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Aug. 29, 2025 - Sean Hannity Show
30:52
Gun Control Debate - August 28th, Hour 3
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This is an iHeart Podcast.
Peter Schweitzer, Eric Eggers, we are filling in for Sean Hannity, a day of tragedy as we continue to hear about the details of what happened in Minneapolis when Mr. Westman, uh, the transgender mass shooter blindly fired over a hundred rifle rounds and at least three shotgun blasts through the windows of an enunciation Catholic church in Minneapolis, uh, leading to death.
Uh, children died, children were injured, grandparents were injured.
Eric, we want to have a conversation with somebody who actually has experience with these kinds of situations to figure out what we should be looking for and what could be done to prevent it.
No, and what's unfortunate is that the conversation almost immediately turned to a politication about gun policy.
And um, you know, there's a lot of details that the identity of the shooter has been elevated, and there's a lot of other certain circumstances that I think are are worth kind of noticing, but it's part of the larger conversation about you know, our tragedies like this preventable.
What we know now that Tim Waltz, the governor of Minnesota, who, by the way, uh admit when the left is decrying gun policy.
Remember, Tim Waltz was picked to be vice president last year by Kamala Harris in part because of his appeal to alleged gun owners and gun people that wanted to use those, and then we saw how poorly that went.
And we now know that um Tim Waltz was part of the Minnesota leadership that said no to requests by bishops to give funding for more security measures in Minnesota schools to prevent exactly these types of things from happening.
We saw what happened in the Nashville school shooting.
We saw what happened in Texas.
They said, listen, we need more protection.
Can you give it to us?
Tim Waltz said no.
And so um, you know, while people want to say it's about guns, it's probably about more uh other factors, and it's a little more complicated of discussion.
Yeah, that's right.
And we now know from the manifesto that the Minneapolis shooter, by the way, said that he picked schools precisely because they were unprotected.
So let's bring in Josh Sherard.
He's the director of law enforcement for Berna.
Uh we want to bring him on in particular because he's uh uh law enforcement officer who's been on the scene of mass shootings uh and tragic events.
He was at the uh 2018 Santa Fe High School shooting, uh the tragedy there.
Josh, uh, thanks for joining us.
Yeah, absolutely.
Thanks for having me.
So tell us, Josh, there's so much noise after these tragedies occur.
Tell us what should we be looking for uh and what can we glean from these circumstances that will give us methods to prevent these tragedies from happening in the future?
You know, Peter, that's been the million dollar question, the 10 million, the billion dollar question for the last, you know, almost 25 plus years of of what are we looking for?
How uh you know, how do we spot these shooters?
How do we root them out before they get to the point of no return where they're they're they've made the decision to go in and cause as much damage, destruction mayhem as they can.
And unfortunately, we haven't gotten very far, you know, in in that in that realm, in that space, being able to pick a handful of cues that are just absolutely positively flagged identifiers of somebody that's gonna go in and shoot up a school or a building or or anything for that matter.
We have done, you know, lots of research and we we've been able to garner some kind of flags and some kind of uh uh of things to look for, but at the end of the day, it's about how much we're going to go in and violate somebody's privacy and rights to say, hey, we think that you might be inclined to commit these kind of crimes uh in the future.
What we should really be focusing on and what our efforts, our dollars, uh, you know, our resources, the limited ones that we have in assets, should be going in to what can we do to harden ourselves as a target?
What can we do to protect our kids in schools and to protect ourselves?
So if we're not going to be able to positively identify those that are going to be uh somebody that might perpetrate that and cut that off, we need to be able to to no matter who comes in, no matter where it comes from, internal, external threat, we need to be able to harden that target and protect that target against whatever that threat may be.
And that is really where we need to focus a lot of that time and resources on.
And unfortunately, depending on the part of the country that you're in, that is a very difficult decision to have or difficult conversation to have, and a lot of decisions have to be made as far as how far you're willing to go to protect those that are most important to you in your life, those children.
Wait, why is that a hard conversation to have or a diff decision to make based on what part of the country you're in?
I I would ask the same question, but unfortunately it is.
And when we go into certain parts of the country and we say, hey, you need to put armed security in those schools.
You need to have SROs that are armed to be able to respond to that threat.
You need metal detectors in your school.
You need to take other measures to harden this target.
Unfortunately, many school districts, many states, many cities say, well, we're not willing to take those steps.
We're not willing to do that for one reason or another.
Well, guns in schools are bad, or we don't want our kids to feel, you know, like they're unsafe, like to feel that we need to put armed personnel in the school.
Well, I don't either.
And I would love to say that we didn't have to, and it sucks that we have to sit here and say, you know, that this is a way of life, but at the end of the day, this is the way of life.
And this is what we have to do to take positive measures to protect those kids.
But unfortunately, there's a large part of this country that just does not feel that that is necessary.
Yeah, and that's probably because they're hearing from people like this.
Listen to this cut up.
You're gonna hear from Jen Saki, former Biden administration spokesperson.
You're gonna hear from the Minneapolis mayor, and then you're gonna hear from Joe Scarborough.
This is their reaction, the aftermath to the events of many of the shooting.
Here's what matters.
Today's shooter bought the what rifle, handgun and shotgun.
They used to do what they did today legally.
We live in a country with more guns than people where there are not universal background checks, there are not bans on assault weapons, and it is far too easy to buy a gun.
It's the guns, everyone.
It's not really a secret.
Uh I'll speak generally, though.
Uh we have more guns in America than people.
Uh I don't see a reason why people should be able to buy gun one month and then buy a gun the next month and then the next month after that.
People who say that this is not about guns, th you gotta be kidding me.
This is about guns.
We do need to take action.
How many school shootings, how many school shootings in churches, how many shootings at concerts, how many shootings at country uh country music concerts, how many shootings uh in street fairs, how many shootings and restaurants, how many shootings everywhere are we gonna have before we can talk about common sense gun safety laws.
Yeah, so Josh, I want to ask you about that because I'm looking at it at a study right in front of me by uh the Crime Prevention Research uh Institute, uh Dr. John Lott, and he points out that if you look at the actual the death rates from mass public shootings, comparing European countries in the United States and Canada, the United States is number eleven on the list.
Those that have a more serious problem with this include Switzerland and France.
Those right behind us were number 11, number 15 and 16 are England and Germany.
So this myth that somehow mass shootings are just this crazy American thing is simply not true.
And it becomes an excuse for inaction, doesn't it?
Oh, well, we can't get gun control because people don't want to give up their Second Amendment rights, so we can't do anything.
Isn't that really where we are today?
It absolutely is, and that's the issue.
You know, we're we always and and mind you, uh unfortunately, these people are just absolutely politicizing a tragic event and trying to to use it to push push a narrative.
And I think we all understand that.
You know, the error all your listeners, I'm sure understand that as well.
But you know, that this I equate this war on guns is the same thing as as saying, well, we need to have a war on forks to fight obesity, you know, or we need to have, of course, the classic, you know, the war on drugs, you know, over the course of the eighties and the nineties, it obviously didn't work because it's not a war on drugs, it's war on drug dealers, war war on criminals.
That that's the issue is the accountability here.
They want to sit here and assign accountability to an inanimate object that has nothing to do with the overall issues in order to push a narrative.
And I think that that everyone understands that.
And here, at the end of the day, unfortunately, or fortunately, however, you look at it, the only thing that the the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, and we continue in this country to see that over and over again.
The the the ratio of of of lives that are saved due to handguns is overwhelming compared to the lots that are taken by handguns.
So you know, it the the statistics are are all over the place on how much the guns are actually saving lives every day, and especially in these mass shootings.
That's the only thing that we have.
That's the only resource generally we have in order to stop these shooters.
And yet we're using it, unfortunately, people are using it to push uh an absolute false narrative.
Yeah, and by the way, I want to point out, Josh, I mean, you're the director of law enforcement for Berna.
You produce law non-lethal uh defense um uh handguns, so they're not guns in the traditional sense.
So you would have all the incentive in the world to want to have guns banned, but you don't.
You're speaking truth here.
My question to you is clearly Mr. Westman, the shooter in Minneapolis was troubled uh in in this uh manifesto he wrote, he said he was tired of being trans, he wished he had never been brainwashed, clearly very troubled.
And I don't know in the Minneapolis case, but in a lot of cases, it seems like these younger shooters are on antidepressants, they're on a series of pharmaceutical drugs.
Um, when you read those labels, they would say in rare cases, taking this drug can lead to psychosis.
Well, if you have 30 million people that are on SSRIs or these other mood-altering drugs, in rare cases can mean thousands of people.
Do you think that's a problem?
The medication, the over-medication, could that be part of the problem?
I absolutely think it's part of the problem.
I think that that when you have a uh a child of that age, you know, when they're middle school, high school, young adults, their hormones are already just absolutely obliterated.
And then introducing these these absolute hormone uh just changing drugs, especially when you're talking about you know, transgender and and and the the gender reassignment and all that, the the amount of hormones that are just uh absolutely raging through there are are such an issue when it comes to their mental state and their ability to make good decisions at a point in their life where they're already troubled to make good decisions,
and now you know they're there's so much material out there, they're getting brainwashed from so many different sources, um, especially if you're you know kind of in that lifestyle.
So it this is all going into the overall issue that we're having.
And then, of course, you know, what what is it?
What are the parent supervision like?
You know, a lot of these shooters, that's one of the commonalities that we generally find is a lack of parental supervision, and then just letting them kind of do whatever they want because they want to respect their privacy or whatnot as a child, but unfortunately, that's generally where we find a lot of these shooters is is where their parents have no idea.
They'd go uh, you know, they go missing for a few days, and that's not abnormal for the parents not to know where they're at for a few days or know what they're up to.
And so when you have, you know, the these kids on medication, these kids that are just uh in a very changing environment with zero supervision, that's where we start to see a lot of these issues manifest and in a time where there should be you know overly supervised to make sure that that you know the drugs that they're on, the medication that they're on is doing what it's supposed to do so that they don't fall into that quote rare case uh of of uh of those side effects.
So, what's your reaction to like the larger conversation that's happening?
I understand that one of your biggest uh customer bases is in Chicago, where they have the more restrictive gun laws.
You know, it's weird because you heard that the left goes immediately to we need to ban guns, um, and then we're having this conversation about the need to potentially introduce more troops to these blue cities like Chicago and Baltimore.
Do you feel like not just with schools, but I mean, uh do you consider the idea of adding more troops to or just adding more resources to some of these cities where crime's a problem?
Is that a good idea?
And do you see that's a way to harden those targets as well?
Yeah, absolutely.
What we have to remember is, and and this is time, a lot of people don't understand this, but when we talk about mass shootings, active shooters, schools is not the most frequent location.
It's actually down the list.
It's actually number four on the list uh of uh of uh active shooter frequency.
You've got public commercial spaces is number one.
So malls, department stores, grocery stores, that's where active shooters, that's where mass shootings and mass attacks are most likely to happen.
Uh and then we have uh uh public spaces, parks, open spaces.
We you know, the one October Las Vegas Mandalay Bay shooting, uh, and then we have government buildings, and then we have schools.
So, you know, when people think about active attacks and their, you know, their likelihood of being involved in something like that, they think, oh, well, I don't go to a school, so it's not likely for me.
But no, that the their likelihood that it's gonna happen in a normal place that they probably traverse, you know, in a day-to-day life is actually much greater.
So you have to think in the manner of, okay, well, how can we harden all these targets?
How can we make sure that if there's uh somebody that's just bent on doing this, that we can make it very, very difficult for them and curb that very quickly.
So, you know, look, I I think there's a cop on every street corner, that would be great.
that's that's not a realistic thought.
Josh, we appreciate you joining us.
We thank you for your insights.
We'll be back with more after this.
Welcome back, everybody.
It is Eric Eggers here with Peter Schweitzer.
We're filling it for Sean Handy on the Sean Handy Radio Show.
It's a Thursday before a long weekend, and I know that uh some people are taking tomorrow off.
You know, some people are gonna just get back to work.
But um, you know, we will continue to do what we do here at the Government Accountability Institute and provide information about the ways in which uh members of Congress continue to like break people's trust.
We do a podcast called The Drill Down, and on a recent episode, we highlighted the level of activity that Congress is having uh in terms of buying and selling stocks, and we have some breaking news on that front, Peter Schweitzer.
Yeah, we might be taking a break this weekend, but Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the uh Congresswoman's from Southern Florida, uh, is not taking a break.
She apparently bought stock in a company called VSAT, uh, which is a defense contractor.
She sits on the subcommittee that determines the funding for military construction, including this company.
She bought the stock and within a month it skyrocketed 345%.
Well, that's pretty good deal for her then.
That's what happens when you buy stocks, right?
No.
No, that's not what happens when I buy stock.
No, it's it's a shame.
It's a shame, it's a sham.
And uh actually one of the more interesting things to pay attention to next month when Congress comes back from their vacation, is you got bills in the House and the Senate that will attempt to do to ban exactly what she did.
They're trying to stop members of Congress and be able to buy and sell stock for exactly that reason.
That's an issue that we've chronicled.
So we'd love for you to find out more about what we do.
Go to the drilldown.com.
We'll be right back after this.
When fake news gives you lies, Hannity supplies the truth.
Sean Hannity is on right now.
It's Peter Schweitzer, Eric Eggers, and you hear that sound, you hear that music, it It is football season.
College football kicks off this weekend, the NFL next weekend.
Very exciting time.
It is, I think, America's sport, and we've got a legend who is joining us.
Uh this is a guy who not only was incredible on the field, but has always been a man of integrity, honesty, and values.
Um, and I just excited that we're gonna have him on the show.
No, Mike Singletary is going to be joining us right now.
Mike Singletary, an NFL Hall of Famer, a Super Bowl champion with the Chicago Bears.
He's in Waco, Texas this weekend to help out with his um alumni, b the Baylor Bears, and they're kicking off their season.
But more importantly, you know, he has a book out.
It's called Visualize Your Greatness, the playbook for the seven seas of success.
And we've spent the last two and a half hours on this program.
We always love being able to fill in for Sean, but it can be challenging because some of the stuff you talk about by definition is in the news, is tragic, it can be divisive.
And I know that Coach Singletary um has a heart to do the opposite.
I know that that's one of the reasons why he wrote this book is he wants to inspire people to help realize uh the best version of themselves because that's ultimately what's going to make this country the best version it can be.
So wanted to take a quick moment to talk to Mike Singletary.
Coach Singletary, um, does the the start of football season excite you, or do you have so much other stuff going on in your life that it's kind of like, hey, you know, that that's not really what I'm about?
You know, it's it's uh kind of a two-edged sword.
It it really excites me.
I I love football season.
Um but at the same time, because of so many other things, you know, family and and uh projects you're working on, um they just continue to go and and uh so it's um it's exciting the football season is is happening, but uh just keeping it in perspective, keeping it focused, and um it'll all work out well.
So, Coach, why do you think it is Americans love football?
I mean, I know they call baseball America's game, but I think that professional football is the sport that dominates all.
What is it that people love about it and what would you say?
I mean, you've got an incredible life Story.
What would you say is that football brought you and taught you in terms of values, integrity, and teamwork, those qualities that unfortunately seem to be diminished these days?
You know, for me, football was one of those things where you just put everything else aside.
It's kind of like that movie, Fill the Dreams.
And you know, when you walked on the field, it's like uh w once you cross that line, everything else stayed outside of it.
And it is the pleasure of being able to step inside of those lines.
Uh, even though you hear the fans, they they they can't help you play the game.
You you you're inside of that game, and all that matters is the work that you put into the preparation, the mindset, um, and the character in which you play the game.
And uh that's what it really comes down to.
Talking to NFL Hall of Famer, Mike Singletary football is back.
You can feel it in the weather, at least you can where we live in North Florida.
Um, coach, one of the things that's been interesting, you talk about things being divisive these days.
The NFL, unfortunately, has had a bit of a run of of some less positive headlines and recently.
They've had some stuff in terms of the slogans they're gonna allow in the end zone and some business with these male cheerleaders on a couple of teams that some people find to be culturally divisive.
What do you how do you react when you hear about this game that's meant so much to you and uh the the benefits?
I know you care deeply about not only the people you played with, but other but the people, the players.
Like I know you're very involved in helping improve the lives of other former players in a lot of different ways.
What do you think about the when you see less positive headlines about the NFL today?
You know, I I I think that um when I think of the NFL, just like everything else, whether it's an organization, because when you get right down to it, the NFL is a business.
And uh at the end of the day, you you have uh a culture that you develop uh a vision that that you set in place and this is what we're gonna do, this is how we're gonna go about doing our business.
And uh whether you are a an athletic business, uh, whether you are a banking, whatever it might be, whatever that culture is, uh you have to make sure that the culture is good for everybody.
That the culture serves uh everybody.
But once you walk inside of those lines, these are the rules that that we play within, and uh every organization has to decide how far do we go.
Every organization has to decide what are the rules of this game.
And um whatever those those rules are, whatever the culture is, that's what we stand to.
That that that's what we're gonna hold.
Everybody that crosses that line, that's what we're about.
Uh coach, so let me ask you, um, there's also uh a lot of reports, I think encouraging reports in America that there seems to be maybe a religious revival taking place, especially among young people.
You are certainly uh uh a man of faith.
You've talked about that really your entire career.
Are you encouraged by what you're seeing uh with young people, maybe particularly with young players, young athletes in this regard?
We always hear the bad news, right?
But there's also some really exciting, encouraging things that are taking place as well.
Talk about the role of faith uh that it plays in football and whether you're encouraged or discouraged where things are going.
I I I I think at the end of the day, it it really comes down to um walking it out.
You know, there's so many things that you hear.
You hear, oh man, you know, the you know, this is a a uh uh a faith movement.
This is happening over here, that's happening over there.
And the closer you get to it, it's like, well, maybe maybe not.
Uh maybe it's a different version of whatever it is.
But I I think it's always encouraging when you hear uh young people, uh, because that really is the future.
You know, young people um walking their faith out, young people being willing to um to really love and understand and and bring that um that that bit of thread that we need in our country to overlap sometimes,
some of the misunderstandings and and um w whatever some of those other things that are happening, it it always brings it back to, you know what, our faith is the thing that when everything else fails, uh our faith in each other and the love that we have for one another and the respect that that we we have to have.
Um I may disagree with you, but I I need to learn how to respect your thoughts.
And if I disagree with them, then so be it.
Um I can pray about those things and and and hope that that one of us, if one of us is wrong, we gotta figure out how to figure it out.
But I'm not, I I I can't walk around uh and be mad at you because you have a thought and you have an idea.
Um I I just have to make sure that I continue to try and bring uh understanding to the situation at all times.
And that's maybe one of the values we've lost the most in this country, right?
The ability to connect and define common ground, even if some of the other variables are different.
And I know that um that's something that you believe we need to improve on.
I think that's one of the reasons why you wrote this book, Coach.
If you want if you can't just kind of quickly give everybody a quick overview of your story, you know, the website is Mike Singletary Book.com.
The title is Visualize Your Greatness, the playbook for the seven seas of success.
A lot of people know that you were a Hall of Fame player, but they don't know your background and the role that having a vision and your commitment to that vision played and allowing you to accomplish your goals.
Well, you know, I I was very uh very fortunate, uh I would say to be the last of ten kids and uh being um raised in a very tough neighborhood in Sunnyside in Houston, Texas, and being the last of ten kids and and kind of being invisible for most of that, my my young age.
Um and at 12 years old, everything really happened.
Uh my dad left, uh, who was a Pentecostal pastor at that time, but the pressures of family and work and everything else.
Um he left.
You know, he left uh uh my mom and um my brother Grady was killed in an automobile accident about six months after that, and I was uh pretty much distraught and and trying to figure out what in the world is happening to our home.
And um at that time I I just remember thinking, you know what, maybe there isn't a God.
Maybe maybe maybe I I can't imagine that God would allow this to happen.
And and my mom came in and said um about two weeks after my brother's funeral, said son, I I know you you got a lot of different thoughts in your head.
I I know you want to give up.
You want to quit, you're frustrated, you're angry.
But I want you to know that greatness is in you.
And I I want you to know that I need you.
I I need you to become the man of the house.
Can you do that?
And at that moment, I you know, I thought, you gotta be kidding me.
Man at Alf.
Um I'm the least talented of of everyone.
But uh no one listened to me.
And um, but she really, really believed in me.
And there were things that that I had thought about, things that I had read.
I Norman Vincent Peel, I was listening to cassette tapes uh uh of him talking about closing your eyes and being able to visualize what what it is that you want in life and and man, more than anything, I really wanted to play football.
I love football.
And um, but it was against our religion up until I was 12 years old.
And I I begged my mom to let me play as mom, I gotta play.
You I mean, I mean, you want me to be the man at the house, let me play football.
That's part of it.
And she said, son, I'll let you play as long as you tell me you won't get hurt.
You gotta promise me you won't get hurt.
So I I um that day when she challenged me to be the man at the house, I said, Yes, mom, I can do that.
And I walked in my room and I got out a sheet of paper.
And I wrote out my vision statement.
And it sounded like this.
Find a way to get a scholarship to go to college.
Uh get my degree, and which I'd be the first in my family to do so.
Um become an all-American.
Get drafted and go to the NFL.
Buy my mom a house and take care of her for the rest of our life.
Become an all pro, go to the Super Bowl, and own my own business.
At twelve years old, I wrote that out and I put it on my wall.
And I I thought about it.
The last thing I looked at at night, first thing I looked at in the morning.
And uh I begin to I I begin to walk that narrow road to accomplishing those things with God's help.
And that ultimately is the journey that you realized despite all the odds.
It's an amazing story, and it's a story not just of faith, perseverance, but it is also a reminder as we sort of begin football season, as you said, Peter, football is America's sport.
Football for all the different controversial things has meant a lot of people, and it's a pathway of ascension culturally for a lot of people, both you know, socially and economically.
And so I think you know, your story, and you've certainly lived that out in a lot of different ways.
So we appreciate you taking the time to join us today.
Uh, best of luck with your new career as a broadcaster for the uh Baylor radio team in the pregame.
And uh best of luck with sales of the book, Mike.
We appreciate it.
Peter Schweitzer, and we're and we're Eric Eggers, and we've been on with Mike Singletary.
Uh good opportunity to work with Mike.
Um, an amazing opportunity to do that.
We enjoy you uh and appreciate uh all you do, Mike, and you, the audience, will be back right after this.
Peter Schweitzer and Eric Eggers, we're filling in for Sean.
We have breaking news on the situation in Minneapolis to figure out what exactly happened there.
Eric, what is the news?
Yeah, unfortunately, this has been a theme of the day.
We're talking about it, you know, what's happened in Minneapolis, what are the details, what are some of the circumstances, why is everyone pivoted to gun laws as opposed to maybe some of the other details and circumstances.
One person who's focused not on the gun aspect, but on um other aspects of it is RFK Jr., he has this announced he's launched a full investigation into the medication that the shooter who does identify as trans was using.
Quote There's never been a time in America from RFK where people walk into a crowd or a church or a movie theater or a school and just start randomly shooting.
Something changed and it dramatically changed human behavior.
That's what's going to be investigated by RFK Jr. and apparently uh other aspects of the Trump administration.
That's been a common thread with a lot of these shootings, tragically.
So hopefully they'll find out more.
We appreciate you listening to us.
Uh we appreciate uh Sean uh letting us borrow the microphone, and we appreciate Linda uh for putting up with us and helping us guide um us today as we've been on this journey uh covering for Sean.
Yeah, and it's an important detail too.
It it's a great to be able to have important conversations with you, the listening audience.
We appreciate you being here with us.
And just to connect what you said, you're the one that brought up early this hour that when you have it's not the fact that the shooter identified as trans, it's the fact that the people that do that are on certain medications and these SSRIs and they come with warning labels, and those warning labels say can cause dramatic behavioral changes, and so it's I think fair to wonder how big of a role did those play in these types of behaviors here.
That's exactly right.
Please uh look at our research.
You can find it at the drilldown.com.
We hope you have a wonderful, restful, enjoyable Labor Day weekend.
God bless you, and God bless America.
Thanks so much for hanging out with us.
He's Peter Schweisser, I'm Eric Eggers.
You can find all of our episodes at the drilldown.com.
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