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The Bourbon & Rum Unity Platform Experiment · Bourbon & Rum

0:08
Welcome to another episode of Bourbon and Rum.
0:11
This is a podcast of two brothers from opposite ends of
0:15
the spectrum. My name's Kent, I'm a rum
0:22
drinker, and I'm from the left side of the aisle.
0:24
And I'm Kyle. I, like bourbon, tend to be a
0:26
little more conservative. Join us as we explore this
0:32
experiment. Can two brothers from different
0:35
sides of the political spectrum have a civil conversation and
0:39
celebrate our differences? What are you drinking?
0:53
I am drinking a Heaven Hill grain to glass Heaven Hill is
1:01
distilling down in Bardstown and they have been kind of
1:06
experimenting with these different grains and this is 1.
1:10
It's a high rye bourbon, really tasty.
1:13
I had gotten AI was at the liquor store yesterday and they
1:17
had old Fitzgerald again the seven-year that is starting to
1:21
be more accessible and here are some friends.
1:24
And so we broke that out and then he broke out this grain to
1:26
glass. But it's I don't normally like
1:29
the Hybri as much, but this is really a full body, nice
1:34
mouthfeel, nice rich, rich flavor.
1:37
So what are you drinking, Ken I? Think I said last week.
1:40
I've been in other places that have bigger liquor stores so I
1:43
got a couple interesting bottles.
1:45
This is a Santa Teresa 1796 triple aged Solera Rum and it is
1:56
echo in Venezuela, so made in Venezuela, Spanish style.
2:01
That's our that's our clue right there that it's from a Spanish
2:05
speaking country. Our listeners can't see this,
2:08
but you can see this on the kind of a cool looking bottle and
2:13
it's got a wax dip like a Maker's Mark.
2:17
Oh, fancy. And the Solara.
2:19
I've mentioned this before, but Solara aging, it comes from
2:24
Spain and from the way they do Sherry and it's the thing where
2:30
you stack up. You know, I got 10 barrels at
2:35
different ages. You know, I made a barrel every
2:37
year and I stacked them up for 10 years.
2:40
And then whatever I draw out of the bottom barrel, I backfill
2:43
with the one next to it all the way up.
2:46
And so after just a little bit that bottom barrel becomes
2:52
there's, there is stuff in there that's older than dirt, but what
2:56
everything that's in there is kind of perfectly blended with
3:00
all of the other barrels kind of mixing it out.
3:04
Yeah. Interesting that when they say
3:06
triple age, do you think they put it in a barrel agent and
3:09
then pull it out, put in another barrel agent in another barrel?
3:12
Is that the kind of the approach?
3:14
Yeah, so it actually, it actually talks about that on the
3:18
back of the can. And let me read this.
3:24
Santa Teresa 1796 goes through three aging stages to achieve
3:32
its unique, smooth and balanced taste.
3:35
Traditional aging, 3 different rums with complex flavors and
3:41
aromas are aged separately and later carefully bottled by our
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maestro Roneros. Then it goes to Solera Cask,
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Aging this blend. The blend of the three rums is
3:56
then aged through our Solara casks, which consists of four
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rows of Hogs Head barrels that transfer only half of each
4:08
barrel in a waterfall effect from top to bottom, acquiring a
4:12
superior refinement. The first Solara in this thing
4:18
was created in 1992, so 33 years ago.
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So there's 33 year old rum in what I'm drinking, but probably
4:27
a very minor amount. And then lastly, the third aging
4:33
is a solera VAT aging. Lastly, it is aged a third time
4:38
in the Solera vats, large vats made of French limousine oak,
4:44
which are never completely emptied to achieve its final
4:48
smoothness and balance. So here's a glass.
4:53
Cheers to you. I'm going to drink a quarter of
4:55
a teaspoon of 30 year old rum and it is really glassy like
5:04
unbelievably smooth. It's a little sweet.
5:06
They may use a little bit of sugar after the fact to level it
5:12
out, but it just, there's no burn at all, nothing.
5:16
It's that's pretty light. It's an 80 proof, so it's not
5:19
very hot to begin with, but just really nice.
5:23
You think the founders of that will be upset when you mix it
5:26
with Diet Coke? Yeah.
5:33
I actually have been listening to some of our podcast.
5:35
I don't normally listen to our podcast.
5:37
I don't. Do you listen to them after the
5:38
fact? No, it's a little hard for me
5:40
honestly. Especially like I can listen to
5:43
the the back catalog, but like the one we just did, it's all
5:48
cringy for me. So no, I can't very well listen.
5:50
Yeah, I don't normally. And we were, we drove down here
5:54
to see some friends. And so I listened to a couple.
5:56
And you know, The thing is when I especially when I listen to
6:00
the recent ones, I'm like, well, why didn't I say this or no,
6:05
next time I'm going to say this, you know.
6:06
So formulating better arguments maybe.
6:08
I don't know. We'll see.
6:10
And then I noticed I, and then several times I said things, I'm
6:13
like, I'm trying to make a point and I said something that didn't
6:17
make any sense, you know, you know, it's just kind of funny
6:20
how to, to think through that. Yeah, honestly, kind of a, well,
6:24
you know, we've been, we've been talking a little bit about it.
6:27
We had the we had the giveaway and congratulations to Tom for
6:34
winning our contest. We're grateful for his being a
6:37
listener. It has been sort of
6:39
introspective. Looking back on a year of this,
6:42
it's a different world than it was a year ago.
6:45
It's been a a challenging year for me, obviously under the
6:48
circumstances. But maybe ironically, having
6:52
this regular conversation with you has been grounding for me.
6:57
It doesn't make me less outraged by some of the things that I
7:00
see, but it has done a lot for me to talk to you with a
7:05
different perspective. And yeah, it's been, it really
7:10
does kind of prove the, the thesis that we started with this
7:14
in, in my mind because we, we've not changed our positions very
7:19
much. But the exercise of being civil
7:23
and humane to somebody and talking about big issues, that's
7:27
part of our whole problem is that we live in these echo
7:30
chambers, right? If you don't talk to anybody who
7:31
doesn't agree with you, well, it's pretty easy to slide and,
7:37
and and then it's like everything just looks horrible.
7:40
Well, anyways, just thank you because it's it.
7:43
You haven't really changed my mind, but you've kept me sane.
7:46
Yeah, and, and Ditto to you and I, I don't want to toot our own
7:50
horn here, but I think the fact that we've had a year of civil
7:57
dialogue in the present times that we're in is, is really
8:01
impressive because by any measure, we're at a time of
8:06
maybe the most polarization that people have seen in recent
8:10
years. And you know, the current
8:13
administration and, and the detractors and all the back and
8:16
forth, the fact that we've been able to do a year of this
8:19
civilly now to me is even more special.
8:24
Yeah, agreed. Did you listen to the voice memo
8:26
I sent you earlier? No, I did not.
8:28
I'm sorry. I guess where I was thinking
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about is, you know, recently I, I think we found common ground
8:36
in some areas and, and we found that encouraging, although, you
8:40
know, it took took Jeffrey Epstein to get us common ground.
8:45
So there's that. And I think we've also both
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thought, hey, you know, our respective parties have
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disappointed us at various times.
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Our candidates have disappointed us.
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And the other thing we've talked about is how we both view, you
9:04
know, we often agree on the outcomes.
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We just differ on how to get there.
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And then I guess the fourth piece of this I would say is
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you've talked about running for office.
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I don't think you're serious and it's not something you want to
9:14
do. But I've, I have said, and I'll,
9:16
I'll say it again for the record, that if you ran as a
9:19
Liberal Democrat, I would, I'd be your number one campaigner,
9:22
even though I probably would disagree with half the stuff you
9:24
were saying. But I got to thinking about what
9:28
would be fun is for us to put together a, I'll call it the
9:35
Bourbon and Rum Project 2030 or something like that.
9:39
You know, like, you know, there's the Project 2025, the
9:43
right wing, you know, view of the world.
9:46
What would be fascinating to me is if we developed a platform
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and I don't know what this looks like.
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I don't this is a written thing or maybe there's just
9:54
conjecture. But could we develop a platform
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of positions where we come at those positions from wildly
10:01
different places? But could you, could you come up
10:04
with a, could you put two people in the room, say, look, you both
10:08
want to reduce the murder rate. You got to come up with an A
10:12
solution you both agree to. And what does that dialogue look
10:17
like? Because if all we're doing is
10:19
taking our own positions and we just go to our corner and say,
10:23
well, I think we ought to do this.
10:25
You think we ought to do that. There's a bit of a cop out.
10:28
But if we actually had to solve for something that was going to
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be on this, you call it a Unity platform, I don't know what you
10:36
call it. Does that change the nature of
10:38
the dialogue? I think it, I think it's a
10:40
brilliant idea and it changes it a lot in my opinion.
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And the risk is that the, the risk is that it could go, it's
10:50
kind of like least common denominator, right?
10:52
Like we got to start with the common ground.
10:56
And so the one that you raised, how do we reduce the murder
11:00
rate? Like, OK, we're going to start
11:03
by saying that murder is not optimal.
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And, and what like we can both like, yeah.
11:09
And like probably don't have to get too many steps past that
11:13
before we start to work. What what we would have to do, I
11:16
think, is to resist the temptation to do one of two
11:20
things. And that's either come up with a
11:23
solution that is so benign and meaningless that you can't
11:30
disagree with it, right? Like that would be the risk of
11:33
that. And so is there a way we could
11:37
put like a like a reality, like a, like a codicil that not only
11:44
do we have to agree, we have to agree and it has to be fill in
11:50
the blanket. It has to be something that
11:54
would go afoul of both of the party official platforms,
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although we don't really do platforms in the way they used
12:02
to back in the day at conventions.
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But you know what I mean? Like we we would have to get
12:08
something that I want something that Fox News would be like eye
12:14
rolling. And I want you to, I mean, I
12:18
want you to come up with something that Fox News would be
12:21
like, I don't know what he's where is he coming from?
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And mine would have to be Joe Scarborough would have to say,
12:28
you know, this guy's a, this guy's an authoritarian.
12:32
Like like how do we? Well, you know, it's kind of the
12:35
they say, like the results of a perfect negotiation are when all
12:40
parties are pissed. Yeah, Yeah, I, I think it would
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be, I think it would be interesting.
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And the other thing about it that I will hypothesize is when
12:54
I think about what are the big issues of today, you mentioned
13:00
crime. I think immigration policy would
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be a perfect one. That's that's apparently a
13:08
hotbed and a flashpoint for people.
13:11
I already bet that you and I would come to a much more
13:16
conciliatory position on immigration.
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And I think if you go down the list, this is what I think is
13:22
really ironic. If you go down the list item by
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item, I think we could effectively do that.
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We're not going to agree on everything, but I think we could
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come up with position statements or policy recommendations that
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that neither of us is completely comfortable with.
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But we, we can see the, the, the upside to it.
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The problem is when you put them all together.
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And that's part of the strategy of the political class, keeping
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us plebeians down in our place is that you don't, you don't get
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the cafeteria your way through. Like in a very polarized world,
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you know, it used to be that you'd have people that like,
14:05
well, I'm, I'm a Republican, but I'm, I really disagree on this
14:08
point. Or like the tribalism now makes
14:12
you like you got to pick sides and and then you got to check
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and then you got to check the the commentary before you say
14:20
anything about it. So you don't look like you're
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crossing, you know what I mean? And so the individual issues
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take a back seat to the overall brand.
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And in some ways, that's the most broken piece.
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Well, and the thing that I that's interesting most to me is
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could we craft solutions that are I think we could.
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I think, I think if you take people from different sides of
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the aisle that can have a civil dialogue, I think you could
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actually produce a solution that's way more effective.
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Because otherwise, to to your point today, what wins is either
14:56
complete swill, like, you know, we want all the children of the
15:00
world to live in perfect peace and harmony, or it's one side
15:06
got more votes than the other guy and they're going to force
15:08
through some really radical position.
15:13
But this probably not that good long.
15:15
Term well and and you know I'm on this kind of throw all the
15:20
bums out roll lately. But again, I think people assume
15:26
that people go to Washington and take seats in Congress or the
15:29
Senate or the presidency or these cabinet offices, and they
15:33
think that they they have an interest in solving these
15:37
problems. And I think many of them don't.
15:41
I don't mean that they're all soulless or have no hope, but I
15:45
don't know, like what? If you if you solved all the
15:48
problems, why the hell would we need you there anymore?
15:51
Then you could go home and they want to have a 30 year career.
15:54
Exactly. So OK.
15:56
So let's let's jump into one that's current.
16:00
The mass shootings and gun control and all the dialogue
16:03
right now, you know? Yeah, that's, I would say that's
16:05
a good one. It's a horrible one.
16:07
And you know, the most recent one in Minneapolis is, you know,
16:13
took place, what, 10 miles from where my grandson lives.
16:16
That's kind of hard to to look down the barrel of that.
16:21
Well, I am a Democrat and I'm going to state my table stakes
16:24
on this coming in. Also a gun owner and I haven't
16:29
done a lot of shooting lately, but I like to shoot like the
16:31
target shoot. I've haunted birds.
16:34
I and I, I, I would be uncomfortable with kind of a
16:38
sees them all mentality, but wow, the inability to even have
16:44
dialogue about gun legislation is is I think it's a real
16:48
problem. It just seems like a such a
16:53
broken record. When these things come, it's
16:55
like, well, we need an assault weapons ban.
16:56
We need this ban, We need that ban.
16:59
It's funny because you're the guy, you're the left, the person
17:02
on the left and you're a gun owner.
17:03
I'm on the right. I don't own a gun.
17:04
I'm not that. I'm not that.
17:06
I'm not a gun guy. I mean, I get the Second
17:09
Amendment and I and I support the Second Amendment.
17:12
I'm glad that my neighbors have guns 'cause you know, the state
17:15
of Texas, you can shoot somebody from walking into your house
17:18
uninvited. So I'm kind of glad that people
17:21
know that and respect that. Happened in your neighborhood a
17:24
lot. You got a lot of that walking
17:25
in, uninvited thing going on. In your neighborhood?
17:29
I don't think so. I'm not too worried about it.
17:31
So yeah, we're not too paranoid about it.
17:34
So I'm not coming at it from a gun thing.
17:38
I guess I'm coming. I cut when I see these
17:41
proclamations, I come to it more from a pragmatic thing.
17:45
It's like, you know, most of the people committing gun crime, it
17:50
doesn't matter if there's another law or not.
17:53
I mean, they're breaking, they're obviously killing
17:56
someone. So they're break, they've
17:58
they're showing a propensity to break laws.
18:00
So the fact that you have a law like, you know, I'm, I guess I'm
18:05
going like, like, OK, if you got rid of the guns, like if the law
18:09
got it off the street, that's a different story.
18:12
But a law, to be a law, I think it's just pointless.
18:16
I hear you on that. One of the things that, so my
18:20
hypothesis on that is that the biggest barrier to come up with
18:26
real, real solutions is that it's the freaking third rail.
18:31
And I thought it was going to get a little bit better when the
18:35
NRA sort of self immolated couple years ago because they
18:41
hold over politicians like the sword of Damocles.
18:46
And, and what that means is nobody actually talks about it.
18:50
So, right, you could pass a law that all guns are henceforth and
18:54
heretofore completely illegal. You can't have them anymore.
18:58
They'll be collection points that we expect you to bring them
19:01
to. Like you could pass whatever law
19:03
you do and it's not going to fix that.
19:04
However, crime and shooting is not a single thing or a monolith
19:10
that doesn't have different flavors.
19:12
We talked a little bit about Chicago the other day and about
19:15
the murder rate, and there are certainly innocent people that
19:19
are killed in Chicago, but I'd be willing to bet that
19:24
disproportionately high number of the victims of crime in
19:26
Chicago may have been committing crimes in the process of getting
19:32
killed. You know, they, and that's one
19:35
like that's one kind of crime and that's one kind of
19:38
situation. These school shootings or these
19:41
group shootings, there might be more of an opportunity to make a
19:45
difference than we think. This most recent one, I haven't
19:49
read a ton about it, but the guns were apparently purchased
19:53
legally and they were purchased legally recently.
19:57
And so, yeah, there's no law that you're going to take.
20:00
It's going to get every revolver off of the street.
20:04
But what about selling guns to 20 year olds that are in active
20:10
distress? And what about background
20:13
checks? What about the ability of
20:17
parents or others to say, look, my kids got problems, they need
20:21
to be on the no gun fly list, right?
20:24
You, you can't do that now because talking about gun
20:28
control is so much the third rail.
20:32
I'm not talking about taking somebody's hunting rifle away.
20:35
I'm saying though a depressed, angry, angst filled, hate filled
20:41
20 year old who's very likely got mental illness or
20:47
challenges. To my knowledge, there's no
20:49
formal national mechanism that a parent, a teacher, or somebody
20:53
can say hey. We need to think twice about
20:56
buying about that person being able to buy a gun.
20:58
That's something that I would put on the list.
21:00
Could you live with that something like that?
21:02
Sure. But I think you're, you're going
21:04
to run into another constituency of an angst filled, confused,
21:11
transitioning 20 year old and that, you know, so I want to go
21:18
down that path. But like the whole thing that
21:22
that individual was dealing with, some would call you, you
21:27
know, like hate speech to say that they're confused and
21:31
troubled by their situation because they're, you know,
21:34
gender fluid and all this issues that they're dealing with.
21:38
And so there becomes like, I mean, that's kind of one of the
21:42
problems with the and, and I'm not saying I'm up for a
21:45
solution. I'm just saying like you start
21:47
going down that rabbit hole, like, well, I think you're
21:52
mentally unstable, so I'm not going to give you a gun.
21:55
Well, how do you define that? And how do you define that
21:58
without them get get butting up against some constituency that
22:02
Oh, you're discriminated against this person because they're
22:04
having, you know, whatever viewpoints they're having or you
22:08
know what I mean? So it's like, I'm with you.
22:10
Could I I think that's legitimate.
22:12
But like, how could you objectively determine that?
22:17
And then because you're going to have a whole group of people,
22:19
they're going to be like, Oh, you're calling this person
22:21
mentally unstable and they're not, you know, you know what I
22:24
mean? Like.
22:24
Sure. It's a can of worms it seems.
22:27
Like it is. Although, you know, it's not
22:30
like we haven't dealt with this before.
22:32
There are, there are rules around involuntary confinement
22:39
for mental illness, right? You, I can't just call wherever
22:43
you're on vacation. I can't just call 911 and say
22:45
you're not just talking to my brother.
22:46
I think he's nuts. I think you ought to lock him up
22:49
there. There.
22:50
There's a standard of what comprises that.
22:53
It's defined in law. If your wife and I and your kids
22:58
all got together and called the cops and said he's crazy and
23:01
they they need to lock him up, they they might.
23:04
But even then you've got recourse.
23:06
There's some due process that goes with that.
23:09
And in this case, I'd err on the side of caution because what's
23:13
the worst thing that happens? A person isn't under duress and
23:18
they didn't get to buy a gun. I don't think that's the end of
23:20
the world. So I think it you you're right,
23:23
I think that's a complication, but I don't think it's
23:26
necessarily a deal breaker. Yeah.
23:28
So that would be 1 platform thing and admittedly not
23:32
necessarily simple to enforce, but I would like us to be able
23:37
to have a dialogue about how do you create a fairway for people
23:42
to flag people that shouldn't have guns and.
23:46
But like this, but like this person in Minneapolis, they
23:50
didn't have any formal treatment for mental illness.
23:53
I mean, obviously they they looking retroactively, it sounds
23:58
like this person was distressed. But like, OK, without any, some,
24:02
some kind of objective treatment, how do you call
24:05
somebody out as being, well, you're obviously a whack job.
24:08
You shouldn't have to like. How do you do that?
24:10
Well, it wouldn't be foolproof. But Kyle, I think that's one of
24:14
the really important things about having an exercise like
24:17
this. We we can't let the perfect be
24:20
the enemy of the good. And this happens all the time
24:22
with gun. And I'm not trying to pick at
24:25
you, but you started down this path like, well, yeah, if you
24:29
could get rid of all the guns, but you can't.
24:31
They're still going to have guns.
24:32
And so the people that you want to legislate against are still
24:35
going to have the guns. There's truth to that statement.
24:38
The problem is that that doesn't mean that there's nothing we can
24:42
do or there's no way we can influence.
24:44
So to your point, yes, coming up with an objective measurement of
24:48
someone shouldn't have a gun challenging someone's mental
24:54
status. That's all kinds of problematic
24:57
and in this case might not have caught it.
24:59
You're right, But how many of these shootings have we seen
25:03
where everybody's like, well, yeah, you know, he wore a black
25:06
trench coat and wouldn't talk to anybody?
25:08
Like, in some cases, yeah, it would slip by.
25:11
But there's some cases where it's pretty obvious to people
25:14
and. Well, I don't, I guess.
25:16
I guess my thing is I don't, I, I think the path you're going
25:20
down is the right path and I'd love to explore that more, but I
25:23
don't feel like the people on the left that ever every school
25:26
shooting. Oh, we need more gun control.
25:29
Like people aren't necessarily having a thoughtful dialogue.
25:32
Like, how do we really fix this? It's just like, oh, we need to
25:36
ban assault weapons. Oh, OK.
25:38
Yeah, They, they, they crack the, the, you know, the crack
25:42
house. Like they're going to give a
25:44
crap about a bill like like a, a, a law.
25:48
And, and I, I guess my thing is it's like I'm all for exploring
25:53
real solutions, but when somebody just knee jerks this,
25:57
oh, well, we need another law. Well, OK, let's talk about what
26:03
you're going to achieve. Look, I I don't disagree with
26:06
you. I think it's a valid criticism.
26:07
But I will tell you exactly where the where the impetus for
26:12
Jensaki's position comes from, because it fits the pattern
26:17
every time. Because Republican.
26:20
Look, you're right, but but. My case, nobody does.
26:24
Anything like, oh, we can't fix it, so I'm not going to do
26:27
anything and we're not even going to talk about it.
26:30
We're not even going to ask ourselves, is there any
26:32
legislative remedy that we could make any kind of difference
26:35
with? I just.
26:36
But I don't feel like there's ever a really concerted effort
26:40
on either side to really have a dialogue about how to fix it.
26:44
It's just, it's all sound bites back and forth.
26:47
And I, I agree with where you're going.
26:49
I guess I'm just saying that's to me, like to your point, the
26:53
Democrats don't want this to be fixed any more than the
26:55
Republicans don't want. It's, it's, it's a useful, you
26:59
know, volley back and forth like, Oh no, we Republicans all
27:04
love guns. And no, we need gun.
27:06
No, how about we figure out how to make some type of real change
27:11
this. And that's where I'm going with
27:13
our little platform here. Like I like where you're going.
27:16
Maybe how could we make that? Or you know what, is there
27:19
something else? Is there some angle that because
27:23
of the polarization and all the like, the the rehearsed talking
27:27
points nobody ever delves into? Well, I'll throw another one out
27:31
there. It's kind of cut from the same
27:33
cloth. And actually I have seen a
27:36
little bit more of this lately. What about if you're a parent or
27:42
you're a counselor or you're someone in a position to know
27:46
and you have real credible indications that someone has
27:52
violent ideation and you don't do something about it, you go to
27:56
jail. And that happened in Michigan
27:59
with the one family, the, I, I won't remember the details, but
28:03
there was a shooting and later they found out that the, you
28:07
know, the parents knew the kid was not right.
28:10
And they were like, well, you know, whatever, don't pay any
28:13
attention. And they were both tried.
28:15
I don't know what the exact resolution with that was.
28:18
That could be problematic, of course.
28:20
And I I don't want to be reckless with that, but.
28:24
But I guess where I'm going with this problem is like like mental
28:28
illness. It's logical with with AI, for
28:32
instance, that maybe you could assess somebody, hell, I don't
28:36
know, maybe at some point in the future they can look at your eye
28:39
movements and know if you're a psychopath or not.
28:42
You know, like there may be shit that could figure this out that
28:46
we don't know about. And I'm all for that.
28:49
But the problem is, and I think with the frustration is, is when
28:53
the gun control conversation comes up is it's like, I, I love
28:57
that like, hey, put a law in place that says if you got to
29:00
pass these parameters to be able to access a weapon, Well, these
29:04
people, if you're hell bent to go shoot up a school and you're
29:08
not authorized to get a gun, you could still get a gun.
29:11
And it happens day in and day out, whether it's on the illegal
29:14
market, whether it's, hey, I grabbed one from my neighbor or
29:17
my dad. I guess where I'm going is like,
29:20
how do you get, how do you swim upstream even further and solve
29:24
this problem? Because yeah, I mean, I'm for
29:28
having that conversation, sure about, you know, could you could
29:31
you eliminate getting to mentally ill folks?
29:34
But if you're hell bent to shoot up a school, that's probably
29:38
still not going to stop you. So what would stop you now?
29:41
You could get rid of every gun to where there's no more guns.
29:43
But again, is that logical? So like, how could like, what is
29:48
a solution? And I'm not against gun control.
29:52
I guess I'm just saying I just I don't think that's solving the
29:55
problem. But that makes sense.
29:57
But I, I don't want to turn loose of this and I'm not going
30:00
to let you off that easy because you, you fall back into the same
30:05
thing. With all respect, this is
30:07
exactly the thing that underlies the Republican response.
30:11
It's like, well, if they really want a gun, they're going to get
30:13
a gun. Let me suggest a couple things
30:15
to you, though. Is there a way that you could
30:18
legislate something that would 100% stop it?
30:20
No, of course not. You're you're right on that.
30:23
But it's a gigantic leap in logic to think that we can't do
30:27
anything about it. And so let me ask you this, if
30:31
we came up with a system that impeded things a little.
30:33
Bit but what I'm saying. What if it's 10% of the
30:37
shootings? Is that not worth doing?
30:39
I guess I'm saying what I'm advocating for is I, I don't
30:43
care what any of the Republicans say.
30:45
I'm just saying like, that's not solving the root problem.
30:49
How? And maybe that maybe you can't
30:50
solve the root problem. And maybe to your point, maybe
30:53
10% shaved off 10% through a law like this.
30:56
OK, no argument. I guess I'm just saying like,
31:01
how could you really address this to where it comes back to
31:06
how do you, how do you protect people?
31:09
Because you know, I just, I'm not, I'm not opposed to what
31:13
you're saying. I just feel like we're having
31:15
the wrong argument all the time. We're all arguing about gun
31:17
control. And it's like, you know, again,
31:19
if you're a criminal, you're probably not going to obey laws.
31:23
So how do we protect our populist from criminals who have
31:27
no regard for any law? And if they're hell bent to hurt
31:30
people, they're going to hurt people.
31:31
So how do you how do you protect people?
31:33
I guess that's where I'm trying to go.
31:34
Well, I'm and that may be 1 where I wave the flag and say
31:39
that we can't do it. I actually don't think that.
31:41
I do think that there are things that we could do.
31:44
I do think that that a better system for dealing with mental
31:48
health in this country, it's not going to fix all of them, but it
31:51
might fix some. And I think you could put other
31:55
things on the list. I think mental health is part of
31:57
it. I think that isolation and so
32:00
there's a lot of social fabric problems that lead to this.
32:04
But then you face the same problem that I think you're
32:07
facing with with your thing like, well, no, there is no
32:11
silver bullet that's going to fix all of that.
32:14
But can we mitigate, can we reduce that harm?
32:18
And in my mind that there are that happens all through the
32:21
stack, right? There's mitigating harm by not
32:26
cutting funds for mental health, spending money to fix mental
32:30
health, making a a concerted effort to do something about it.
32:34
I think that you can't legislate this, but our people spend too
32:39
much time alone and they don't, they're not connected to other.
32:43
People, they say that. They say that loneliness is
32:46
worse for your health than smoking.
32:48
Yeah, yeah, I agree. But again, you, you got to
32:53
realize that there is no silver. That's the wrong metaphor for
32:59
this one. There.
33:03
There is no magic wand solution that's going to fix the problem.
33:10
And that is why we need to talk about gun control in this
33:14
context. It's not the only thing.
33:16
It's preposterous, and I don't know of any serious person who
33:20
thinks that you can legislate your way out of it.
33:23
At the same time, let's also not kid ourselves when the Brady
33:27
Bill came in and we did have an assault weapons ban for 10 or 15
33:32
years, it made a measurable, statistically viable difference.
33:38
So it's not did it stop all shootings?
33:41
No, but it's but it's preposterous to say, well, you
33:46
know, they're still going to get guns.
33:47
So we're not going to even, we're not even going to make a,
33:51
we're not going to make a surface cosmetic attempt to act
33:56
like we, we, we're going to remove the ban on assault
34:01
weapons and we're going to say free for all, do whatever
34:03
because we can't, we can't take everybody's guns away.
34:06
Like that's just nonsense. And you wouldn't let us off the
34:09
hook if I said, well, you know, we're going to, we're going to
34:12
do some mental health fixing. Well, no, that that's not going
34:17
to fix it all either, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
34:20
Yeah, I just, I'm Yeah, it's all good.
34:23
I, I'm, but I, I, I'd love to dig into it more like, you know,
34:27
what is it, why is it that these things happen?
34:33
Is it the access to guns? Is it, I mean, there's mass
34:37
murders that happened elsewhere. It, guns obviously enable it at
34:41
a much faster scale. You know, if you're attacking
34:46
people with a knife, you're not going to get as far as if you're
34:48
attacking with a gun. I think if I can, I think that
34:54
what, how does this problem happen?
34:56
This problem happens that we have pervasive problems of
34:58
mental health that are worse now than they've been before.
35:02
They happen in a context where people, look, I'm not being just
35:07
Mr. Churchy, but people don't, they don't interact with other
35:10
people at church. They shop online rather than at
35:14
the mall, right. So we've got so we've got people
35:16
that have increasing rates of mental illness in an isolated
35:23
world where they're not relating to other people, where mass
35:28
shooters, even though the media claims to try to downplay it,
35:32
there's still it's kind of a heroic I.
35:36
Mean, I'll tell you one, one law that I think they ought to put
35:39
into place is whoever a mass shooter is, it ought to their
35:45
identity ought to be completely sealed.
35:48
And you're unable to, you know, come up with a way to where
35:52
there is 0 fame. You know, like, like in the NFL,
35:55
if you, if you drop your drawers and run across the field, they
35:58
won't show you on the video, right?
36:01
They won't show anybody that disrupts or anything.
36:04
And it's like, it seems like, like you said, some of these
36:07
people want to go down and history infamous.
36:09
I mean, if you knew that, hey, your body's going to get buried,
36:13
nobody's ever going to hear from who the hell you were.
36:16
Makes a difference. Right.
36:17
We're going to expunge you from the record like you never
36:20
existed. Yeah, I, I mean, I, I put, I
36:24
guess what I'm saying is you're, you're asking a question
36:27
holistically. How can we look at at fixing the
36:29
problem? And I'm saying this problem is
36:32
an amplifying stack of these multiple issues.
36:38
And so I don't think that there's one solution.
36:41
I think you got to do it all. I think we're, I think our
36:43
mental health treatment in this country is a, it is a, it is a
36:49
colossal embarrassment the way that we deal with mental, mental
36:53
illness in this country. Did you know?
36:56
And this is a government thing, this is a government problem.
37:00
So do you know this is, this is a different tangent here, but
37:05
the, the thing that drives what hospitals charge for what or for
37:12
doctors and hospitals charge is what Medicare chooses to
37:16
reimburse. That is at the, that is the
37:19
foundation of the whole system. And Medicare will pay an order
37:26
of magnitude more money for you to get a knee replacement for
37:30
your arthritis than to give you maintenance medication for your
37:35
schizophrenia. And so that has all kinds of
37:40
consequences. For one, the, I shouldn't say
37:43
the best doctors are going to be orthopedic surgeons, but the
37:47
ones, the ones that have the capability, right, like it, it,
37:51
it the, the difference in compensation between psychiatry
37:55
and orthopedic surgery or some of these other specialties that
38:02
tells you a little bit about what we value in our society,
38:04
right? Wouldn't, wouldn't we make
38:06
psychiatric what wouldn't psychiatric drugs be more
38:09
expensive than erectile dysfunction drugs like, so we
38:15
don't have our values straight when it comes to mental health.
38:18
That said, if you've got people that are suffering from mental
38:21
health crises, we've cultivated society, like I said, where you
38:25
do everything alone and in your basement, well, that's not good
38:28
for people that have. Those well, but I, I think we've
38:31
also, you know, and this kind of where I was going with this
38:34
Minneapolis shooter, there's also this trend and they call a
38:40
woke or whatever causes it that doesn't want to stigmatize
38:47
somebody by saying you have a problem.
38:49
And so you, you want social acceptance of everybody's
38:53
situation. And it's like, OK, I don't, I
38:55
don't want to be cruel to people, but if somebody has a
38:58
legitimate mental illness, it ought to be addressed as though
39:02
it's a problem to be solved. But if you're in a worldview
39:05
where, hey, I don't, don't criticize my affliction here and
39:12
you can't call out my affliction as being negative or bad, you
39:17
know, you know what I mean? There there isn't an element of
39:20
that here where it's like nobody wants to be able to call out
39:25
anybody for anything. And it's like, but how do we
39:28
take care of each other? How do we take care of somebody
39:30
who legitimately has an issue? You know there's a difference
39:33
between being cruel to somebody and and and helping somebody,
39:36
right? Yeah, I guess you're you're
39:40
right. I don't disagree with you on
39:41
that. I guess I would say this is the,
39:45
the fact that this person was trans.
39:49
I wouldn't jump to that conclusion being as much of a
39:54
factor, I think as you think it is.
39:57
It's not like I don't know, I don't know, I don't know if I
40:00
want how I want to go there. I, I do want to say this.
40:04
So maybe I'm going to take a step back from I don't think
40:08
it's bad, bad terminology. I don't think it's a binary
40:12
choice. And what I mean?
40:17
What I mean is this. There the the choice that we
40:22
have in life is not I accept and embrace everything that you say,
40:27
whether it has any, whether it makes any sense with my faith
40:33
tradition, my beliefs, my personal values, like none of
40:37
that matters. Whatever you feel, think, want
40:41
or be is, I have no stake in that versus people saying, well,
40:48
you know, I mean, you know, even though the minority of people in
40:52
this country I think today are now professing Christians, we're
40:56
a Christian nation. And therefore, you know, we're
40:58
going to nail the 10 commandments up in every
41:01
classroom. There's a middle ground to that
41:04
too. And I think that we've lost some
41:06
of that. And that's the saying that I
41:09
might not understand or even be supportive of or if, if like I
41:18
may have differences with the things that you choose to to do
41:22
and say and to behave. But I will fight to the death to
41:27
protect your right to do that. And that is a middle ground that
41:33
I think that we've lost. And I think that's to our shame.
41:36
Well, and I guess that's kind of where I was going with this
41:38
individual. And I, I haven't read all the
41:40
articles. I've just read some.
41:41
But like, you know, they were struggling with their gender.
41:46
They were angry at their mom over, you know, there was some
41:52
statement about like, well, you didn't support me in my
41:55
transition. That's why I got to go kill
41:57
children. I'm, I haven't read it all in
41:59
detail, but that's the impression I got from the
42:01
articles I was reading. And it's kind of like, OK, if if
42:05
you had dialogue with this individual, you might be like,
42:08
hey, this person doesn't need to have access to a weapon.
42:11
And a sane logical mind might say that.
42:14
But somebody else might say, well, no, either you're
42:17
discriminating against them because they're transitioning
42:22
and they're struggling with just like, like, I'm not making a
42:25
value judgement of the person from that standpoint, but it's
42:28
like looking retroactive actively at this.
42:33
Obviously the person was having mental struggles, but it wasn't
42:36
something that was diagnosed. It wasn't something official.
42:38
And if you'd have called him out at the time and said that you
42:40
can't get a weapon because you're having these thoughts,
42:42
there's probably a whole constituency on the other side
42:44
that would say, oh, you're discriminating against this
42:46
person because of XYZ. And so I'm not trying to
42:50
probably, right. You you're probably right on
42:53
that, but. So how do you solve that?
42:54
But does that negate Again, is this typical?
42:59
It happened. I'm not saying that it didn't
43:01
happen. I wouldn't.
43:02
Bet that a lot of people that struggle, I would bet you that a
43:05
lot of people that struggle mentally and emotionally don't
43:09
have a record with a psychiatrist that's documented.
43:14
Most of these people, that's the whole reason they're struggling.
43:17
But to your point, we don't treat mental health well.
43:20
And you got these people that are struggling and they haven't
43:22
been to anybody that if they'd been to a psychiatrist or a
43:25
psychologist and they documented their time, they probably help
43:28
them. But the fact that they haven't,
43:31
how do you then is a gun seller be like, hey, you've got no
43:36
record of psychiatric treatment, but you're obviously like, how
43:39
would you make that determination?
43:41
I, I'm all for it. I'm not arguing with you of the
43:44
need. I'm just like, how could you
43:46
implement that? If there's no, I mean, other
43:49
than is there some, you know, back to this kind of AI thing?
43:53
Is there some test? Is there some kind of screening
43:57
you can do 'cause I mean, if it's not documented, how the
44:00
hell would you know? I don't know, I'm just saying,
44:01
let let's not let this be a red herring.
44:04
The the the the fact that this person was trans.
44:09
I don't think that it I think it was a factor in this case, But
44:14
but that doesn't mean that we can't ever have a system where
44:17
we try to do these things. They like don't throw the whole
44:20
baby out with the I'm. Not throwing it out I'm I'm
44:23
legitimately I like it. I'm just saying that.
44:26
Would some people make that sound?
44:28
Would they say you're you're being unfair?
44:31
Yeah, Yeah, people would say it, but.
44:33
I don't I. Was like, yeah.
44:34
I care less about being the unfair piece.
44:37
I mean, that's just a piece of it.
44:38
I'm more like, if it's not documented, how would you know?
44:42
And if somebody is really bad off, it's probably not
44:45
documented because they're probably not getting treatment.
44:48
So how could you scream for these people?
44:50
Let's. But but let's we're not
44:53
unfortunately, we're not without data on this stuff.
44:57
So of mass shooting school shooting people of the last in
45:04
the last five years add up the freaking hundreds of them that
45:10
that would be again, we we we have the unenviable position of
45:15
having damn data on this. How many of them were like, oh,
45:20
he's a charming, cute boy, and I had no idea that anything was
45:23
wrong. Does that happen?
45:24
Yeah, it happens. And people fly under the radar.
45:28
But how many of these did you you hear?
45:30
And they go back and they're like, oh, yeah, we knew that one
45:33
was crazy. Like, will people slip through
45:37
the cracks? Absolutely.
45:39
But is it foolproof? No.
45:40
But does that mean we shouldn't try?
45:43
But you have I guess I'm trying to go I I agree.
45:46
I'm what I'm trying to say though, is like, yeah, I just
45:50
looked it up under the gun control of 1968 Gun Control Act,
45:55
you can't get a weapon if you have a documented mental health
46:01
record. Like you've been in a mental
46:03
institution. You've got you know, they're
46:05
mentally there's a there's terminology for it, like if
46:08
you've been seeing somebody and you've got a mental health
46:10
issue. So that laws on the books, where
46:13
I'm going is like, I would bet my paycheck that of the hundreds
46:18
of people that you're talking to, most of them have never seen
46:22
a mental health professional in their life.
46:23
That's a whole freaking problem. And I guess where I'm going is
46:27
like, I'm with you, we need a mental health system, one, that
46:32
engages those people. How do we do that?
46:35
But then two, like if you're going to tell these people they
46:38
can't have a weapon, I'm 100% in favor of that.
46:42
But if they've never seen a mental health professional, how
46:44
the hell would you know? And how could a gun seller
46:48
determine that? That's all I'm asking.
46:49
I'm I'm for the law, but I'm trying to understand how you do
46:53
it. But you don't do it 100%.
46:56
It doesn't catch them all, absolutely, but it would catch
47:01
some and. But like how?
47:03
That's what I'm saying. Like how would it?
47:05
Well, it would catch the ones that are treated.
47:08
That's not all of them, but I. But that's already in, that's
47:10
already in place. That's already.
47:12
But that's already a. But you.
47:13
But you can go to a gun show and and step around the law because
47:16
you pay for cash and nobody asks any questions and we don't
47:19
enforce that law. Yeah, OK.
47:21
Yeah. Yeah, I'm good for closing the
47:22
gun control. On my the.
47:25
Gun. But I mean, do you hear, do you
47:27
hear anything about that is, is that something that like Cash
47:30
Patel, could he do anything about?
47:33
It but I think. Like maybe like enforce the
47:36
freaking law? Yeah, I just, I think this is
47:40
the problem is you're advocating for people to do things that
47:44
aren't really going to help. And I guess I'm trying.
47:47
I want to help. I'm just saying like that help
47:51
is not the same as cure you. Want people to enact laws?
47:55
They're completely unenforceable and ineffective.
47:58
I want to enact things that could help.
48:02
That's the part I'm. Struggling, I know you're saying
48:04
that, but you're you're not you you again and we're we're trying
48:09
to come up with a platform that we can both sign on to, but in
48:12
so far. This hey, by the way, this
48:15
project 2030 is going completely unsuccessful in this approach,
48:21
but we're never, we're going to get there by like 20. 80 But
48:26
yeah, well, OK, but but like, how effective is the prosecution
48:32
of existing law? And if it's that easy, like, why
48:37
do Republican senators say I'm sending my thoughts and prayers
48:41
and not a damn word else? Why don't they say, you know, we
48:46
passed these laws a few years ago, but we're not certain that
48:49
the FBI is being very effective at policing these rules.
48:54
And we're not auditing gun shops to see if they're actually doing
48:58
background checks. We we'd let these flea market
49:02
gun shows go on in high school gyms where people are walking
49:07
around with snacks of $100 bills.
49:09
You think people are background checking there?
49:11
Well, no, we don't have registration of guns.
49:15
And I know like, people's hair is on fire.
49:17
Oh, my God, it's the government trying to take it away.
49:19
Like, it's not like we can do nothing and yet like, well,
49:23
there's a lot of guns, people are going to get them anyways,
49:25
therefore wash my hands of it. That's crazy.
49:28
Well, I just, I feel like the other side is just, hey, we do
49:31
more gun control laws, but they have no solutions, no ideas how
49:34
they're going to. Hey, we shouldn't be giving guns
49:37
to mentally unhealthy people, unhealthy people.
49:39
But there's again, they're like, how do you make that happen?
49:42
I just, I feel like we're we're ships passing in the night, all
49:46
saying things that are not really helping the situation.
49:50
Well, kind of, but. I mean, federal rules still
49:53
apply gun shows. By the law, gun shows you're
49:58
still supposed to do a a background check.
50:00
And how many arrests has cash? Patel's FBI.
50:03
Made gun show people. Yeah, the other thing and and I
50:07
need to Fact Check myself on this, but the assault weapons
50:12
ban, you know, we repealed. Just explain that to me.
50:18
You can say, well, it didn't really fix everything and people
50:22
could still get explain to me the rationale for for abolishing
50:30
the previous assault weapons ban that we had.
50:35
Like it didn't make it better, right?
50:38
It might not have fixed anything, but it did not make it
50:42
better. Saying the it's the Violent
50:45
Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, a 10
50:50
year ban. And we were like, Nope, we don't
50:53
need that anymore. We should go for this assault
50:57
weapon. You, you make the same criticism
50:59
that a lot of Republicans do when these things come up.
51:03
Guns are already out there. We're not going to fix it.
51:05
But do we need more guns? Like what?
51:07
What, Like, why did we say no, we, we don't need this silly ban
51:13
on it? Like I, like I, I cannot get my
51:15
head around who would say we need more guns on the street?
51:20
And that's essentially what the law, what the Legislature did.
51:24
Yeah, I, I don't really have AI. Don't you know they banned every
51:29
assault weapon? I'm not against that, but I'm
51:32
also curious if that has any impact.
51:35
Well, I mean. I heard, I heard this week and
51:38
again, I'm I'm second handing this that it did that it did
51:42
affect that there was a a reduction in shooting using
51:47
assault weapon. And I don't know, did it did it
51:50
fix it all? Of course not.
51:52
But again, I'm going with my 10% rule. 10% fewer kids killed in
51:57
school is maybe not something to be proud of, but I'd rather have
52:03
my hand in making the problem 10% better than shrugging and
52:08
saying a lot of guns out there. Nothing we can do.
52:11
I think that just reading about too, I think this is
52:14
interesting. It's not so much the gun show.
52:16
Like if it's a registered gun show, it sounds like there's
52:19
laws and things they have to follow and there's, you know, to
52:22
your point, I don't know what the prosecution level is, but
52:26
the bigger loophole is in gun shows.
52:29
It's private gun sales, like selling something on Craigslist.
52:33
And there's really no way to, there's no, I mean, you could
52:38
legislate it, but it's like, how do you prevent that?
52:40
Let me ask you about school shootings just for conjecture.
52:45
It's somewhat of a unique problem in America.
52:49
I mean, there's there's mass shootings and violence and
52:52
people driving cars through crowds and other other
52:55
countries. So we're not completely limited
52:57
there, but is there a cultural element of the United States
53:03
that makes those things more prevalent?
53:06
That's funny, I the. Best question.
53:08
My wife and I were watching and that this is a really probably
53:12
unrelated anecdote, but my wife and I watch.
53:15
There's something on Netflix where it's a Japanese thing.
53:18
It's like all these Japanese professional athletes of various
53:22
sports and they bring them together and it's like a athlete
53:25
in the nation thing where these multiple events and they
53:29
eliminate so many people at each thing.
53:32
And they're all, it's all voice over, you know, English.
53:35
So you can tell they're talking to Japanese, but it's all voice
53:37
over in English. But and so I don't know that
53:40
it's factual. They may be saying things
53:43
they're not really saying, but they're all like competing
53:47
against each other and they're all, they're all very
53:50
complementary of each other and very encouraging and supporting
53:53
each other. You know, and as like, you know,
53:54
we were kind of laughing. If it was a bunch of Americans,
53:56
they'd all be finding ways to bag, stab each other and screw
54:00
over the next guy. Is the individualist element of
54:06
American freedom and democracy? Is a is a negative repercussion
54:13
of that the individualist who thinks they can go shoot up a
54:17
school, is that an American thing?
54:20
Yes, and that's why this problem's so intractable,
54:23
because the the fact that we have all these guns is a
54:27
symptom, not the cause. Right.
54:29
Like I again, I'm holding to my party line.
54:32
I think that we ought to outlaw assault weapons and I think we
54:35
ought to register firearms and we ought to have more control.
54:37
So I, I, I'll admit that, but guns aren't the, the one thing
54:42
true that 10 eared Republicans say when there's a shooting is
54:47
that guns are not the problem. It's people that's the problem.
54:49
That's true. But we have a country full of
54:51
people that have problems. Why in the hell would would we
54:55
do everything we can to make sure that guns are available on
54:59
every street corner? But yeah, I think guns are a
55:03
symptom of the same problem. Problem or strength, honestly.
55:07
And most things are like that in life, right?
55:09
Like your greatest strength is also your weakness.
55:13
We are a nation of, of rugged individualists of, of people
55:19
that, you know, we, our culture prizes self advancement.
55:24
You know, we, we put a lot more stock in individual achievement
55:28
than we do in raising the tide for everybody.
55:33
And I think that has ramifications.
55:35
Now I'm going way out there, the reason that we don't have the
55:39
social network that Norway does and, and, and not the taxes to
55:45
'cause we're like, well, now we're OK with a certain
55:48
percentage of the population failing.
55:50
Like, like we don't need to have the net high for everybody,
55:56
'cause, you know, go make something of yourself.
55:59
So it's our strength as a nation, but it also directly
56:04
fuels some of the problems that we have.
56:06
Yeah. So then it becomes, is that an
56:08
unavoidable negative consequence of who we are as a nation?
56:14
And if we're going to live here, then I guess where I'm going
56:17
down the path with this is if the creation of these people is
56:22
unavoidable, you know, 1 angle is you take away their
56:25
implements, take away their guns.
56:28
Another angle is how can we beef up protection of the innocent?
56:35
Man, I don't, I don't want to make light.
56:36
But it used to be that you would count on Republicans for not
56:41
wanting to, you know, be hemmed in with a lot of government
56:46
stuff. But now we're comfortable with
56:49
stationing troops on the National Mall.
56:52
I'm not. I am enough of an individualist
56:55
that, gosh, the thought of that horrifies me, that schools
56:59
become like prison camps and that you double man trap every
57:04
door to get in and I don't know. Give every principal a weapon.
57:09
We need more guns, Kent. Yeah.
57:11
Well, yeah, that might that might help.
57:14
You ever seen you ever seen Minority Report?
57:18
Yeah, yeah, pre crime. Yeah, there we go.
57:22
Well, I mean, there's our AI. Well, I mean, honestly, how far
57:27
away are we from? Could you predict somebody I
57:30
mean? You know what I'll tell.
57:32
You, I mean, I'll put it back on you.
57:34
I mean, you're advocating for gun sellers to pre screen people
57:40
based on mental illness and presumably pre screening them
57:44
based on mental illness that hasn't been documented.
57:46
So your push would be to find a way to legislate that.
57:51
We don't sell to people who appear to have a mental health
57:54
problem. So why not take that to a
57:57
further extreme and coming come up with a systematic way to
58:00
figure out if somebody's mentally unstable?
58:03
Yeah, honestly, that that doesn't sound like that.
58:06
I mean, you know, framed that way, that sounds a little
58:09
creepy. And this is a this is a problem
58:14
that we got to reckon with because the Second Amendment is
58:18
an amendment to the Constitution.
58:19
And I believe in the Constitution.
58:21
I'd like to repeal the Second Amendment or modify the 2nd
58:25
Amendment, but I would want to do it through legal means.
58:28
And that's going to be really hard to do until we come up to a
58:34
point where we realize that. And again, to your point, we
58:37
could outlaw every weapon ever made ever tomorrow and it's not
58:41
going to fix it. Or there we, but it might.
58:44
Fix some What about it? We institute a government
58:47
program or we pay $1,000,000 for every weapon somebody turns in.
58:52
I could get behind that and maybe a million.
58:54
I don't know, you know, you, we, we could do a little cheaper
58:58
than that. I'll tell you about the AI
59:00
though, you know, and, and seriously, the ramifications of
59:03
this are a little. Think about that though.
59:04
What if you did a buy back? OK, So what if I'm sorry, I
59:07
don't mean to interrupt you, but before I forget, what if you
59:11
what if you did like a purely statistics like you want to you
59:15
want to reduce the number of gun crimes, take the number of guns
59:18
off the street. What if you put on restrictions
59:23
for gun manufacturers to make them slow production, and then
59:26
you put an incentive in place to get people to take guns off the
59:30
street? If you could reduce the the gun,
59:35
I'm I'm sure you could put together a percentage.
59:37
Like if you reduce the number of guns in the US circulating by
59:41
10%, it probably reduces crime by.
59:43
The other thing the economist in me likes is that you could do
59:46
the equivalent of Uber surge pricing, right?
59:51
Like, I don't know what's a pump shotgun worth in Kansas?
59:55
Not a hell of a lot. What's A380 pistol worth in the
1:00:01
South Side of Chicago? Yeah, the the pricing might not
1:00:07
be based on the cost of the firearm, but the societal value
1:00:12
of getting that firearm off the street.
1:00:15
Did you ever see the, did you ever see the Chris Rock bit on
1:00:19
gun control? And he's like, I'll tell you, we
1:00:21
don't need more gun control. What we need is bullet control
1:00:25
bullets. If bullets were $5000 apiece,
1:00:28
I'd be like, I'm going to cap your ass butt now.
1:00:31
I got to save up and then I'm going to cap your ass here.
1:00:37
Yeah. I mean, in some ways that's,
1:00:41
that's exactly the kind of thinking that we need that won't
1:00:45
fix it for everybody because but you know what seriously, like, I
1:00:49
was thinking like, you know, people that are serious
1:00:51
shooters, they reload, right? They, they've got, they've got
1:00:54
the powder in the machine in their basement.
1:00:56
They're making their own ammunition.
1:00:57
But probably the average person pulling something out of their
1:01:02
trunk to commit a crime, you, you, you could throw a wrench
1:01:05
into their plans if they're not able to buy to buy ammunition.
1:01:08
The beauty of of of some limitations on ammunition too.
1:01:13
First of all, it doesn't have the constitutional issue.
1:01:16
I mean, you can kind of say, well, like you, you could keep
1:01:21
and bear all the arms that you want, but you can't buy any
1:01:24
bullets for it. You can only buy, you can only
1:01:27
sell shotgun shells. Yeah, all that would change
1:01:30
things. Again, it's not 100% fixed
1:01:33
because there's are there ways around that.
1:01:35
Of course, there are ways around that, even outlawing the
1:01:38
manufacturer of guns. There's people you can 3D print
1:01:41
a gun. So, so, but but it makes it
1:01:44
harder. It makes the price, whether the
1:01:48
actual price or just the the burden of getting one price go
1:01:53
up. And I'm enough of an economist
1:01:56
to say that if we can raise the price, we can drop the demand.
1:02:03
That's how that works. And would it fix it all?
1:02:07
Absolutely not. But this idea, oh, there's too
1:02:10
many guns, we can't do anything like that's bullshit.
1:02:13
Of course we can do things. We can't fix it all.
1:02:15
But why don't we try a few things?
1:02:17
Why don't we try a few creative solutions?
1:02:20
And if if my idea saved 1/2. For it, and I'm I'm 100% for it.
1:02:27
Let me just say my frustration with the left is nobody's
1:02:31
throwing out creative solutions. It's just a sound bite.
1:02:34
They're like, well, we need more gun control.
1:02:35
Well, OK, what, how, where? Show me.
1:02:39
I'm, I'm for it. But it's always like a lack of
1:02:43
detail. So you're not wrong.
1:02:45
I don't disagree with you. The Republican that says, hey,
1:02:49
we're not going to do anything because it's it's not going to
1:02:50
fix everything. I'm with you.
1:02:52
That's not a reason not to do something.
1:02:54
I just wish we had politicians on the right or the left that
1:02:58
came up with more creative solutions than just throwing out
1:03:03
the the sound bite of the day. And that's but, but honestly,
1:03:07
that's our whole podcast that that's our whole frustration
1:03:09
with the political system as it is.
1:03:11
You're right. I was going to say it comes full
1:03:13
circle because you got to ask yourself, I mean, we're not
1:03:19
exactly global statesman, but in a 45 minute phone call we
1:03:24
realized that, you know, it's not going to fix everything, but
1:03:27
maybe we ought to think about a couple of these things.
1:03:30
The politicians don't want, they don't want it to change.
1:03:33
They they talk about it. But to your point, let's put
1:03:38
bona fide solutions on the table.
1:03:41
I was listening to a podcast and they were talking about how like
1:03:45
school shootings, I don't know if it was school shootings or
1:03:48
violence of some kind. And they were talking about like
1:03:50
they're good for fundraising. Like that's how these
1:03:52
politicians see the freaking world.
1:03:54
Like Oh no this is good for fundraising for anti gun or
1:03:58
whatever the hell your fundraising.
1:04:00
Like is that not just a completely blocked up way in the
1:04:05
world? Yeah, I that encapsulates it all
1:04:09
right there, right. So I think honestly, I think
1:04:14
we've got our first project 2030 tenant.
1:04:19
We're going to pay a financially, we're going to,
1:04:23
we're going to pay a, a modulated financial price for
1:04:27
guns to, to reduce the supply in the street.
1:04:30
And then and then you got, you got to back it up with an
1:04:32
incentive to the, to the gun manufacturer.
1:04:35
Because honestly, if you, if you paid money for the guns, if I'm
1:04:39
a gun manufacturer, I'm going to build as many freaking guns as
1:04:42
possible. So there's got to be a counter
1:04:44
balance with the gun manufacturers to incentivize
1:04:46
them not to build more. Will you put the equivalent of a
1:04:51
tariff on the sale of the gun up front and that's how you fund
1:04:56
your program, I mean raising? The price you can sell all the
1:05:00
you sell. Tell Remington you can sell all
1:05:02
the guns you want to to England, Denmark and yeah.
1:05:08
Well, and and you can sell all the guns you want, but when I
1:05:11
have to surge price, when I have to pay, you know, when it's 10
1:05:15
grand a weapon or 20 grand a weapon in high crime areas, you
1:05:19
want to sell a weapon in that area.
1:05:21
Well, then you create arbitrage and people, I mean, we got to
1:05:25
get full acknowledge, but that there's a lot to work out with
1:05:28
our but you raise the price of guns.
1:05:33
Or you get a, you know, kind of like the Israelis did with
1:05:37
Hezbollah, with the with the pagers, the pagers blew up.
1:05:41
We need to infiltrate the supply chain of the gun industry
1:05:44
somehow to where like, like infiltrate the lubricant
1:05:49
industry somehow so that the lubricant lock up all the guns
1:05:53
so they won't work. I mean, there's, there's an
1:05:55
anger. Like a six month the the the the
1:05:58
gun oil has like a six month window and then it turns into
1:06:02
super glue and they'd be useful. Honestly, speaking for myself,
1:06:11
like all, I feel like we could walk through multiple topics
1:06:15
like this where even if somebody who fashions themselves as a
1:06:21
right conservative, whatever moniker you want, I'd be willing
1:06:26
to consider a lot of alternatives that might even
1:06:31
conflict with core principles of my party platform if they were
1:06:37
just like if somebody just put thought into them.
1:06:40
You know? That's the thing that pisses me
1:06:41
off the most of politicians is they just serve up the same
1:06:45
freaking swill and they expect us to lap it up like dogs.
1:06:50
Like, no argument there. My brother-in-law, I, I won't
1:06:55
name him for fear of, you know, just try to be respectful for
1:06:58
people. But he said through the years
1:07:00
many times that he's totally right.
1:07:03
How many of these big societal problems and, and maybe gun
1:07:05
controls, not the one I'd start with, but how many of these
1:07:09
could you could you hand over to a team at McKenzie or Boston
1:07:13
Consulting and say, come up with a market smart?
1:07:20
These are your parameters. You, you, you, you got to live
1:07:23
with a country that's got a Second Amendment.
1:07:25
You've already got 10 guns for every human being already on the
1:07:30
street, right? Like these are the table stakes.
1:07:33
Come up with a way that minimizes the harm and present
1:07:39
your Bring the PowerPoint deck to Congress.
1:07:43
After you've we, it would be better than we've got.
1:07:46
Well, I've always thought like, like if you made people come in
1:07:51
front of, well, like, you know, Simon Cowell and Jennifer Lopez,
1:07:57
you know, like the American Idol's judges or come in front
1:08:00
of Shark Tank and pitch a solution.
1:08:05
And if if you can't pass it through them and you're you're
1:08:08
out like maybe we tell Congress that like you can't introduce a
1:08:11
bill until it's been through Shark Tank, You know, we.
1:08:13
Are locking the doors and nobody's getting out of here
1:08:16
until we got a better idea. Yeah.
1:08:22
Hey, thanks for joining us on this episode of Bourbon and Rum
1:08:25
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