Retired CIA station chief Scott Ulinger argues Trump’s 2017 Singapore summit with Kim Jong-un—scheduled in six weeks—reduced North Korean artillery threats near Seoul’s 38M residents and leveraged psychological tactics like Western lifestyle imagery to build trust, despite skepticism over halting $100M–$200M joint military exercises. Ulinger also criticizes Mueller’s legal maneuvers, including a judge’s ruling forcing him to name sources in Manafort’s indictment and a protective order shielding evidence from foreign defendants, calling these practices unprecedented and potentially unconstitutional. Criminologist Adam Dobrin counters anti-gun narratives by citing FBI data showing 8% of active shooter incidents (2014–2017) were mitigated by concealed carry permit holders, despite methodological gaps, and estimates over 1M defensive firearm uses annually—far exceeding homicides—while questioning fear-based marketing by groups like Bloomberg-funded Parkland activists. Both stress the need for deeper analysis of defensive gun use amid polarized debates. [Automatically generated summary]
Today and off the cuff declassified, Robert Mueller, the special counsel, still playing fast and loose with exculpatory evidence, but one judge isn't having it.
Retired CIA station chief Scott Ulinger joins me to analyze the Trump Kim Singapore summit, and criminologist Adam Dobrin is with me to discuss how concealed weapons license holders are saving lives.
Mueller is really playing games and this guy won't stop.
Of course, I'm talking about Robert Mueller, the special counsel.
Now Mueller is playing games that I've frankly never seen.
I always tell you, I've been in, affiliated with, or covering on-air law enforcement issues, intelligence issues for 25 years now.
Started doing it when I was literally early 20s.
I joined the NYPD in my last year of college.
I was going to school at night.
So I've been doing this my entire adult life in some fashion.
And I've never, I've never seen, I have never seen anything this bad.
So now, a story from the hill, judge rules Mueller must identify unnamed individuals in Manafort indictment.
You have a constitutional right to face your accuser.
It's one of the most fundamental rights, one of the most basic rights, one of our oldest rights.
A constitutional right to face your accuser.
Let me read you this, how troubling this is.
Another case going on when Mueller wants to, Mueller is actually asking the court in another case we're going to talk about in just a bit to let him withhold evidence from those individuals charged.
It's unheard of withholding exculpatory evidence.
It's saying, I'm going to hold everything back that might help you.
And then you need to go and mount the defense without any of the evidence we've collected that you're entitled to according to the federal rules of criminal procedure.
It's bizarre.
So here's the first story.
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that special counsel Robert Mueller must identify the unnamed individual in his recent superseding indictment of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Now, you remember that there was a superseding indictment.
He indicted Manafort again.
So it was the superseding indictment.
It's the new indictment.
That's a catch-all that in addition to all the financial crimes Mueller had previously been indicted on, he was now being indicted on witness tampering because of a couple of meaningless phone calls.
Maybe he meant to do it.
Maybe he didn't.
I don't think.
And people like Andrew McCarthy and legal giants didn't think that there was anywhere near enough evidence to charge him again.
Now, Mueller indicted, it was like last week, Mueller indicted Manafort and a guy named Constantine, how do I.
And it was, they were indicted on charges related to lobbying work in the Ukraine.
We know that story.
However, the new issue here is, let me read it to you.
Judge Amy Berkman Jackson ordered Mueller to turn over the names of several individuals and organizations, including European politicians and other Manafort contacts to Manafort's attorney, according to court documents by Politico.
The New York Times reported last week that two veteran journalists told Mueller that Manafort attempted to contact them and try to shape their testimony.
Three Times sources identified the journalists as Alan Friedman and Eckhart Stager.
Mueller's indictment did not name the witnesses that Manafort and Kilimnik allegedly contact.
The judge, her ruling, is coming in response to a motion from Manafort's team seeking more information on the supers indictment.
Now, the judge ruled that, quote, this is pretty standard stuff.
The defendant is obliged to prepare for a complex trial with a voluminous record within a relatively short period of time.
And he should not have to be surprised at a later point by the addition of a new name or an allegation.
And that is just a legalese way of the judge saying to Mueller, you've got to be kidding me.
This is the most basic principle of discovery in a criminal proceeding.
You can't tell somebody, a defendant, you're charged with these new crimes, but we're not going to tell you how we got that information.
We're not going to let your lawyers do their job, cross-examine those witnesses, depose those witnesses.
We're not going to let your private investigators look into this.
We're not going to give your client a chance to mount the defense by saying, I never spoke to that person, or yes, I spoke to that person.
But what that person didn't tell Mueller's team is that there were these 15 other people in the room for the entire conversation.
And those 15 people will swear under oath that I never said to that person what they alleged I said.
That's standard defense.
Mueller is now, in my opinion, clearly, clearly trying to hide something.
He has a very flimsy case against many people.
And this, I've never, I've never watched a prosecutor play this fast and loose with exculpatory evidence.
When you combine the fact that Mueller has a history, a long history of being admonished by judges for playing fast and loose with exculpatory evidence, as does his number two, Andrew Weissman, this becomes all the more troubling, all the more problematic.
So the second story from Dan Abrams' blog, Law and Crime.
And this is not a conservative outlet.
This is not a pro-Trump outlet.
This is even worse.
Mueller is trying to hide evidence from defendants in the Russian trolls trial.
Now, let me read you this.
Special counsel Robert Mueller and his deputy Rush Atkinson filed a 14-page motion.
They submitted that motion yesterday, Tuesday.
And this is the best, arguing that the government, i.e. Mueller, shouldn't have to release certain evidence to the indicted Russian company Concord Management and Consulting LLC due to ongoing, quote, interference operations against the United States.
In other words, I'm going to indict you.
I'm going to charge you.
But because I'm going to concoct a Russian bogeyman, to say they're interfering in elections, I don't want to have to give you any exculpatory evidence for your defense.
It is a ludicrous assertion.
It's like the government going after somebody for organized crime, indicting a mobster, and then saying to the mobsters legal team, we indicted your client, but because their criminal enterprise is still operating, your client, unlike every other client, is not entitled to exculpatory evidence.
It's not how the system works.
You have to give the defense the exculpatory evidence, no matter what else you think they're doing.
If you think they're doing those other things, then go charge them on those other things.
But you can't withhold evidence on speculation.
In their motion, Mueller's team requested a protective order to, number one, keep other co-defendants named in the February 16th indictment from accessing the government's evidence against them.
It's bizarre.
And it is exactly what Judge Amy Berkman Jackson told Mueller in a different case against Manafort he could not do.
And number two, to keep additional evidence under the control of government attorneys and away from Concord management itself.
So Mueller wants again to withhold all exculpatory evidence from the main defendant as well as from the co-defendants.
He only wants the prosecution to be able to mount the case.
By the terms outlined in the government's requested order, quote, disclosure of sensitive discovery would initially be limited to domestic defense counsel.
So they're limiting it to that extent.
What Mueller is saying is only U.S.-based defense counsel for these Russian entities is allowed to view the exculpatory evidence.
So here's what they are also saying.
After review of the materials, defense counsel could seek permission from the court to make additional disclosures.
For any foreign national to whom defense counsel wishes to disclose sensitive materials, defense counsel would provide a firewall counsel for the government, separate from the prosecution team, with the name of any such individual contemporaneous to its request for court approval.
If needed, firewall counsel would alert the court to any concerns or considerations about such disclosures.
Now, I could explain it to you, but Abrams Vlog did a good job.
They say lots of legalese there.
In English, Mueller's team is suggesting that Concord management not have access to the evidence used against them, at least not at first.
Special counsel contends that only Concord Management's attorneys, U.S.-based attorneys, be given access to said evidence, and that maybe at some point in the future, with the court's permission, two additional legal teams, one provided by the defense, one by the government, and putatively unaffiliated with the prosecution.
But it's going to be impossible for a legal entity provided by the government to not be influenced by the prosecution.
Again, not how the system is supposed to work, might huddle together and come to an agreement that the company Concord Management being charged might actually be afforded an opportunity to view the evidence in question.
Now, their opinion on law and crime is interesting.
In my opinion, Mueller's posture could easily be viewed as a red tape-heavy method intended to cripple and undermine Concord management's defense.
In the United States, criminal defendants are entitled by virtue of an almost sacred right, which I was telling you about the other case where Judge Jackson basically told Manafort Mueller, you've got to be kidding, give Manafort's team the names, of a sacred right to view the evidence against them.
This right undergirds the basic foundation of America's adversary legal system.
What that means is we're going to have adversarial trials.
Prosecution is trying to put you in jail.
The defense is trying to keep you out of jail.
The rules want the playing field to be level.
The founding fathers understood that off the bat, off the bat, the prosecution is at a distinct advantage in that they have law enforcement on their side.
They have teams of government-funded investigators with subpoena power, power of arrest, being able to come to you with the barrel of government's gun to compel testimony, to compel cooperation.
Defense private investigators, as good as they are, many of them are former, almost all of them were formerly the first, those government law enforcement officials, those government prosecutors.
They no longer have the same amount of power.
Founding fathers knew that, and they wanted that playing field to be equal.
So what they said was that everything the government with all of its power and all of its might and all of its weaponry can compel and can investigatively obtain must be shared with the defense.
There can't be any surprises.
The government is doing its investigation, presumably for the prosecution.
But if in the course of that investigation, evidence comes to light that's beneficial to the defense, that's beneficial to exonerating the defense's client, to having them found not guilty.
Well, that's what's called exculpatory evidence, and it must be turned over to the defense.
That levels the playing field.
That gives a defendant who's poor, who only has a court-appointed lawyer, the access to all of this investigative information, theoretically.
It doesn't always happen that way.
Oftentimes, we see exculpatory evidence withheld and cases overturned.
But this is a rarity.
Mueller's team is doing it in almost every instance.
And now Mueller's team is taking the extraordinary step of requesting that the court concede this point and that the court play along with the withholding of exculpatory evidence.
Law and crime says Supreme Court jurisprudence has frequently favored the rights of the accused to know what they're up against, too.
And yes, this even goes for foreign nationals because the U.S. Constitution applies to anyone under the jurisdiction of the United States, not just citizens and not just people physically on U.S. property, U.S. landmass, U.S. contiguous territories.
If the U.S. can prosecute you, it doesn't matter that you're sitting in Russia.
If you're being prosecuted by the U.S., then the Constitution says you have all the same rights to discovery.
You have all the same rights afforded to you under federal and often state, typically, almost always state, criminal procedure.
But if you're a foreign national, you'd typically be charged federally.
If you're here in a foreign national charged in a state crime, then it would apply as well.
But that you have the same rights afforded to you.
You have to be given all the exculpatory evidence.
Doesn't matter that you're sitting in Russia.
Doesn't matter that you're in France.
Doesn't matter that you're in Australia.
Doesn't matter.
Mueller's proposed protective order, this says, expressly forecloses against that right.
At the same time, the Mueller's proposal reports to offer Concord management the mere possibility of seeing those discovery materials somewhere down the road.
This would maybe occur by way of an extremely complicated and burdensome permission-seeking regime under circumstances which could accurately be described as theoretical at best.
Mueller's team, of course, makes pains to make this action appear reasonable.
It's ridiculous.
It's simply ridiculous.
What Mueller's team is doing is unprecedented.
And Mueller's team goes through all of these legal gymnastics and contortions to try to withhold exculpatory evidence.
Now, law and crime ends by saying this, and I happen to agree, no matter one's position on the named Russian defendants in the private sector troll farm case, these heavy-handed information hiding tactics in order to secure a conviction against internet trolls accused of frustrating the Democrat, Democratic process, is an ironic use of the U.S. legal system.
In other words, you're accusing these people of trying to block and impede a sacred part of our system or these entities that even exist, the electoral process.
Leaders Think Trappings Matter00:05:36
So to prosecute them, you're going to use unusual and probably unconstitutional tactics to undermine another sacred part of our system, the rules of criminal procedure and the rules of discovery, exculpatory evidence.
It is absolutely embarrassing for the United States at this point.
What Mueller is doing is now thuggery.
It's thuggery.
It's heavy-handed thuggery.
It is long past time, I say it every day, for this Mueller probe to be shut down.
A lot of differing opinions on this Singapore summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un.
I think it's a great thing that the president of the United States could get a North Korean dictator out of North Korea.
People on the left don't think so.
They think that it gave North Korea a chance to stand next to the United States on the world stage.
I happen to disagree with the left.
I happen to disagree with the globalists.
But let's see what somebody who actually worked in these regions thinks, somebody who was advising presidents, giving them intelligence to go into these meetings and understands far more about this than many of the pundits out there.
My good friend, Dutt Ulinger, retired CIA station chief.
Scott, great to see you again.
Hey, great to be here, John.
This is a win, right?
I mean, anyway you slice it, this is a win for the United States and the world because I don't care if it's only three days.
There are people now on the Korean peninsula.
Seoul, like the president said, a city of 28 million people.
We have 32,000 troops on the 38th parallel in Korea.
These people are resting a little bit easier.
We're getting nukes that there isn't going to be a conventional artillery attack anytime soon from North Korea, right?
That's right.
Very much true.
I mean, the summit was rather limited in its scope, but it still was great progress.
I mean, this is the first time that both leaders, both national leaders of both countries have ever met, and it's a good thing.
And there are people who can say, all right, well, it gives Kim too much legitimacy and all of that.
However, I believe that by doing it this way, which is Trump's style, because he wants to be the deal maker, so he was able to cut through considerable diplomatic red tape.
Just look at the fact that this meeting was scheduled in about six weeks.
That is virtually impossible in the foreign policy world.
The schedule they pulled out, they sent Pompeo twice, he pulled out, and they still made it happen on schedule.
That's right.
The speed of this happening is incredible.
And it shows that he is, because he isn't well versed in the foreign policy establishment, that's actually a good thing because he thinks outside the box.
He cuts to the chase.
And as a businessman, he wants to see results.
That's a good thing.
And by meeting personally with Kim, he understands the need for personal connection.
Having done business in Asia, that's very important.
It's a good idea to look your adversary in the eye when you're making the deal.
But it also is a good cycle, applies psychological pressure to Kim, I think, because it makes it harder for Kim to pull out of a deal because he's sort of made a personal commitment to Trump.
Now, that's not saying that they could possibly backtrack on any deal.
The North Koreans have a long history of this, and Trump is certainly aware of that.
However, it will make it that much more difficult for him to risk the ire of Trump.
And he well knows about the ire of Trump because he's been reading the president's Twitter attacks, and he understands that the president means business here.
So he's going to really think twice, I think, about backpedaling.
Although we still, you know, I'm cautiously optimistic.
We still have to keep that in mind as a possibility.
Right now, there's been a lot of talk about certain individuals around Kim being purged.
I'm going to use the word purge.
The media doesn't use the word purge.
We've seen a lot of people disappearing.
This is the word I use.
Exactly, right?
And they've disappeared.
And I don't think we're going to see these people again.
Now, some have suspected, I disagree with them, that Kim wants to take a more Western-friendly approach, and he's ridding himself of the hardliners.
I think he's ridding himself of the hardliners, but I think he's ridding himself of the highliners that are now seeing him as weak from meeting with the United States, people he doesn't trust.
That's right.
So what is it?
Is he getting rid of the people who he thinks could pose a threat to him who want to be?
Because I truly believe, and I want to get into the video Donald Trump showed him in a second.
But I truly believe that Kim, I thought the video was brilliant.
I believe that Kim loves the West.
He has this very campy Miami Vice 1980s image, Rambo movies of the West.
And he wants that.
He wants that.
He wants to live as a legitimized leader of a nation and be able to travel to Europe and travel to the United States with all the trappings.
And the people who might pose a threat to that who want to keep this communist hardline in place, I think those are the ones he's getting rid of.
That's right.
And also, you know, he is very aware of the fact that any travel abroad, you know, he could find himself coming back to a country that's in rebellion, like I think happened to Musharraf or the Shah of Iran way back in 78, 79.
So he wants to make sure he has trusted people behind him.
And he has made a, it's been a pattern of purges since he took over.
And we have to look at this guy with, you know, this guy is a homicidal guy.
He's a person who's willing to do anything to stay in power.
We have to understand that.
But at the same time, what you said is also true.
He likes the trappings of the West.
The scheduling of the summit in Singapore was a great idea because it allows him to see what Pyongyang could be.
And then we go back into the video that you mentioned.
Intelligence Gain Through Diplomacy00:13:34
Yeah, the video I thought was great, right?
People on the left said, well, this video is too hop.
It's too campy.
It's like a movie trailer.
I thought it perfectly nailed his psyche.
White horses running on the beach, cigarette boats racing off Miami, MRI machine.
I mean, it was great.
It was everything you'd expect.
It's like an 80s action movie trailer, all rolled into one with him and Donald Trump as the stars.
I don't know who ran that psychological operation, but I thought it was one of the most brilliant, one of the best I've seen in years.
It is true.
I watched it last night.
I was very impressed by the content.
You have to look at, and for those liberals who say, oh, it's too cheesy, things like that.
Okay, look, I worked in Central Asia.
I've worked in very Islamic cultures, Central Asia, places like that.
And they have a totally different view.
Things that would be, or statements, verbal statements or imagery that we would regard as way over the top or cheesy or ringing false.
That is totally different in other parts of the world.
I've learned that.
It resonates with them.
You can say things to foreigners, as I did as a CIA station chief, that if you said this to an American, they would laugh in your face.
But the Iranian you're speaking to will absolutely swallow it and believe it.
And this is something that clearly the makers of the film understood.
And so I think the film really resonated well with somebody that they know is very interested in movies as his father was.
In fact, his father went to the point of abducting a South Korean actress to star in a North Korean film.
So there is a history of film appreciation, shall we say, in the Kim regime.
And so I think that this really captured it very well.
And, you know, motivating, almost like a recruiting video or a motivating video that you can actually make the difference and almost hinting that your legacy can even be greater than that of your father and grandfather if you pursue peace, which is, you know, in this family regime and the only inherited authoritarian communist regime, the appeal of you can actually do even better than your father and grandfather, that has massive appeal.
And so I think it really hit dead center.
And here's what I think.
All right.
I don't know, but here's what I think.
I watched Trump's press conference.
I actually rewatched his entire post-summit press conference yesterday in its entirety.
And, you know, there were gotcha questions by CNN and whatnot.
But when Trump said he was asked, well, you're calling Kim very powerful.
Why would you give him credit?
I think it was Jim Akash or somebody else.
It could have been Major Garrett asked him the question.
Trump said, Well, he was very powerful.
It takes a powerful person.
I'm paraphrasing, but to take a regime at 26 years old and run it that brutally.
Something else clicked to me.
I said, Trump is puffing this guy up because he knows that inflating this guy's ego throws him off balance.
That if Trump inflates his ego enough, him is going to swoon over Trump.
And I think it gives Trump the upper hand.
Now, the left-wing media is seeing it as Trump appeasing a dictator.
I see it as Trump listening to his generals and his intelligence people more than he's listening to career diplomats.
And I trust the generals and the intelligence people a little bit more in dealing with North Korea.
What do you think?
That's right.
I think that you're right.
As you said that, I was processing that and viewing that as a station chief.
If I had to make a deal, I was involved in similar, of course, much lower level negotiations with foreign officials.
And I would, Trump's gambit, I think I would have done the same thing.
Because the other thing he needs to do is he wants to pump Kim up because Kim has got to sell this to his own people and his own power, you know, the power, the power, the regime in the power base.
Somebody controls military, right?
That's a general out there controlling the military that Kim always has to worry about.
That's right.
And so this way, Trump is increasing Kim's authority, which means that Kim will better be able to push this thing through and actually maybe it'll reach fruition.
So I think it was a good tactic.
It's something that he instinctively knows and that I learned after experience.
I would have done the same thing.
You've got to be careful.
You've got to be careful not to go too far because then the guy gets too big for his britches.
But at the same time, I think that approach was very sound.
And in the thought experiment I just conducted, I would have done the same thing.
Now, the biggest, I think the most controversial statement that Trump made or movie made is discontinuing the joint military exercises with South Korea.
Good move or bad move?
Trump apparently took some people by surprise by putting a temporary hold on some of the major exercise, which is supposed to be in August.
There's some hedging about smaller exercises and things like that.
But I think that this unparalleled opportunity justifies the putting off of one military exercise for the first time in 65 years to see what happens.
I think it's worth it.
We're not talking about pulling the troops out.
We're not talking about the normal cooperation between South Korean military forces in the U.S. and the U.S. forces.
We're talking about a centerpiece exercise that happens once a year in August timeframe.
So I think that this, you know, this is sort of a high-risk, high-gain strategy, but I agree with it.
I think that it's worth it postponing that in an attempt to increase Kim's trust level of us because you can always reschedule the exercise or go back if the North Koreans prove once again that they are not willing to follow any kind of agreement.
You know, I took another little nuance away.
And one of the reasons Trump gave, he said he wanted to not just take a look at these exercises because of this pending relationship with North Korea, but that they were tremendously expensive.
And he made a good point.
He said, look, we fly these bombers in, B-52s.
He said, I asked from where they said close.
He said it was Guam.
It's six and a half hours away.
And he said, I know a lot about big airplanes.
It's expensive.
And I almost took that as him saying to North Korea, well, you know, they don't have to stay on Guam.
If you get out of line, those bombers can sit in Japan and Japan would be happy to have them.
So I thought that a lot of nuanced diplomacy.
But again, I've been driven by the generals and the intelligence specialists more than the diplomats.
Right.
I think that that was another that was a good gambit because by bringing up the cost factor, it shows that maybe he's willing to negotiate with that.
And also, it's a not a subtle reminder to our allies that they need, again, re-emphasizing the fact that you all need to start pulling your weight.
Trump started doing that.
He said South Korea is not paying 100% of their share.
You know, look, there is a legitimate financial reason behind this.
What would you estimate those joint exercises cost?
You were a U.S. medical officer.
Those would probably, it would be in the hundreds of millions, it would probably be like $200 million or something like that.
Okay, let's know.
Actually, let's say, I'd say it would be approaching $100 million.
That's pretty much it.
Because you're going to send B-2s out of Whiteman Air Force base in Missouri, I believe it is, and then bring them out to Guam and then, right, and then practicing.
And it's, yeah, you're talking about tremendous expenses, wear and tear on equipment.
So, like I said, if we can put it off a little bit and the upside is that we increase the level of trust, the downside is that you take that as a sign of weakness and engage in some kind of provocation.
Okay, fine.
Then you reschedule the exercise and you walk away, which Trump will do.
But I think that you're going to see Kim not responding as the North Korean regime has before.
A lot of times during negotiations, there were artillery duels between North Korea and South Korean territory or other incidents.
And I think you're not going to see that this time because of the personal meeting and also maybe the postponing of the exercise as a trust-building exercise.
I definitely think it's worth the risk.
Right.
And from an intelligence perspective, now, going back to your career with the CIA, there has to only be upside for us from an intelligence standpoint for getting that McDonald's in Pyongyang or that Marriott Hotel on the beach, right?
I would have to assume.
I would have to assume our intelligence services are going to embed with the employees.
That's right.
Or certainly use them as some sort of, I hope, collection platform.
The other thing we have to look at is for the intelligence world, the importance of actually meeting with the world, with the leader.
Now, before this, the United States had to do things like study videos.
And there are numerous articles, even in the New York Times, about these kinds of things about a year ago, about having to study videos, propaganda videos of Kim with his latest missile to determine things about his health and things like that.
Whereas just having maybe not even intel officers, but having trained observers at the Singapore summit, people with medical background who are able to look at him or psychological background, to look at Kim and the way he conducts himself and all is tremendous.
It's a tremendous amount of information for intelligence to understand the motivations of this guy.
And of course, the deal maker himself, the president can see, can get a feeling because we've already seen that President Trump's gut instincts in negotiations are pretty damned impressive.
Yeah, they are.
And so his ability to take the measure of Kim by personally meeting him, the importance of that can't be overstated.
No, I think the value of this all around, even if the deal falls apart, it's got to happen.
That's right.
I think the intelligence value of getting this guy out of North Korea, seeing the kind of detail he travels with, seeing their level of security, how well trained they are, how alert they are, down, I would imagine what weapons they're carrying.
All of these things might be things we haven't known before, correct?
That certainly would be true because, as I said, it's been a long time since we've had negotiations at any level with North Korea.
So it's all true.
And it was very, even if, like I said, There's no timeline set for this, what this relatively vanilla agreement that we entered into.
There's no timeline, there's no enforcement mechanism.
But you set the path, the stage for future working agreements that will flesh out things and we'll see what happens.
And it's going to be, there's going to be stops and starts along the way.
You could have major disappointment.
But we at least can walk away knowing that we did our very best to try to solve this.
And as I said, President Trump's out-of-the-box thinking is the main reason that we got this thing scheduled in such a short time and got the result we did.
You know, and of course, let me ask you this last question.
It's pretty broad, and it might be unfair because it's broad and almost absolute.
But do you think Kim's desire for nukes was an actual desire to nuke another nation, or was it a temper tantrum by a man-child saying, hey, look at me, look at me, because I really do only want hotels on the beaches and McDonald's in Pyongyang.
And this kills two birds with one stone.
We get rid of the nukes, we give this guy what he wants, he becomes an international player in that region and becomes a little safer.
Or is everybody way off in this guy as just a homicidal maniac hell-bent on nuking somebody one day?
Well, I think, I mean, he is homicidal, but also you're talking about somebody who is maybe an egomaniac.
I mean, you know, his grandfather was the leader, his father was the leader, he is the leader.
So his father started the program of nuclear weapons as a way of puffing up North Korea, enhancing the value of North Korea with the missiles.
And okay, there's certainly a lot of showmanship to that.
There's also a military use for these missiles and nuclear weapons.
But maybe now, if we can kind of show that the path to the sun, the grandson's greatness, will be opening his country up.
See, so maybe before he thought his path to greatness would be he's the first guy to develop nuclear weapons and put them on North Korean missiles.
But now, if we can convince him, and using things like the video, hopefully we can, that his path to greatness is forging a totally new life for North Korea, then we will have succeeded.
So that's going to be, you know, there's a leap there.
I mean, you know, this guy is a product of an extremely paranoid regime.
And his grandfather and father reached power by, you know, liquidating possible rivals, by, you know, jealously, you know, it's a Stalinist regime, by jealously taking out anyone who could be construed as a threat.
He's much the same.
Hopefully, we can overcome his secretive and extremely paranoid background by showing him that there is another way.
And I think that this was a major step in that.
We'll see ultimately whether it's successful, but you have to try, I think.
And I think it's worth a shot.
You know, we may find out it was wrong, but it won't be for lack of trying.
And I think that's the important thing.
And I think that's what the American people want.
Yeah, I think a majority of Americans were happy that we gave it a shot.
Data Discrepancies00:14:50
We're not a violent people.
We just want to see peace.
If we have to go to war, then that's the way it is.
But we want to try to exhaust all avenues, right?
We certainly do.
Scott Ewing, your retired CIA, station chief, former U.S. Naval Officer Scott, is always my friend.
An absolute pleasure.
Great, great information.
Thanks for making.
Thank you.
You know, if you watch the show regularly, you know that I'm a tremendous Second Amendment advocate.
I'm a shooter.
I'm a collector of firearms.
I believe that firearms are a fundamental right of every American.
But even more importantly than that, they're really woven into the fabric of America, part of our history.
Well, new research is showing that concealed weapons holders are saving lives.
Despite what the left tells you, despite what these misguided kids over in Parkland, Florida are telling you, while they're being funded by Michael Bloomberg and the anti-gun groups, they're trying to eradicate and erode your Second Amendment right.
The data is telling a very different story.
Joining me now is somebody who knows more about this data than anyone else I know, criminologist Dr. Adam Dobrin.
Adam, thanks for being here.
Look, there's a really interesting story from the Crime Prevention Research Center.
It says new FBI report claims that 8% of active shooter attacks that occurred between 2014 and 2017 was stopped or mitigated by concealed handgun permit holders, but that the FBI study misses half the cases, though the number could actually be higher than 8%.
Let's talk about this a little.
I'm sure that the number would be higher just given their methodology, because in some states, you don't need a permit to carry a gun, and in some states, you don't need a permit to carry a specific way, either open or concealed.
So there's going to be some variation in that.
Real quick for the audience, so what Adam is talking about is something called constitutional carry.
States like Vermont, Arizona, where you don't need a concealed weapons license to carry a firearm.
Other states will allow you to carry, Virginia is one, right, where you can carry open without a concealed weapons license.
But if you want to conceal the weapon, you have to then have the license.
But what you're saying is in those instances where shooters, either in the scenario in Virginia where they were open carrying or in states Alaska, Vermont, Arizona that have open, that have constitutional carry, they weren't even factored into this.
So if a mass shooting was stopped or mitigated, they wouldn't even be counted in the data.
Correct.
If I'm reading the methodology right, and that's just how they look at.
And then maybe even another possibility would be off-duty law enforcement.
We don't need a concealed weapons permit to carry off-duty as well.
But in short, we are seeing now what would be considered statistical evidence that concealed weapons license holders can, in fact, mitigate a mass shooting.
That the left's narrative, oh, well, a good guy with a gun doesn't stop a bad guy with a gun, is becoming debunked by the self-defense.
Oh, absolutely.
And I think we shouldn't be led by the nose by the narrative about mass shootings only.
This is such a rare event, and it's a horrible event.
There's a big body count, all that.
It's big news.
But there are so many other criminal events out there besides mass shooting that we need to really focus on because that's the reality of crime.
And the data aren't great.
I'll be the first to say we don't really have a national data collection system on self-defense firearm use.
But criminologists have examined it, and there's a huge range of estimates on how many times people use guns defensively.
And there's been a lot of critique of the methodology.
On the high end, you have people saying, like Gary Kleck, there's about two and a half million times per year.
There's even one study by, I believe, Philip Cook that says it's up to 4 million times a year.
And we're talking about defensive, we're talking about legal defensive uses of firearms.
Absolutely.
Okay, so back up the street.
Oh, wait, Let me just finish real quick.
But on the low end, people are saying, oh, those are exaggerated, exaggerated, exaggerated.
Those are only used 100,000 times a year in self-defense.
So it might not be 2 million.
It might not be 4 million, but on the absolute lowest end, 100,000.
Yeah, that seems pretty significant to me.
Right, because I think we see, what, about 12,000, according to the FBI, about 12,000 homicides yearly in the U.S. By all mechanisms, not simply firearms.
That's what I mean.
And I was going to ask you, how many of those are by firearms?
About two-thirds.
About two-thirds.
Okay, so the 12,000, we've got about 8 to 9,000 by firearms.
So when you're talking about 100,000 defensive uses, you're talking about 11 times, guns are used 11 times more on the very, very low end defending people from crimes than they are used in homicides.
Not in crimes, we have robberies, we have shootings, we have assaults.
Okay, so back up a little bit.
So you said that the government proper doesn't have an effective data collection mechanism to determine, in fact, how many of these uses of force there are, legal uses of force with a firearm.
Is that because local law enforcement, well, I think I know the answer, you know, having been local law enforcement, that local law enforcement isn't pushing those stats up to the FBI?
The biggest reason is there's just, I mean, there's just no mechanism.
It's not part of the FBI uniform crime reporting system.
That's not an item.
So the FBI isn't requesting that specific data set.
No.
So how is that reporting?
But how is the FBI reporting that?
In other words, if I legally, I carry it concealed legally every day.
If I shoot someone that's trying to rob me, is that not reported to the FBI?
Did you kill it or not?
How is it?
That's the question.
Are they dead or did they survive the event?
Let's say they were killed.
Then that would be recorded as a justifiable homicide.
And when you look at some ways people present the data, that would be counted as one of the homicide counts.
Wow.
Yeah.
But most people wouldn't.
If you know how to analyze the data, it would not be included.
You can look at it.
It would be counted, but in a separate column.
Now, what if they didn't die?
What if they were just wounded and lived?
It probably wouldn't be counted in FBI data because it's not a crime and they don't count injuries.
There are other public health mechanisms that might count the firearm injury.
The National Electronic Injury Surveillance System counts admissions into certain emergency rooms.
It's a sample.
It's not every emergency room, but for the most part, it wouldn't be guaranteed to be collected.
Now, let me just hold on there.
Most of these self-defense firearm uses probably wouldn't even be reported to the police.
Now, imagine if someone were being stalked in a parking garage and you just pull out your pistol and put it by your leg, and the person, the attacker, sees it and runs away.
Are you necessarily going to even call the police to tell them about it?
Right.
Very true.
The rural homeowner who has some people on his property and he walks outside with a shotgun or a handgun and they run off and he decides not to call the sheriff because they're 40 minutes away anyway and he's handling it himself.
Or they just don't want to get police involved anyway.
You want to invite the man into your life regardless of the reason.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, no, it makes perfect sense.
So how, okay, so where do you, you are, I mean, look, full disclosure, Adam's a very good friend of mine, but he's absolutely one of the most knowledgeable people I know on this issue.
He's going to be working more with us here at the Rebel on these stats.
Where do you fall?
What number do you believe?
Or somewhere in between the 100,000 number, the 2.5 million number, the 4 million number in terms of defensive uses.
You know, I've never thought about, I think it's almost like a dart throw.
I would say probably given the methodologies, in the above 1 million is what I would successfully count.
Really?
Yes.
So it might be 100 times higher than the homicides.
Let's conservatively say that 1% of the homicides that the FBI collects as being conducted with a firearm are justifiable, simply misreported.
We're still around 9,000.
If your 1 million number stands, we're talking about 110 times more people are using guns legally to defend themselves than criminals are using them to kill people.
Yes.
I mean, that's unbelievable, but we're not hearing these numbers presented often enough in defense.
Why do you think large organizations like the NRA and other firearms organizations aren't using this argument to combat the false narrative of these Parker and kids and Michael Bloomberg's anti-gun groups?
I have a personal opinion on that, but it's not an academic.
It's not supported by data.
Give us Adam Dobrin's personal opinion, not Professor Adam Dobrin, PhDs, professional opinion.
Without naming specific firearm rights organizations, generically, some firearm rights organizations like to stoke fear and present a worst case scenario in that so that their numbers and supporters spend more money.
What Adam's trying to say is that the large gun organizations want you to believe that left-wing gun grabbers are coming through your guns every day, so you continue to donate to them and you grow their ranks, which isn't a terrible idea from a marketing perspective.
But he's not a good person.
It's a very smart marketing person.
He's far more diplomatic than I am.
I'll call people out.
But no, it's true.
Look, but it is marketing, right?
I mean, it is.
AAA wants you to believe that your car is going to break down every five minutes on the side of the road.
So you really need their services because every interstate is just ridden with nails, screws, and shards of glass.
And if you don't have them, you're going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere.
So I don't think it's unique to the gun industry.
No, absolutely not.
Medical industry, any industry, your roof industry, because I'm dealing with that right now.
Your roof is going to, before the hurricane season, you're going to die.
So you need a new roof.
Well, yeah, right, right, right.
Exactly.
Yeah, yeah.
We both live down here in South Florida.
So roofing and flood insurance and all of that, if you don't have it, it's Armageddon and it's the end of the world.
But look, we get, the Association of Wheelters is going to be one of those.
But we get that.
But what do you think?
Let's talk about open carry for a second, because we both live in Florida.
Open carry has failed.
As good as Florida is on guns, we had a little hiccup at the Parkland.
We gave back on a couple of things.
We're one of the few states in which gun stocks.
That's another thing.
Florida, the open carry, was killed not only by the Republicans, but by the prominent firearms right organizations.
Right, right.
The NRA was against open carry in Florida.
Why do you think that was?
Why do you think that was?
The NRA has a tremendously powerful lobbyist, Marion Hammer, down here in Florida.
She's been around forever.
And I was very surprised that the NRA fought open carry in Florida as many times as they did, considering that some of the representatives on it here were very powerful.
They were very good friends of the NRA.
I don't know about this particular event.
I watched it from the news.
That's really about it.
But Florida traditionally has been against open carry because of tourism, that it scares non-residents.
And tourism, of course, is the largest industry in Florida.
And that would probably be my answer.
You and I have had this conversation, right, offline many, many times.
Adam and I have been friends for many, many years now.
Going on almost 15 years, 14 years or whatever, maybe.
Wow.
Yeah, I know, right?
And we've had this open carry debate so many times.
And I'm really torn on open carry.
I want it to be legal.
I want it to be legal.
But I'm not a fan of it because me personally.
I don't want to talk about it.
I'm the same way.
Because I don't want to give the bad guy the upper hand.
If I'm standing in line at the ATM or I'm in a restaurant and somebody comes in to rob the place, I don't want them seeing my gun and shooting me first.
I want the element of surprise.
There are other people who feel it's a deterrent.
I just don't.
I think you feel the same way, right?
I do.
And I also see in other states where it becomes a pain for law enforcement that they get calls.
There's a man walking down the street with a gun.
So they have to go and look, and it's perfectly legal.
And they're not even technically supposed to stop and even talk to the person about that because it's just like walking down the street with a dog.
It's not a crime.
And so, but some people don't see that and they see it as a disturbing the peace kind of event.
And so law enforcement becomes a hassle for law enforcement as well.
But tactically, I don't think it would be necessarily a good advantage.
On the other hand, nobody goes up to a police officer and steals their gun from them or anything.
So I think it's kind of a wash tactically.
As long as you're carrying and have the right equipment and training and so on, if you're carrying one of those non-retention holsters, it's just stupid and a bad idea.
I think a lot of the open carry proponents are their own worst enemies by presenting themselves in a non-professional, slovenly mood.
Well, this is where I was going to go.
So I know what you're talking about, but I'll say it.
We're talking about some of these guys, groups like Open Carry Texas.
Now, in Texas, it's only legal to open carry a long gun.
They want it to be legal to open carry a handgun.
So they make their point, I think, in a very ridiculous way.
They're wearing tactical gear with AR-15 slung at low-ready, walking around supermarkets, and it just looks horrible because they're wearing tactical.
Most of these guys are part of, they're members of Meal Team 6.
They're like 400 pounds.
They're in tactical vests, camo, booty hats, walking around a supermarket with AR-15 slung at low-ready.
And it just, it creates a really negative optic for that member of the public who's on the fence, right?
Whereas if they were making their point and they were in a pair of jeans or a pair of shorts and a nice shirt and they had the gun unassumingly on their waist and a holster with a snap, it would be far more easier for the mom wheeling her kids around that supermarket who really doesn't think about guns to digest, no?
I absolutely agree.
And I would say 90% of the public wouldn't even see the gun because we're too focused on our own cell phones and lives and things like that.
And then on top of it, again, if the person were professionally dressed, the assumption would probably be.
Law enforcement.
They're law enforcement anyway.
Now, let's back up real quick.
Florida does have open carry in certain circumstances that most people are unaware of.
You're hunting, if you're in the field hunting or fishing.
What are the others?
If you're not just in the field, if you're hunting, fishing, or target shooting, camping, or on your way there or back or target shooting, you're allowed to open carry.
Open Carry Unveiled00:01:24
And I'm sure.
If I'm going on a fishing trip, if I'm driving to the boat in Fort Lauderdale, I can legally open carry going to and from the boat.
You can, but I guarantee you, if you interact with law enforcement, they won't know that.
You're going to get frustrated from that.
Yes, they probably won't know that.
Now, I will say this.
We have a mutual friend.
They have a large piece of land.
We go out there.
I shoot out there often.
I always open carry out there because it's a very large piece of land and nobody cares.
Private property, you're allowed to, so it's not a big deal.
Right.
But what I'm saying is it's a rural area.
And there have been days when, because we're shooting on the land, we're, you know, hunting a wild hog, which is invasive.
I've gone to local businesses, but because this is a rural agricultural county, even though I was in a t-shirt and jeans and my jeans were dirty and a baseball cap, nobody gave the gun a second look because it's a gun culture.
If I were to do the same thing in downtown Fort Lauderdale or Miami, there'd be 14 police officers on me.
Yes.
Yeah.
It would end poorly, even if you had a fishing rod in your hand.
Exactly right.
Exactly right.
So it really is also cultural, I think, right?
In that rural county, everybody had a gun.
Everybody has a gun in their vehicle, a gun on them.
It's just, it's the old South.
It's part of the culture.
And Adam, great information.
We're going to be digging more into these.
Watch for some interesting projects Adam and I are going to be doing for the Rebel on these topics on defensive uses, with legal defensive uses with firearms.
It's going to be very, very compelling information.