 A new CBS News and YouGov poll released yesterday confirms what a lot of us already suspected. That there is a large percentage of Republicans who are willing to just accept that violence is the norm in the United States of America, even if we actually don't have to live like this. They're saying, sorry, that's the cost of freedom and we're going to choose for all of you that violence is going to be the norm. So as Jake Johnson of Common Dreams explains, a survey published Sunday shows that nearly half of Republican voters in the United States believe mass shootings of the kind that took the lives of 19 young children in Uvalde, Texas last month are unfortunately something we have to accept as part of a free society. Wow. According to the CBS slash YouGov poll, 44% of GOP voters and 15% of Democratic voters feel that frequent mass shootings are an inescapable reality in the United States where there are more guns than people. That view appears to be out of step with the vast majority of U.S. society, however. The new survey shows that U.S. adults overall, regardless of party or political affiliation, believe by a 72% to 28% margin that mass shootings are something we can prevent and stop if we really tried. More specifically, the poll found that 62% of U.S. adults supported nationwide ban on AR-15s, but despite the proposal's popularity, it is not even on the table in the latest round of congressional gun control negotiations due to overwhelming GOP opposition. In other words, they know that your children might literally be slaughtered, but that's just the price that they're willing to pay. That's the cost of freedom, baby. I mean, this is delusional. Freedom in their view means that you can literally do anything you want, the right to bear arms. That means anything goes essentially. So they just, they don't want to draw the line. I mean, am I allowed to own a nuke? I'm not going to nuke anybody, but I mean, I just want to own it for self-defense purposes. Can I own anti-aircraft weaponry? If an airplane flies over my backyard, I mean, isn't that technically violating my property rights? And as a property owner, shouldn't I be allowed to shoot down that plane? Sure. I mean, the people on that plane are going to die, but that's just the cost of freedom. They shouldn't have violated my property rights and trespassed. I mean, it's preposterous. They know that you have to draw the line somewhere, but this is where they're choosing to draw the line. Dead kids are acceptable. Dead fetuses, however, can't have that. So we're literally going to have the government ban women from controlling their own bodies because we care that much about dead fetuses. Dead children, however, sorry, that's just the price of freedom. Now notice how we're not even talking about banning guns. Nobody's having that conversation. We're simply talking about common sense gun reform, banning AR-15s, putting caps on high capacity magazines, making people become certified and take gun safety training courses in order to obtain a firearm, have references that speak to their character, but no, not even possible. In fact, Don Byers is currently working on legislation that would put a tax on AR-15s of a thousand percent. And he's trying to get this passed using budget reconciliation, knowing that not a single Republican will support this. And since they won't get banned, well, the next best thing is to try to make it cost prohibitive for more people because, God forbid, we do anything to stop this. This is just the way that it is. But honestly, as disgusting and despicable as these respondents are to this poll, I've got to admit that it's gross, but somehow refreshingly honest because we've seen politicians blame doors. We've seen them blame rap music and video games. We've seen them blame abortion and a new one while they're blaming black people. But at least with that poll, the respondents are at least tacitly acknowledging that, yeah, it's the guns. We know it's the guns. More guns leads to gun violence, but that's just what we're going to accept. And we're going to impose this view on everyone else as well because we're in control currently. Even though we're a minority party, we have the Supreme Court and pretty soon they're going to exacerbate this issue most likely. They're poised to hand down a ruling that makes it so that way. States rights. What's that? We can all have guns in this country in open carry and I'm kind of like oversimplifying the situation, but this is the reality of the United States right now. And I want to ask every single person who answered in that way, would you feel the same way if one of your kids were gunned down? Would you feel the same way if you experienced what this mother experienced where she had to fight past police to run into a school and save her children's lives during the Ivaldi school shooting? Let's watch. Rest you because you're being very uncooperative. I said, well, you're going to have to arrest me because I'm going in there and I'm telling you right now, I don't see none of y'all in there. Y'all are standing with snipers and y'all are far away. I, if y'all don't go in there, I'm going in there. He immediately put me in cuffs. She says after Ivaldi police officers told marshals to uncuff Gomez, she ran towards a school. And as soon as they uncuffed me, I jumped that first gate fence. And once I jumped it, I went to my son's class and I knocked on the door and I remember the teacher saying, um, I'm like, hey, they're already, they're already, um, boat cutting the fence to get me. She's like, you think we have time to get out? I said, y'all have time. I'm going to run for my other son. Once she was assured her son was okay, Gomez ran to get her other child, encountering more officers who tried to stop her. So I start yelling and I'm being a cooperative and I'm like, well, y'all aren't doing **** what are y'all doing? Y'all need to be in your, give me a vest, somebody give me a vest, something. I started paying attention to how far the shots were being so that I knew the shooter was all the way still by my first son's class. So when I went to my son, my second son's door, the teacher didn't want to open the door for me. So that's when they started, um, escorting me out. And as I, as I see that they're opening my son's door, I go run for my son and I get him. With both of her kids out safe, Gomez still can't shake the thought of those who didn't make it. While you were inside the school, did you see officers inside the school? There was not one officer inside the school when I ran to my second son's class. There was not one officer. And you were here in gunshots. So you knew that it was an active shooter. You could hear the gunshots. It was still active. The gunshots were still active. They were not in there. There was no one in there. If anything, when I pulled up, my car was closer to the school than where the snipers and everybody that was laying on the ground were. When you heard that it took law enforcement 75 minutes before they went in and stopped the shooter, what was your thinking, having been inside the school yourself? I don't know. I was just thinking that they could have saved many more lives. They could have gone into that classroom and maybe two or three would have been gone, but they could have saved a whole, a whole more, a whole class. They could have done something, gone through the windows, sniped them through the window. I mean, something, but nothing was being done. If anything, they were being more aggressive on us parents that were willing to go in there. And like I told one of the officers, I don't need you to protect me. Get away from me. I don't need your protection. If anything, I need you to go in there with me to go protect my kids. And if anything, they were being more aggressive on us. They're more pertain on keeping us back than getting into that school. Now that video should warrant an entire conversation about a different issue. And that's the failure of the police in Ubalde, Texas. But just for purposes of this conversation, I want to ask every single person who answered that way in the poll that said that, you know, this is just the cost of freedom that kids, would you feel the same way if you literally had to fight past police to run into a school risk your own life to save the lives of your two children? Would you feel the same way? Would you say after experiencing that with that mother experienced that this is the price of freedom? I can't imagine anyone would be delusional enough to still maintain that position, but a lot of conservatives don't care unless it happens to them. And this isn't the only poll where a large percentage of Republicans have localized their acceptance of violence. Let me remind you about a different poll conducted by the American Enterprise Institute, which found that 39% of Republicans believe political violence may be justified. And when you have fans of popular right wing propagandists asking questions like this, when do we get to use the guns? No, and I'm not that's not a joke. I'm not saying it like that. I mean, literally, where's the line? How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people? It really shouldn't be a surprise to think that. Well, yeah, of course, this is how a large percentage of Republicans view freedom. Yeah, kids are going to die. Black people might literally be targeted while they're shopping for groceries, but that's just the cost of freedom. It's just truly a delusional definition of freedom. To me, freedom is living a life where you are free from fear of dying at a movie theater or grocery store or free of fear and for your children's life. But to them, freedom means anything goes. Sorry, it's just it's sad. It's sad. The GOP in this country has cultivated a cult that accepts violence as the norm, and they literally believe a large percentage of them believe that you have to accept violence because that's the cost of freedom, even if it turns this country into a hellhole, even if it turns schools into war zones, that's just the price of freedom. Dead kids is the price of freedom, not dead fetuses. No price of freedom there. We have to save these fetuses. But dead kids, that's the cost of freedom. It is truly demented and sick. But this is the base that the GOP has fostered and cultivated. And here we are. Clicking the bell, no way. It's very sad, I know.