Oct. 4, 2017 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
05:12
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| Speaker | Time | Text |
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unidentified
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(dramatic music) | |
| All right, we obviously have to talk about gun control this week. | ||
| Over the course of my many Rubin Report interviews, I've sat across from an array of people who are pro-gun rights, anti-gun altogether, or somewhere in between. | ||
| While the events surrounding the gun conversation are always horrific, with this week's tragic events in Vegas being perhaps the worst of all of them. | ||
| I believe that the conversation around guns, when done right, can offer powerful insight into how people think about society at large. | ||
| Gun ownership and the right to bear arms brings up issues about the American Constitution, states' rights, personal responsibility, mental health, radicalization, both religious and otherwise, and much more. | ||
| Unfortunately, as is so often the case these days, we're seemingly caught between two groups of people, the people who want to ban guns completely and the people who don't want to have any sort of conversation about sensible gun laws. | ||
| While I absolutely support the second amendment, I at the same time understand and acknowledge that the United States has what seems to be a unique problem related to mass gun violence. | ||
| Lost in the midst of all the awful events of Las Vegas this week are other senseless shootings across the country, like the 5 people killed and 30 others wounded by gunfire in Chicago this past weekend. | ||
| The weekend before that, 3 were killed and 36 were wounded in Chicago, and the weekend before that, it was 11 dead and 29 wounded in the very same city. | ||
| We've included a link down below which tracks the gun related violence across Chicago occurring every single weekend, and it's disturbing to say the least. | ||
| I bring up Chicago not to deflect from the events in Las Vegas, but to show how this murderous violence is happening in one of our biggest cities literally every single day, and happening so often at this point that the mainstream media has all but given up on reporting on it. | ||
| The reasons behind how and why people murder others also makes it hard to find one law around guns that works in every situation. | ||
| There, no doubt, is a difference between a murder that occurs during a robbery, versus gang violence, versus terrorism, versus suicides, versus a random shooter with no known political or religious motive. | ||
| And at the same time, there are times when someone with a gun saves innocent lives during a shootout, or when someone defends their property and their family by having a gun in the home. | ||
| So again, while I support the Second Amendment, I also recognize that we undoubtedly have a gun related violence problem on our hands. | ||
| Just look at the numbers. | ||
| I can also acknowledge that guns in and of themselves aren't the only problem here. | ||
| Without question, much of the carnage caused by guns is due to people with mental health issues gaining access to guns. | ||
| The truth is that if I or most of the gun owners in America had access to the most deadly weapons on earth, We wouldn't be randomly using those weapons against innocent people. | ||
| Not only are mental health issues an aspect to the people who are committing mass shootings, but also there is a problem with any ideology which drives people to commit these heinous acts, be it a religious ideology, a political ideology, or any other system of principles or beliefs which could drive someone to kill. | ||
| A weapon in and of itself can't kill anyone, it takes a human being and a corrupt thought process to pull the trigger and kill innocent people. | ||
| Also, as I'm recording this, it's still unclear exactly what weapons were used in Vegas, but authorities report to finding about 20 other firearms in the shooter's hotel room, and it's possible that this man was using a military style fully automatic rifle to commit this heinous act. | ||
| For all the defense I've offered of the Second Amendment, I cannot see how access to such weapons, which have the ability to mow down civilians at an incredible rate and which are designed for the battlefield, should be in the hands of regular citizens. | ||
| As we post this video, the story about the Vegas gunman is largely incomplete. | ||
| At the moment we don't seem to know his motives, so it's hard to say if this was an act of terrorism under the most specific definition of the term, which includes having a political motivation to kill. | ||
| Nevada State's definition is a little more broad, not including the need for a political motivation, which in this case Would, in fact, classify this killer as a terrorist. | ||
| Regardless of how we want to define this specific act of horrific violence, or how the gun discussion relates to terrorism, or the legitimate right of every citizen to have the ability to defend themselves, we must get better about talking about gun control between the shootings in order to prevent more shootings and not just talk about it when these acts occur. | ||
| Passing more laws in the heat of emotion is rarely the right thing to do, even if they are well intentioned, while doing nothing and hoping that these events will simply end is just as misguided as hoping that terrorism will completely stop if we just ignore it. | ||
| While we wait to find out more about the Vegas shooter himself, and at the same time mourn the victims of this evil act, we should also continue to talk to people on both sides of the gun debate to try to come to some sensible place of agreement. |
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