040123 How the Nashville Mass Shooting is Being Spun by Conservatives (Part 2)

who's playing for the home team here. Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs recently vetoed a Republican backed education bill that would ban public K through twelve schools from teaching critical race theory to students. Republicans have tried three times so far. In other words, she is not allowing the schools in Arizona to have books taken off of their shelves just because the authors are black, or just because it highlights the accomplishments, the achievements or the history of black, brown,

marginalized people's in this country. That is an ally and that is how you use your power to stand in allyship with people who might need your support. So definitely shouting her out for that. And for those that don't know, CRT is a legal academic discipline that began in the nineteen eighties and it's a advanced college level study. It's not elementary school stuff. That's called American history.

to the questions, let me paint a picture. This paints a picture quite well. Someone asked early on when the details are still coming out, did the shooter act alone? Right? And I saw a response online that I want to share with you. I think you'll love it. The shooter did not act alone. The shooter was aided by the NRA and forty nine Republican senators. That is a fact.

Now there are people who will say that the Republican senators have tried to do this or that or the other thing, and most notably Republicans wanted to put more police officers in schools. Right, put together a bill that puts more police officers in schools and more guns in the hands of citizens. There you go and teachers a few things, but you know that absolutely is one of

them too. But the one that there was a lot of opposition to from the democratic side of things is that we've seen that police and schools often has a negative impact on black and brown students. They're often arrested and punished and criminalized, and it just fortifies the school to prison pipeline. Our good friend Janelle would has a lot to say about officers and schools and how it's actually damaging black and brown students and impoverished communities by

having police officers and schools. In fact, the outcomes that folks were hoping to achieve, the opposite has been achieved. And so again, whereas schools normally would discipline children the way in the traditional sense, when they're police at schools, now disciplining children becomes a criminal act, and you see six year olds getting arrested and having to go to court and that sort of thing. So this is why

there has been a pushback to that. Rather the liberals, the Democrats in this country have pushed for gun reform because there is a difference between a school shooting and a mass shooting somehow, and everyone likes to point everything at school shootings, completely ignoring that people shoot up parades, and people shoot up grocery stores, and people shoot up movie theaters and whatever else they can shoot up, and

that we have a gun problem in this country. As I mentioned earlier in the show, this is the one hundred and thirtieth mass shooting of the year. I didn't say school shooting, mass shooting. And just because I graduated high school doesn't mean I want to get shot. We have a gun problem, and so oftentimes it is, you know, the right facet of this country that's very much opposed

to adopting progressive gun laws. They're very much Second Amendment purists, but they leave off the part of the Second Amendment that says that we should have a well regulated militia. They don't like the well regulated part, but they do like the right to bear arms part. And so when I say, or rather when this person says that the shooter did not act alone, was aided by the NRA and forty nine Republican senators, that is the point that

they were coming from. Rams how many arms guns like the right to.

that still works and will work forever. That's the really masterfully as a machine, as a mechanism, as long as it doesn't rust to decay, it'll work forever.

gendering people. And I believe that this person used he, HIMN pronouns, and so for the purposes of our conversation, we will describe this shooter as a heat or him. However, the news reports suggest that this was a genetic biological female that carried out the shooting. So this person was a twenty eight year old former student of the school. Nashville Police Chief John Drake said at a news conference

this would have been Tuesday. The shooter had left behind a manifesto, Drake said, which included a map of the school with details about how he would enter and carry out an attack. So the motive of this shooter, I cannot begin to imagine what would get a person to go that far, but I suspect that it might be a response to hate. Again, I'm not justifying it. I'm

just saying that there might be something there. If this person is a transgender individual been pushed to the edge because of recent events, you know, maybe there's something there. I don't know. Again, taking that out on children is perhaps the most heinous thing that a person can do in innocent people. And you know the janitor.

gun stores. Three of those weapons, including two assault style firearms, were used in the shooting. The shooter was under a quote doctor's care for an emotional disorder, but law enforcement knew nothing about the treatment. And then it goes on to say, in some states, so called red flag laws and power law enforcement to confiscate weapons due to mental illness or concerns from relatives. So could police have confiscated the shooters' guns.

the same place. So there's systems in place that prevent you from going to multiple locations and stocking up on whatever this medicine. And I don't know the details on how to do this, but I was reading this, and I was reading this the person who's who had compiled this information was doing so in an attempt to suggest that it is possible to put together an alert system for people who are going from this store to the next door to the next door to buy guns, because

it exists for this whatever this medicine was. And you know, I think that it's just a little sad that where we are with this is kind of where we started. That's the part that feels a little bit sad to me.

each other, So why should we care? But once the other side showed us that even their children being murdered wouldn't sounding alarm and cause any type of change or reform at that moment, to me, mentally, we're doomed. Well because if not that, then what.

this to you. Please say that the suspect was previously a student of the Covenant School and targeted the building, which is also a church. On Tuesday, Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, took that to mean the attack was targeted, that is, against Christians, and began calling for federal agencies to investigate the shooting as a hate crime. Holly Alsho also introduced a Senate resolution to formally condemn the shooting as a hate crime. Holly's choice in framing caught on

quickly with other Republican leaders. Okay, so it's important to identify this tactic and to put an asterisk here because this conceivably would give license to lawmakers to go after trans people. In other words, the connection that they're making is that trans people hate Christians, when in fact, it seems to be that Christians hate trans You guys can't see me, but yes, reverse play, Oh no, the reverse

card that. Yeah, so this is something that of course we can see because being black and studying black history in this country, this is a tactic. You know, you try to use whatever you can to make sure that you're the victim, make sure that they're the bullies, you know what I'm saying, and play with the optics. But you know, I can't say what I can't say. I haven't read the manifesto, I don't know what. I don't know, right, but that feels to me like a cheap shot for

an already vulnerable community and to take one individual. And I know that they were saying that there were other trans people that have done attacks like this, but the vast majority of people that do these attacks are white, male in cells, Let's be honest, the huge majority. I think there was three people who were kind of in the non binary space who might have carried out an attacks, and of those three, I think maybe one of them only said that to get out of a hate crime charge. Right.

So with that said, for a person to for whatever this got, John Hawley to take that and then try to use it to frame the conversation around trans people attacking Christians, it puts an already vulnerable population in a more vulnerable space and cast them in a more vulnerable light. And you know, we always said that this show, we would use this platform to try to support anyone who was marginalized, born to strike against him, had a tougher

go with life. And I cannot sit here and pretend to know what it's like to be trans. I've met a handful of trans people in my life. I wish I knew more, just so that I could help more and articulate things a bit better. But as long as there's breath in my body to push back against what I see as clear attacks on vulnerable communities, and that feels like one of them right now, based on what I know.

that I'll ask, will lawmakers pass gun control measures? So finally the question of the day, and of yesterday and the day before that. Unfortunately, it looks like it might be the question of tomorrow, will lawmakers pass gun control measures?

be difficult. There are cases, studies and data from all over the world that show that more legislation that would require you to jump through more hoops essentially to get a weapon, would make it so that less people who shouldn't have them would And people always push back with the idea, well, if criminals want to get guns, they will, I'm sure, I'm sure, right, But that's the same thing

with everything. People who have no issue with breaking the law to get things, that break the law to get things will continue to We know that we're talking about when they don't have to. Right, if you can get the money off my porch instead of breaking my window to get it, you'll just get it off the porch. Like, that's human nature too, and also the nature of the criminal.

All right, as promised the former slave turned cop who made the only official arrest of a sitting US president in.

Street on multiple occasions. West was born in eighteen forty two in Maryland, where he and his family were held as slaves. In the Civil War eighteen sixty one eighteen sixty five came around, the young man enlisted in the company K thirtieth United States Colored Infantry, seeing action in

the conflict that led to the abolition of slavery. During Reconstruction, which was eighteen sixty five to eighteen seventy seven, when former slave states were integrated in accordance with the federal expectations, West obtained a position as a policeman in Washington, d c. In eighteen seventy one. One of two black cops at the time, He gained a reputation for his gentlemanly behavior and affinity for good, fast horses. It was also during this time that he married, and his wife, Kate, went

on to raise six children. The arrest that West became known for was one that he made of President Grant in eighteen seventy two. The policeman was following up on recent complaints of speeding horses by conducting a foot patrol around Thirteenth Street. Suddenly, he noticed a horse and buggy traveling up the street towards him and at what he considered a rate of speed that was unsafe for the

residential neighborhood. Flagging the carriage down, he discovered that the driver was none other than the President, who he permitted to drive along after admonishing him to watch how fast he drove in the future. However, the next day, and in the same general location, West once again saw a number of carriages tearing down the street faster than they should be. He was able to flag down seven of them.

Upon examining the drivers, he saw that one of them was again Grant, who was less than twenty four hours from having received a warning because of the repeated transgression. West treated the situation just like he would if it were any other citizen, who placed the perpetrators under arrest, reportedly specifically telling Grant quote, I am very sorry, mister President, to have to do it for You are the chief of the nation and I am nothing but a policeman.

But duty is duty, sir, and I will have to place you under arrest. The President and the other six drivers were escorted to the local priescinct, where they were processed. Grant was released after paying a twenty dollars bond that was forfeited as he didn't show up at the hearing the following morning, thus resolving the matter for himself. It was reported that thirty two women showed up to testify against the other drivers who did have their day in court,

who vehemently contested the charges in vain. Grant never did appeal his arrest or the fine that he paid. He even supposedly later acknowledged that he had been in the wrong and that West had done the right thing. However, it was far from a one time incident. Records show that during his presidency he received at least three different citations for traveling too fast in a carriage. Grant remained

in office until eighteen seventy seven. He lived until eighteen eighty five, but spend his final years battling cancer and racing to write his memoirs to bring in some money for his family before he died, as he had bought them nearly to the brink of insolvency. Meanwhile, West completed a successful career as a policeman in nineteen oh one, when he retired after some thirty years on the job.

In nineteen oh eight, he was interviewed by a reporter who published a newspaper article that went viral and appeared in various publications around the country. The formal cop went into detail about his most famous arrest. He described why he made the stop and arrest quote. Several residents of the neighborhood had complained of horsemen who speeded their horse along Thirteenth Street while driving two and from the Brightwood Racetracks.

President Ulysses S. Grant was one of the drivers who used Thirteenth Street, and many a time he engaged in a speed contest with his friends. In fact, full spurts of speed were frequent occurrences, and the street was at times dangerous for women and children. Citizens complained time and again to the police about the conditions prevailing along the street on account of the furious racing going on, and orders were issued for the police to stop the racers

or unquote. Although the story of Grant's arrest was sometimes called anecdotal in the past, the Washington DC Police Department has confirmed more recently that it did indeed happen. While it is remarkable for a number of reasons, it also it's also just a good example of law enforcement, a law enforcement matter being handled by the book, despite fame and power of the perpetrator. So, yeah, President got arrested. It's possible. Gives me hope. Once upon a time it was possible.

this is unprecedented. You know, I'm referring specifically, we're referring to the investigations indictment of Donald Trump and the investigations and the potential indictments for him that are still lined up, and how everyone's calling it a witch hunt and saying that this has never been done before and it's unprecedented, and that he's being targeted and this and that and the third and trying to suggest that he is kind of beyond consequences because he has served as the president

and now he's like a national treasure or something like that, or because he did these things while he was in office, he's automatically exempt from prosecution or whatever whatever fantasy arguments that these folks come up with. But I think the point that everyone is echoing on that side is that it's unprecedent, it hasn't happened before. And the fact is is that we now see that it has happened before. And indeed, the arresting officer was a former slave. So

that's some way black history for you right there. So when I say, you know, it gives me hope, that makes one of us well hoping nothing. So yeah, it's it's a yeah, it's still it's still a long ways away, but it has happened before, and I think that counts for something.