Antonia Okafor, founder of the "Empowered" movement, details her political evolution from Obama supporter to conservative ally, advocating for Texas campus carry laws and self-defense against identity politics. She argues that fiscal conservatism and criminal justice reform, driven by her father's imprisonment, outweigh ideological purity, while rejecting state mandates for child support if abortion is restricted. Okafor emphasizes community responsibility over government intervention and urges listeners to persist in difficult political conversations, asserting that honest dialogue creates necessary change regardless of disagreement. [Automatically generated summary]
One of the issues we haven't dove into too deeply around here is gun control.
The contentious, often venomous debate about guns has been part of some of the conversations we've had here on the Rubin Report, especially when talking about limited government, constitutional authority, states rights and even freedom of speech, but it rarely has been the focus of those conversations itself.
Interestingly, gun control is one of the issues that I get the most emails about, with people usually asking me my personal feelings about the second amendment and whether I believe in a right to bear arms.
You're not going to believe this, but I do think that there's a sane middle ground that we can find in the gun discussion that falls somewhere between everyone should own a bazooka and nobody should be able to have a handgun.
First off, very clearly and without reservation, I am a supporter of the Second Amendment.
The Second Amendment specifically states, quote, a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, end quote.
This is interesting wording because it guarantees the right of a citizen to protect themselves from both other citizens and the state itself by having the ability to own a gun.
The guarantee to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness which is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence isn't only for the government to ensure for you.
Actually, it's quite the reverse.
It's incumbent on you to protect your life, your liberty and your pursuit of happiness, even from the government if need be.
In many ways, this is the essence of individualism.
While the state and the government are an important facilitator of our rights, it's ultimately up to us, the individual, to make sure we are truly protected from people and governments who would take those rights away.
As I often say, however, two things can be true at once.
While having a populace that can defend itself is important, at the same time there really is little doubt to me that we have a gun problem in America.
Whether we're talking about school shootings, which happen all too often, or assassinations of police officers, as happened in Dallas last year, there can be no doubt that the gun is the weapon of choice when someone wants to indiscriminately kill as many people as possible.
I should pause and separate mass shootings from terrorism specifically, where terrorists usually use some sort of explosive to kill as many people as possible, although recently we've seen guns, knives, and even cars and trucks thrown into the mix.
And it's also important to remember that the weapon itself doesn't make the distinction between a criminal act or terrorism, it's the ideology behind the act that does that.
The fact that there are many ways to kill people, though, does bring up an interesting idea about guns.
If I had an assault rifle or any other gun, I wouldn't go into a school or a church or anywhere else and randomly kill people.
Likewise, I've got some pretty great kitchen knives right down the hallway here, and I don't go into mosques or temples and stab anyone.
This shows that the gun itself is just the tool, and the issue around gun control is much deeper.
We should be having an honest conversation about issues like mental health, the overuse and side effects of prescription drugs, the insidious nature of evil ideologies, the access to guns that mentally unstable people have, and much more.
Unfortunately, we only seem to have these conversations at the worst possible times, usually right after another shooting.
This gets the anti-gun crowd in a frenzy to take away all guns, and it gets the pro-gun crowd to think that the government is going to come to their house and take away their guns.
Don't believe me?
Well, just check how gun sales skyrocketed under President Obama, but have now dipped under President Trump.
All of these issues are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to guns.
I think that there are good people on both sides of the debate who just see a different solution, partly because they are seeing a different problem in the first place.
Some see this truly as a problem with guns themselves, while some see this as a larger societal problem with mental health, but perhaps, just perhaps, there's merit to both arguments.
Joining me today to unpack this highly charged discussion is Antonia Okafor.
Antonia is a Second Amendment advocate who spends most of her energy pushing for legislation to allow women to carry guns on college campuses.
As a young black conservative, she's found herself on the outside of what the mainstream says someone who looks like her should believe.
We'll talk about her political evolution from an Obama voter to a Trump supporter, and why she thinks that a woman's right to defend herself by herself is so important.
Without the reactionary hysteria we're usually caught up in when discussing guns, can the two of us find some common ground?
Not only can you be this absurd thing, which is transracial, which is white people now saying that they're black, but you can actually pick a nationality Well, Rachel, I don't know how to say her last name.
And it was funny because that same week that happened was when Black Twitter attacked me and apparently some blogs that were Nigerian-American blogs that were upset with me and called me, they said that I was a disgrace to the Nigerian name, the same time they're praising this black woman.
This white woman that decides that she's going to be a Nigerian-American, and they're sure she has more praise than I do.
Well, because I took a picture with Tomi Lahren, and how dare I?
Disgrace to the black name, but especially to the Nigerian name.
I was like, you know I'm a Nigerian, so therefore I know the only way to actually disgrace the Nigerian name is if you're not a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer.
I mean, and the only reason why they knew about that is because Tommy retweeted my picture with her
and she had me on her show to talk about Empowered and I was really grateful for that.
But it's really not, the sad part is just, okay, regardless if you believe her or agree with her or not, I mean, just because you're literally on a show with someone, which that's usually the premise is that you bring people of different viewpoints and perspectives and you talk about it and that's interesting TV, that that's not tolerated anymore to be associating with someone.
I mean, I just think as a black person, though, the reverse racism—which is not even reverse racism, let's just call it what it is, it's racism—the fact that she's a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl and I'm a black woman, therefore we shouldn't associate, especially because she doesn't have the same ideology as a black person should have, right?
I mean, Martin Luther King, I really believe, would be rolling over in his grave right now.
The fact that his speech, talking about the content of your character, not the color of your skin, has been flipped around these days to really be, to verify their agenda, the people on the radical left's agenda, and perpetuate what narrative they have, which is absolutely the opposite of what he wanted for this country and the future of his children, like he said.
You know, what I see, to be honest, completely, is that my mom will talk about the values that she has,
but in the end she'll say, "Oh, but Republicans are racist.
Oh, but conservatives are racist.
It's become this effective tool to really divide people, even if they have the same values, to say, don't go on that side because those people don't like you.
They don't like you.
In fact, they not only don't like you, they hate you because of your skin color, because of your sexual orientation, because of who you are as a person, and not the values that you have.
And it's sad because I have to deal with that every day with my family.
There have been the very—those people who will call Michelle Obama—you know, seriously, this has happened—will call Michelle Obama an ape or something like that.
That is—I mean, regardless—and I don't know if they're really conservative or not.
I mean, they'll act like they are, but they might have voted Democrat last time.
Really, I see it as a people thing and not by ideology, especially conservatism.
Conservatism is an ideology, and you need to know your stuff to know if you really are conservative.
I mean, we see this in this day of populism and Trump.
Conservatism does not mean Republican.
It does not mean libertarianism sometimes.
So, of course you see that.
I'm not going to say there's not racism out there on either side.
But, yeah, I've always felt comfortable And that's the thing, is that most people are not going to get out their little bubble and talk to people that don't look like them, even more so not think like them.
I mean, we do feel like we're going backwards, and it's interesting.
I've mentioned this before, but when I get invited to colleges, I'm only invited now by the young Republicans, the libertarians of tomorrow, the freedom people, the liberty this, liberty that, even though by most accounts, gay married, gay choice, I'm against the death penalty, I'm for having some sort of safety net, all of these things, and yet I don't get invited by anyone on the left.
I would love to have someone, like, you know what, we love your views on everything else except for the guns, but, you know, come out, but it's usually the individual.
Exactly, the identity politics, which I was sick of.
I voted for Obama twice, in 2008 and 2012.
By 2012, I really started to get the identity politics part of it, the victimhood mentality part of it, and I really wanted a difference because I realized there was something different out there.
For me, that was Rand Paul.
And I got really involved quickly with the Rand Paul campaign.
And because criminal justice reform is still something very important to me, my father
went to prison when I was five years old for mandatory minimums in a drug crime.
And I'm different from most conservatives in that I push for criminal justice reform.
And I'm vocal when anybody on the Republican side tries to squelch any type of reform there.
And unfortunately, we're kind of seeing that a little bit more with Jeff Sessions and his mandatory minimum, bringing that back again.
Does that kind of show that it doesn't matter, sort of, necessarily what intentions are all the time?
You know what I mean?
Like, he maybe doesn't care at the personal side, which would sort of be upsetting at some level, but if he's doing the right thing because he's doing something for fiscal reasons, that's still, at the end of the day, It's a win-win.
But there's still people, unfortunately, well, to be honest, a minority, but a vocal minority within the Republican Party.
You know, I changed from being a Democrat to a Republican, and part of that was because I realized I am a conservative.
And that's kind of why I went more on the Rand Paul side, because he is very, I would say, and he has said before, he's a fiscal conservative first.
And that's what I saw as a young person in college, realizing that here I voted for this man, Obama, and he has Obamacare, and that's on the backs of me and my generation.
And then I see that the economy really still sucks, unlike what NPR says.
NPR kept telling me this whole time, the four years I was in college, that the economy was great.
Yeah, I'm on the community advisory board, so I have to be careful.
So just cut that out.
But no, I'm going to be honest, and that's what I heard all the time, is that Obama did so much for not only young people, but for black people.
And I didn't see the stats for that.
That wasn't proven.
And so that's when I started to realize the fiscal side, especially, I was very passionate about.
Why are we $20 trillion in debt?
And that is okay.
We just have these blinders on, and it's going to be in the backs of me and my kids, and people are not staying up for students and for millennials.
And that's kind of why I got more into the Campus Carry movement as well, because that's another movement where students kind of felt like they were second-class citizens for a long time.
I just feel like I'm in this weird, especially in this age of Trump or populism or whatever, where people are trying to figure out, well, And I saw, especially during the election, you know, with Austin Peterson and stuff like that, were these conservatives who were the Republican Party, but they were more conservatarian and they wanted a place, they wanted a home base, but they didn't really find it in either.
And so I say conservative because literally, I mean, libertarianism As long as you don't believe that it's force that makes
that value.
You can be a liberal or you can be conservative, but the difference is does one have force
or not.
Right.
And so I think that's why I consider myself a small L libertarian, but really I'm conservative
when it comes to fiscal conservatism and quite a bit social conservatism, I feel as well.
You know, I've always been pro-life, even when I was a Democrat.
And I think that's what I was saying, is that a lot of people in minority communities, Hispanic, black, they're conservative in those values, in those traditional values, but they still, just something about the Republican Party doesn't fit well.
And they don't know about the Libertarian Party yet.
So when you hear, so for example, as someone that's pro-life, when you hear the media will say, well you know, if we take away funding from Planned Parenthood or we have any other rules or regulations around abortion or whatever it is, that that's gonna hurt minority communities most, you don't even think that that notion is coming from the communities themselves.
Ninety-five percent of us are voting the same way versus any other group that doesn't.
And, I mean, even the Hispanic community tends to—you know, they're buried every election.
We don't know exactly.
But, yeah, they're going to think they have it in the bag every time.
And they take those people for granted.
And that's when I started to realize, is he really doing stuff for the black community?
Has poverty levels gone down since then?
Has welfare gone down since then?
Are we more dependent on the government since he's been president?
Yeah, we have shown that, and I continue to do my research.
And that's the thing is, a lot of people will not do their research, and don't know your history.
They don't know, you know, with, I'll talk about later, but you know, with black people and guns, that they've used that to protect themselves against gun control groups like the KKK, or their history has been that a lot of them have been conservative, or Planned Parenthood, that that started as a way to basically to have a genocide of all minorities in the first place.
A lot of people are not gonna do their research on that.
And so that's why I feel this, I don't wanna say a burden, but as a mission to use that, to use my knowledge
of that history and bring it out there and say, this is actually your history and it's contradictory
Yeah, and it's so interesting to get people to think about this stuff because when one
of the police shootings happened in Florida and everybody was talking about,
well, now we have to get rid of Stand Your Ground.
And even though I think we differ a little bit on guns and we can get to that, and that's great,
that I remember thinking, wait a minute.
You're taking away stand your ground, which means that a black person who's being attacked might be able to have a gun and protect himself, and yet they always come in with more ideas to actually take the power away from the people, which is scary.
Yeah, and they'll always use that one case in Florida of that woman.
She was basically, she kind of was a victim of domestic abuse with her husband.
Her husband was abusive, and remember, she shot in the air as a warning shot, and she got, Mandatory minimums of what, 10 years or so?
Actually, I think more than that.
And I think they dropped it later on, but they always go back to that case.
See, black people, I mean, that's why guns are not for black people, because all this racism is going to do the opposite.
Instead of standing your ground, you're not going to be able to actually protect yourself without going to jail, or having a gun without going to jail, or being prosecuted some way.
So, they'll use that, but they won't use the many times that other people have used it for self-defense and have not had that case happen to them.
I mean, it's not about race.
It's really about poor laws, about mandatory minimums.
Let's talk about that.
Let's talk about the criminal justice reform system.
Let's stop making it about race every single time and then losing the actual policies and issues that are important, which can actually change everyone's outcome when it comes to that.
So when you had that light bulb moment, and you voted for Obama twice and all this stuff, and then you realize, wow, they're playing me.
How did you start talking about this stuff?
Because I get a ton of people emailing me and tweeting me and messaging me one way or another talking about that.
They've sort of had a wake up to a lot of the things that I think people like us are discussing, but they're afraid to talk about it.
You know what I mean?
If you're going against whatever your community might be or whatever your family might have believed or any of that stuff, it's hard to do that, right?
Oh man, I think God just gave me a little bit of I don't care.
And blue leaves too, a little of both.
So it will come up, and I remember it.
For example, my sister just graduated a couple weeks ago, and so all my family came in, and relatives everywhere, and they're from Nigeria and everything.
And my uncle from Nigeria had just come, and he's a priest, and my mom shows him my NRA video, the video that I did when I spoke at the NRA convention, and he goes, you voted for Trump?
And I'm just like, oh crap, you don't know about that.
Here we go.
Here we go again.
I thought I dealt with that right after he won.
So it's like this continuous loop of, I'm never going to get away from this.
This is going to be something that's going to be a contentious issue.
But I'm not afraid of that.
I'm not afraid of that because I used to beat him and I know what it is to think that way.
It makes it more important for me to be that mediator and to say, look, they're not all racist.
It's like what you're watching on MSNBC and all these great shows that like to say what the right looks like.
But no, I'd like to say that those shows are not giving them this false The idea of what it means to be a conservative, to be a libertarian, I mean, and that's the thing, is that they think, libertarians sometimes think that they, oh, we're good, no one, no one, everybody thinks that the racists are on the conservative side.
No, they think libertarians are also the same way, and they kind of put them in the same bubble, in the same, you know, pot, if you will.
But, and I'm also there to say, no, Rand Paul is great.
In fact, look what he's doing.
He's talking about criminal justice reform.
Or libertarians in general.
They're talking about criminal justice reform, especially right now.
I mean, if you're going to go somewhere, go there.
Look at what they're doing and notice that you have more in common than you think.
Versus the other side that just tells you that the only reason why you should stay here is because the other side is this boogeyman and you will not be accepted.
So when you've used some of the facts, some of the facts on this stuff, like for example, when I've had Larry Elder here and he's talked about that the cities that have the biggest inner city problem with violence and crime and all this stuff, where the black community is really struggling, that the cities usually have Democratic mayors for decades.
Yeah, and I love it because When I've been able to change minds, it's because of one policy issue.
If it's not just, you know, millennials right now, they'll talk about how we don't really want to be a part of a party, we just want to have it issue by issue, like we care about the issues.
Same thing, I think, with the minority community, is that if you can get them on one thing that you think you guys can both have in common, has really nothing to do with politics, I think that is the gateway to being able to get them to change their mind on other issues.
But some, most people don't want that.
Most people just want you to agree with them completely or I'm not talking to you anymore.
I'm like, I'm blocking you on Twitter and Facebook.
That's it.
Never again.
I can't reach this person.
You have to have the patience.
And I have, and I'm not Wonder Woman and I'm not, you know, it's just because my family, it's so personal to me and I know what I like framing it around that because I think a lot of people do feel that.
that important to me.
Otherwise, I could just leave.
I could just say, I'm not gonna talk to you again.
Yeah, so when I've had people like Larry Eldron and a couple other people, when they've talked about the breakdown of the black family, This seems like it's sort of very much in line with what you're talking about, right?
Absolutely, and that's why you're seeing it, particularly in minority communities.
I would even say a step further, particularly in black families, because you're not, I mean, over 40% of the households that we grow up in, I mean, I didn't grow up with a father growing up, and seeing a mother is so, It's really what the example is.
Not the example in a good way, but that's what we see these days, particularly in the black family.
So, if your family is broken and you can't see that family unit as something to trust and to want to build upon and want to, you know, continue to develop, then why would that be an important thing to you?
Especially if you think differently.
I mean, how many times I'm just like, oh, whatever, you're never going to get it.
I can't deal with this anymore but I love them and I want to develop my family and my relationships with them so I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna deal with it every day.
How much do you think the media also has sort of tripped up the black community?
I hate using phrases like that.
Because it's so broad.
So for example, with Oscars So White, and we have to have this many black people on this, or this many, of any minority, whatever it is, that it's really taking your eyes off the prize.
The prize being work hard, we don't have to all be in Hollywood, and we don't have to get a certain amount of Oscars to prove acceptance.
Where the Asian community, for example, has worked very hard, focused on education and all of those things, and then we see that they succeed economically, In all sorts of other ways that you can, you know, sort of measure these metrics.
Yeah.
Do you think the media is sort of intentionally doing that with the black community?
Or whoever it's going to be, and thinking, I'm going to do this despite the image, the current image that Republicans and conservatives, libertarians have.
Because I know the effective messaging that the other side has done so well that people literally can just gloss over the issues and the values and things that actually affect and are important to them and they will discount it because someone's racist, because someone said they're racist, or they're sexist or misogynist.
Period.
The fact that we're in that state In America, where that really legitimately keeps smart people from looking at the issues is very dangerous.
And I think it's important that people like me have come from the left who have seen that and can call out that BS and say, look, I was a part of that.
And I finally woke up to the fact that There are so many bigger things that are affecting me that I'm not paying attention to, a lot of people are not paying attention to, because they literally think this other side is the boogeyman.
And here we are, we have more debt and we have more, you know, people dying of poverty and becoming socialists and thinking that's okay because they literally think the other person hates them as a person.
They're doing a good job about that.
They're doing a great job, but it's up to me and people like me to be able to tell those people on the other side that that's wrong and bring attention to that.
Yeah, it's nice to hear because we have, even though we come from very different places, we have sort of similar journeys politically where we're both trying to wake up.
I think these are good people.
A lot of these people are good people.
Yes, I think that a lot of the leaders, say, of the progressive movement are not good, but I think a lot of the people are good and you just got to wake them up with some ideas.
Absolutely, and I think that's why it's important that they do allow people like us who think a little bit differently to come and to talk to those people, because I think there are a lot of people who are—well, first of all, I think a lot of people don't care, to be honest.
I think they're apathetic regardless.
They're just going to get their information from the people that they trust and they think are experts when they might not be.
Same thing on college campuses.
We look at professors and academics because we think that they should know everything.
And we take their word as God, you know?
We have to wake up those people, as well, to show, hey, you should be criticizing everyone and everything that you hear.
Stop being forced by this media and this information.
Be strict about what type of information that you're taking in.
Alright, so we're going to get to guns in one second, but you've mentioned Rand Paul a couple times.
I really like Rand Paul.
When I was watching the Republican debates, he struck me as pretty much the only sane guy out there.
But my problem with him was that it was as if he was on a stage that he shouldn't have been on.
That the platform itself, and when he was talking about fiscal responsibility
or reigning in the military, or some of these other libertarian things
that you've mentioned, that it was like, he would say it,
it would kind of make sense, but then nobody would even respond to it
because it was like, yeah, yeah, it's that crazy libertarian guy.
Ultimately, are you sort of disappointed?
Well, I assume you're disappointed that he didn't get the nomination, perhaps, or that it at least didn't go further.
But are you disappointed that he hasn't just come out and said, I'm a libertarian, I'm gonna run as a libertarian, even for Senate, and really get that movement to get going?
But that issue is that people are wondering, is it better to just be a Libertarian in the Republican Party or just go all out Libertarian Party?
I'm going to say what I've seen that has actually worked is kind of like what happened with the health care reform bill just a couple months ago, where it was a Freedom Caucus and the people like Thomas Massey and Justin Amash, the small L libertarians in the Republican Party who were actually able to convince people to stop it.
I think in instances like that, they were more effective.
If they weren't there, that first bill would have been already passed.
Like, at one level, you could be like, yeah, we need this libertarian star to come out and really fix the party and, like, be the leader that Gary Johnson wasn't.
On the other hand, I totally hear what you're saying, like, maybe it makes more sense to maneuver from the inside of the existing system.
And that's the thing is that, I can't remember when, during a debate and he said, and one of the people asked him, well do you think the Libertarian Party, the small Libertarianism is going to continue in the Republican Party?
And he said, This was a moderator for a debate and he said and Rand Paul
said well I think it's gonna stay in the Paul family that kind of rubbed
me the wrong way because I'm like I don't think you guys are the end-all be-all
And I hope that you guys don't think that is gonna be the case because we're the thing about the libertarian
Liberty movement is that it's young but there's also a lot of young bright stars in it
Um, so--
So many great people, I mean, with Young Americans for Liberty, and even the people who followed Rand and even Ron Paul.
There are so many people coming up, and so in the next 10 to 15 years, who knows, we'll
finally probably have those people of the best worlds who can stick to the issues and
be principled, but who can also carry a great conversation and get people to like them and
be honest and someone that they want to be president.
So I don't think we're down and out yet, even with the Libertarian Party.
I think there's a lot of good things to come in the future.
We just have to learn from our mistakes from the past.
You're itching to talk guns, the second you walked in here today.
Why not?
Guns and guns and guns.
All right, so you're not talking at the moment, but you're obviously a huge defender of the Second Amendment.
So was the gun piece of your political evolution, was that, how much was that the whole thing that you realized that you needed to be able to defend yourself and you wanted your community to be able to do that and all that?
Yeah, so Campus Carry is concealed carry on college campuses.
So basically, for example, Texas, you're allowed to concealed carry if you're over the age of 21, if you pass a mental health and a criminal background check, if you go through all the processes you're supposed to do, then you're able to have a gun Does each college have their own policy on that?
So Campus Carry is bringing that right, really, bringing that permit holder,
enabling them to be able to use that same thing in a college campus, on a college campus.
So in Texas, what they passed, the bill was that every public university, and now community college, starting August 1st of this year, has to have some type of Conceal Carry on campus legislation.
The difference they did on that one last minute, though, was that they added an amendment saying
that every college gets to put policies of where gun-free zones within that college would
be.
And so, a lot of my work when I joined Students for Conceal Carry, when I was with them, was
basically looking at every college that was trying to—because they were obviously anti-campus
carry—and trying to null and void the whole bill in general, and making sure that they
weren't putting out these outrageous policies where someone like me wouldn't be able—or
wouldn't even want to carry on campus because it would be so hard to.
Right, so basically they gave them, the law was written in a way that gave them so much leeway that they could create every gun-free zone everywhere, and you'd have to walk like you were doing a maze.
Exactly and that was the intention and we fought against that and so right now how it is right now a lot of people are able to carry on campus in Texas and Georgia just got the same thing just a couple weeks ago.
The concept of gun-free zones I find really interesting, because I see people on the left constantly screaming, we need more gun-free zones, gun-free zones.
Now, the idea of that sounds fine on the surface level, but only the bad guys are going to break the law to bring the gun there, and then you might need a gun to take them out.
Regardless of what you feel about guns in general, just the, whether, where you want legalization or states' rights or any of that, like the very concept of this sounds just nuts.
Well, but again, the messaging is that there are still people who believe it.
And the thing about campus carry, too, is what I learned with concealed carry on campus is that it wasn't just the left, either.
The ones who are just blatantly, I'm anti-gun, I don't want guns anywhere.
I say that I don't like the Australian gun ban, but I really kind of do, type people.
It's really...
I mean, the people that I had to convince the most were the people on the fence, or what we had to convince the most with Students Against Hillary when I was with them, is that those Republicans—right?—and not just the Republican students or the constituents, but even the Republican congressmen and women who would say that, yeah, I'm pro-Second Amendment and guns should be for all people.
But on college campuses, that's, I don't know, I don't know students.
It was something about students on campus that, for some reason, it was okay to have gun-free zones.
Because, maybe because it was an extension of what we think about students right now, we're seeing UC Berkeley students, and we're like, is that the type of people we want with guns?
So we had to convince those type of people the most, particularly women.
And so that's where I came in, when I was able to talk to those women and say, hey, you know what?
The reason why I started fighting for Campus Carry is because I want the choice to be able to protect myself.
From someone who wants to harm me.
Look, I understand there are physical differences, and regardless if there's physical differences or not, that person has a gun, I don't, who's winning?
And so, talking to women one-on-one about that, that's when you really—that's when I was really able to get people to start understanding it and getting it, because a lot more people understand the self-defense aspect of it versus, oh, the Second Amendment guarantees you that right type of thing.
Yeah, is this an area where you're able to use a little of their messaging against them?
Because if you listen to a lot of the messaging that's going on on college campuses, there's rape culture, it's constant rape culture, that's what they're saying, and all these guys are just, especially the white guys, the frat guys are coming to rape all the women, which we know there's no rape culture here, of a real rape culture, of course rape happens, of course.
But are you able to use that messaging against them and go, ladies, if you believe that, Absolutely, and that's why I started My Organization Empowered because no one was really talking about that on our side.
I know, granted, Canvas Carry is a fairly new concept in the last 10-15 years, but to go a step further of those women who I would have to try and convince the most and saying, you know what?
And men, too.
When I talk to men, and they would be at me and say, how dare you try to bring guns on campus?
You know, women, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And then I would say, well, don't you actually want that woman to be able to protect themself from that?
And maybe because I'm a woman, I'm telling them about it, and also I'm a black woman, because they'll use the race card on that one as well, to say, actually, as a black person, I want to protect myself from that bigot, in that scenario you're talking about.
Keep me defenseless, I can't protect myself in that scenario.
Also, as a woman, I want that option to protect myself because you're also keeping me defenseless in that scenario.
So talking to these girls on campus, sorry women on campus, and telling them that if you so choose to have this as your tool for self-defense, you should have that right to it.
They get it then, regardless of what ideology and politics or who they voted for before that.
Liberal women, you know, libertarian, classical liberal, whatever, Trump people, Bernie people—I've
seen every single type of girl or person change their minds about guns because they see it
as a self-defense issue.
And people need to bring the messaging around that versus what they've been doing before.
Right, so the open carry, it's like when we see these pictures of like four guys with what appear to be rifles like at Chipotle, and it looks, it does, look, it looks kind of scary.
So then what, then how do we have that conversation?
The slippery slope part of this where it's like, all right, well, if everyone can have open carry and you can wander into a Chipotle with a gun on your back and you can have guns everywhere, the slippery slope of we're gonna end up being just the Wild West.
We're gonna go to a place where people are gonna start getting into arguments all the time and solving it that way.
Do you just see that as a nonsensical starting point?
When you go to a town, you'd have to give your gun to the sheriff, and he would make a decision for you if you could have your gun or not.
So it's not the model West, it's the opposite.
Another thing is that, yeah, obviously I can't lie and say that those people aren't doing that.
I definitely don't think that's the proper way to get people on our side.
But for the majority of the time, it's people, if they're open carrying, if they are, I still have yet to see very many people do it since we've had it in Texas.
Then they're responsible people.
They're people that don't look like they're threatening or they're going to harm someone.
Do I still believe and know that there are people who are fearful when they see stuff like that?
Absolutely.
Me, not too long ago, I was the same person.
And I think we have to have that honest conversation.
It's like, look, I was a gun rights activist before I even purchased a handgun.
Because for a long time, I thought, Maybe the gun will just go off.
You know, I didn't know the mechanics of a gun.
People, they're not going to just learn it just naturally.
They have to know it by people educating them.
And you have to be patient and stop yelling at them in their face and bringing AR-15s in their face saying you must, I demand that you accept my side of thinking.
Right.
And talk to them and have a conversation.
Let them know that you're a good human being first, and the people behind those guns are good, law-abiding citizens.
And then you'll start to change people's minds on the guns, because it's not really about the gun.
So I like that last sentence particularly because I know that if I had a gun right now of any caliber, I would not walk into a school and start shooting people.
I wouldn't walk into a mosque or a temple or anywhere.
I simply wouldn't do that because of my own mental capacity and not following an ideology that would want me to do that or anything of that nature.
But do you see any of this as...
When we have these shootings, do you see any of it on the fault of the guns, or do you always believe it's ideology and mental health and whatever else, upbringing?
I see it, before even Wayne LaPierre made it popular, you know, good guy with a gun type saying, I've never seen it as, I've seen it as the people behind it.
I mean, you can use any tool to harm someone.
UT Austin, just a couple weeks ago, had the stabbing.
Which is funny, because they turned it around and said, well, Campus Carry didn't help us in that situation.
Well, it's not about that.
It was about the fact that, I'm sorry, to talk about the stabbing, a student with mental health issues stabbed several people, killing one freshman.
Yeah.
And a lot of organizations, a lot of news outlets said, well, Campus Carry didn't help us in that situation.
Well, you know, that's part of it, too, is that... Well, the argument doesn't make sense, because it doesn't mean that everyone's going to have a gun there automatically.
You know, I've always stuck to the fact of campus carry.
I feel like when you bring other legislation in there, that it waters down your argument.
With campus carry especially, I don't see myself changing My views on the fact that concealed carry is a good way to go when it comes to going on college campus, maybe because we still have a whole lot of other states to convince before that, and it has helped to say, look, there are these checks in place.
If you are afraid of students having a gun on campus, look, the law, the state says it's okay, so I know you're a big fan of the state.
Yeah, yeah.
Administrative office, so at least trust them in a scenario, too.
It's helped.
It's helped.
I will say that.
So, I will say that, yeah, right now, I mean, I'm not, I open carry when I work at a gun range.
I open carry the gun range.
Am I totally fine with that?
Yeah, definitely.
Am I afraid of someone else who has one?
No, but I do know that there's a fear behind that, and so let's just be smart about it.
Let's take back that phrase, common sense, and bring it on our side and ease common sense with some things.
You know, I just, I think, you know, as a You know, a libertarian leaning person, I do believe bringing it back to the states and then having that right to that is important.
Same thing with campus carry.
Do I think it should ever become a federal issue?
With campus carry, I think it's been good as a state-by-state issue.
Yes, it's harder, but man, I think right now having the background checks and making sure the people behind them are law-abiding citizens is important.
Again, it doesn't matter on the gun control side, they'll take those law-abiding citizens and make them demons regardless.
So that's what we're seeing right now is that these law-abiding citizens that statistically have hurt less people than the general public are demonized every time these mass shootings and these things happen in gun-free zones.
So are we having the same problems with the gun discussion that we're having with terrorism discussion in that we only talk about it right after something horrible happens?
And we're having that issue even now, in the age of Trump, is that people may look at the gun industry, ask anybody right now and see if gun sales are down and ammunition is down because, first of all, people thought Hillary is going to be president, and so it went up, and then now it's down because people think, oh, it's okay, it's Trump, he's with NRA, everything's going to be fine, and they become complacent.
And so it's actually harder for those people like me who are advocates to say, no, no, no, this is not going to be forever.
And if you are complacent now, especially on the state level, which is where all this stuff is happening, I mean, you're seeing this right now in California.
Where the states are really making the decisions, and then say we get someone who's completely on the left next time.
We're already eight years behind.
So you have to continue that fight, even when it's not sexy, when you think that on the federal level we're good.
That's actually the most dangerous time, because people are not looking, and people are able to get in in ways that no one keeps them accountable.
He doesn't strike me as a real gun person one way or another.
I mean, he's a New Yorker, so this isn't a guy that, I mean, maybe he had security, or I'm sure he has security that walks around with a gun, obviously now he's the Secret Service, but like, his whole life he lived in the liberal bubble of New York City.
I don't think he, like it just doesn't strike me as a pet issue of his, but the NRA loved him.
I think he's said the right things for that group.
Do you have a real sense of what he really believes on this?
And I felt like on those two key issues for me that he was going to be strong on them.
And so far he's been very strong on both those issues.
I don't see him changing fiscal issues, the budget.
Healthcare, now that I'm always open to debating him about because I don't think he's ever was an advocate for limited government in that sense, but those two issues I feel... Right, in many ways he was much more of a Democrat.
No, really, I mean, you're not making that up, and you see, I see a lot of videos on YouTube that have, you know, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of views, where they're just talking about it in such a casual, sort of fun way.
There was that video of the girl who worked at an abortion clinic who had an abortion, and she like videotaped the whole thing, and there was a lot of questions as to whether she purposely got pregnant, so it's just, you can make, I mean, there's all kinds of crazy, Crazy stuff.
I view it as just a horrifically impossible existential question, and that my go-to here, ironically, would be a little bit like what got Tommy Lahren in some hot water, which is that it shouldn't be the government deciding what you should do with your body.
So, I'll just hand it to you from there and then we can go.
That is the one thing that... but, you know, actually I can make a really good argument.
I mean, a lot of libertarians have is that If the government is there to protect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, I mean, you don't have any of that without life.
So that's a big side with me, is that, yeah, you need to protect life.
And I think that's why people are kind of getting away from that, and they're going to the argument of when life begins.
Right?
And that's why it's shifted that way because more people are thinking, well, you're right.
I mean, you can't have life without, I mean, if you're going to do that.
So, but I mean, I've always been born again Christian.
Because I think that's a healthy argument to have.
Like we could, neither one of us are scientists, but we could sit here and say, you know, I think for the first month that you can have an abortion and I think it's a hard choice, but acceptable.
It would be a lie for me to say otherwise, but I will say it is primarily emotional for me.
I've had to deal with that personally, but life is just something so important to me.
I mean, women and children are something so important to me, and I just believe that if we're not protecting them because they are you know, vulnerable, they don't have a voice, then what
are we really doing if we can't protect those who don't have a voice?
Whether that's students or that's those who are unborn.
So I will say in that regards, I believe that the government should protect that right,
If scientists could come down with a study that says, well, we know actually that it's not consumption, but it's six weeks in, something magical happens, and that's when life begins.
You think you could possibly, I'm really not trying to pin you, I'm just trying to, because you're saying it's about feeling, you're feeling right now.
It would have to be when it gets there because it would be a lot of stuff.
You know, I'm a born-again Christian and that was seven years ago and so that's very important to me and I just know that that's something that you should not be advocating for.
I really think it's really that question.
I think we'll have other—even if that happens, there's still going to be people who are going to say, well, no, OK, we'll start six weeks, but anything after that, and then people want the right to continue on.
I think that argument is not going to end.
But, yeah, I really can't—I can't say whether or not if the science is there, if it's going to—if it starts at six weeks, if I change my mind because of that.
So as a small L libertarian, Does the pro-life thing then put you in a different tough spot because you don't want the government to then have to pay for a child, but if a woman that is poverty stricken or whatever can't afford to have this child, then the government says, well, abortion's illegal, so you're gonna have to have this child.
Does the state then have any responsibility to help them?
Because you can't like that idea as a libertarian, right?
But I don't even get that, as someone who advocates for maybe personal responsibility, to say that there's only two choices there.
It's that, oh, the government says you can't have an abortion, so therefore it has to also take care of your children.
We don't do that for anybody else.
No.
I mean, that's not—I mean, there's instance after instance where you're not doing that.
So, just to say that— If that scenario happened, that we suddenly have to also, at that time, take care of that child, of course, I think there should be some type of safety net.
You know, most libertarians believe that.
It's just how long it is, to the point where it keeps someone from having that responsibility for their own life and the life that they choose to—or the life that they have and they take care of.
No, I mean, I think that's where the community should come in, where, you know, the places of faith, what other faith that you have, the people around you should be helping with that.
And I think that's what we advocate for as libertarians is that no one said that the government is supposed to be taking care of us in that way, even when it comes to abortion.
So to wrap this thing in a nice bow, for all the people out there that are having their own political evolution, and I think you've been very Frank and honest here and all that about your own continuing evolution, which is a beautiful thing.
And that's what I try to bring to this every week.
What would you say is the most important thing for someone that wants to get in the fight,
even if they disagree with you politically, even if they sat and watched this for an hour