Do you think that assault style weapons or weapons that would be considered like the AR-15 should be in the hands of average citizens or should there be laws to stop average citizens from buying those weapons?
unidentified
So, like I said, I'm big on calling it as I see it and I know I'm from Black Lives Matter.
It's interesting that you asked me that question because a lot of the times when people think about the criminals, the ones with the dangerous weapons, they automatically think about black people.
And so I would like to just say that when we think about guns in general, we need to think about guns for everybody, right?
So we are not, I know Black Lives Matter thinks this, and I'm pretty sure Marshall lives this too.
We're not anti-gun rights.
We're not anti everybody has that option.
But what I'm starting to see is more black people being disproportionately criminalized and disproportionately policed.
And it's ridiculous.
So I don't think it's the type of gun.
I think it's who has the gun.
And we need to make sure that when we think about who has the gun, we need to think about everyone who could have that gun.
I think if anything, if anything, we need to realize that the effective range of an AR-15, the effective range, do you know what the effective range of a handgun is?
If you're shooting somebody from 1,600 feet away, you are not defending yourself.
You are hunting that person.
And I personally subscribe to the notion that I don't think that every single citizen should be able to have guns because those citizens also include criminals, people that are mentally ill, or risk themselves and others.
and that's why we need things like universal background checks to make sure those guns don't get into the wrong hands.
And if anything, I think that we should have at least some kind of legislation on AR-15s, for example, and those type weapons with such a large effective range like that, where in the same way that you can still go to the range and shoot...
Yeah, fully automatic one, and that's a highly permitted process.
People are not using fully automatic AK-47s in the United States for a majority of mass shootings.
They're using semi-automatic assault rifles that are easily accessible to mentally ill and criminal individuals.
And that's what I believe because it was part of the National Firearms Act of, I think, 1934 or two that created tighter legislation on automatic machine guns and specifically things like the AK-47, which I understand there are semi-automatic versions of.
Most can be that way, but there obviously can be modifications put in place.
But I think we should have tighter legislation that allows people to practice their Second Amendment rights, but also recognizes that in the same way that everybody has a right to practice for the Second Amendment, like you and I, you and I have a right to live.
We're just independent journalists, so I'm just asking you.
I don't have a lot of gun facts myself, so I was just asking if you knew that.
unidentified
So specifically, there's a lot of technicalities here and there when it comes to the banning of automatic and semi-automatic rifles, specifically speaking.
But what it comes down to is, you know, even if you don't agree with whatever we say about assault rifles, that's what voting is for.
You know, it's okay if you disagree with that.
You can be for universal background checks and not for something like an assault weapons ban or something like that, or even tighter regulations on that.
But you can be for universal background checks and better mental health spending and school safety and community safety and intervention programs that save hundreds of lives and billions of dollars.
Do you know what the average cost of a violence intervention program is?
The average cost of the typical violence intervention program that doesn't increase discrimination within our juvenile justice system and justice system in general is about a couple million dollars a year for cities and municipalities to use.
And what we're pushing for as March for Our Lives is federal oversight and categorical grants for those programs on a localized level with the understanding that Los Angeles faces different gun violence than Salinas, California or Oakland, California, or New York City or Chicago.
And what those programs do is they reduce gun violence by 40 to 70%, even without any new types of gun laws that they implement by essentially interrupting crimes either as they happen or preventing them from happening.
But nobody likes to talk about that.
They only like to get caught on the issues that people disagree with most.
March for Our Lives believes that we have to fight for everybody's life.
Everybody has a right to live.
And you know, if you disagree with us on one thing, that's fine.
You can still fight for the other things.
You can fight for mental health care, and that's great.
And that's what it's all about.
And that's what March for Our Lives is doing.
We're here to save your life and anybody that disagree with us or anybody that's for us.
So obviously the NRA is out there, which I don't know if it's like a counter protest, I haven't seen it, but they're getting sign-ups.
They're kind of like an opposition.
And obviously there are some conspiracy theories that people go around and they say, oh, David Hogg wasn't even at the school the day the shooting happened.
Can we like end that conspiracy theory once and for all and clarify it to people?
unidentified
We're done.
We can't crash ourselves.
It's fine.
I was at school during the day.
I was at school during the shooting.
I interviewed people, not knowing whether or not I was going to fucking die.
You know, how much more evidence do you need than that?
