now. It's even before 10 o'clock if you can see it on some of the shows, you know? So I believe, yes, absolutely. Watching my kids grow up. I raised three boys. And if their father was the one babysitting them and letting them watch all kind of violent stuff when they were little, right? And then the next day, oh boy, all of the play would be, and I didn't let them have guns. So they would be making guns out of Legos and, you know, sticks and whatever, right? Because they were exposed to it. And so I believe that definitely. So every day, I found a picture of a kid and his head is a TV set and then his little body's up. And I took, I cut it out and I take it to the TV every time I would leave. And I remember reminding children are what they watch. We all are products of advertising and products of the shows that we watch on TV. And even in spite of all that, 61% of Americans believe that the ease of access to guns is to blame for all of these mass students. You know, it seems like the country, the majority of the country, would be behind some of these gun laws, but the people in Congress aren't. Now, we're not talking about guns. That's the whole thing. It's about good common sense gun control. It's not about taking away people's guns. So the misimper... Why are the people in Congress supposed to come to control? Well, that's where we get back to that ballot symbol thing you were talking about. Let me go to Stephanie. Stephanie has comments on this, but I also have a big question for Stephanie. Thank you. Okay, real quick. I have not to go so much with personal history, but I went to high school in Texas, okay, near the King Ranch. And with those people, every guy had a pickup truck, every junior senior, whenever he turned 16, then they had the gun racks. We're riding around with three guns hanging behind our heads. This is of course in the last century, a hundred years ago. That was not a problem. It was not a problem. Okay, so just like abortion didn't enter any male's head, especially a politician male's head, until it was made an issue. And of course, Manchin have nothing to say about this at all. But the point is that these two things, the gun thing and the abortion, this is all about politics has been made up into this issue that is a controller of the vote. And that's why you've got that disparity. I answered this disparity between the representatives and the people because the representatives of us in God are using these tools to influence all of the The NRA is bankrupt. I mean, you know, who is lobbying this? It really requires lobbying to have such unanimity among the Republicans. It's not the NRA. They have no money. And their bankruptcy is probably going to change the shape of the organization. I think that if we get the international program directed towards us, which I don't know if that will ever happen, but that could be made to happen. And that if we could also understand how political a tool this is, it's not an issue of whether you need a gun or not. But I think that that would take us a long way. If that's not going to get us anywhere. You know what I have looked up when I thought about getting a gun. I looked up and these many tank makers, if I'm going to get a gun. I'm getting a tank. I want to ride around in a tank. Who cares about assault rifles. I want to buy a tank. I want to go online and buy a tank. I got a hard question for you. Always the hard questions. Yeah, I know you can handle it. So what we what we have here is a couple of crazies in Atlanta, you know, in all of these cases, I mean, it makes it more newsworthy somehow to have a crazy inexplicable, you know, orgy of shooting and all that. But we also have the guys who went into the Michigan State House last summer, carrying guns. We also have the people go on the street with guns. And don't forget the insurrection. I want to go on record. That's not the last insurrection. We're going to have in this country. It's not the last one. And there's, there's a connection between the crazies who shoot people because, you know, they got phallic problems. And the, and the, and the skinheads and the right wing and the proud boys and all that crowd, all of whom have guns, and maybe a phallic problem too. But they, they are an organization. They get together. They're insurrectionists, and they have guns. It's not the same thing as walking into a massage parlor and shooting people at random or a school. It's different. Now they can walk into a government institution with these very same guns and do something which has political disaster at the end of it. Isn't this possible? Isn't this where the dots connect? Big question. Hard question. You're right, Jay. You know, I think like Cynthia said, these crimes are committed by men, these mass shootings. This is, they're also used in, you know, family homicides and suicides tragically. So, you know, gun violence isn't just mass shootings, but it is primarily male. That's the solution. I guess you could take away guns only allow women to own guns in this country, but probably wouldn't be a very popular proposition. You know, we need to, this is rethinking how we're looking at America. We spend 25 times more money than the next 25 countries combined on our military. We are a nation that has very deeply rooted institutions and mindset of violence and guns and control in that way. And our world is demanding different answers now. We're destroying the planet faster than it can regenerate. I mean, there's so many issues that we need to face here. This is just one of them. Nothing's going to happen with the gun thing. I suggest we move on to the next topic that we actually have control over, which is maybe, you know, I don't know. Okay, let's move on now because we're almost out of time. So, Winston, can you give us your last thought here? The thought you want to leave with people about this subject? I think people need to look deeply within our society and look at where, ask the hard questions where we're failing and then recommit themselves to where their own efforts can make a difference collectively and individually, whether it's environmentally, whether it's socially, whether it's politically, educationally, whatever it is, we need to take the hard look within. This is one obvious example, but it's not going to be solved by an act of Congress. It's going to be solved by a lot of different methods. All right. Stephanie, we're getting very profound today. What are your profundities for us? Well, I've been thinking about the woman thing. I know that when I was in DC with the sniper rolling around, that a lot of my black friends were astounded when it turned out the sniper was black. It wasn't the male part. It was that most of these kinds of things in people's minds, they said, you know, we're about white men. And so I think Cynthia's data is supporting that, although obviously other people are involved as it is, like with women, if only women had guns and some of them, a great proportion of them would turn out to be violent too. But yeah, I just think that the tired old worn out exhausted arguments and interplay just needs to stop. I think Biden's got capacity and Kamala, they bring capacity, they bring highly regarded educations. They've done everything they can do to prepare themselves for these roles and to meet the crisis that we're in now. And I have faith that they'll do their best to think through it and lead us. This is leadership. Okay. All right, leadership. Cynthia, you know, I'm really sick and tired. I'm fed up with these constant killings. There's no good reason for them. They usually involve somebody who's crazy. We are not taking steps. I am sick and tired of that. In this country, which is supposed to be educated and moral, we do nothing year after year, incident after incident. It can really make you angry, actually. What's your suggestion? What's your final words? Mental health expansion in three words. But just to show, and the reason why I say that sort of, the Washington Post came out with an article on 323 saying shooting never stopped during the pandemic. 2020 was the deadliest gun violence year in decades. In 2020, gun violence killed nearly 20,000 people and 24,000 by suicide. So this just sort of shows the what's happening like, okay, so there was nearly 300 kids, 300 of those people were kids that were shot and killed in 2020. That's according to the gun violence archive data, which is up 50% from 2019. So it kind of shows that we need to look at suicide, which was a big part of it, right? 24,000 people by suicide, suicide and domestic violence. Don't you see the connection between these gun incidents and suicide? These guys know when they go in with the assault rifle, there's a really good chance they're going to get killed. It's kind of a version, a variety of suicide, isn't it? Yes, it is. They do it, they're going to take it, I'm going to die, I'm going to take out as many people as I can with me. It's the same mentality of when someone's in an abusive domestic violence situation and the abuser will come with a gun and say, you know, to threaten them, I'm going to kill you and I'm going to kill all the kids and then I'm going to kill me. And that is a common threat from domestic violence abusers. So we really need to start working on the fact that 24,000 people died from suicide. There were, according to my statistics, there were, where is it exactly? Hang on, I've got it. There were... We got to finish up, Cynthia. Don't give me statistics. Something profound. Profound, mental health expansion. We start helping people more and more and more, especially during this 2020. Okay, got it. All right, thank you. Tim, you get the last, last clear chance here. Okay. You get the message to leave with people integrating everything and some really good points have been made, integrating everything that's been said. I don't know if I can integrate and I don't know how profound it's going to be, but here's an observation. The GOP for years has successfully defined the gun control issue as an all or nothing proposition. And they have convinced all gun owners and people that support gun ownership of that point, that the second there is any kind of gun control, even though it's rational, makes sense gun control, it's the entry way to take away your guns. You're right to the Second Amendment and they've successfully done that. And if you're ever going to have any proper common sense gun control, you're going to have to define this issue as a not an all or nothing proposition. Number two is also you're going to have to take the perspective of the gun owner. I'm sorry, but when someone's breaking in your house, law enforcement is there to document the crime scene, not prevent it. So until you address that primal caveman like need to protect one's home and one's family, you're not going to address this issue effectively. So again, there's always middle ground on this. And I think the argumentation is get to that middle ground. Don't say it's either or, because we, by doing such, we are in a state a stalemate stagnation point of view. Wow, you guys are great. No kidding. This is a great conversation today. Very important. And I hope, I hope we don't have to have it again really soon. I hope we can take a breather on it or wait, you know, for some positive thing to happen. Thank you much, Tim and Cynthia and Winston and Stephanie. I think this has been really worthwhile. So I've been watching America finding its way and think that way today we've been discussing control between now and 2022. And I suppose thereafter with Tim Avachele, Cynthia Lisa and Claire Stephanie Dalton Winston Welch. Thank you Tim Cynthia Stephanie Winston really appreciate your conversation to your contribution to the public conversation, because it should be. Thank you so much all of you.